Psalms 3:4 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah.

I cried ... he heard me - `He answered х `aanah (H6030)] me.' David's habit of "crying" to the Lord at all times, and the fact that the Lord is the continual answerer of his prayer, is the ground of hope that He will now also deliver him.

With my voice. The heart must pray inwardly, and then express its feeling outwardly 'with the voice.' Heart-prayer, unless embodied in words, degenerates into dreamy musing. Words without the heart is hypocritical formalism. Christ, "in the days of His flesh ... offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard" (Hebrews 5:7). God was the Lifter up of His head at the resurrection (Psalms 3:3).

Out of his holy hill - "Zion," upon which David was set as Yahweh king, the type of Messiah, about to reign Out of his holy hill - "Zion," upon which David was set as Yahweh king, the type of Messiah, about to reign on the same hill. The Lord promised to "dwell there forever" (Psalms 132:13-14). Upon Zion, Yahweh, as Israel's God, sat enthroned above the ark of the covenant, which had been removed there by David. The believing Israelite therefore looks for help from Yahweh upon Zion: not merely from 'Elohiym (H430), which expresses God's power in general, but from Yahweh, expressing His covenant relation to Israel; just as the Christian looks to Yahweh Jesus, through whom God is in covenant with believers. Horeb is never in the Old Testament the "holy hill" to which the Israelites looked for help, just as neither do Christians look to the Law, but to the Gospel, which speaks from heaven, of which Zion is the type (Hebrews 12:22-25).

Psalms 3:4

4 I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah.