Somebody Else’s Mail (7)

Psalm 3 is a little piece of history.

The superscript over it reads, “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.” It takes us back to chapters 15 through 19 of 2 Samuel, which describe Absalom’s conspiracy against his father. The scripture says he “stole the hearts of the men of Israel”. An attractive, charismatic young man, Absalom pretended to care about the people of God and to offer them something his father could not, and large numbers of Israelites followed him in rebelling against David and driving the king from his palace in Jerusalem to exile across the Jordan River.

Absalom’s conspiracy ultimately failed. God delivered David, and if we read Psalm 3 with those events in the back of our minds, we see its words harmonizing with the history in Samuel.

Psalm 3:1-2 — Many Foes, No Salvation

“O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, ‘There is no salvation for him in God.’ ” Selah

First we have the many foes. Hushai the Archite gave Absalom this advice: “My counsel is that all Israel be gathered to you, from Dan to Beersheba, as the sand by the sea for multitude.” So that’s what Absalom did. Not only that, but as David was escaping Jerusalem, he was confronted by bandwagon-jumpers like Shimei, who cursed him and cheered on Absalom. “See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood.” Faced with this, David cried out to the Lord, “How many are my foes!” It seemed to him that almost every hand in the kingdom was against him.

Moreover, Shimei gave expression to the common belief in Israel that God had deserted David. As he walked beside David, throwing rocks at him, he ascribed David’s plight to the Lord. “The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned,” he said, “and the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom.” He was not alone in believing this. When David returned to Jerusalem victorious, not only Shimei came to beg for his life, but 1,000 men from the tribe of Benjamin came with him. These men had obviously felt the same way about David, and wanted to make sure they weren’t going to be put to death for it.

Psalm 3:3-4 — The Lifter of My Head

“But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill.” Selah

David understood very well that whether he would live or die, and whether he would ever be restored to his throne depended not on his strategy or his armies, but on the Lord. God would determine David’s his fate, not man. When he and those loyal to him climbed the Mount of Olives weeping and barefoot, messengers told him that his counselor Ahithophel had joined the rebels. We read that he cried aloud to the Lord, just as the Psalm says, “O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.” That’s exactly what the Lord did. The counsel was not foolish, but to Absalom it appeared to be inferior, and he did not take it. Because of that, he and his followers were routed in battle.

Psalm 3:5-6 — Refreshed in Mahanaim

“I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.”

At the end of 2 Samuel 17, we read that David came to Mahanaim, where he spent the night. A few loyalists, Shobi and Machir and Barzillai the Gileadite “brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat”, and David was refreshed. He lay down and slept with enemies all around, because the Lord was taking care of him and providing for his needs.

Psalm 3:7 — The Battle is the Lord’s

“Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.”

David was an older man at this point. His followers counseled him not to go out to battle as he might have in his youth. He had to depend not on his legendary sword but on the swords of others, and on whatever favorable circumstances the Lord might engineer on his behalf. As it turned out, the Lord worked an unlikely victory for David through Absalom’s vanity. The rebel’s long hair became tangled in the branches of a tree as he passed under it, and trapped him. David’s general Joab then disobeyed a direct order from David to protect Absalom, striking the traitor down with three javelins to the heart. With their newly-appointed king dead, “Israel fled every man to his own home.” That was the end of the rebellion, and David had no hand in it at all, no control over what happened.

As much as David grieved the loss of his son, when he wrote a Psalm about these events, he correctly ascribed the victory over Absalom to the Lord: “You strike all my enemies on the cheek.”

Psalm 3:8 — Bless and Do Not Curse

“Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!” Selah

With Absalom out of the picture for good, Israel changed its mind and determined to restore David to his throne. He returned to Jerusalem, and when he did so, it was not in vengeance on those who had betrayed him, but in blessing on many who did not deserve it. He blessed the people. Shimei was pardoned, Absalom’s general Amasa was given his job, and David rewarded those who had been loyal to him. But the credit was all God’s. “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

Another Way to Read Psalm 3

When we read Psalm 3 with David’s history in mind, everything slots in very nicely. All the pieces fit. The psalm is a very intense, personal account of a man’s emotional struggle in the most adverse possible circumstances, from which God granted him unlikely deliverance.

But there is another level on which we might read this psalm. When I compare scripture with scripture, I can’t help but think of the Lord Jesus, who was despised and rejected by men, and who came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

Like David, Jesus had many foes:

“Judas came … and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people.”

“Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.”

Likewise, many doubted our Lord’s relationship to God:

“Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him.’ ”

“He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”

Jesus too cried aloud to the Lord, putting all his trust in him:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

Did the Father answer from his holy hill? You bet he did:

“There was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.”

Like David, our Lord lay down to sleep, briefly at least:

“They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.”

Then, just like David, he woke again, for the Lord sustained him:

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

And if God smote David’s enemies on the cheek, look at what he did to the enemies of our Lord:

Those who gathered together against the Lord Jesus found themselves doing “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

“… that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

As the hymn writer put it, he “trod all his foes beneath his feet by being trodden down”. The Lord smote every one of Christ’s enemies on the cheek.

A Type of Christ

In fact, if you read Psalm 3 carefully, there’s not a single phrase in it that could not apply to the Lord Jesus. I find that fascinating. David is a type or picture of Messiah in many ways. The experience of rejection and lack of appreciation from his own nation is yet another similarity between them.

There is, however, one major difference. David suffered rejection for reasons we could easily identify. He was, generally speaking, a failure as a father, and of all his failings, Absalom may have been the biggest. Moreover, God permitted Absalom’s rebellion as punishment for David’s adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah. So David suffered, and suffered unjustly, but much of his suffering was the natural consequences of his own moral failings. Christ, on the other hand, had no obligation to enter this world and suffer rejection on our behalf. For him, it was all voluntary, a gracious act of love toward the undeserving.

Nevertheless, the similarities between the two men remain. It’s hardly likely they are mere coincidence.