My heart is grievously pained… – Psalm 55:4, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Psalm 55 chronicles some of the deepest sorrow that David ever experienced. Filled with words like “distraught, “oppression,” “pain,” “terror,” “horror,” and “trembling,” David exquisitely described what it is like to suffer severe distress – not only of circumstance, but of soul.

Many commentators agree that Psalm 55 was written in response to Absalom’s rebellion. Although betrayed by his own son, David’s greatest distress came not at the knowledge that his own blood wanted to destroy him. It came at the knowledge that his most trusted counselor was a friend of the conspiracy. As Matthew Henry writes:

The Chaldee-paraphrase names Ahithophel as the person here meant, and nothing in that plot seems to have discouraged David so much as to hear that Ahithophel was among the conspirators with Absalom (2 Sa. 15:31 ), for he was the king’s counsellor,1 Chr. 27:33 . “It was thou, a man, my equal, one whom I esteemed as myself, a friend as my own soul, whom I had laid in my bosom and made equal with myself, to whom I had communicated all my secrets and who knew my mind as well as I myself did,—my guide, with whom I advised and by whom I was directed in all my affairs, whom I made president of the council and prime-minister of state,—my intimate acquaintance and familiar friend; this is the man that now abuses me. I have been kind to him, but I find him thus basely ungrateful. I have put a trust in him, but I find him thus basely treacherous; nay, and he could not have done me the one-half of the mischief he does if I had not shown him so much respect.’’ All this must needs be very grievous to an ingenuous mind, and yet this was not all; this traitor had seemed a saint, else he had never been David’s bosom-friend.

There are few things that can bring us lower than personal betrayal. When you think someone loves you, only to find out later that he or she threw you under the bus for a better opportunity, it makes you feel lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. You just feel worthless, and you feel worthless because the someone you highly valued didn’t value you at all.

David wanted to do what every sane human being wants to do in times of severe distress; he wanted to run away. But running away isn’t the answer to our troubles; casting our burdens upon God is. As verses 22 and 23 state:

22 Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail).

23 But You, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in, lean on, and confidently rely on You.

God, and God alone, can remove both the emotional weight and the physical danger of betrayal. If we cast our burdens upon Him, He will eventually grant us the same victory over our Ahithophel that He gave David over his. However, if we retain control over the effort to overcome our foe, then our emotional trauma will be lengthened, and the odds that we will win the day will be greatly diminished.