With my voice will I call to Jehovah, and he will answer me from the hill of his holiness. Selah.
David wrote this psalm while running for his life from his own son Absalom. Here he cries out, and God hears him. Where the answer comes from matters as much as the answer itself.
This cry comes out of one particular kind of trouble. David had not earned it by innocence. He had earned it by his own sin.
Sometimes a child of God suffers trials and sorrows he has brought on himself. In His holy government God has placed His hand upon him, and he has to reap what he has sown. This is the hardest test of all. When David wrote Psalm 3 he was in this plight, for he was fleeing from Absalom his son. That was the darkest hour of his whole life, because every detail of it paid him back for what he had done.
A person under God's discipline can still pray with confidence. But something has to happen first. One writer traces David's freedom here back to an earlier psalm of confession.
We would say that David could never have written Psalm 3 as he did, while fleeing from Absalom, if he had not first written Psalm 51. That psalm poured out his heart in confession of his great sin. But he judged himself and admitted his sin. God then brought him back into communion. So he could face the trouble God's government brought on him, with confidence in Him.
Anyone in trouble can cry out. What matters is what came back.
In the third psalm we have the enemies, the surroundings; and the One who is here for God is the blessed Lord Himself. So it is written, "I cried, and He heard." That is the great point with us. It is not merely crying because of sorrows and difficulties here, but it is having the sense in our souls that He hears.
Being heard and being rescued are not the same thing. David's own story shows the gap between them.
Deliverance did not come at once. It did not, as we know. But David knew in his soul that the Lord had heard his cry. So he could wait calmly and expect His help in His own time and way… Whatever the outward circumstances, it is enough for the soul to be sure that God has bent down His ear and heard its cry.
David does not just say he got an answer. He names the place it came from. God's chosen King reigns on the holy hill of Zion, and that is where the answer comes from.
Where does He hear me from? "Out of His holy hill." He is there. We are here with all our small concerns, our disappointments, our stumbles, our failures. And we find that He is there, at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high, God's anointed King on His holy hill of Zion. In the psalm He says that is where He hears from — from His holy hill. Knowing that He hears us from His holy hill gives real rest. It is what makes us able to face ten thousand people drawn up against us without fear.
The word "holy" is not decoration. It describes the character of the One answering, and it explains the pause marked at the verse's end.
His prayer in verse 4 was the prayer of faith, with simple confidence that God would hear. And God did hear "from His holy hill" — that is, from the place of high exaltation, where holiness stays clean of the emptiness of human thought. Because God is holy, He loves what is good and hates evil… No wonder the word says "Selah" — pause and consider.
(Note: the older translation these writers use reads "he heard me"; the ESV renders it "he answered me.")
The answer did not move the threat. It moved the man.
Prayer does not always change our circumstances. It changes us. Instead of being distressed and distracted we are kept in peace and sustained in the trial (Phil. 4:6-7). We see this again and again in the psalmist's own experience. In the middle of his trials he cries to the Lord and knows he is heard. The trials go on as before, yet God keeps him in peace. He sleeps, and God sustains him. He wakes to the full weight of the trial, but can face it without fear.
Commentators also read this psalm beyond David's own crisis. One writer sees in it a prophetic picture of Christ:
Read this way, this Psalm is full of profit. Yet it carries a higher meaning still. It is a prophetic picture of what the Holy One of God went through. Enemies who wanted His life closed in around Him, and He trusted God as One near at hand both to justify and to deliver.
- Reaping. David's trouble was the harvest of his own sin — the hardest test of all, and still no barrier to prayer.
- Restored. Confession came first. A conscience already judged let him pray with confidence under discipline.
- Heard. The turning point is not the volume of the cry but the settled sense in the soul that God has heard it.
- From Zion. The answer comes from the holy hill, where God's anointed King reigns. Knowing where it comes from takes away the fear of ten thousand enemies.
