From the Cave to the Heavens and Back

Let’s begin with some observations about context, structure, and theme. First, where was this psalm written? In a cave. When? When David fled from King Saul. Which time? David hid in a cave from King Saul multiple times (1 Sam 22, 23, 24, 25). The most likely candidate is immediately after David left Gath; in fact, that may be why this psalm is located here; 1 Samuel 21 describes David’s time in Gath (when he likely wrote Psalm 56). And then 1 Samuel 22 begins this way:

"David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men."

So, the first thing to note is that this psalm was written from a cave, when David is fleeing from the king that he has faithfully served. 

Structure

Second, what’s the structure of the psalm? It’s structured like a chiasm. A chiasm is a literary structure that’s kind of like steps up a mountain. The first corresponds to the last, the second to the second-to-last, and so on. I’ve heard Pastor Jonathan describe it like a hamburger, with the bun, then veggies, then cheese, and meat in the middle. So let’s briefly identify those connections. 

A (Bun; 57:1): A plea for mercy as David seeks refuge in God.

B (Veggies; 57:2-3): David’s cry for help to the sovereign God, with confidence that God will send out his steadfast love and faithfulness from heaven. 

C (Cheese; 57:4): A description of David’s enemies. They are lions and fiery beasts. Their teeth and tongue are their main weapons. In other words, David’s enemies do violence with their words. This refers to Saul and the evil counselors that he has surrounded himself with, men who slander David and feed Saul’s jealousy, likely out of their own jealousy.

D (Meat; 57:5): A call for God to be exalted above the heavens and for his glory to extend to the whole earth.

C’ (Cheese; 57:6): A description of David’s enemies. David’s enemies seek to entrap and ensnare him. They plot against him, but become entangled in their own nets, falling into their own pits. 

B’ (Veggies; 57:7-10): David’s response to God’s deliverance: a steadfast heart, gratitude, and song. Whereas in B, God sent his steadfast love and faithfulness from heaven, in B’, David sings of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness which reaches to the heavens.

A’ (Bun/Meat; 57:11): A repetition of 57:5, with a call for God’s exaltation above the heavens, and for his glory to fill the whole earth. 

So the psalm begins with a plea for mercy, and then both the middle and the end celebrate God’s exaltation and glory. In between, David expresses confidence in God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, in the face of enemies who plot and wound with words. 

Heavens

Third, a repeated theme in the psalm is the heavens.

God will send from heaven and save me (v. 3)

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens (v. 5)

For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, and your faithfulness to the clouds (v. 10)

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens (v. 11)

In the Bible, heaven or heavens can refer to one of two realities. On the one hand, it can refer to the physical heavens, including the sky and space. The heavens are above us, from horizon to horizon, and the stars are set in the heavens, and the clouds move across the face of the heavens. On the other hand, the heavens can refer to the place where God and the angels dwell. This place is normally invisible to us, but at various times, God pulls back the veil separating his dwelling place from our normal reality, and reveals heavenly realities to the prophets (think about the book of Revelation).

We see both in this psalm. God sends “from heaven” (where he dwells) in order to save us. And his steadfast love reaches to the heavens, and his faithfulness to the clouds (physical heavens). The connection between these two, I believe, goes all the way back to Genesis 1.

Genesis 1:1 says,

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.”

I believe this is describing the creation of the heavens (God’s creation palace, where he dwells), and then the story zooms in on the earth, which at this point has no structure or inhabitants. The six days of creation are about God forming and filling the earth. But the heaven of heavens is made, all at once and complete, in Genesis 1:1. 

Then after turning on the lights in Day 1, on Day 2, God places an expanse between the waters above and the waters below. This expanse includes the sky and outer space. It basically stretches from our atmosphere to the end of the cosmos. The sun, moon, and stars are all set in this expanse. 

But what’s significant is that God names the expanse “heavens,” after the heavens that he created in Genesis 1:1. In other words, the physical heavens are named after the heavenly heavens. And these physical heavens represent and point to the heaven of heavens. The physical heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). 

This includes the sun as it moves across the sky with triumphant joy, the moon as it waxes and wanes and gives light to the night, the stars as they shine brilliantly as jewels set in the heavens. It includes clouds filled with rain and the rumble of thunder and fantastic lightning storms like we had last night.

These are the heavens that the James Webb telescope has been sending images of, astounding us with colorful galaxies, star formation, and swirling nebulae. 

These are the heavens that amaze our soul as we think about standing in one place and moving outward in any direction, and traveling for trillions and trillions of miles, for billions of lightyears, and never coming to the end of it. Though we can do the math and repeat the numbers, our imaginations falter at such distance. We cannot fathom heavens of such depth and distance. And this too is an image of God.

Because don’t miss what David says in this psalm. Our God is exalted above the heavens. The heavens are so deep, and they land on our imaginations with such weight and gravity. They make us to feel that we are adrift on an infinite sea, running on into the horizon with no conceivable shore. We are surrounded by roads leading in all directions but ultimately leading nowhere. The heavens are so nearly infinite, so majestic and massive in their depth and distance that they give to our minds a likeness of the Abyss of God’s very own being, into which if a creature drop down his thoughts for ever, he shall hear no echo return to him. That’s what the word unfathomable means. As great as the heavens are, God himself is greater, and therefore, be exalted, O God, above the heavens. 

