Matthew Henry's Complete Bible Commentary

Verses 1—3

The title of this psalm and many others is as a key hung ready at the door, to open it, and let us into the entertainments of it; when we know upon what occasion a psalm was penned we know the better how to expound it. This was composed, or at least the substance of it was meditated and digested in David’s thought, and offered up to God, when he fled from Absalom his son, who formed a conspiracy against him, to take away, not his crown only, but his life; we have the story, 2 Samuel 15:1-2 Samuel 16:14 1. David was now in great grief; when, in his flight, he went up the Mount of Olives, he wept greatly, with his head covered, and marching bare-foot; yet then he composed this comfortable psalm. He wept and prayed, wept and sung, wept and believed; this was sowing in tears. Isa. any afflicted? Let him pray; nay, let him sing psalms, let him sing this psalm. Isa. any afflicted with undutiful disobedient children? David was; and yet that did not hinder his joy in God, nor put him out of tune for holy songs. 2. He was now in great danger; the plot against him was laid deep, the party that sought his ruin was very formidable, and his own son at the head of them, so that his affairs seemed to be at the last extremity; yet then he kept hold of his interest in God and improved that. Perils and frights should drive us to God, not drive us from him. 3. He had now a great deal of provocation given him by those from whom he had reason to expect better things, from his son, whom he had been indulgent of, from his subjects, whom he had been so great a blessing to; this he could not but resent, and it was enough to break in upon any man’s temper; yet he was so far from any indecent expressions of passion and indignation that he had calmness enough for those acts of devotion which require the greatest fixedness and freedom of thought. The sedateness of his mind was evinced by the Spirit’s coming upon him; for the Spirit chooses to move upon the still waters. Let no unkindness, no, not of a child or a friend, ever be laid so much to heart as to disfit us for communion with God. 4. He was now suffering for his sin in the matter of Uriah; this was the evil which, for that sin, God threatened to raise up against him out of his own house (2 Samuel 12:11), which, no doubt, he observed, and took occasion thence to renew his repentance for it. Yet he did not therefore cast away his confidence in the divine power and goodness, nor despair of succour. Even our sorrow for sin must not hinder either our joy in God or our hope in God. 5. He seemed cowardly in fleeing from Absalom, and quitting his royal city, before he had had one struggle for it; and yet, by this psalm, it appears he was full of true courage arising from his faith in God. True Christian fortitude consists more in a gracious security and serenity of mind, in patiently bearing and patiently waiting, than in daring enterprises with sword in hand. MHBCC 482.2

In these Psalms 3:1-3:3 he applies to God. Whither else should we go but to him when any thing grieves us or frightens us? David was now at a distance from his own closet, and from the courts of God’s house, where he used to pray; and yet he could find away open heaven-ward. Wherever we are we may have access to God, and may draw nigh to him whithersoever we are driven. David, in his flight, attends his God, MHBCC 482.3

