Psalm 11

¹In the Lord I put my trust;
How can you say to my soul,
“Flee as a bird to your mountain”?
² For look! The wicked bend their bow,
They make ready their arrow on the string,
That they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.
³ If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?

⁴ The Lord is in His holy temple,
The Lord’s throne is in heaven;
His eyes behold,
His eyelids test the sons of men.
⁵ The Lord tests the righteous,
But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.
⁶ Upon the wicked He will rain coals;
Fire and brimstone and a burning wind
Shall be the portion of their cup.

⁷ For the Lord is righteous,
He loves righteousness;
His countenance beholds the upright.

The psalmist starts out by saying that he is putting his trust in God. When someone tells him to flee from a dangerous situation, he responds that fleeing is exactly the wrong thing to do. It will expose him to his enemies who want to kill him. Instead, he counts on the Lord as his fortress, and trusts that God will defeat the wicked and uphold the righteous.

I debated about what I should talk about in this psalm. I think it’s pretty straightforward. Still, the Classics major in me went back to Caesar, and I found an instance where some of Caesar’s men are facing a similar situation. The Roman soldiers are wintering in a fort somewhere in Gaul/ Germany, surrounded by hostile tribes, and running low on supplies. A Gaul named Ambiorix tells them that they should leave the fort, that the enemies won’t attack. Then, there is a debate. Some people think that they should listen to Ambiorix. Others don’t: Lucius Aurunculeius compluresque tribuni militum et primorum ordinum centuriones nihil temere agendum neque ex hibernis iniussu Caesaris discedendum existimabant: quantasvis copias etiam Germanorum sustineri posse munitis hibernis docebant (Lucius Aurunculeius and several of the tribunes of the soldiers, and centurions of the first order thought that nothing should be done rashly and that they shouldn’t depart from the winter-quarters without an order from Caesar: they told them that even the forces of the Germans, however many, were able to be sustained in the fortified winter-quarters).

When we are faced with this type of situation, it’s not always easy to assess the danger. In the psalm, it seems like a friend or counselor who tells him to flee from what appears to be a dangerous situation, someone whose advice he should be able to trust. The Romans found themselves in the same situation: should they trust someone who seems to be their friend and go out into dangerous territory or should they wait in their fortress for an order from Caesar. In the same way, we need to assess our situations. Why should we flee from situations when we can trust in God as our fortress and wait for Him to give us the orders to move out?

By the way, the Romans made the wrong decision. They left their fort. The few who weren’t killed by the enemies committed suicide (an honorable thing to do in Roman culture in such a situation, with none of our modern sentiments about suicide). They couldn’t handle the enemies when they left their stronghold. In this psalm, we see that God takes care of the enemies for us and protects us, as long as we wait in Him.