The Heavens and the Cave

And now I want to bring these together. David is writing this psalm in a cave. And caves can be good. When a storm of destruction passes by, it is good to seek refuge from the storm in a cave. But a cave is not a castle. It’s not a palace. And so David’s presence in a cave is not good. He is not where he expected to be. The youngest son of Jesse, handsome, zealous, and full of courage. He is the slayer of lions and bears. He is David the Giant-killer, anointed by the Lord’s prophet to be king over God’s people. He is David the musician, invited into the king’s house to soothe the mind of the king. He is David, the covenant brother of the crown prince. And now he’s an outlaw, on the run, pretending to be out of his mind to protect himself from enemy kings, surrounded by the dregs of Israel – the distressed, the debtors, and the embittered. This is not what he expected. 

He’s in a cave, and the walls are closing in. 

He’s in a cave, and he remembers the heavens.

He’s in a cave, and he sings to the God who is exalted above the heavens.

Let’s think more about the juxtaposition of the cave and the heavens. Plato, in the Republic, records Socrates’ allegory of the cave. He says that human beings are basically prisoners, deep in a dark cave. We are chained with our backs to a wall, looking at the far wall. Behind us, up toward the mouth of the cave, there is a fire. Between the fire and the wall behind us are people carrying items, which cast their shadows on the wall in front of us. We spend our lives fixated on the shadows, competing for the shadows, arguing and fighting and even dying for the shadows. For Plato, the philosopher – the lover of wisdom – is the one with the courage and fortitude to escape from the bondage and to turn around and climb out of the cave, out past the figures casting the shadow, past the fire at the mouth of the cave, out, out into the open air, looking up…at the heavens, at the sun, moon, and stars in the sky. The philosopher is the one who turns from the shadows of this world and seeks the true glory and majesty of goodness, truth, and beauty. For Plato, the heavens are a fitting image of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, the ultimate Ideas and Forms that lie behind created reality. 

Or consider another story about caves and the heavens. In Lewis’s The Silver Chair, the fourth Chronicle of Narnia, Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb are sent on a quest, with Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, to find the lost Prince Rilian. Their journey takes them to the land of the giants, where they are chased into a cave, and fall down a crack, down, down, down deep underground, where they are captured by gnomes, who constantly say, “Many sink down, but few return to the sunlit lands.”

Deep underground, in this massive cave, the three heroes find the lost prince and deliver him from an enchanted chair. But as they prepare to make their escape, the Emerald Witch, who had enchanted the prince, returns. Rilian declares that he is the true prince of Narnia and that he and his friends intend to return there. The Witch lights a fire of incense, begins to play enchanted music on her harp, and attempts to enchant all four of them again.

The substance of the enchantment is this: the cave is all there is. There is no Narnia. There is no Overworld. Narnia is just a dream, just make-believe. The Witch, “There never was any world but mine.” And the children repeat, “There never was any world but yours.” 

Puddleglum wasn’t finished fighting. And listen to what he emphasizes. 

“I don’t know rightly what you all mean by a world,” he said, talking like a man who hasn’t enough air. “But you can play that fiddle till your fingers drop off, and still you won’t make me forget Narnia; and the whole Overworld too. We’ll never see it again, I shouldn’t wonder. You may have blotted it out and turned it dark like this, for all I know. Nothing more likely. But I know I was there once. I’ve seen the sky full of stars. I’ve seen the sun coming up out of the sea of a morning and sinking behind the mountains at night. And I’ve seen him up in the midday sky when I couldn’t look at him for brightness.” - C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia Book 6) (pp. 176-177) Harper Collins, Inc. Kindle Edition.

This speech has a rousing effect on the others. But the Witch isn’t through. She questions the existence of the sun. When they tell her that the sun is like a large lamp that hangs in the sky, she laughs at them (“hangeth from what, my lord?” she says), and explains away the sun. The sun too is just a dream, copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is just a tale. The enchantment is nearing its full effect and the four are almost asleep and under the spell.

But then Jill fights through and says, “There’s Aslan.” And the Witch goes to work. When they say Aslan is the great lion, she asks what a lion is. 

“Well, a lion is a little bit—only a little bit, mind you—like a huge cat—with a mane. At least, it’s not like a horse’s mane, you know, it’s more like a judge’s wig. And it’s yellow. And terrifically strong.”

The Witch shook her head. “I see,” she said, “that we should do no better with your lion, as you call it, than we did with your sun. You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You’ve seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it’s to be called a lion. Well, ‘tis a pretty make-believe, though, to say truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger. And look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world, this world of mine, which is the only world. But even you children are too old for such play. As for you, my lord Prince, that art a man full grown, fie upon you! Are you not ashamed of such toys? Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world. There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan. And now, to bed all. And let us begin a wiser life tomorrow. But, first, to bed; to sleep; deep sleep, soft pillows, sleep without foolish dreams.” - C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia Book 6) (pp. 179-180). Harper Collins, Inc. Kindle Edition.

