Psalm 60 begins with defeat and shaking, but it does not end in despair. God has allowed His people to drink the wine of astonishment, yet He also gives a token to those who fear Him. The sign is not given to people who deny the battle. It is given so that God’s beloved may be delivered. Fear and belovedness belong together.
In the retained Coptic Cross readings, the printed Psalm 60:4–5 speaks of a banner; Brenton’s LXX speaks of a token. The Church receives the sign in the light of the Cross: not as decoration, but as the sign of Christ’s saving love for a shaken world.
Psalm Metadata
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| NKJV / Masoretic numbering | Psalm 60 |
| Septuagint / Coptic numbering | Psalm 59 |
| Accepted author | David, according to the superscription, which also describes the Psalm as instruction. |
| Period in David’s life | The superscription’s setting is the royal campaign period, with Joab and the Valley of Salt. Compare the related accounts in 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Chronicles 18. |
| Christ prophecy status | Typological and liturgical, rather than a narrow verbal prediction of one Gospel event. |
| Coptic lectionary/service use | Retained witnesses place the sign and deliverance selection in Cross-related Matins readings and also preserve distinct Paona Sunday selections. |
| Numbering issue | The embedded text is Brenton’s LXX Psalm 59. The Cross Matins service prints Psalm 60:4–5; its corresponding lines in Brenton are 59:6–7. |
Historical and Scriptural Context
The superscription places the Psalm near David’s conflicts with Aram and the Valley of Salt. David is named as author according to that title; the period given above is the title’s setting, not a settled reconstruction of a single campaign. Brenton’s superscription names Joab and twelve thousand struck in the valley. In the NKJV witness, 2 Samuel 8:13 speaks of David and eighteen thousand Syrians, while 1 Chronicles 18:12 names Abishai and eighteen thousand Edomites. These are related reports, but they are not identical.
The historical books record victories, but the Psalm opens with rejection, shaking, breach, and astonishment. The inspired text refuses triumphal propaganda. Even in a royal victory context, Israel remembers that defeat, fracture, and fear expose the need for God.
This is a royal and communal lament, not only a private prayer. The people need more than tactics. They need healing of the breach.
Geographical Significance ⛰️
The Psalm names Mesopotamia of Syria, Syria Sobal, the Valley of Salt, Sicima or Shechem, Galaad or Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Moab, Idumea or Edom, and Philistia. The geography stretches from Israel’s tribal heartlands to neighboring territories. The spiritual point is not map trivia: God is Lord over the whole contested field.
The fortified city and Idumea matter especially in the final movement. The question about who will lead the people there admits that the stronghold cannot be faced by human confidence alone.
The Characters 👥
David. The king named in the superscription, associated with instruction amid battle, breach, and promise.
Israel. The shaken covenant people, shown hard things but also given a sign.
Joab. Named in the superscription as returning and striking twelve thousand in the Valley of Salt. Military strength is present in the setting, but the Psalm refuses to make it ultimate.
The nations and territories. The named lands form a map of claims and conflicts, not a license to despise their peoples.
Christ. The King whom Christians recognize in the royal line of Judah and in the Church’s Cross-shaped reception of the sign.
🕯️ Light from the Word
Psalm 59:1-7, Shaken earth and the sign given to those who fear God
59:1 For the end, for them that shall yet be changed; for an inscription by David for instruction, 59:2 when he had burned Mesopotamia of Syria, and Syria Sobal, and Joab had returned and smitten in the valley of salt twelve thousand. 59:3 O God, thou hast rejected and destroyed us; thou hast been angry, yet hast pitied us. 59:4 Thou hast shaken the earth, and troubled it; heal its breaches, for it has been shaken. 59:5 Thou hast shewn thy people hard things: thou hast made us drink the wine of astonishment. 59:6 Thou hast given a token to them that fear thee, that they might flee from the bow. Pause. 59:7 That thy beloved ones may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.
The Psalm begins with theology that refuses simplification. God has rejected and destroyed, yet pitied. He has shaken, yet He is asked to heal. He has shown hard things, yet He gives a sign. The “wine of astonishment” pictures a people reeling; the prayer for healing names their need rather than silencing their pain.
Brenton’s token is given to those who fear God so that they may flee from the bow. After the pause, the prayer names them as God’s beloved and asks His right hand to save. To fear God here is to turn toward Him in reverence, not to pretend we are unafraid or to prove we deserve rescue.
In his Letter to Marcellinus, St Athanasius of Alexandria describes the Psalter as giving people words through which to recognize the movements of their souls and seek amendment. His teaching concerns the Psalter as a whole; it helps us take this communal lament into our own prayer.
Augustine of Hippo, a wider Christian exegetical witness, reads the sign and bow spiritually: temporal trials can warn the faithful to turn toward God and away from final judgment (Exposition on Psalm 60, §6). God does not always prevent the shaking. Sometimes He uses it to reveal where the breaches are. But we may not diagnose another person’s grief or defeat as proof of guilt or lack of faith.
No one must prove innocence before receiving help. If you are in danger, seek a safe place and trusted help. Prayer and practical protection are not enemies.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “God gives the sign amid a breach we need not pretend is small”; “the Cross is not decoration, it is deliverance.”
- Emphasize: those who fear God are also called His beloved; the LXX token and the service’s banner lead into the Church’s Cross reading.
- Avoid: presenting the Cross as a magic object or using repentance to blame someone who is suffering.
Psalm 59:8-10, God speaks in holiness over the divided land
59:8 God has spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, and divide Sicima, and measure out the valley of tents. 59:9 Galaad is mine, and Manasse is mine; and Ephraim is the strength of my head; 59:10 Judas is my king; Moab is the caldron of my hope; over Idumea will I stretch out my shoe; the Philistines have been subjected to me.
After the shaking, God speaks. Rejoicing, dividing, and measuring picture a claim over actual land; the repeated “mine” names Galaad and Manasse. Ephraim is the strength of the head, and “Judas” is Brenton’s form of Judah, the royal tribe—not Judas the betrayer.
The difficult phrase “the caldron of my hope” brings Moab into the speaker’s hope amid these claims of rule, though the image does not explain exactly how the caldron functions. Stretching a shoe over Idumea is a gesture of dominion. Together with the subjection of the Philistines, these are bold images of mastery over neighboring lands. The next movement will still ask who can lead the people into the fortified city: the claim does not make their need for God disappear.
Augustine gives the pot and shoe a spiritual reading. For him, the pot suggests tribulation, while hope remains because Judah is the king (§10); the shoe suggests the Gospel of peace reaching even those who live an earthly life (§11). This is his Christian reception of the images, not a definition of their historical meaning or a verdict on a nation.
Brenton says God has spoken in his holiness. Augustine’s different lemma speaks of God speaking in His Holy One, whom he understands as Christ; he hears the Church as the speaker of the first-person words about dividing (§8). Elsewhere in the same exposition he sees David as a figure of both Christ the Mediator and the Church (§1). His interpretation should not be mistaken for the literal wording Brenton displays.
Judah’s royal line opens the Christian reader’s attention to Christ, the Lion of Judah. Yet His rule is not domination in the manner of fallen kings. He conquers by the Cross and gathers by mercy and truth. The Church should hear this section with humility: God rules over the lands we fear, the people we caricature, and the places we assume are beyond His mercy. Earthly conquest cannot be mapped directly onto Christian mission, and no nation is a proper object of contempt.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “after the shaking, God speaks”; “Christ rules the whole contested map.”
- Emphasize: the actual caldron and shoe images before moving to Augustine’s spiritual reception and Christ’s kingship.
- Avoid: nationalism or a claim that earthly conquest maps directly onto Christian mission.
Psalm 59:11-14, Vain is the deliverance of man
59:11 Who will lead me into the fortified city? who will guide me as far as Idumea? 59:12 Wilt not thou, O God, who hast cast us off? and wilt not thou, O God, go forth with our forces? 59:13 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the deliverance of man. 59:14 In God will we do valiantly; and he shall bring to nought them that harass us.
The final movement returns to dependence. The people ask whether the very God who has cast them off will go out with them. The question does not erase their experience of rejection; it brings that experience to Him.
“Give us help from trouble” is first a plea for rescue from affliction. A sufferer is free to ask God to lift the trouble. “Vain is the deliverance of man” does not reject human action: Joab still fights, and David still leads. It strips away the illusion that human strength is the ultimate source of deliverance.
This is one of the great lessons for leaders. Strategy matters, but strategy cannot heal the breach of the earth. Courage matters, but courage without God becomes pride. We should plan, seek wise counsel, and offer concrete help—including care and protection to those in danger. Prayer never replaces such help.
Augustine gives the plea a further spiritual reception (§14): he sees God sustaining the martyrs through tribulation when worldly power could not secure their safety. He describes their courage in these words: “We will not do valour with the sword, not with horses, not with breastplates, not with shields, not in the mightiness of an army, not abroad.”1 This reading does not cancel the Psalm’s plea for rescue or oblige anyone to refuse protection.
As a Christian application, the fortified city can also suggest a heart closed against God. No one opens another person’s heart by pressure alone. The Cross goes where force cannot go. Grace invites us to humility.
Lesson Guide
- Key phrases: “strategy matters, but strategy cannot become savior”; “the Cross goes where force cannot go.”
- Emphasize: the plea for help from trouble, followed by Augustine’s distinct reading of help through tribulation.
- Avoid: false passivity. The Psalm asks God to go forth with the forces; it does not say the people do nothing.
Christological and Prophetic Reading
Psalm 60 is not a narrow verbal prediction of one Gospel event. It is Christological through the royal hope, the sign, and the confession that human deliverance is not ultimate. Christians recognize in Judah’s royal line Christ, the true King, and receive the sign in the light of His Cross.
The Cross does not turn defeat into a story of easy success. It reveals the King who gives Himself for the world. In Him, the prayer for God to hear and save the beloved becomes a prayer the Church can offer with hope.
The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪
The retained lectionary witnesses record the printed Psalm 60:4–5 in Matins for the Cross readings of 10 Baramhat and Tout 17, including a dated 10 Baramhat selection during Great Lent. A dated Mesra 12 selection has the same Cross-pattern Psalm and Gospel; sharing those readings does not establish Mesra 12 as a third Feast-of-the-Cross date.
The service’s printed Psalm 60:4–5 corresponds by content to Psalm 60:4–5 (LXX Ps 59:6–7) in the displayed Brenton text. The wordings are distinct: the service speaks of a banner displayed because of truth, while Brenton speaks of a token given so that the people may flee from the bow. Both move to the deliverance of the beloved, but they are not identical translations.
The Matins Gospel in these retained Cross-pattern selections is John 12:26–36. Jesus acknowledges that His soul is troubled, yet goes toward the hour for which He has come. Lifted up in death, He will draw all to Himself. Beside this Gospel, the banner is not a guarantee that the beloved will escape every earthly loss. It directs us to the Lord who gathers through His self-giving love.
The retained Paona witnesses are separate services. The third Sunday’s Liturgy pairs the printed Psalm 60:4, 7 with Matthew 12:22–37; the fourth Sunday’s Matins pairs that Psalm selection with John 20:1–18. In the selection, Psalm 60:7 corresponds to LXX Psalm 59:9–10a: the service calls Judah a lawgiver, while Brenton calls Judas king. The first Gospel shows Christ healing; the second brings us with the weeping Mary to the risen Lord.
Iconography Connection 🖼️
The strongest iconographic connection is the Holy Cross. In Coptic churches the Cross is carried, signed, kissed, lifted, and proclaimed because it is the sign of victory through self-emptying love. Psalm 60 helps us see why the Cross can be both suffering and banner. David the warrior king may also be a teaching image, but Christ does not conquer by ordinary violence: He conquers by the wood of the Cross.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
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Let God show you the breach. Name what is broken before rushing to explain it away. Ask for healing, and make room for an honest lament.
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Stand under the Cross as banner. When fear scatters the heart, make the sign of the Cross slowly and pray the token and beloved lines of Psalm 60:4–5 (LXX Ps 59:6–7).
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Do not confuse means with Savior. Work, plan, and seek or offer practical help, while entrusting the outcome to God. Strategy matters, but it cannot become savior.
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Let hardship teach without defining you. Bring your own trial to God without making another person’s suffering a diagnosis. Being humbled is not the same as being abandoned.
Teacher's Notes
- Timing: 8 minutes on historical setting; 12 minutes on the sign and Cross reading; 8 minutes on the lands; 10 minutes on the plea for help; 7 minutes for spiritual practice.
- Where to linger: fear and belovedness together; the different service and Brenton wordings; the caldron and shoe before Augustine’s reception.
- Where to compress: territorial names if the group is not map-oriented. Explain enough to show the concrete claims before moving to their Christian application.
- Ask: How can the people ask God to heal what they say He has shaken? What does trusting God change about the way we plan and help one another?
- Key phrase to say slowly: “The Cross is not decoration, it is deliverance.”
- Pastoral warning: Do not use this Psalm to glorify conflict or diagnose another person’s suffering. Its first cry is for healing of the breach.
Glossary
- Banner / token: The service wording speaks of a banner displayed because of truth; Brenton speaks of a token given for flight from the bow. The Church receives the sign in Cross-shaped worship.
- Valley of Salt: The battle setting named in the superscription; the related historical accounts differ in their details.
- Idumea / Edom: A neighboring territory in the Psalm’s contested map. The shoe image expresses a claim of dominion.
- Feast of the Cross: A Coptic celebration of the life-giving Cross. The retained Matins witnesses include the printed Psalm 60:4–5.
Translation and Source Notes
Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX). The study title uses Psalm 60, the NKJV/Masoretic number, with LXX Psalm 59 in parentheses. The service references retain their own printed labels; their corresponding Brenton verses are identified by the words actually selected.
Sources
Primary sources
- Brenton’s English Septuagint, Psalm 59.
- 2 Samuel 8:13 and 1 Chronicles 18:12, related Valley of Salt accounts; John 12:26–36 and Revelation 5:5.
- St Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms, discussion of the Psalter as a guide to the soul’s prayer and amendment. The retained English translator is unidentified; the letter is paraphrased here.
- St Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 60 (Latin Psalm 59), §§1, 6, 8, 10–11, 14. The consulted Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume VIII, is a condensed English witness, not an unabridged Latin edition. T. Scratton translated the relevant Oxford volume; A. Cleveland Coxe condensed and annotated the NPNF text, and Philip Schaff was its general editor. Bracketed editorial notes are not Augustine’s words.
Coptic Orthodox / liturgical sources
CopticChurch.net, Tout 17, Matins; 10 Baramhat readings during Great Lent; and Mesra 12.
CopticChurch.net, third Sunday of Paona, Liturgy, and fourth Sunday of Paona, Matins.
Historical lectionary reference:
@andraws/lectionary-dataversion 1.3.5, including the Katameros API cycle and date-resolved CopticChurch.net source families. These witnesses describe their recorded selections, not universal current practice.
Footnotes
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St Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 60 (Latin Psalm 59), §14, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. VIII; English translation by T. Scratton, condensed and annotated by A. Cleveland Coxe, Philip Schaff, general editor. ↩