In the Lord I put my trust; how can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain”? (Psalm 11:1)
Jewish writers are of the opinion that David wrote this psalm as a result of being hunted by Saul. Once during his time as a fugitive, he was forced to leave Israel and seek refuge on foreign soil — something that pained him very much. On another occasion the inhabitants of a city he had just saved from the Philistines sought to hold him captive and deliver him to Saul. David escaped from this trap, but still, he was forced into flight once again. During this season in his life, David was constantly on the move never able to find any sort of temporal refuge from his pursuer, and thus he wrote, “In the LORD I took refuge.”
After the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent dispersion from the land of Israel, the Jewish people have been hard pressed to find a permanent place of refuge. True, they have lived throughout the world and established communities in various regions, some of them dating back hundreds of years. However, in time, those supposed safe places became dangerous and God’s people were, once again, compelled to take flight.
Pogroms and persecution always seem to catch up to David’s countrymen; but like David, by and large, they have taken it in stride. Perhaps it is because many of them realize something that David understood — in spite of the suffering and incessant wandering, they are beloved of God; as it is written, “Jacob I have loved” (Malachi 1:2).
No doubt life can be trying, and for some it can become almost unbearable. Let’s face it though, most of us have never been forced out of our homes and country by angry mobs or persecuted to the point of death, but still, we all have our burdens to bear. But whatever our circumstances or environment, let us take a lesson from David, a man who was anointed to be king and yet forced to flee for his life more than once. Like him, let us take heart in the fact that we are beloved of the LORD and that He is our refuge. Even if we have to flee for our lives from what we thought was a safe haven, His Presence with us and within us is sufficient for whatever and whoever we may face. As Paul — a man well acquainted with persecution and flight — expressed it, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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