Psalm 59

The title points to the night Saul sent men to stake out David's house and kill him in the morning, and Michal let her husband down through a window. Israelite houses of this period were built on the four-room plan with thick walls and small windows set high; a house built into the town wall had a window on the outer face, which is how Rahab lowered the spies at Jericho. Escaping through a window meant the house was on the edge of the town.

Dogs in an Israelite town were not pets. They were half-wild scavengers that worked the refuse heaps in packs after dark, and calling a man a dog was one of the strongest insults available. The psalm has the royal hit squad coming back at evening, snarling and prowling round the city like the scavenger pack, hunting for scraps and complaining when they are not filled.

The two requests look contradictory until you know the politics. Consume them, so they are gone — and then slay them not, lest my people forget. Ancient kings kept defeated rebels alive and visible as a standing lesson. The psalm asks for the same: not a quiet removal but a public and long-remembered one.

The word translated defence through the psalm means a high place, a crag or a fortified height — the same word behind the names of clifftop strongholds. It is the opposite of a house with men outside the door.