Psalm 64
Psalm 64
Secret Plots and Sudden Shots
Scripture Text
Psalm 64:1, “Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.”
Psalm 64:2, “Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:”
Psalm 64:3, “Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:”
Psalm 64:4, “That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.”
Psalm 64:5, “They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily, they say, Who shall see them?”
Psalm 64:6, “They search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.”
Psalm 64:7, “But God shall shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded.”
Psalm 64:8, “So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.”
Psalm 64:9, “And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing.”
Psalm 64:10, “The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory.”
Introduction
Psalm 64 is a psalm of David, written to the chief musician. The exact historical setting is not given, but the spiritual situation is plain. David is under attack from wicked men who use secrecy, conspiracy, slander, manipulation, and bitter words as weapons. This is not merely the complaint of a man whose feelings have been hurt. David is describing a coordinated assault by evil men who intend to destroy him.
The psalm is especially important because it shows how dangerous words can be when they are joined to wicked intent. In Scripture, the tongue is never treated as a small matter. Words can bless, teach, comfort, correct, and proclaim truth. But words can also deceive, slander, divide, poison, and destroy. David describes men who sharpen their tongues like swords and shoot bitter words like arrows. Their speech is not careless, it is weaponized.
Psalm 64 also teaches that secret evil is never truly secret. The wicked ask, “Who shall see them?” They imagine that hidden plots, private conversations, anonymous attacks, and concealed schemes are beyond accountability. David answers by turning to God. God sees what men hide. God hears what men whisper. God knows the inward thought and the deep heart of man.
The psalm moves from David’s cry for preservation, to the exposure of wicked speech and secret plotting, to God’s sudden judgment, and finally to the joy and strengthened trust of the righteous. The wicked shoot their arrows suddenly, but God also has an arrow. The wicked use their tongues to trap the righteous, but God makes their own tongues fall upon themselves. The righteous do not need to win by becoming deceitful like the wicked. They must trust the Lord, who sees, judges, and vindicates.
Psalm 64:1
“Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.”
David begins by asking God to hear his voice. This is not a casual request. David is under pressure, and he knows his only true refuge is the Lord. He does not first run to revenge, manipulation, public defense, or human strategy. He first turns to God in prayer.
“Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer” shows that David’s prayer is personal and urgent. He does not merely offer silent resignation, though silent prayer is certainly known to God. Here he wants God to hear his voice. The burden has become so serious that it rises into spoken prayer. This reminds the believer that prayer is not weakness. Prayer is spiritual realism. A man who can still look up to God is not helpless.
David then asks, “preserve my life from fear of the enemy.” This is a very precise request. David does not merely ask God to preserve him from the enemy, though that is certainly included. He asks God to preserve his life from fear of the enemy. The fear itself is dangerous. Fear can paralyze judgment, weaken obedience, distort reality, and tempt a man into fleshly responses.
There is a difference between sober awareness and crippling dread. A godly man should not be naïve about danger. David was not naïve. He knew enemies existed. He knew plots were real. He knew words could be used as weapons. But he also knew that fear must not be allowed to rule the soul. The enemy may attack, but dread must not become master.
Psalm 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”
Psalm 56:3, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”
Psalm 118:6, “The LORD is on my side, I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”
David’s prayer is honest and mature. He does not pretend that enemies are harmless. He asks God to keep the fear of enemies from controlling him. This is often the battle before the battle. If fear conquers the heart, the enemy has already gained ground. Therefore, David asks God to preserve him inwardly as well as outwardly.
Psalm 64:2
“Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:”
David asks God to hide him. This is the language of refuge and protection. The threat is not open battle only, but “the secret counsel of the wicked.” These are hidden plans, concealed discussions, private coordination, and malicious strategy. David is facing conspiracy, not merely criticism.
The wicked do not always attack openly. Often they prefer darkness, secrecy, whispering, distortion, and indirect assault. They work through rumor, innuendo, selective truth, false framing, and hidden coordination. This kind of attack is especially dangerous because the righteous man may not know where the arrow is coming from until it has already struck.
