Psalms 17:13

"Arise, O Jehovah, confront him, cast him down:

Deliver my soul from the wicked by thy sword

From men by thy hand, O Jehovah,

From men of the world, whose portion is in this life,

And whose belly thou fillest with thy treasure:

They are satisfied with children,

And leave the rest of their substance to their babes.

As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness;

I shall be satisfied when I awake, with beholding thy form."

With a fervent prayer like this from the very heart of David, hunted and tracked like a beast of prey in the wilderness by King Saul, there was no way that Saul would be able to prevail against him. God would indeed answer David's prayer to confront Saul, cast him down, and deliver David out of his murderous hands.

Ash has pointed out the difficulties of determining the exact meaning here. (1) One way of understanding it is that the wicked indeed have many precious blessings but not the ultimate blessing of Psalms 17:15. (2) Another interpretation refers God's "filling the belly of the wicked" with his treasures to God's punishing judgment upon the wicked.[17] The context would seem to favor the latter view. Kidner paraphrased the more likely meaning thus: "They are men ... of the world, give them their fill of it."[18]

"I shall behold thy face, etc." (Psalms 17:15). Psalms 17:15, as Kyle Yates noted, "May refer to the next morning after this experience or to a vision of God beyond the sleep of death."[19] To us, the only possible understanding of the place is that of seeing God after the sleep of death. This is certainly not too much to expect of one who had just prophesied the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God to the right hand of the throne of God in heaven.

Furthermore, the application of the verse to waking up after a night's sleep would have, by no stretch of imagination resulted in the psalmist's seeing the "face of God," or "beholding the form of God." To accept such an interpretation, it appears to us, would be to abuse the very principle of conveying thought by the use of words.