Psalm 58

During David’s exile years, Saul led the nation down a path of political and spiritual ruin as he disobeyed God’s law and opposed God’s anointed king. Saul was surrounded by a group of fawning flatterers who fed his ego and catered to his foolish whims (1 Sam. 22:6ff.), and he put into places of authority people who used their offices for personal gain and not for the national good. They wanted to get as much as they could before the kingdom collapsed. David himself had been treated illegally, and it’s likely that many of his men lost all they had because they followed David (1 Sam. 22:1-2). This psalm was probably written late in David’s exile, or very early in his reign in Hebron, and may have grown out of his pondering the mess he had inherited from his father-in-law. (See 82 for a parallel psalm by Asaph.) The prophets often preached against the lawlessness of the leaders in Israel (Isa. 1:23-28; 5:22-25; 10:1-4; Amos 5:7-13; Mic. 3:1-4, 9-12; 7:1-6). Certainly nations, corporations, and even churches today need to take this kind of leadership crisis seriously. This is an imprecatory psalm (see 5).