Ps 3:7

Ps. 3.7

Diag.

Rise up  /  O Lord!

Give me  /  victory  /  O my God!

Oh /  that you would  /  smite  /  all my enemies  /  on the cheek

Oh /  that you would  /  smash/  the teeth  /  of wicked men.

From the other side of sleep these are some of the first words on David’s mouth. The day, as we have seen, is already half-spent. But, in David’s sleep, something new has emerged. It began, of course, before he closed his eyes; he knew he would be answered from Zion. However, there needed to be a time during which this assurance would be allowed to permeate his being, and it happened most thoroughly while David was in a state of the ‘sleep of the dead’. In utter passivity this assurance coursed through him and in the day he was made anew.

“Rise up, O Lord”: these words are in direct contrast to vs. 1 (“How many rise up against me…”). And, whereas the deadening sense of “How many….” spoken repeatedly as David sinks further and further down in despair evokes the sense of an immense pressure, this single phrase carries with it that ‘light’ giving sense of a rising sun (a “morning prayer” as the Psalm has been titled). It is only stated once in contrast to vs. 1-2.

1)       In vs. 1-2, as we have seen, the repeated sense of “how many…” is closely aligned with the sense of growing magnitude. Fear tends to accomplish its purposes most when it generates itself inside the person. As we also saw, however, David’s sense of an impending doom, much like Israel’s sense of the magnitude of the nations they were called to displace, is not simply one of illusion. David, and Israel, really did face giants, in the sense of overwhelming forces aligned against the manifestly weak. There is a temptation to see David’s fear as simply an interior disorientation, as if he wasn’t seeing properly. I do not think this is the case. When the spies returned from the land and said they saw giants, in one sense they were speaking accurately; the nations on the other side of the Jordan, in comparison with Israel, were giants. Similarly, with David, he really is facing overwhelming odds with his son’s battalions and cohorts bearing down on him. The point is not that David, and Israel, weren’t seeing ‘reality’. The point is that they were looking at reality from the vantage of abandonment by God.

a.       Again, the threat/curse issued at David behind his back in vs. 2 “There is no victory for him from God!” only serves to highlight a concern that David himself has as he has been exiled from Jerusalem/Zion. This response, in the face of danger, is not unfaithful or deluded. It rings throughout the OT and finds its fullest expression in the Garden of Gethsemane, with Jesus on his knees as his ‘son’, Judas, is coming to betray him. This sense of God’s face becoming clouded, not due to any sinfulness on the part of the king, is essential to understanding the subsequent cry for help “from Zion”. It is, likewise, essential to penetrate this sense of despair and fear in order to understand the astonishing contrast accomplished in this verse.

b.       The phrase, “Rise up…” often refers, especially in the context of war (which is the setting here) to the ‘rising up’ of the arc of the covenant as Israel mobilized for war. The arc would be, literally, lifted up and carried into the midst of battle, representing the actual movement of God’s ‘footstool’ into the midst of the nations. His all-powerful glory and presence where then being transported, in the front of the camp’s departure, as, in a sense, the commander-in-chief.

                                                               i.      Yet, here, David is far from Zion and does not have the arc with him. However, we have already seen how David, in some profound and mysterious way, sees his “answer” coming, not from ‘inside himself’ or “from his relationship with God” but “from Zion”. His answer will come from the place where the arc is maintained: the Temple (which, strictly speaking, hasn’t even been built yet). It is an external and real place that has been established as the source of his assurance. And it is also grounded upon the external and real arc of the covenant as being the footstool of his father, the Lord.

                                                             ii.      This really is astonishing. David somehow sees the arc and God’s presence as actually ‘rising up’ and moving to him from Zion, or, perhaps he sees its power as speeding toward him. And David is absolutely confident it will.

“Rise up, O Lord…give me victory...Oh that you would smite…Victory belongs to the Lord”:  These few verses and the interplay of the Lord and his anointed is a very good ‘therapy’ that might be needed in order to really enter the drama inherent in this Psalm (and Psalm 2). There is no way to simply provide some ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ answer to what is happening here. One cannot, for example, say that Lord is simply accomplishing all of this; David asks the Lord to give him victory. And, on the other hand, one cannot but deny that victory belongs “to the Lord”. It is here that we see, I think, how much Israel, and David, have incorporated a covenantal understanding of ‘reality’.

1)       In Ps. 2 we saw this deceptively simple request coming from the Lord addressed to his ‘son’, David: “Just ask and I will grant nations as your inheritance”. It goes on to describe how David will “smash nations” like a potter’s vessel with a rod of iron. We saw there how much God’s “sovereignty” or “justice” has been, not just handed over to David, but something that exists in this incredibly personal interplay between David and the Lord. History, justice, ‘sovereignty’ all ‘move forward’ and emanate from this dialogue. It is not established one sidedly.

a.       Yes, it is something grounded completely on God’s anointing. However, that anointing is only given so that David can make this request and enter into dialogue with his (now) father. While one’s birth is, chronologically, prior, its priority, in this sense, cannot overshadow the fact that its purpose was not to simply open dialogue but to bring God’s justice to fruition in the world.

b.       A slight digression: it is often thought (although not explicitly phrased as such) that God’s ‘power’ is the ground of all of his other attributes. So, for example, God’s commandments (of ‘do not kill’) are ultimately founded upon the power of God and He could have said “Kill’ and it would have been right to kill. The presupposition in all of this is that there is this prior, or ‘grounding’, reality to God that establishes all of his other expressions (or revelations) of himself. This power is variously worded (either as ‘grace’, ‘sovereignty’, or what-have-you). Once this schema has been adopted (and it is as natural as idols), certain other possibilities are, by definition, excluded and impossible.

