In this lament psalm, the psalmist has many enemies but trusts in God’s deliverance.
Lord, thank you for your salvation and that you are a shield about me.
v.1-2 David is surrounded by enemies. Selah.
v.3-4 He cries to God, who hears him. Selah.
“But you, O Lord, are a shield about me”
v.5-8 Deliverance. Selah.
“Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God!”
Deliverance and blessing comes only from God.
The life of the Christian is not free from the attack of the enemy; but, “salvation belongs to the Lord.” (v.8)
Interesting – I had never noticed the even spacing of the topics in this poem before.
In Acts 4, “the nations” of vs 1 is rendered “the Gentiles”. For the Jews, that would be synonymous, but for us Gentile Christians, not quite so much. Judah was and Israel is one of those nations raging when the Messiah finally has come. Is there a nation that isn’t?
If this is a Psalm of David, I wonder if he identified himself as the Son(son) in verses 7 & 12 or if he recognized that he was writing beyond himself. (Psalm 110:1 makes me think the latter, but it could also be “both and”.)
PLR
OK, the comment I just left was about Psalm 2 – not sure how I got it into Psalm 3.
PLR
Hmm, apparently, this IS the place to leave comments for Psalm 2, despite your cleverly disguising it with the title “Psalm 3″. You caught me!
Anyway, it gives me another chance to copy one of those Word Verifications. Is Google trying to speak in tongues?
PLR
To comment on the post for Psalm 2, click to comment link at the _end_ of the post. Not the one that appears at the beginning, which is for Psalm 3 as you discovered.
I think the correct translation is “nations” (eg. NIV) which in its Old Testament context meant the non-Israelite nations. In the New Testament context, I think it is speaking of the unholy alliance against Christ (ie. the Romans, the Jews, Pilate, etc.). Note that the Acts passage is an exact quotation from the Septuagint (interpreted by the apostles as prophecy).
David
(Psalm 2) Regarding the “son”, I would not assume that an Old Testament prophet necessarily understood his prophecy.
But he probably realized he was referring to the Messiah and not himself.
David