Psalms 55:6

DAVID'S YEARNING TO GET AWAY FROM IT ALL

"And I said, O that I had wings like a dove!

Then would I fly away and be at rest.

Lo, then would I wander far off,

I would lodge in the wilderness. (Selah)

I would haste me to a shelter

From the stormy wind and tempest."

Who is there who never experienced such a yearning as this? Just to say "good-bye" to all the problems, just to walk out of the mess and never return - attractive as such thoughts may seem to be, God's servants must stand up to life like it is. David's Great Son, the Saviour, knelt in blood and tears in Gethsemane; and here the Old Testament type of our Lord could find no other honorable course of action except that outlined in this Psalm; but it definitely did not include anything like his "disappearance into some shelter in the wilderness." Oh no, tens of thousands would be slain, and there would be an agony that no tears could assuage.

"From the stormy wind and tempest" (Psalms 55:8). It was not a thunderstorm that threatened David, it was a rebellion! These words are a, "Poetic description of violence and strife, mentioned in the next verse."[9]