                                                               i.      I would argue that such a hidden presupposition does severe damage to this Psalm. God’s entering into covenant with David (and also with Israel, but that covenant is not as much in the horizon of this Psalm), is not simply the expression of a ‘later’ power of God. It is not simply the expression of God’s ‘bending down to us’. Rather, God’s covenanting with David is itself just as much of an expression of his ‘power’ and ‘sovereignty’ as his act of creation itself.

                                                             ii.      We must hold both of these realities together: there is no sense that God ‘needs’ David; there is also no sense that this could ever be accomplished apart from the covenant. Now, to attempt to understand this along purely logical grounds will, I think, flounder. However, understood as an expression of relationship, of family, and of love, this is not confusing really at all. A father’s son is not ‘necessary’ to the father but the father would never see his son as merely secondary to himself, or, in other words, a son’s accomplishments are not a robbing of the father’s glory. In other words, this reality can be easily understood dramatically. Covenant as reality means ‘reality’ is anything but stationary. Of course, the amount of work necessary to broaden our perspective of ‘reality’ to be incorporate this is difficult. A few suggestions: a composer, artist, musician, poet, painter would rarely speak about their work as “how ‘true’ it is”. One does not think about Mozart’s 41^st symphony as ‘true’. One may think of them as, in some way, expressing ‘truths’, but to call them “true” just sounds odd; I would never say that my favorite novel is my favorite because it is ‘true’. Rather, we call them ‘beautiful’. It is a much more apt description.

1.       Understanding reality as ‘covenantal’ rather than propositional means that it is conveyed much more ‘accurately’ when it is shown, when it acknowledges that the ‘heart’ of reality is dynamism, a living breath. Beauty, and the reality at the center of covenant, betrays an understanding that it is irreducible, that it could be (and should be) shown from an infinite number of perspectives and that it never would be fully ‘shown’ because there is something there that is alive and dynamic. The moment one catches a glimpse of it one is simultaneously convinced there is ‘more’, that one has actually seen very little, that one could infinitely move forward without ever overtaking it (and that, in fact, it would hide itself were one to ever approach it with this goal in mind).

                                                            iii.      Were someone to ever try and ‘nail down the covenant’, the covenant would hide itself (probably unbeknownst to the person seeking it). In some mysterious act of vengeance, the covenant would take with it almost every other capacity we have to live within it (and perceive it: the “pure in heart” shall see God): our poetic sense of reality, our very natural sense that our eyes are windows and our minds and hearts are just as mysterious.

2)       “Oh that you would smite my enemies on the cheek…”: Following on the heels of Ps. 2 this is a wonderful counterpoint. Remember, in Ps. 2 it was said to David, “You shall break them with an iron rod; like a potter’s vessel you shall pulverize them.” A few things that make this contrast so eloquent:

a.       The quoted portion of Ps. 2 was spoken by the Enthroned One to his son. His son then delivered this message to us. Nowhere in Ps. 2 did we hear the responding words of the anointed to the anointer. It was all an act of mediation, much like Moses, or a prophet, delivering the words they were given. In such an interesting way then do we hear that the victory is one that David will accomplish. It is as if the father is looking, lovingly, upon his son as he, the son, enacts everything he has been taught and given.

b.       Here, the words originate from the anointed one and the dynamic is reversed. Now, the son attributes the action entirely to his father. Instead of potter’s vessels we have cheeks and teeth. And now, we have a son who is ‘honoring his father’ by giving to him all the glory of his deliverance and accomplishment. Now, “Victory is the Lord’s!”.

                                                               i.      I would wager that many discussions of ‘grace and nature’ is here embodied and totally surpassed.

c.       This is the dynamism inherent to love. The father gives to the son, while the son gives everything back to the father (one could, almost feel here the Holy Spirit which is the love between the father and the son).

d.       This is a fugue of point and counter-point. This is a drama of monologue, dialogue and the several acts.

e.       Words of the Son: “I am unable to accomplish anything I have not seen my father doing. I do only the will of the father.” Words of the Father: “I have now made the nations to be your footstool.”

“Smashed teeth”: Throughout the OT one sees how punishment is often delivered as the opposite of the sin. For example, “the pit the evildoers have dug; they have fallen in themselves”. When Israel fails to let the ground lie fallow, they are kicked off the land. When the go after other gods, like a harlot, they are publicly stripped naked to reveal their shame.

1)       We see here the same dynamic at work. In vs. 2 it was the mouth that called said the Lord had abandoned David. Now, the cheek and the teeth will be struck. And struck so forcefully that they will be left ‘speechless’.

a.       The effect of having one’s teeth ‘smashed’ is the loss of the ability to adequately formulate the war-curse of vs. 2. “Victory” then must also be understood in the muting of Absalom and his horde, and the taking away of their ‘mouths of arrogance’. They are to be, literally, struck dumb. This is insightful in that the Lord’s victory encompasses this aspect of human rebellion. It is not merely a material defeat. It also robs the person of their ability to attack David’s true self: his relationship with his father.