Five-minute study · Day 289 · Psalms 62
Psalm 62:1
A word worth stopping on: waiteth דּוּמִיָּה dumiyyah
'Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.' The word translated 'waiteth' carries a surprise. The Hebrew is dumiyyah. It does not mean waiting. It means silence. Absolute silence. Complete stillness. The verse, more literally: 'Only toward God is my soul dumiyyah.' Silent. Still. Motionless. David wrote this psalm while enemies were pressing in (62:3-4, 'How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you'). The threats were real. The danger was active. And David's response was to go silent. Dumiyyah is the discipline of closing your mouth, stilling your plans, and refusing to generate noise when every nerve in your body screams to do something. Silence, here, is a directed act of trust toward a specific person.
Word study: waiteth
- Hebrew
- דּוּמִיָּה
- Pronounced
- dumiyyah
- Strong's
- H1747
- Definition
- Silence, stillness, repose, waiting in quiet. From the root damam, to be silent, to be still, to cease. Dumiyyah describes complete cessation of noise, activity, and self-generated effort. Used for the silence of trust, the silence of death, and the silence of awe.
Dumiyyah appears 4 times in the Hebrew Bible: Psalm 22:2, 39:2, 62:1, and 65:1 (some manuscripts). The root damam appears more broadly, meaning to be silent, to be still, to cease. BDB defines dumiyyah as 'silence, waiting.' The word is related to dammah (silence, desolation) and to the place-name Dumah, a region of Edom associated with silence and stillness.
Goldingay's commentary on Psalms 42-89 identifies Psalm 62 as a psalm of trust composed during a period of threat. The superscription attributes it to David, 'to the chief Musician, to Jeduthun,' connecting it to the Levitical worship tradition. Verses 3-4 describe the threat: enemies who plot against David, who want to bring him down, who lie to his face and curse in private. Verse 9: 'Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.' David has weighed his enemies and found them empty.
Goldingay notes that dumiyyah in verse 1 is the soul's posture, not its state. The distinction matters. A state happens to you. A posture is something you assume. David chose dumiyyah. He chose to go still. The word appears again in verse 5: 'My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.' The repetition (verses 1-2 and 5-6 are nearly identical) creates a structural frame. The psalm opens with dumiyyah, returns to dumiyyah at its center, and the repeated insistence suggests the silence requires ongoing effort. You do not fall into dumiyyah. You hold it.
The root damam appears in several striking contexts. Exodus 15:16: the nations 'shall be as still as a stone' when God's power passes by. Psalm 4:4: 'commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still (damam).' Lamentations 3:28: 'He sitteth alone and keepeth silence (damam), because he hath borne it upon him.' In each case, the silence is active. It is a chosen stillness in the face of something larger than the person experiencing it. Goldingay observes that dumiyyah in Psalm 62 is specifically directed: 'toward God' (the preposition el indicates direction). The silence has a target. It faces God. It is the silence of a person who has decided that the noise of self-help, self-defense, and self-promotion is less useful than stillness aimed at the one source of actual help.
Historical context · The Davidic period, likely during one of the periods when David faced conspiracy and threat from within his own court; the superscription connects the psalm to Jeduthun, one of David's three chief musicians (1 Chronicles 25:1-6), placing it in the formal liturgical tradition
David's Directed Silence Under Threat
Psalm 62 belongs to the collection attributed to David and directed to Jeduthun, one of the three chief musicians appointed by David for Temple worship (alongside Asaph and Heman; 1 Chronicles 25:1-6). Jeduthun's name may derive from yadah (to praise, to give thanks), and his role was prophetic music: the musicians under Jeduthun 'prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the LORD' (1 Chronicles 25:3). Goldingay notes that the dedication to Jeduthun suggests the psalm was intended for liturgical performance, even though its content is intensely personal.
The specific threat behind Psalm 62 is not identified, but the language of verses 3-4 describes a coordinated political attack: people planning mischief, seeking to cast David down from his position, delighting in lies, blessing with their mouths while cursing inwardly. Goldingay suggests this fits several periods in David's life: the years fleeing from Saul, the rebellion of Absalom, or the court intrigues that punctuated his reign. The psalm does not specify because the pattern is repeatable: threat comes, and the soul must decide where to go.
The concept of directed silence appears in other Ancient Near Eastern wisdom traditions. Egyptian instruction literature (the Instruction of Amenemope, approximately 1200 BCE) values the 'silent man' (ger maa) who controls his speech and trusts in the divine order (ma'at). The contrast between the 'heated man' and the 'silent man' runs through Egyptian wisdom. The book of Proverbs reflects similar values: 'Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise' (Proverbs 17:28). Goldingay observes that dumiyyah in Psalm 62 goes further than the proverbial discipline of holding your tongue. It is the stilling of the entire inner apparatus: plans, strategies, contingency thinking, the mental rehearsal of counterattacks. The soul goes silent toward God, which means the soul stops generating its own solutions and waits for God's.
For reflection
Dumiyyah. Absolute silence. David was being hunted. His enemies were real, active, coordinating, lying to his face and cursing behind his back. And his response was to take his soul silent. Dumiyyah is the silence of someone who has identified the one option that matters and is refusing to fill the air with alternatives. Goldingay notes that dumiyyah is a posture, something you assume and hold, directed toward God by the preposition el. The silence faces a person. Try it. Five minutes. No plans. No strategies. No rehearsal of what you will say to the person who wronged you. Let the inner noise stop. Dumiyyah. Silence aimed at God. See what you hear when you stop talking.
Dumiyyah: silence, stillness, repose. From damam (to be silent, to cease). BDB traces it through the psalms. Goldingay distinguishes dumiyyah as a directed posture (toward God, using the preposition el) from passive resignation. The silence is active, chosen, and held under pressure.
Sources: BDB; Goldingay, 'Psalms 42-89'