David also speaks of “the insurrection of the workers of iniquity.” The word points to a gathering, tumult, or rebellious assembly. These are not isolated men acting alone. They are workers of iniquity who reinforce one another. Evil becomes bolder when wicked men gather together. They encourage one another in sin, validate one another’s hatred, and strengthen one another’s deception.
Psalm 2:1, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?”
Psalm 2:2, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,”
Psalm 2:3, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
Psalm 31:20, “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man, thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.”
David does not ask to be hidden because he is a coward. He asks because he knows God is his refuge. There are times when the wise and godly response is not to expose oneself unnecessarily to wicked schemes, but to seek God’s covering and protection.
Psalm 64:3
“Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:”
David now describes the weapons of the wicked. “Who whet their tongue like a sword.” To whet means to sharpen. Their tongues are not merely loose, they are sharpened. Their speech has been prepared for harm. They know what they are doing. Their words are chosen, honed, shaped, and aimed.
The tongue is compared to a sword. A sword cuts at close range. This suggests speech that wounds directly, perhaps through accusation, insult, deception, or betrayal. The wicked use words to cut reputations, relationships, confidence, and peace.
David also says they “bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words.” The image shifts from a sword to arrows. Arrows strike from a distance. They can be fired from concealment. They can wound before the target sees the attacker. Bitter words are like arrows because they are launched, travel, strike, and often keep doing damage after the speaker has disappeared.
This is an accurate description of slander. A slanderer does not need to physically confront the man he attacks. He can shoot from a distance. He can spread a story privately. He can poison opinions in secret. He can wound a man’s name without ever facing him.
James 3:5, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
James 3:6, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell.”
Proverbs 12:18, “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health.”
Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”
The Bible treats speech as morally serious. Words are not “just words” when they are used to deceive, destroy, slander, or manipulate. God hears the bitter words of the wicked, and He will judge them.
Psalm 64:4
“That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.”
The wicked shoot “in secret.” This is cowardly warfare. They do not come openly with truth. They hide. They attack from concealment. They prefer ambush over honest confrontation. This secrecy exposes the moral weakness of their cause. Truth can stand in the open. Lies need darkness.
Their target is “the perfect.” In this context, the word does not mean sinless perfection. It refers to the upright, blameless, or innocent man in the matter at hand. David is not claiming absolute sinlessness before God. He is saying that in this situation he is being unjustly attacked. The wicked are targeting a man who has not wronged them as they claim.
“Suddenly do they shoot at him.” The word “suddenly” is a key idea in the psalm. The attack comes unexpectedly, without warning. The righteous man is not given a fair chance to answer before the arrow flies. This is how slander often works. By the time the target hears of the accusation, the damage has already been done.
“And fear not.” The wicked do not fear God, and therefore they do not fear sin. They do not tremble at the thought of lying, slandering, plotting, or destroying. They do not fear the God who sees in secret. This is the root of their boldness.
Psalm 36:1, “The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.”
Romans 3:13, “Their throat is an open sepulchre, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips:”
Romans 3:14, “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:”
Romans 3:18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
The wicked may feel safe because they are hidden from men, but they are not hidden from God. A man who does not fear God is capable of terrible evil because he has removed the only restraint that can finally govern the conscience.
Psalm 64:5
“They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily, they say, Who shall see them?”
David now shows how wicked men strengthen one another. “They encourage themselves in an evil matter.” Good men can become discouraged in righteousness, but wicked men often encourage one another in sin. They embolden one another. They normalize evil. They strengthen the group’s confidence in a wicked plan.
This is a sobering truth about human nature. Sin often grows in groups. One wicked man may hesitate alone, but when others approve his evil, his conscience grows harder. The group becomes a fellowship of rebellion. They tell one another that the plan will work, that no one will find out, and that the victim deserves it.