You see what Lewis is doing with the Witch? The modern world is a cave, and we are in danger of falling under a dark enchantment. We are tempted to believe that the physical world is the only world, that the only things that are real are material things, measurable things, things that we can analyze with science and mathematics. Spiritual things – like the soul or God or heaven – are simply make-believe, projections of our desires that enable us to cope with the harshness of reality. We have earthly fathers, and we yearn for someone to protect us from the storms of destruction that threaten on every side, to deliver us from our enemies, from the lions that surround us and set a net for our steps. And so we project our earthly fathers into the sky, imagining a bigger and better father, and calling him God. 

So how does Lewis resolve it? As the enchantment takes hold, Puddleglum, in a brave act of defiance, puts his foot in the fire of incense, filling the room with the foul smell of burnt Marshwiggle. The pain gives him a moment of perfect clarity, and he says:

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.” - C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia Book 6) (pp. 181-182). Harper Collins, Inc. Kindle Edition.

This is Puddleglum’s steadfast, defiant faith. He remembers in the dark what he knew in the light. He has eternity in his heart, a longing for something more than the cave can supply. And he knows that,

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

And so he stands by the play-world, the spiritual world, the heavenly world. He’s on Aslan’s side, come hell or high water. 

And this connects Puddleglum to Psalm 57. In the cave, David remembers the heavens. He remembers that the sun rises every day, and that the stars come out every night. They are faithful, firm, and steadfast, and they are images of the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. 

And in meditating on God’s steadfast love, which is great to the heavens, and his faithfulness which is mighty to the clouds, David himself becomes steadfast. He sees the purposes of God in the heavens, in the storms that bring the rains that falls to water the thirsty ground. And he knows that God has purposes for him too. Those purposes include storms of destruction passing by. But God is his refuge in the midst of those storms, sheltering him from that destruction, and from the enemies that prowl around. 

That’s why David says,

“My heart is steadfast, O God. My heart is steadfast.”

Listen to the way Psalm 112 describes the blessing on the righteous man who fears the Lord and finds great delight in his commands, the man who is on Aslan’s side and seeks to live like a Narnian:

He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.
His heart is steady; he will not be afraid,
until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.
(Psalm 112:7–8)

The man who trusts in the Lord is steadfast, firm, immovable, established, prepared, faithful, strong, and resilient, because he meditates on the God who is firm, immovable, established, strong, and full of steadfast love and faithfulness.

Three Encouragements

Let me close with three encouragements for you. Some of you are in a cave, and you feel like the walls are closing in. This is not the life you expected. There are storms of destruction passing by. Maybe you have adversaries and opponents who are seeking to tear you down. What does Psalm 57 say to you?

First, the last few weeks Pastor Jonathan and Pastor Kenny have said, “Preach the gospel to yourself.” I want to add to that. Don’t just preach; sing. Sing the gospel to yourself. In the cave, in the darkness, sing of God’s faithfulness until the sun comes up. Wake the dawn with your singing. 

Second, get out of your head. Don’t get lost in the maze of your own mind. Don’t lean on your own understanding. Look to the heavens. Look to the birds. Consider God’s purposes. 

Consider God’s cosmic purposes, as he reveals himself in the infinitude of space, the majesty of the heavens, and the steadfastness of the sun. He is exalted above the heavens. 

Consider God’s global purposes, as his glory covers the whole earth. Give thanks to him among the peoples and praise him among the nations. One of the best ways to break out of the cave is to meditate on the greatness of God’s purposes in the world.

Consider God’s personal purposes, his purposes for you. The greatness of the cosmos and the glory of his mission among the nations is to give you a vision of his absolute greatness. The vastness of the universe blows our minds; it stretches them to the breaking point. And these are just the fringes of his ways. The cosmos does not stretch God. He’s not overwhelmed by it. And he has infinite attention for every aspect of it. All of him is everywhere, and he has purposes for everything, including you. He is the God who fulfills his purpose for you.

Third, so remember him. Look to him. Cry out to him. He is God Most High, sovereign, governing all things, including storms of destruction. He is protective, hiding you in the shadow of his wings. He is faithful and steadfast, full of covenant love, which fills his cosmos from one corner to the other. 

The Table

Which brings us to the Table. Psalm 57 begins with a plea:

“Be merciful to me, O God”

and ends with a song of triumph:

“Be exalted, O God.”

Our God exalts himself in showing mercy to us. He is the Most High and the Most Merciful. He magnifies himself in his condescension to us. And that’s what this Table is. Here the Most High God, out of his abundance of steadfast love and faithfulness, reminds us of his great humiliation, when he made himself nothing and took the form of a servant. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

But his humiliation was his triumph, and God exalted him and gave him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in the heavens, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Most High, Most Merciful, in the person of Jesus, here at this Table.

Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.