My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. – Psalm 55:4

Today's Scripture Reading (September 24, 2022): Psalm 55

In my memory, it has only happened once, and that was decades ago. It was the night when I really wasn't sure that there was a tomorrow, a night when the only reality seemed to be the gun that was pointed in my direction. It was not a pleasant experience, but luckily it was a quick one, only lasting for a few minutes. And when the threat was over, I remember the aftereffects of an adrenaline overdose that continued to course through my body. I can only imagine what it would have been like if the experience had lasted a little longer or dragged on for a few days.

In his youth, David had written poetically about those moments.

Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me (Psalm 23:4).

Now, David seems to have lost the poetic aspect of "the darkest valley" or "the valley of the shadow of death." His heart literally hurts inside his chest. What was once a poetic description of the danger that the shepherd boy experienced on the sheep pasture has now been turned into a horror story where hope is a distant reality. Scottish Baptist minister Alexander McLaren (1826-1910) writes,

"He can do nothing but groan or moan. His heart 'writhes' in him. Like an avalanche, deadly terrors have fallen on him and crushed him. Fear and trembling have pierced into his inner being, and 'horror' (a rare word, which the LXX [Septuagint] here renders darkness) wraps him round or covers him, as a cloak does" (Alexander Maclaren).

A danger has hung around, and there seems to no longer be a future where the danger is absent. It is not a danger that comes and passes quickly. David had been a boy, emphatically believing God had a plan for him. He had been a young man on the run but still with a long future ahead of him, a future promised to him by that same God. But now, everything has been taken away, and David honestly isn't sure if this might be the end. If it was, he felt he would die in disgrace, and that was an outcome that David couldn't bear. Life had become an endless horror and a place filled with a darkness that caused David's heart to hurt.

Today's Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 18