- Rest. Prayer changes the person before it changes the circumstances. David sleeps, wakes, and faces the same threat unafraid. Selah — pause and consider.
I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for Jehovah sustaineth me.
David wrote this while running for his life from his own son Absalom, with no palace and no army — and yet he slept. The question every reader asks is how a hunted man sleeps at all, and whether that rest is available to anyone else.
One writer sets David's restless nights of comfort beside this night in the open:
Days of ease are not the best for us. Grasp that, and it will help us greatly. David's career gives striking proof of it. When his prosperity was at its high tide, he forgot the God whose goodness had followed him all his life. He could not rest, even though he lay on a curtained couch in a great palace. There his unsatisfied heart and restless eye led him into that foul sin that stained his name. But in the darkest hour of this strange history, his traitor son hunted him for his blood, and his only bed was the cold earth on the hillside. Still he could sing… Prosperity and the palace, with forgetfulness of God, gave birth to sin. Adversity, with the Lord at hand, produced the Psalm that still sings its music to our souls.
The calm of this verse is harder to explain than it looks. One writer traces it back to something David had already settled with God:
We venture to say this. David would never have written like this in Psalm 3, as he fled from Absalom, if he had not first written Psalm 51. That psalm was the outpouring of his heart in confession of his great sin. But he judged himself and acknowledged his sin. God restored him to communion with Himself, and so he could face the trouble that came on him under God's governing hand, with confidence in Him.
There is a sleep that only means a man is finished. This verse means something else:
"I lay down and slept," he says. This is plainly not the sleep of someone who is only worn out, for whom sleep has become a necessity. Men have slept on the deck of a ship in battle; but that is not the sleep spoken of here. It is the peace of a known wall of defence all around that makes such sleep possible. Night has its special dangers in the middle of warfare, and in the darkness the imagination pictures more than may be there. Yet faith can rest and be quiet under the watchful eye of God, and the morning proves the assurance right: "I woke again, for the LORD sustained me."
No enemy has withdrawn. No throne has come back. Only one thing has moved:
He was so calmed by the assurance that God had heard him that he lay down and slept. His circumstances had not changed at all. But now he had the Lord between him and his circumstances, and that changed everything. So peace reigned in his soul, and he could lie down and sleep, for in truth the everlasting arms were underneath him. So he adds, "I woke again, for the LORD sustained me." What a blessed rest, which the sense of the Lord's protection and favour brings! And no sleep refreshes like the sleep that ends with the assurance, on waking, that the Lord has sustained.
One writer finds a picture in the daily round of sleeping and waking:
Others have observed that our history every twenty-four hours (the period covered in these Psalms) is itself a kind of mystery. After spending the day, at night we lay aside our clothes and enter into sleep, the emblem of death. There we stay, with visions in the spirit, until the morning wakes us. Then we put on our clothes again, as we shall be clothed in the second morning — the morning of resurrection and glory.
The verse also tests where our own rest sits:
"I lay down and slept... for the LORD sustained me." How forceful and how simple! Is it so with you, reader? Does all trouble find your heart resting on God as your Father? When trouble multiplies, is your spirit still at rest, your sleep sweet? Do you lie down, sleep, and rise as if all were peace around you, because you know God is there and disposes of everything? Is He like this between you and your troubles and your troublers? And if He is, what can reach you? The thousands of enemies make no difference if God is there… We are foolish about difficulties and trials. We measure them by our strength instead of God's, who is for us if we are His.
- Heard. God heard David first, and the sleep followed. Rest is the result, not a technique.
- Cleared. Confession came before calm. A heart already judged before God can face the results of its own sin without panic.
- Kept. This is not collapse from exhaustion. It is rest inside a known defence — the everlasting arms under a man on bare ground.
- Unchanged. Not one circumstance improved. God stood between him and them, and that changed everything.
- Waking. Every night of trusting sleep points to a larger morning. Then sleep gives way to resurrection and glory.
