Psalms

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Psalm 3

How many are my foes, O Lord!
How many are rising up against me!
How many are saying about me:
“There is no help for him in God.”

But you. Lord, are a shield about me,                  my glory, who lift up my head.
I cry aloud to the Lord.
He answers from his holy mountain.

I lie down to rest and I sleep.
I wake, for the Lord upholds me.
I will not fear even thousands of people
who are ranged on every side against me.

Arise, Lord; save me, my God,
you who strike all my foes on the mouth,
you who break the teeth of the wicked!
O Lord of salvation, bless your people!

Commentary

Psalm 3 was written by King David at a traumatic moment in his life. His son Absalom had led a revolt against him, and had succeeded in winning over most of Israel to his side. To prevent Absalom attacking Jerusalem and putting its inhabitants to the sword because of their fidelity to their king, David decided to flee, taking his immediate family with him. He was accompanied by six hundred soldiers who refused to join the revolt. As he approached the Mount of O lives, he was barefoot like a pilgrim, weeping and with his head covered – signs of mourning (see 2 Samuel 15:7-23, 30-37). Never had Jerusalem witnessed such a scene: the sweet singer of Israel and the mighty commander of armies reduced to this pitiful state at the hand of a rebellious son. Of course David could easily have quelled the revolt, but he would not raise his hand against his own son, whom he loved dearly.

That same night the conspirators decided to move against David with twelve thousand men. David’s force would be no match for such an army (see 2 Samuel 17:1). Sadly this trial had been prophesied by Nathan, as a punishment from God for David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. “I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives while you live to see it, and give them to your neighbour. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I shall bring it about in the presence of all Israel . . . ” (2 Samuel 12:11-12). The fulfilment of this prophecy came when Absalom slept with his father’s concubines in the sight of everyone! (2 Samuel 17:20-23).

Because David viewed this revolt as something permitted by God he did not fight; instead he turned to God in prayer with humility and confidence, asking God to deliver him in his time of trouble. David thought that if God permitted the trial, then He would see him through it. He only had to seek God’s will and obey, and what God wanted to accomplish in himself and anyone else concerned would come about. Reminded of his own sinfulness, he threw himself all the more onto God’s mercy. This action on David’s part is a great lesson to all of us; so many people use their sinfulness as an excuse to stay away from God, and never know from their own experience how merciful and loving He is. You might say that this is contradicted by the prophecy above, but no. That prophecy merely says – in our modern words – that there are unavoidable consequences to our actions. David’s behaviour as a father on the earlier occasion would have influenced the behaviour his son, who would look to his father for an example in life.

How many are my foes, O Lord!
How many are rising up against me!
How many are saying about me:
“There is no help for him in God.”

But you. Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory, who lift up my head.
I cry aloud to the Lord.
He answers from his holy mountain.
                                                 (vv. 1-4).

There are moments in our lives when we feel abandoned, alone, near to despair. Events can overtake us where we find ourselves misunderstood, even rejected, by those we would have turned to for support. It may seem that even those closest to us have become our enemies, in the sense that they are against us. How terribly lonely is the pain if the trouble has come, as it did for David, as a result of our own weaknesses. Yet how often it happens that we are the authors of our own pain! We can work our way into burnout or even breakdown; we can drink ourselves into the gutter; or we can work for the breakdown of our relationships through unforgiveness. Yet none of us wants to overhear our friends say that we are beyond help. That we are finished! David heard them say that even God could not help him.

Gradually we learn, in the midst of darkness and distress, to turn to God in real faith and begin to look for His protection (His shield). We learn through the bitter experience of failure genuinely to rely on God for His help, His mercy and His forgiveness. We look to Him for His love, healing and strength. Like our mother Eve, we too “bring forth” only in pain. Oh, how we cry out against having to lean on God! We will lean on anything and anyone but Him. We lean on our own strength until we find this gets us nowhere; then we lean on others and their wisdom. We lean on theories from books, anything, in fact, but the only One who can really set us free. It is often only when the world turns away from our problems that we discover who our real friend is. We turn to prayer, even through tears of despair, and find Him waiting, the One who is our faithful and true friend, often our only friend in time of need. He does not walk away from the sight of our “leprosy”, our sinfulness (see Mark 1:41).

I lie down to rest and I sleep.
I wake, for the Lord upholds me.
I will not fear even thousands of people
who are ranged on every side against me.

Arise, Lord; save me, my God,
you who strike all my foes on the mouth,
you who break the teeth of the wicked!
O Lord of salvation, bless your people!
                                                       (vv. 5-8).

When we turn to God in genuine trust we find that we stop worrying about the problems on hand. Once we fling ourselves into God’s arms in utter abandonment, even when the cause of the trouble was our own fault, we can then rest in utter peace and watch God act on our behalf. One of the things that God cannot resist (if I may use human language) is a person coming to Him in utter trust and abandonment. As soon as we give Him freedom to act on our behalf, we see Him become our redeemer. The fact that David slept peacefully, with twelve thousand men looking for his blood, showed that he had truly turned to God and that he had turned to God in truth. It was a saviour David needed, and it was a saviour he got. The Lord always takes care of our real needs when we commit our cause to Him. “Give us this day our daily needs” was a request that Jesus Himself put into the prayer He taught us.

Once God has aroused us to real faith and trust, we call to Him to arise and act on our behalf. How lovely! We think that the idea is ours when all the while His saving grace has been working to bring us to the point where we can pray effectively. The whole testimony of Scripture tells us to call on God as redeemer and saviour and He will deliver us from our “enemies”, whatever they are. For most of us the enemy is “within the camp”, in the sense that our own faults and sins are our biggest troubles. The Lord will gladly strike down these enemies for us when we ask Him, and He will give us peace. That is why Jesus died for us on Calvary. The God we sinners celebrate on earth is the God of salvation, the One who through love intervened in our history to become incarnate among us in order to deliver us from the power of our enemies. Deliverance can come from God alone.

When David prayed for the downfall of his enemies he was praying against those who had revolted against him. Yet he gave clear instructions to his soldiers to spare Absalom, his son. When the news of victory came to David, after his men had successfully engaged those in revolt, the only question he asked was about the welfare of his son. When he learned that his son was dead he went into mourning (see 2 Samuel 18:5, 29; 19:1-8). Not only that, but we find him forgiving his enemies, and even placing the leader of the revolt at the head of his army (see 2 Samuel 19:12-24). It is important to understand this. In his prayer, David is praying for the justice of God’s kingdom to be brought about, regardless of his own worthiness. As God’s anointed king and representative, he is responsible for the Chosen People. Thus he is a type or symbol of the Messiah, who is head of the Kingdom of God. Jesus taught us in His special prayer to say to God our Father: “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven – and deliver us from the evil one.” The salvation of God’s people is one side of the coin that has the punishment of the wicked as the other. If God’s Kingdom is to be established among us, then the kingdom of darkness and wickedness must be defeated.

For us as Christians, the enemies that we pray against are not human beings. We do not pray for the downfall of anyone. Our enemies are not flesh and blood, but the powers of darkness at war with the Kingdom of God. To pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom is to pray for the downfall of evil. Whichever way it is expressed, the request is the same (see Ephesians 6:10-20). The war against sin is waged first in our own lives, so that the Kingdom of God will be firmly established there; then we join forces with all other disciples of Jesus, to fight evil in the world, and so become God’s agents in establishing His Kingdom on earth. In this way the God of Salvation can bless His people with peace.

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