Psalm 3: Does God Have Multiple Personalities?

James J. Tissot, ‘David in the Wilderness of Ziph’ (1896-1902) gouache on board, Jewish Museum, New York.

Does God have multiple personalities? Some Psalms speak of God’s blessings upon his faithful, while others describe a God whose face is turned away. Psalms 1 and 2 speak of endless, magnificent blessings for the righteous man and for the King, God’s Son, while in Psalm 3 we see an ardent follower of the Lord, who by definition is righteous (Psalm 1:1-3), surrounded by countless foes in a seemingly hopeless situation (vs. 2). Where are God’s promises now? How can a “blessed” God-follower be having such a hard time?

Gladly for us the Bible is literature, as well as being inspired. All of us can take the rules of common speech we have learned since infancy and apply them towards understanding what God has written for our instruction. God wants the seeker to understand him (Proverbs 1:20-21).

One of the first facets of Psalm 3 lying in plain sight is the change of voice from that of the prior two: “I…I…I…me…my.” Psalm 3 is strongly first person, and the person speaking is neither God nor the glorified Son, as in Psalm 2, nor a neutral narrator, as in Psalm 1. Unlike Psalm 3, Psalms 1 and 2 present the overview to the Psalter, as demonstrated in the two prior posts, the long distance, high-in-the-sky, end-of-the-movie point of view. While Psalms 1 and 2 present the outcome of life as reported from God’s eternal point of view, the human speaker in Psalm 3 has his feet on the ground, running, as it were, heavily pursued by his multitude of enemies. Again, Psalms 1 and 2 are a summary view of the entire story, while Psalm 3 is a snapshot view of a certain moment of time in the psalmist’s life.

Who then is the psalmist?

  1. Historically, the superscription applies Psalm 3 to King David, when he was fleeing the persecution of his wicked son Absalom (2Sa 15:13-17, 29).
  2. In a broadly poetic, generic sense, the speaker is every righteous man and every righteous woman.
  3. Specifically, especially as the believing reader becomes familiar with the ways of the Psalter and the Bible as a whole, the speaker is the righteous man of Psalm 1 and the King, God’s Son, of Psalm 2. (See footnote 1.) What? This is a surprise! “But I thought … blessed!” Yes, until we look more closely at Psalm 2.

1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:1-3)

As a whole, Psalm 2 makes so light of the efficacy of the enemies of God–verse 9 describes them as mere, broken pottery–that their role as antagonists diminishes within the bounds of Psalm 2. Their end is destruction, but … their beginning is persecution of the Lord’s Anointed. Psalm 3 gives the reader a view of what that persecution looks like from the vantage of the Lord’s Anointed, Messiah on earth, incarnated, human.

From the point of view of Messiah in real time, God-as-man, the enemies look multitudinous: 1) the word “many” is repeated three times in verses 1 and 2, 2) the enemies are numbered as “many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around,” in verse 6, and 3) the psalmist labels them as “all my enemies” in verse 7.  Clearly, the ground level view is very different than the heavenly.

What can we learn from Psalm 3?

Takeaways:

1. God is love. It was God’s love that sent his Son into this battleground.  Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32; see also John 3:16

2. A life of faith is a life of warfare. John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

3. Faith consistently cries out to the Lord. 

4 I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

7a Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! …

4. Faith lives in the final victory as it struggles through the conflicts of the moments.

3 But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.

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

7b … For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

5. The final victory of faith is eternal blessing. Psalm 3:8 Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah

As believers during the various seasons of our lives, we will experience security in the Lord, blessedness, battle, hardship, the attacks of our enemies (which may be the spiritual enemies of lust, anger, addiction, and so forth), crying for help, praise, thanksgiving, and finally, victory in Christ. We can each of us ask where we are in this cyclic continuum. If you are found by Christ still believing in him when you die, then you are a victor. Faith is the victory by which we overcome the world.  (1 John 5:4)

 

Sidebar Tidbit: Notice how the wicked (see footnote 2) are compared to chaff in Psalm 1:4, pieces of broken pottery in Psalm 2:9, and broken teeth in Psalm 3:7. 

………………..

1 With reference to Acts 2:30, Matthew Bates writes, “Third, Peter affirms that David, ‘was a prophet’ (2:30), which suggests that the emphasis is on David’s future-oriented words not on David’s own past experiences as a righteous sufferer, making it even more unlikely that we are invited to see David as speaking for himself as a ‘type’ of the future Christ.” (Bates, Matthew. The Birth of the Trinity. Oxford University Press. Oxford: 2016, 154.) The same line of reasoning may be applied to this psalm as well. Jesus’ apostles, such as Peter, were so taken up with the person and resurrection of Christ that David qua David had little significance for them. (So if you don’t find yourself excited about King David, that’s okay–be excited about Christ!)

2 Within the context of these psalms, the wicked are those who willfully and consciously oppose God, oppose his Anointed Son the King, and oppose God’s good way.

 

 

 

Link to next post in this series

Link to prior post in this series 

Link to Contents for this series

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *