God’s Word for You

Psalm 3:1-4 Selah

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, November 5, 2022

The first two psalms introduce the book by proclaiming who a true believer is (Psalm 1:1), and who Christ, the Anointed One is (Psalm 2:2). In both cases, the Father is watching over both (Psalm 1:6, 2:4). The one who arranged the psalms in the order we have them chose a pair of songs by David to come next. The fourth is an evening song (see 4:4 and 4:8), and this one, Psalm 3, is a morning song.

3 A psalm of David.
  When he fled from his son Absalom.

The headings of the Psalms are ancient, so ancient that no copy of the Psalms exists that does not include the headings, even though there are sometimes some variation in their text. Another testimony to the ancient nature of the headings is that when the earliest translation of the Old Testament was made, in the second or third century BC from Hebrew into Greek, there were several words used in the headings that were already forgotten, and had to be transliterated (writing Hebrew words with Greek letters) or by making strange attempts at translation. We accept the headings as part of the original, inspired word of God. In this case, the heading tells us the author and also the immediate context of the psalm.

Absalom’s rebellion came during the middle years of David’s reign in Jerusalem. Shortly after David’s sin with Bathsheba and the death of Uriah the Hittite, the land was caught up in a famine (2 Samuel 21:1). At this time, David’s oldest son Amnon became infatuated with his half-sister, a daughter of David by another wife from a political marriage. The daughter’s name was Tamar, and her brother was Absalom. When Amnon raped Tamar, she begged him to marry her and remove her disgrace (2 Samuel 13:13), but by now Amnon’s lust has turned to hatred, and he had his servant throw her out of his house and bolt the door after her. She went to her brother Absalom, who took her in like a widow and looked after her, and who bided his time for two years. Then Absalom ordered his servants to murder Amnon when he was representing the king at a sheep shearing festival, after which Absalom fled to his grandfather, his mother’s father, who was the King of Geshur, a small kingdom in the hills east of the Sea of Galilee. This was a wild, lawless little kingdom, unconquered by the tribe of Manasseh. It had once been part of the domain of Og, King of Bashan (Joshua 12:4-5). There in the hills overlooking the sea, the king’s son brooded and waited once again.

He stayed there for three years, but when he returned home, he moved into David’s former palace in the city of Hebron, and the people there began to treat Absalom as if he were the new King of Israel. When David heard about this, he was under no illusions about his son’s strength and leadership skills. At 56, David knew that much of the nation would rather follow his charismatic 25 year-old son. He fled the city to do what he had done for most of his life as a shepherd and a captain of Saul’s army: He went to live in the hills and to sleep under the stars.

1 O LORD, how many are my foes!
  How many rise up against me!
2 Many are saying of me,
  “God will not deliver him.”  Selah

David’s mind was on four things all at once. Absalom’s rebellion put his own life and reign in danger. His instinct was to survive, and he had lived a life of survival, even when attacked by Saul, whom David refused to confront. Now he had a similar position: He wouldn’t raise his hand against his own son.

The second problem was the group following Absalom. David didn’t know how big an army his son had gathered. We need to remember that instant communication between a commander and his army is a relatively new luxury. David didn’t have anything like this three thousand years ago any more than American colonial officers did three hundred years ago. For David, they were simply “many foes” rising up against him while his own army may well have been off fighting against any of David’s many other opponents. He only had the soldiers who were garrisoned there in Jerusalem with him. What good would dozens be against hundreds?

The third problem was that his own people were saying, “God will not deliver him!” He could not easily rally people to his defense who thought that his was a lost cause. It is upon this thought that David inserts the very first ‘selah’ in the book of Psalms.

Selah is an interjection based on an imperative verb in Hebrew. It means “lift up,” but just how this was interpreted in David’s time is unknown to us. I appreciate Luther’s excellent judgment about this word: “Selah is a word which is neither read nor sung, but exhorts us to pause and ponder when a particular item is mentioned in the prayer and meditate on the meaning” (LW 42:21). So David would have us consider what the true problem is of this rebellion by considering the words, “God will not deliver him.” Or more literally: “There is no deliverance for him from God,” as if there could perhaps be deliverance if he turned to someone else, to another god? To anyone besides God? It was an ominous note of unbelief. “Salvation” here is the same word used by Jonah in the opposite sense: “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:10).

The fourth item, not a problem so much as a concern, was David’s own faith. He trusted in God, but he needed to remind himself of that. For this, he meditated on the good things God had done for him in the past, and this is what leads us into verses 3 and 4:

3 But you are a shield around me, O LORD;
  you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.
4 To the LORD I cry aloud,
  and he answers me from his holy hill.  Selah

To have the Lord himself as a shield is to have the very best protection. David raises his voice to the Lord in a cry of praise and a cry for help. And the Lord answers “from his holy hill.”

The holy hill of the Lord is a sanctuary, the tabernacle. Here we have a question, as we always do during the life of David: Which sanctuary was he talking about? The ark of the covenant had been brought into Jerusalem in about 1000 BC, which was 16 years ago in our Psalm, which takes place in the year of Absalom’s rebellion (984 BC). But the ark has been placed in a special tent near the king’s palace. David was content sacrificing “burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord” there in that place (2 Samuel 6:17; 1 Chronicles 16:1). But it was not the tabernacle Moses had built. That remained at the old high place at Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39). So was this “holy hill” the slope of Zion outside David’s palace where the ark was, or was it the high place at Gibeon where the Holy of Holies was? Whichever it correct, David received an answer from the Lord, and that’s the most important point we should take away from this question. God accepted David’s sacrifices even though the tabernacle was still in pieces, with the shell in one place and the heart, the ark, in another.

The ordinary believing Christian can take some comfort from this. Sometimes an accident of geography or the strong opinion of an ancestor means that some Christians are today in a church body, a denomination, that allows mistakes and false doctrine to stand. Should those Christians worry that God does not hear their prayers? No. God heard, answered, and blessed David even in those final years of the tabernacle before the temple was built, when everything had come apart in Israel’s worship practices. It is a tragedy when a Christian, trusting in their simple faith in Christ and in God’s holy Scriptures, is concerned about an error that their pastor is caught up in, or that their whole church is caught up in. We would certainly invite them to come and worship with us, but we also understand that sometimes geography can make that difficult or almost impossible. To those dear, faithful Christians in the pews of churches caught up in error, being poked, scraped, and wounded by nasty theological splinters, we hold out our sincere understanding, compassion, and prayers. Keep clinging to Jesus! He is the shield around you. He truly answers you from his holy hill. David has given you an extra “selah” here so that you can take time to contemplate that wonderful gospel truth.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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