“They commune of laying snares privily.” They talk together about hidden traps. A snare is designed to catch someone unexpectedly. It is not open combat. It is deception. The wicked want the righteous man to step into something prepared against him. They want to frame, trap, corner, or destroy him through hidden schemes.
“They say, Who shall see them?” This is the theology of the wicked. They assume secrecy gives safety. They believe that because men do not see, God does not see. This is practical atheism. A man may claim to believe in God, but if he plots evil under the assumption that no one sees, he is living as if God is absent.
Psalm 10:11, “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, he hideth his face, he will never see it.”
Psalm 94:7, “Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.”
Psalm 94:8, “Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?”
Psalm 94:9, “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?”
The answer to “Who shall see them?” is simple. God sees them. God sees the plan, the motive, the words, the hidden meeting, the private message, the whisper, and the heart behind it all.
Psalm 64:6
“They search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.”
The wicked are diligent in evil. “They search out iniquities.” They study sin. They look for ways to make their plan work. They investigate methods of deception. They are creative in wickedness. This shows that sin is not always impulsive. Sometimes it is researched, planned, refined, and executed with patience.
“They accomplish a diligent search.” Their evil is not shallow or accidental. They complete the investigation. They work through the details. They make sure the trap is ready. This is a terrifying picture of human depravity. Man can use intelligence, planning, discipline, and cooperation in the service of sin.
David then says, “both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.” The heart of man is deep, not in the sense of wisdom here, but in the sense of hidden corruption and cunning. There are depths of wickedness in fallen man that are not always visible on the surface. Sin can hide beneath smiles, polite words, public respectability, and religious language.
Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Mark 7:21, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,”
Mark 7:22, “Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:”
Mark 7:23, “All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
This verse gives a realistic doctrine of man. Fallen man is not basically good with a few flaws. The heart is capable of deep evil. This does not mean every man is as evil as he could be, but it does mean that sin has corrupted the inner life. David understands that the real battlefield is not merely external behavior, but the inward thought and heart.
Psalm 64:7
“But God shall shoot at them with an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded.”
This verse is the great turning point of the psalm. The wicked shoot in secret, but God shoots in judgment. The wicked have arrows, but God has an arrow too. The wicked act suddenly, but God also acts suddenly. The difference is that their arrows are bitter words and wicked schemes, while God’s arrow is righteous judgment.
“But God” changes everything. The wicked may be hidden from men, but they are not hidden from God. They may have planned carefully, but God is not outplanned. They may have aimed at the righteous, but God has them in His sights.
“Suddenly shall they be wounded.” The wicked attacked suddenly, and their judgment also comes suddenly. This is often how divine judgment works. Men convince themselves that because judgment has not yet come, it will never come. They mistake God’s patience for God’s absence. Then, suddenly, the consequences arrive.
Ecclesiastes 8:11, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”
Proverbs 29:1, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”
1 Thessalonians 5:3, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.”
The brevity of God’s response is striking. The wicked spend verses planning, sharpening, bending bows, shooting, encouraging themselves, laying snares, and searching out iniquity. Then God acts, and their scheme collapses. Man’s elaborate wickedness is no match for God’s simple command.
Psalm 64:8
“So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.”
God’s judgment fits their sin. They used the tongue as a weapon, and now their own tongue falls upon them. This is poetic justice. The very instrument they used to harm the righteous becomes the means of their downfall. Their lies expose them. Their slander returns upon them. Their own words become evidence against them.
This principle appears throughout Scripture. God often causes the wicked to fall into the pit they dug for others. He causes their schemes to return upon their own heads. He makes their chosen weapon become their judgment.
Psalm 7:15, “He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.”
Psalm 7:16, “His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.”
Proverbs 26:27, “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.”
“All that see them shall flee away.” When God exposes the wicked, others distance themselves from them. Those who once joined them or admired them may flee when they see the consequences. Secret wickedness becomes public shame. The men who asked, “Who shall see them?” become men whom everyone sees.
