Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55 is the cry of a man surrounded by violence in his own city and betrayed by a close friend. After all that shaking, it ends with a settled word of advice. The question this verse answers is what a person does with a weight he cannot carry and cannot put down.
Where the counsel falls in the psalm
The verse is not an isolated saying. The sufferer turns from the friends who failed him and tells others what to do in the same place.
C. E. StuartHe is sure of deliverance, because he counts on God. He tells of the treachery of the man who broke his agreement. Then he advises other godly people on what to do in such times... Friends, advisers, and companions of many years may fail. But Jehovah will sustain His servant, and He is ready to take the burden off him.
The name that replaces a broken promise
The psalm has just described a man who broke his agreement and whose smooth words hid war. Against that background, this verse calls God by His covenant name, Jehovah — the name older translations use where the ESV has "the LORD".
F. W. GrantThe last section closes by contrasting what the righteous receive with what the wicked receive. Here God appears at last as Jehovah — Israel's God. How the covenant Name shines out here against all human dependence! The treacherous agreement they had trusted had betrayed them. Now the word is: "cast your burden on Jehovah, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved."
What may be cast
The burden is not limited to one kind. One writer traces it from the heaviest weight a person can carry to the lightest — and notes the strange inconsistency in us.
A. PridhamThe believer knows what kind of burden he has cast upon the Saviour of his soul. Coming in the deep grief of a sin-burdened conscience, the soul finds peace in Jesus... The burdens of daily life lose their weight when faith links the name of Christ with them. And there is no burden a broken heart feels that He is not ready to take from our hands... Yet many rest the burden of their soul's salvation on Jesus. Then they find it hard to trust Him with a small worry.
A note on the wording
One writer suggests a clearer wording for this verse. What you cast on God is not only the trouble you feel, but the portion He has given you.
The Bible TreasuryA small change would improve this often-quoted verse. It should read, "Cast your lot" — that is, cast what God has appointed for you.
Two things in one sentence
The verse contains an instruction and a guarantee, and the guarantee does not promise an easy road. It promises that evil will not have the last word.
J. N. DarbyThe second point is the infallible faithfulness of God. He will never let the righteous be moved. Tried they may be, but He cannot allow evil in the world to prevail, and He will not. We may learn to trust while the evil lasts. In trusting, we know the Lord will keep us. And the sheer scale of the evil only shows more clearly that God must step in.
Another writer applies the promise to the worst trouble that can come.
L. M. GrantIt is a wonderful certainty that "He will never permit the righteous to be moved," even for those passing through worse trouble than the earth has ever known.
Doing it
Casting is an act, not a mood. It means handing the whole matter over and keeping nothing back.
C. H. MackintoshAre you at this moment under any pressure, in any trial, need, or difficulty? If so, we urge you to look simply and only to the living God... Put your whole case into His almighty hand. Cast your burden, whatever it is, upon Him. Let there be no reserve. He is as willing as He is able, and as able as He is willing, to bear it all. Only trust Him fully. He loves to be trusted — He loves to be used.
Trouble can push us away from the Lord, or it can draw us toward Him.
Hamilton SmithThese troubles can come between our souls and the Lord. Instead, let us make them reasons for drawing near to Him. Then we will learn what it is to be strong in the Lord while we feel our own weakness.
Summary
- Setting. The verse closes a psalm about betrayal by a trusted friend. It speaks straight into the moment when people fail you.
- Cast. It covers a guilty conscience first, then every burden of daily life. We often trust Him with our salvation, yet not with a small worry.
- Lot. The load includes the portion God has appointed you, not only the trouble you feel.
- Sustain. God's covenant name stands where a broken human promise stood. He is ready to take the burden off His servant.
- Unmoved. Trials will come, but defeat will not. God will not let evil win, and the worse it gets, the more certain His stepping in becomes.