1 Jehovah, how many are my oppressors!
Many are rising against me.
2 Many are saying to my soul,
There is no salvation for him in God. Selah.
3 And yet Thou, Jehovah, art a shield round me;
My glory, and the lifter up of my head.
4 With my voice to Jehovah I cry aloud,
And He answers me from His holy mountain. Selah.
5 I laid myself down and slept;
I awaked; for Jehovah upholds me.
6 I am not afraid of ten thousands of people,
Who round about have set themselves against me.
7 Arise, Jehovah; save me, my God:
For Thou hast smitten all my enemies [on] the cheek-bone;
The teeth of the wicked Thou hast broken.
8 To Jehovah belongs salvation:
Upon Thy people be Thy blessing. Selah.
Another pair of psalms follows the two of the Introduction. They are
closely connected linguistically, structurally, and in subject. The one
is a morning, the other an evening hymn, and possibly they are placed at
the beginning of the earliest psalter for that reason. Ewald and Hitzig
accept the Davidic authorship, though the latter shifts the period in
David's life at which they were composed to the mutiny of his men at
Ziklag (1 Sam. xxx.). Cheyne thinks that "you will find no situation
which corresponds to these psalms," though you "search the story of
David's life from end to end." He takes the whole of the Psalms from
iii. to xvii., excepting viii., xv., xvi., as a group, "the heart
utterances of the Church amidst some bitter persecution"--namely, "the
period when faithful Israelites were so sorely oppressed both by
traitors in their midst and by Persian tyrants" ("Orig. of Psalt.," pp.
226, 227). But correspondences of the two psalms with David's situation
will strike many readers as being at least as close as that which is
sought to be established with the "spiritual kernel of the nation during
the Persian domination," and the absence of more specific reference is
surely not unnatural in devout song, however strange it would be in
prosaic narrative. We do not look for mention of the actual facts which
wring the poet's soul and were peculiar to him, but are content with his
expression of his religious emotions, which are common to all devout
souls. Who expects Cowper to describe his aberrations of intellect in
the "Olney Hymns"? But who cannot trace the connection of his pathetic
strains with his sad lot? If ever a seeming reference to facts is
pointed out in a so-called Davidic psalm, it is brushed aside as
"prosaic," but the absence of such is, notwithstanding, urged as an
argument against the authorship. Surely that is inconsistent.
This psalm falls into four strophes, three of which are marked by Selah.
In the first (vv. 1, 2) the psalmist recounts his enemies. If we regard
this as a morning psalm, it is touchingly true to experience that the
first waking thought should be the renewed inrush of the trouble which
sleep had for a time dammed back. His enemies are many, and they taunt
him as forsaken of God. Surely it is a strong thing to say that there is
no correspondence here with David's situation during Absalom's revolt.
It was no partial conspiracy, but practically the nation had risen
against him, "ut totidem fere haberet hostes quot subditos" (Calvin).
Shimei's foul tongue spoke the general mind: "The Lord hath delivered
the kingdom into the hand of Absalom" (2 Sam. xvi. 8). There had been
sin enough in the king's recent past to give colour to the
interpretation of his present calamity as the sign of his being
forsaken of God. The conviction that such was the fact would swell the
rebel ranks. The multitude has delight in helping to drown a sinking
man who has been prosperous. The taunt went deep, for the Hebrew has
"to my soul," as if the cruel scoff cut like a knife to the very
centre of his personality, and wounded all the more because it gave
utterance to his own fears. "The Lord hath bidden him," said David
about Shimei's curses. But the psalmist is finding refuge from fears
and foes even in telling how many there are, since he begins his
complaint with "Jehovah." Without that word the exclamations of this
first strophe are the voice of cowardice or despair. With it they are
calmed into the appeal of trust.
The Selah which parts the first from the second strophe is probably a
direction for an instrumental interlude while the singer pauses.
The second strophe (vv. 3, 4) is the utterance of faith, based on
experience, laying hold of Jehovah as defence. By an effort of will
the psalmist rises from the contemplation of surrounding enemies to
that of the encircling Jehovah. In the thickest of danger and dread
there is a power of choice left a man as to what shall be the object
of thought, whether the stormy sea or the outstretched hand of the
Christ. This harassed man flings himself out of the coil of troubles
round about him and looks up to God. He sees in Him precisely what he
needs most at the moment, for in that infinite nature is fulness
corresponding to all emptiness of ours. "A shield around me," as He
had promised to be to Abraham in his peril; "my glory," at a time when
calumny and shame were wrapping him about and his kingdom seemed gone;
"the lifter up of my head," sunk as it is both in sadness and
calamity, since Jehovah can both cheer his spirit and restore his
dignity. And how comes this sudden burst of confidence to lighten the
complaining soul? Ver. 4 tells. Experience has taught him that as
often as he cries to Jehovah he is heard. The tenses in ver. 4 express
a habitual act and a constant result. Not once or twice, but as his
wont, he prays, and Jehovah answers. The normal relation between him
and Jehovah is that of frank communion; and since it has long been so
and is so now, even the pressure of present disaster does not make
faith falter. It is hard to begin to trust when in the grip of
calamity, but feet accustomed to the road to God can find it in the
dark. There may be an allusion to David's absence from sanctuary and
ark in ver. 4. The expectation of being answered "from His holy hill"
gains in pathetic force when the lovely scene of submissive sacrifice
in which he sent back the Ark is recalled (2 Sam. xv. 25). Though he
be far from the place of prayer, and feeling the pain of absence, the
singer's faith is not so tied to form as to falter in the assurance
that his prayer is heard. Jehovah is shield, glory, and strengthener
to the man who cries to Him, and it is by means of such crying that
the heart wins the certitude that He is all these. Again the
instruments sound and the singer pauses.