I. With a representation of his distress, Psalms 3:1, 3:2. He looks round, and as it were takes a view of his enemies’ camp, or receives information of their designs against him, which he brings to God, not to his own council-board. Two things he complains of, concerning his enemies:—1. That they were very many: Lord, how are they increased! beyond what they were at first, and beyond whatever he thought they would have been. Absalom’s faction, like a snow-ball, strangely gathered in its motion. He speaks of it as one amazed, and well he might, that a people he had so many ways obliged should almost generally revolt from him, rebel against him, and choose for their head such a foolish and giddy young man as Absalom was. How slippery and deceitful are the many! And how little fidelity and constancy are to be found among men! David had had the hearts of his subjects as much as ever any king had, and yet now, of a sudden, he had lost them. As people must not trust too much to princes (Psalms 146:3), so princes must not build too much upon their interest in the people. Christ, the Son of David, had many enemies. When a great multitude came to seize him, when the crowd cried, Crucify him, Crucify him, how were those then increased that troubled him! Even good people must not think it strange if the stream be against them and the powers that threaten them grow more and more formidable. 2. That they were very malicious. They rose up against him; they aimed to trouble him; but that was not all: they said of his soul, There is no help for him in God. That is, (1.) They put a spiteful and invidious construction upon his troubles, as Job’s friends did upon him, concluding that, because his servants and subjects forsook him thus and did not help him, God had deserted him and abandoned his cause, and he was therefore to be looked on, or rather to be looked off, as a hypocrite and a wicked man. (2.) They blasphemously reflected upon God as unable to relieve him: “His danger is so great that God himself cannot help him.” It is strange that so great unbelief should be found in any, especially in many, in Israel, as to think any party of men too strong for Omnipotence to deal with. (3.) They endeavoured to shake his confidence in God and drive him to despair of relief from him: “They have said it to my soul;” so it may be read; compare Psalms 11:1, 42:10. This grieved him worst of all, that they had so bad an opinion of him as to think it possible to take him off from that foundation. The mere temptation was a buffeting to him, a thorn in his flesh, nay, a sword in his bones. Note, A child of God startles at the very thought of despairing of help in God; you cannot vex him with any thing so much as if you offer to persuade him that there is no help for him in God. David comes to God, and tells him what his enemies said of him, as Hezekiah spread Rabshakeh’s blasphemous letter before the Lord. “They say, There is no help for me in thee; but, Lord, if it be so, I am undone. They say to my soul, There is no salvation” (for so the word is) “for him in God; but, Lord, do thou say unto my soul, I am thy salvation (Psalms 35:3) and that shall satisfy me, and in due time silence them.” To this complaint he adds Selah, which occurs about seventy times in the book of Psalms. Some refer it to the music with which, in David’s time, the psalms were sung; others to the sense, and that it is a note commanding a solemn pause. Selah—Mark that, or, “Stop there, and consider a little.” As here, they say, There is no help for him in God, Selah. “Take time for such a thought as this. Get thee behind me, Satan. The Lord rebuke thee! Away with such a vile suggestion!” MHBCC 482.4

II. With a profession of his dependence upon God, Psalms 3:3. An active believer, the more he is beaten off from God, either by the rebukes of Providence or the reproaches of enemies, the faster hold he will take of him and the closer will he cleave to him; so David here, when his enemies said, There is no help for him in God, cries out with so much the more assurance, “But thou, O Lord! art a shield for me; let them say what they will, I am sure thou wilt never desert me, and I am resolved I will never distrust thee.” See what God is to his people, what he will be, what they have found him, what David found in him. 1. Safety: “Thou art a shield for me, a shield about me” (so some), “to secure me on all sides, since my enemies surrounded me.” Not only my shield (Genesis 15:1), which denotes an interest in the divine protection, but a shield for me, which denotes the present benefit and advantage of that protection. 2. Honour: Thou art my glory. Those whom God owns for his are not safe and easy, but really look great, and have true honour put upon them, far above that which the great ones of the earth are proud of. David was now in disgrace; the crown had fallen from his head; but he will not think the worse of himself while he has God for his glory, Isaiah 60:19. “Thou art my glory; thy glory I reckon mine” (so some); “this is what I aim at, and am ambitious of, whatever my lot is, and whatever becomes of my honour—that I may be to my God for a name and a praise.” 3. Joy and deliverance: “Thou art the lifter up of my head; thou wilt lift up my head out of my troubles, and restore me to my dignity again, in due time; or, at least, thou wilt lift up my head under my troubles, so that I shall not droop nor be discouraged, nor shall my spirits fail.” If, in the worst of times, God’s people can lift up their heads with joy, knowing that all shall work for good to them, they will own it is God that is the lifter up of their head, that gives them both cause to rejoice and hearts to rejoice. MHBCC 482.5

In singing this, and praying it over, we should possess ourselves with an apprehension of the danger we are in from the multitude and malice of our spiritual enemies, who seek the ruin of our souls by driving us from our God, and we should concern ourselves in the distresses and dangers of the church of God, which is every where spoken again, every where fought against; but, in reference to both, we should encourage ourselves in our God, who owns and protects and will in due time crown his own interest both in the world and in the hearts of his people. MHBCC 482.6