Psalms 3:1 «A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. » LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many [are] they that rise up against me.
A Psalm of David] Tremellius addeth, Quem cecinit, which he sang when he fled, &c. As birds in the spring tune most sweetly when it rains most sadly. This was better yet than that black sanctus (as they call it) sung by our Henry II in like case, and for like cause. For when, as some few hours before he died, he saw a list of their names who conspired with the king of France and Earl Richard (his son and successor) against him, and found therein his son John (whom he had made earl of Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Nottingham, Derby, and Lancaster, &c.), to be the first; he fell into a grievous passion, both cursing his sons and the day wherein himself was born; and in that distemper departed the world, which so often himself had distempered.
When he fled from] Heb. From the face of Absalom, which he had too much admired, and was now afraid of. Then when he went up Mount Olivet weeping, 2 Samuel 15:30, made he this psalm, say the Rabbis. So in the sack of Ziklag he comforted himself in the Lord his God, 1 Samuel 30:6. A Christian is never without his cordial.
Absalom his son] His darling, his tidling, his one eye. Such another good son was Barabbas, which signifies his father's son, his white boy, as we say, like as Absalom signifieth his father's peace, but it proved otherwise; as it likewise befell Eve, when she called her firstborn Cain, and thought she had got a great boon from the Lord. But
Fallitur augurio spes bona saepe suo,
David was disappointed: for Absalom proved like the sea Pacific or calm, so it is called; but Captain Drake found it rough and troublous above measure (Heyl. Geog.). Absalom would have done by David, if he could have come at him, as afterwards Amidas did with his father Muleasses, king of Tunis, in Africa, whom he first dethroned, and afterwards put out his eyes (Turk. Hist.). In Absalom was nothing good but his name. That may have a good name the nature whereof is so ill that it is not to be named; like as, Leviticus 20:17, abominable incest between brother and sister is called chesed, or kindness, per antiphrasin.
Ver. 1. Lord, how are they increased that trouble me?] He worthily wondereth at so sudden a change:
Omnia sunt hominum tenui pendentia filo;
Et subito casu, quae valuere, ruunt.
David was deserted by all almost, and had now as many enemies as till now he had subjects, excepting a few that stuck to him. Our Henry VI, who had been the most potent monarch for dominions that ever England had, was, when deposed, not the master of a molehill; and served to show that mortality was but the stage of mutability.
Many are they that rise up against me ] Many, and many, by the figure anaphora. Here is also in the original a ομοιοτελευτον in the words, Tsarai in the former clause, and Gnalai in the latter; not unlike that doleful ditty of the Church, Lamentations 5:16, Oi na lanu, chei chattanu, Woe to us that we have sinned! which is so elegant in the original, that Mr William Whately of Bradbury (who used to be very plain in his preaching, and not to name a Greek, Latin, or Hebrew word) quoted it once in the Hebrew, as a hearer of his relateth (Mr Leigh, Saint's Encour. Ep. dedic.).