This is a warning against joining sinful conspiracies. When judgment comes, alliances built on wickedness collapse quickly. The same people who encouraged evil may abandon one another when exposure comes.
Psalm 64:9
“And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing.”
God’s judgment becomes instruction. “And all men shall fear.” The exposure and downfall of the wicked teaches others to fear God. Men who had been careless about sin are forced to consider the reality of divine justice. The wicked did not fear God in verse 4, but now others fear because God has acted.
“They shall declare the work of God.” God’s judgment is not random. It is His work. When He overturns secret plots, exposes lying tongues, and vindicates the righteous, men should recognize His hand. The proper response is not merely to gossip about the downfall of the wicked, but to declare the work of God.
“For they shall wisely consider of his doing.” Wisdom comes from interpreting events in light of God’s rule. A fool sees consequences and learns nothing. A wise man considers God’s doing. He sees that sin is dangerous, secrecy is no refuge, lies do not stand forever, and God defends the righteous according to His will.
Isaiah 26:9, “With my soul have I desired thee in the night, yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early, for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”
Psalm 111:2, “The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”
Psalm 111:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.”
This verse shows that God’s judgments have a teaching function. They reveal His righteousness. They warn the wicked. They strengthen the faithful. They remind all men that God is not mocked.
Psalm 64:10
“The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory.”
The psalm ends with the righteous rejoicing. “The righteous shall be glad in the LORD.” Their gladness is not rooted in personal revenge. They are glad in the Lord. They rejoice that God is just, that truth is vindicated, that secret wickedness is exposed, and that the Lord remains a refuge for His people.
“And shall trust in him.” God’s answer strengthens faith. When the righteous see that God hears prayer, preserves from fear, exposes hidden evil, and judges wicked schemes, their confidence in Him deepens. Trust grows when God’s people wisely consider His works.
“And all the upright in heart shall glory.” The upright in heart are those whose inward life is aligned with truth, sincerity, and reverence before God. They do not glory in themselves. They glory in the Lord. God’s deliverance gives them reason to boast in His faithfulness.
Psalm 32:11, “Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.”
Psalm 97:12, “Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.”
1 Corinthians 1:31, “That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
The psalm began with David asking God to preserve his life from fear of the enemy. It ends with the righteous glad, trusting, and glorying in the Lord. God answers more deeply than David’s opening request. He does not merely keep David from panic. He reveals that the plots of the wicked are temporary, but the refuge of the Lord is eternal.
Doctrinal Summary
Psalm 64 teaches that wicked men often weaponize words. Their tongues are sharpened like swords, and their bitter words are shot like arrows. Scripture does not treat slander, deceit, false accusation, and malicious speech lightly. Words can become instruments of destruction when they are guided by a corrupt heart.
The psalm also teaches that evil often hides itself. The wicked prefer secret counsel, private snares, hidden arrows, and sudden attacks. They ask, “Who shall see them?” But this question reveals their foolishness. God sees. God sees the plot before it is spoken, the motive before it is acted upon, and the heart beneath the words.
Psalm 64 gives a serious doctrine of human depravity. The inward thought and heart of man are deep. Fallen man is capable of calculated evil, group wickedness, and diligent searching after iniquity. The Bible gives no room for a naïve view of man. Man needs redemption, regeneration, and the restraining grace of God.
The psalm also teaches that God’s judgment is precise. The wicked shoot arrows, but God shoots His own arrow. They use their tongues against the righteous, but God makes their own tongues fall upon themselves. Their secret plans become public instruction. Their attempt to destroy the righteous becomes a display of God’s justice.
Finally, Psalm 64 teaches that the righteous may rejoice in the Lord before every detail is resolved. The judgment described is still future from David’s standpoint, yet confidence already rises. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, trust in Him, and glory in Him. Their hope does not rest in their ability to expose every lie or defeat every plot. Their hope rests in the God who sees, judges, preserves, and vindicates.
