I am continuing with Dale Ralph Davis’s book on the first twelve psalms, The Way of the Righteous in the Muck of Life. Psalm 3 is the first psalm with an attribution – “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.” Starting in 2 Samuel 15, David’s trouble with Absalom reaches a climax.

David confesses to God that his enemies are many. His own son is against him. His valued counselor, Ahithophel, joins with Absalom (2 Samuel 15:31). His enemies grate on David, implying that God will not help, that he will not save. How does David react? He runs to that same God, cries to him in his anguish.

David fills his vision with God, meeting his enemies’ talk with the truth about God. God protects like a shield, both physically and spiritually. David claims God as his “glory”, a term denoting the ideas of weightiness, substance, and wealth. His kingdom is in jeopardy, yet David finds all he needs in the Lord himself. David left with his head covered (2 Samuel 15:30), but he was confident in God’s restoring grace. Lifting of the head hearkened back to the blessing on Israel (Numbers 6:24-26). Even as David left Jerusalem, he knew the Lord was accessible, answering from his “holy hill” (Psalm 3:4).

David enjoyed peace because of who God is. He felt immediate peace (“I lay down and slept”) and long-term peace (“I will not be afraid …”). The peace controls how he looked at the future. It is a peace that Paul commended to the Philippians – a supernatural peace from God (Philippians 4:6-7). David’s peace does not come because the turmoil around him ends; it comes because he rests in God’s peace … and then sleeps (Psalm 127:2).

David prayed for deliverance, for God’s work to be done on his enemies (Psalm 3:7). We are reminded that physical and spiritual salvation can be a nasty piece of work (Revelation 6:9-10). It is altogether God’s work though; we pray for God’s servants to be vindicated by God himself … but in his time. Salvation is God’s forte, his work and his decision, not David’s enemies.

Where does this leave us? We can identify with David; he acts as a representative of God’s people. As David came to the Lord in trouble, we do as well. As David faced enemies, we do too: our sin, our world, and our enemy, Satan. We too need to run to the Lord, as David did, even as our enemies whisper that God wants nothing to do with us.