I will not fear for myriads of the people that have set themselves against me round about.
David wrote this line while running for his life. His own son Absalom had turned the nation against him, and he had no army to count on. Nothing around him had changed when he said it. So what makes a surrounded man fearless?
David is not speaking from safety. He speaks from the lowest point of his life, out of trouble he brought on himself.
Sometimes a child of God is in a place where he is hurting under trials and sorrows that he has really brought on his own head. In His holy government God has laid His hand on him, and he has to reap what he has sown. This is perhaps the hardest test of all. David was in this plight when he wrote Psalm 3, for he was fleeing from his son Absalom. That was perhaps the darkest hour in his whole life, because every detail of it paid him back for what he had done.
That confidence had a history. David had already confessed his sin to God.
We dare to say that David would never have written like this in Psalm 3, when he fled from Absalom, if he had not first written Psalm 51. That psalm poured out his heart in confessing his great sin. But he had judged himself and owned his sin, so God restored him to communion with Himself. That is why he could face the trouble God's government brought on him, and face it with confidence in Him.
Read the verse carefully and you notice the crowd is still there. Something else went.
So had all the enemies been driven away? No — but his fears had... Inside he was safe, like a city with a garrison, even though on the outside he still looked exposed.
Fear drains away because of who stands between David and the crowd. Once God is in that place, counting the enemy is pointless. (Older translations read "ten thousands" where the ESV has "many thousands.")
When troubles come, whether one or many, the believer can find his "shield" in the Lord. A shield is the piece of armour a man holds between himself and his enemy. It is a blessed thing when faith sees that God is between us and all our troubles. Then it does not matter if the enemy grows to "ten thousands of people." If it is a question of us and the enemy, even one is too strong for us. If it is a question of God and the enemy, it makes no difference whether one or ten thousand stand against us.
Nothing in David's situation improved to justify this. His courage rested on something other than odds.
Courage, divine courage, now filled the king's heart. It was no longer a question of appearances or numbers. He had no more supporters than when he escaped from Jerusalem. Humanly speaking, he had no chance of beating the forces lined up against him. But the Lord had shown Himself to his soul in blessing, and now he could quietly hope and wait for His salvation.
Verse 6 does not stand alone. It draws its strength from the cry two verses earlier and from where the answer came.
He is there, at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high — God's anointed King on His holy hill of Zion. And in the psalm He says that this is where He hears from: from His holy hill. Knowing that He hears us out of His holy hill is what gives real rest. It is what makes a man able not to fear the ten thousands of people lined up around him, but to keep looking at Him.
The Hebrew behind "people" here is not a general word for crowds. It sharpens the pain of the scene: these are David's own nation.
The word used for "people" in the singular usually means Israel... In Psalm 3:6 the word is am, Israel.
One writer sees the psalm reaching past David's own crisis to a time still ahead.
Notice again that we are in the last days here. Though the godly man is surrounded by his enemies, he rests in peace. By prophecy he sees their destruction, and blessing on Israel. The psalm expresses confidence in God when hostile numbers press in and there is nothing else to fall back on. Christ has surely entered fully into this.
Another writer adds a caution. Faith like this is real, but it still has to grow.
This faith is beautiful. It is real, fully warranted, and certain to be proved right in the end. Yet as we follow these psalms to their close, we find how many painful experiences may come first. The childlike instinct has to grow into the settled knowledge of a grown man. Only then does "I will not be afraid" become something the soul holds onto for good.
- Confessed — David had judged his own sin, and God had restored him. That is why he could face discipline calmly.
- Heard — this fearlessness rests on verse 4. David knew God had answered his cry from His holy hill.
- Shielded — God stood between him and his troubles. Against God, one enemy or ten thousand is the same.
- Unchanged — the enemies never left; his fears did. He was safe inside while still exposed outside.
- Growing — these words are real faith. Even so, painful trials may come before "I will not be afraid" is settled in the soul.