The third strophe (vv. 5, 6) beautifully expresses the tranquil
courage which comes from trust. Since sleeping and safe waking again
in ordinary circumstances is no such striking proof of Divine help
that one in the psalmist's situation would be induced to think
especially of it and to found his confidence on it, the view is to be
taken that the psalmist in ver. 5 is contemplating the experience
which he has just made in his present situation. "Surrounded by
enemies, he was quite safe under God's protection and exposed to no
peril even in the night" (Riehm, in Hupfeld _in loc._). Surely
correspondence with David's circumstances may be traced here. His
little band had no fortress in Mahanaim, and Ahithophel's counsel to
attack them by night was so natural that the possibility must have
been present to the king. But another night had come and gone in
safety, disturbed by no shout of an enemy. The nocturnal danger had
passed, and day was again brightening.
They were safe because the Keeper of Israel had kept them. It is
difficult to fit this verse into the theory that here the persecuted
Israelitish Church is speaking, but it suits the situation pointed to
in the superscription. To lie down and sleep in such circumstances was
itself an act of faith, and a sign of the quiet heart which faith
gives. Like Christ on the hard wooden "pillow" during the storm, or
like Peter sleeping an infant's sleep the night before his purposed
execution, this man can shut his eyes and quiet himself to slumber,
though "ten thousands have set themselves against him." They ring him
round, but cannot reach him through his shield. Ver. 6 rises to bold
defiance, the result of the experience in ver. 5. How different the
tone of reference to the swarms of the enemy here and in ver. 1! There
the psalmist was counting them and cowering before them; here their
very number is an element in his triumphant confidence. Courage comes
from thinking of the one Divine Ally, before whom myriads of enemies
are nothing. One man with God to back him is always in the majority.
Such courage, based on such experience and faith, is most modest and
reasonable, but it is not won without an effort of will, which refuses
to fear, and fixes a trustful gaze not on peril, but on the protector.
"I will not be afraid" speaks of resolve and of temptations to fear,
which it repels, and from "the nettle danger plucks the flower"
_trust_ and the fruit _safety_. Selah does not follow here. The tone
of the strophe is that of lowly confidence, which is less congruous
with an instrumental interlude than are the more agitated preceding
strophes. The last strophe, too, is closely connected with the third,
since faith bracing itself against fear glides naturally into prayer.
The final strophe (vv. 7, 8) gives the culmination of faith in prayer.
"Arise, Jehovah," is quoted from the ancient invocation (Num. x. 35),
and expresses in strongly anthropomorphic form the desire for some
interposition of Divine power. Fearlessness is not so complete that
the psalmist is beyond the need of praying. He is courageous because
he knows that God will help, but he knows, too, that God's help
depends on his prayer. The courage which does not pray is foolish, and
will break down into panic; that which fears enough to cry "Arise,
Jehovah," will be vindicated by victory. This prayer is built on
experience, as the preceding confidence was. The enemies are now,
according to a very frequent figure in the Psalter, compared to wild
beasts. Smiting on the cheek is usually a symbol of insult, but here
is better taken in close connection with the following "breaking the
teeth." By a daring image Jehovah is represented as dealing the beasts
of prey, who prowl round the psalmist with open mouth, the buffets
which shatter their jaws and dislodge their teeth, thus making them
powerless to harm him. So it has been in the past, and that past is a
plea that so it will be now. God will be but doing as He has done, if
now He "arise." If He is to be true to Himself, and not to stultify
His past deliverances, He must save his suppliant now. Such is the
logic of faith, which is only valid on the supposition that God's
resources and purpose are inexhaustible and unchangeable. The whole
ends with confident anticipation of an answer. "Salvation belongeth
unto Jehovah." The full spiritual meaning of that salvation was not
yet developed. Literally, the word means "breadth," and so, by a
metaphor common to many languages, deliverance as an act, and
well-being or prosperity as a state. Deliverance from his enemies is
the psalmist's main idea in the word here. It "belongs to Jehovah,"
since its bestowal is His act. Thus the psalmist's last utterance of
trust traverses the scoff which wounded him so much (ver. 2), but in a
form which beautifully combines affiance and humility, since it
triumphantly asserts that salvation is in God's power, and silently
implies that what is thus God's "to will and do" shall certainly be
His suppliant's to enjoy.
Intensely personal as the psalm is, it is the prayer of a king; and
rebels as the bulk of the people are ("ten thousands of the people"),
they are still God's. Therefore all are included in the scope of his
pitying prayer. In other psalms evil is invoked on evil-doers, but
here hate is met by love, and the self-absorption of sorrow
counteracted by wide sympathy. It is a lower exemplification of the
same spirit which breathed from the lips of the greater King the
prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."