Ps. 56.1-2 (mercy and man)

Have mercy on me / O God / for people hound me
all day long / they press the attack / against me.
They hound me / my slanderers do / all day long
Oh, / how many fight me! 

The cry for ‘mercy’ is central to the theme of the psalm—that of the utter difference between the power of man and that of God. For ‘mercy’ here connotes the idea of (unmerited) help from a superior to an inferior party. It is precisely, and only, this form of power that will be able to save the psalmist. This urgent need and reality is emphasized in three ways. First, the opening verse immediately repeats itself in the second verse. This repetition conveys the sense of desperation; people under extreme duress tend to repeat their pleas over-and-over again, hoping, through the repetition, that what the words signify will be impregnated with their need. Second, the attack is described as all consuming, both temporally (‘all day long’) and physically (the press the attack…they hound me). There is no escape and the psalmist is nearing the edge of crushing defeat. He is being constricted.  Third, the enemy, here, is not singular, but plural in contrast to the “me” of the psalmist (for people hound me…they press…they hound...how many fight me!). Within the midst of this plea, thou, there is a hidden note of hope beyond the cry for mercy. When the psalmist refers to his attackers as “people” he is using a term that will crop up again later when he says, “What can mortals do to me?” This is a crucial insight in two ways. First, the psalmist is clearly recognizing that ‘mortal’/people can do quite a lot to him. The verbs pile over themselves: hound…press the attack…hound me…slander me…fight me. There would be no need for mercy if that were not the case. The psalmist, in other words, is about to become subject to ‘man’ and be removed from the sphere of God’s everlasting power. His only chance to avoid this reality is through God’s “mercy”. This is the second point: there is no inner reserve that the psalmist can draw upon to avoid his fate. As we will see in the concluding line—“life” is synonymous with “walking before God”. There is here a real drama therefore being enacted, a real confrontation and a real dialogue that is being portrayed. The psalmist is about to drown. And he cannot swim above the fray. His only chance is in God’s mercy—God’s ‘word’ (as in vs. 4). And it needs to come soon.