Psalm 7 is a prayer psalm of the individual. It uses a variety of images (God as refuge and judge, enemies as lions and hunters; legal, militaristic, and birth imagery), and it is difficult to discern which features might indicate the speaker’s personal circumstances and which might derive from the general symbolism of the temple and its regular liturgies. There is also a combination of individual (“me” in vv. 1–6, 8, 10, 17), corporate (“peoples” and the “righteous” and “wicked” in vv. 7–10), and generalized experiences (vv. 11–16). Rather than being frustrated by this ambiguity, we should accept that this very feature is what has allowed the psalm to be used for numerous occasions for readers throughout the centuries.

If we try to probe for the original occasion for which Psalm 7 was com…