Psalms 11:1

David rejects the advice of his friends to save his life by flight. Hidden in Jahve (Psa 16:1; Psa 36:8) he needs no other refuge. However well-meant and well-grounded the advice, he considers it too full of fear and is himself too confident in God, to follow it. David also introduces his friends as speaking in other passages in the Psalms belonging to the period of the Absolom persecution, Psa 3:3; Psa 4:7. Their want of courage, which he afterwards had to reprove and endeavour to restore, showed itself even before the storm had burst, as we see here. With the words "how can you say" he rejects their proposal as unreasonable, and turns it as a reproach against them. If the Chethb, נוּדוּ, is adopted, then those who are well-disposed, say to David, including with him his nearest subjects who are faithful to him: retreat to your mountain, (ye) birds (צפּור collective as in Psa 8:9; Psa 148:10); or, since this address sounds too derisive to be appropriate to the lips of those who are supposed to be speaking here: like birds (comparatio decurtata as in Psa 22:14; Psa 58:9; Psa 24:5; Psa 21:8). הרכס which seems more natural in connection with the vocative rendering of צפור (cf. Isa 18:6 with Eze 39:4) may also be explained, with the comparative rendering, without any need for the conjecture הר כמו צפור (cf. Deu 33:19), as a retrospective glance at the time of the persecution under Saul: to the mountains, which formerly so effectually protected you (cf. Sa1 26:20; Sa1 23:14). But the Ker, which is followed by the ancient versions, exchanges נודו for גוּדי, cf שׁחי Isa 51:23. Even reading it thus we should not take צפור, which certainly is epicoene, as vocative: flee to your mountain, O bird (Hitz.); and for this reason, that this form of address is not appropriate to the ide…

Here is, I. David's fixed resolution to make God his confidence: In the Lord put I my trust, Psa 11:1. Those that truly fear God and serve him are welcome to put their trust in him, and shall not be made ashamed of their doing so. And it is the character of the saints, who have taken God for their God, that they make him their hope. Even when they have other things to stay themselves upon, yet they do not, they dare not, stay upon them, but on God only. Gold is not their hope, nor are horses and chariots their confidence, but God only; and therefore, when second causes frown, yet their hopes do not fail them, because the first cause is still the same, is ever so. The psalmist, before he gives an account of the temptation he was in to distrust God, records his resolution to trust in him, as that which he was resolved to live and die by. II. His resentment of a temptation to the contrary: "How say you to my soul, which has thus returned to God as its rest and reposes in him, Flee as a bird to your mountain, to be safe there out of the reach of the fowler?" This may be taken either, 1. As the serious advice of his timorous friends; so many understand it, and with great probability. Some that were hearty well-wishers to David, when they saw how much Saul was exasperated against him and how maliciously he sought his life, pressed him by all means to flee for the same to some place of shelter, and not to depend too much upon the anointing he had received, which, they thought, was more likely to occasion the loss of his head than to save it. That which grieved him in this motion was not that to flee now would savour of cowardice, and ill become a soldier, but that it would savour of unbelief and would ill become a saint who had so often said, In the Lord put I my trust. Taking…

Ps 11 The psalmist affirms his faith in the righteous God. Even though the world appears hopelessly chaotic, both the godly and the wicked can count on God’s justice. The godly can depend on him as a refuge and shelter. 11:1 God provides protection (or refuge; see 5:11; 9:9; 25:20) when the foundations of justice collapse. • The mountains provide another place of refuge (see 121:1).