4 I send up a cry to the Lord with my voice, and he gives me an answer from his holy hill. (Selah.)
For the Lord's heart is on Zion, desiring it for his resting-place. This is my rest for ever: here will I ever be; for this is my desire.
And you will go on crying to me and making prayer to me, and I will give ear to you. And you will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.
I have given my love to the Lord, because he has given ear to the voice of my cry and my prayer. He has let my request come before him, and I will make my prayer to him all my days. The nets of death were round me, and the pains of the underworld had me in their grip; I was full of trouble and sorrow. Then I made my prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord, take my soul out of trouble.
Have mercy on me, O Lord; for my cry goes up to you all the day. Make glad the soul of your servant; for it is lifted up to you, O Lord.
O my God, I make my cry in the day, and you give no answer; and in the night, and have no rest. But you are holy, O you who are seated among the praises of Israel. Our fathers had faith in you: they had faith and you were their saviour. They sent up their cry to you and were made free: they put their faith in you and were not put to shame.
<Maschil. Of David. A prayer when he was in the hole of the rock.> The sound of my cry went up to the Lord; with my voice I made my prayer for grace to the Lord. I put all my sorrows before him; and made clear to him all my trouble. When my spirit is overcome, your eyes are on my goings; nets have been secretly placed in the way in which I go.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 3
Commentary on Psalms 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 3
As the foregoing psalm, in the type of David in preferment, showed us the royal dignity of the Redeemer, so this, by the example of David in distress, shows us the peace and holy security of the redeemed, how safe they really are, and think themselves to be, under the divine protection. David, being now driven out from his palace, from the royal city, from the holy city, by his rebellious son Absalom,
Those speak best of the truths of God who speak experimentally; so David here speaks of the power and goodness of God, and of the safety and tranquility of the godly.
A psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.
Psa 3:1-3
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 Sa. 15, etc.
In these three verses 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 a way 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,
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.
Psa 3:4-8
David, having stirred up himself by the irritations of his enemies to take hold on God as his God, and so gained comfort in looking upward when, if he looked round about him, nothing appeared but what was discouraging, here looks back with pleasing reflections upon the benefit he had derived from trusting in God and looks forward with pleasing expectations of a very bright and happy issue to which the dark dispensation he was now under would shortly be brought.
In singing this, and praying it over, we must own the satisfaction we have had in depending upon God and committing ourselves to him, and encourage ourselves, and one another to continue still hoping and quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord.