Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Shield Around Me
Psalms 3:1-8
1 A Psalm by David, when he fled from Absalom his son. Yahweh, how my adversaries have increased! Many are those who rise up against me. · WEB
A king driven out by his own son sleeps through the night, and says so as though it were the miracle.
A Psalm by David, when he fled from Absalom his son Psalms 3:1.
The first psalm with a heading, and the heading is the key to it. The occasion is the worst night of David's life: his son has taken the throne, the capital has gone over, and he is walking barefoot up the Mount of Olives with the city behind him 2 Samuel 15:30. The first prayer in the book comes out of that.
Yahweh, how my adversaries have increased! Many are those who rise up against me. Many there are who say of my soul, "There is no help for him in God" Psalms 3:1–2.
Three times in two verses: many, many, many. And the taunt quoted at the end is the one that actually wounds. They are not saying David is weak; they are saying God has finished with him — which, after the events of 2 Samuel 12, he had reason to fear was true.
But you, Yahweh, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head Psalms 3:3.
The turn comes on one word. A shield in that world covered one side; this one is around. And the last phrase answers the picture the historical account gives us — a man climbing a hill with his head covered and weeping. Someone else will lift it.
I laid myself down and slept. I awakened, for Yahweh sustains me Psalms 3:5.
The most remarkable line in the psalm, and it reports nothing except an ordinary night's sleep. A man whose son is hunting him, who does not know whether the army will hold, lay down and slept and woke up. He treats it as evidence, and he is right to: sleep is the one thing anxiety takes first, and its return is not something a person can arrange.
I will not be afraid of tens of thousands of people who have set themselves against me on every side Psalms 3:6.
The number has grown from many to tens of thousands, and the fear has gone. Nothing in the circumstances has changed between verse two and verse six. What changed is stated in between.
Salvation belongs to Yahweh. May your blessing be on your people Psalms 3:8.
The psalm ends with a blessing on the people — which, on the night in question, included the ones who had followed Absalom. A man praying for deliverance from a rebellion closes by asking God to bless the rebels.
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