40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Psalm 3-4 (Episode 526)

Episode Date: October 10, 2026

In this episode, Daniel and Chad work through Psalm 3 and Psalm 4, showing how these prayers from David speak into real distress, guilt, fear, and trust. They also connect both psalms to the life of Christ, highlighting how David's words often reach beyond his own situation to Jesus. Have a listen. More from 1517: ·       Support the work at 1517 ·       1517 on Youtube ·       1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts ·       1517 Events Schedule ·       1517 Academy - Free Theological Education   New Books from 1517 Publishing: ·       The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco ·       Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz ·       By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas ·       Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith   More from the hosts: ·       Daniel Emery Price ·       Chad Bird   Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter Facebook

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing, read some articles and sign up for some academies. You can go look at the book collection. And of course, you can go over to the right-hand corner, click the donate link,

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We are in Psalm number three. So we're going through the first book of Psalms, as it were. We do as many as we can get through per episode. We'll see how many that is. It's going to be more than one, I can tell, by the length of this particular song. So we're for sure getting into four, maybe even five. We'll see how it goes. But we have this Psalm, unlike some of the other Psalms that we've gotten through so far, Chad. Got a little title on this one, you know? Got some, got an author and a context.

Yeah. So the superscription is the Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom, his son. And I think both these things are worthy of just making a comment now. We won't point this out every time. But since we're just beginning the Psalms, it's a good thing to point out that when it says the Psalm of David, so this Psalm would fall within, well, it depends how you count, either 73 or 75 of the Psalms by David. And the reason there's a difference is in the book of Psalms itself, 73 of them have David's name attached to them. Now, a couple of those which are anonymous, there's more than two, but of the anonymous Psalms, there are two which are ascribed explicitly to David in the New Testament.

So total 73 in the Psalms, two others in the New Testament, 75, meaning that half, exactly half of the Psalms have David's authorship. Could be more the anonymous Psalms by David, but at least half of them are by David. And of course, there's multiple other authors as well. And then the second part, the historical reference, when he fled from Absalom, his son, that's one of 13 or 14 of these historical references that you have scattered throughout the book of Psalms. And I really, I mean, if I had my druthers, I would have liked for more of these to be there because it becomes kind of cool when you know the historical context from which the Psalm arose, because then you can kind of put these side by side.

You mean like, okay, what's going on here in the prose narrative? And then what's David's prayerful response to this in the Psalms? Because they're not always the same. Like if you just had the historical narrative, you might think one thing. If you just had the Psalm, you might think another thing. And both of these end up kind of complementing each other. Like, for instance, Psalm 3 is about this revolt of Absalom, which you can read about in 2nd Samuel.

You know, David's like super afraid something's going to happen to Absalom his son. And he's super very like heartbroken, just like heart wrenching lament he pours out when Asylum is killed. Well, if all you had was Psalm 3, you wouldn't think that. Because Psalm 3 comes across is him praying against his enemies. Yeah. So in this case, you've got the narrative, which portrays a very heartbroken David over the revolt of Absalom. Psalm 3 presents a very more stalwart picture of David praying against

his foes. So anyway, it's neat when you have these historical references. Yeah, another thing it does is it tells you that these Psalms are not put forward to you chronologically. Yes. Right. So, you might be like, whoa, man, so this, so everything that happens in the Psalms after this, happened after that? No. That is not how this works. So that's interesting that it wasn't just, these aren't chronologically in order for you, but they were put together in a different way. And also, if you, when you have like the context like this, you were saying like, okay, this is going to sound like you could, you might think that he might be, David might be fighting any, who knows what enemy he's talking about here, like David had a lot of enemies. You figure out,

okay, he was talking about absalom here. And as you were saying, you know, he's, the Absalom thing is actually super complicated because David, you can go back and listen to our episodes in this, but yes, David is distressed over this. But this is also mostly David's fault for being not a good father at all. Like a lot, like this, I'll put it this way. This seemed preventable if David would have been,

just acted correctly, which he doesn't. And so when you get all of that baked into these words where you're like, okay, so David's, uh, in this song, like, okay, he's really bringing down the hammer. He wants God to bring the hammer on his enemies. But I also know he's brokenhearted. And I also know that this is like, he is not innocent in this whole thing. It wasn't like he handled everything correctly. Uh, and that is how most of the time when you're going to have to like ask God to do something, that's this kind of situation you do find yourself in where you're like, you might have mixed feelings about the entire situation.

Most situations you are not completely blameless in when you go to God. You're not saying like, God, here I am, just completely innocent and all these bad things are happening to me. And so you wouldn't know all that from this language necessarily, which is nice because it tells you that you're able to talk to God about, like, do you don't have to get into all the nitty-gritty of like why this is happening, but you're just like, well, it is happening.

I need you to help me. Yeah, those are great points. The only other thing I will add before we get to the psalm itself is that kind of building on what you were said, we're saying, all this is actually very helpful too when you look at the Psalms as we do as ultimately the prayers of Christ.

Because when you see David's life, and in this case what he was suffering as a result of Absalom staging the coup and David having to flee and all of these things happening when you see those as a foreshadowing of the sufferings and the persecution of the son of David and then you read these words in the mouth of Jesus who's talking about his foes arising up against him and him them saying almost verbatim when he's on the cross there's no salvation for Him and God. Then you realize, oh, much of what David writes, and we'll see example after example of this, much of what David writes can come across as just not perfectly fitting his historical context

or his historical person or his historical righteousness or the lack thereof. Or it seems like really exaggerated, like really hyperbolic. Well, yeah, and it's purposely designed that way because he's describing not just his own situation or not just himself or his kingship, but that of the Messiah. So his words are purposely hyperbolic because they will actually fit the life of the Messiah, fit with his descendant who will sit on his throne. For me, that's become very helpful in understanding the Psalms. Because there's a lot of times I mean this and like, okay, but man, this is really,

seem to stretch when I'm talking about David. He's boasting of his righteousness and how clean his hands are. I'm like, yeah, I've read First and Second Samuel. I know how clean, in quotes, your hands are. But it fits with the Messiah. So anyway, all that is kind of preamble to this, but a good preamble to understanding what's coming up in Psalm 3 and, of course, all the other Psalms we're looking at is as well. In this particular Psalm, he also doesn't do a lot of the, which is typical of David, like he will usually do this. Like you're saying, you're usually like, man, David, how are you talking about how righteous and

blameless you are all the time? What is it going on? Doesn't do a lot of that in Psalm 3. This is just like sort of this like plea for help, but he doesn't really do this like, Lord, view my innocence here, invests, search me, Lord, and find that I am

the victim of all victims here. He doesn't do a lot of that in this thing, which probably because he's like, God, I just need you to veil me out of this. Yeah. Yeah, it's maybe there's a bit of honesty here on part of David. He realizes he, as you said, this whole situation was preventable. But anyway, so I'll read the Psalm now. It's only eight verses. It's like Psalm 4, which also is eight verses.

In fact, there's a lot of, just like as we discuss. in our previous episode. There's a lot of connections between Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. There's actually a lot of connections between Psalm 3 and Psalm 4. So here's the eight verses. Oh Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. I lay down and slept. I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord, save me, oh my God, for you strike all my enemies on the cheek. You break the teeth of the wicked.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be on your people. Now, I didn't read a couple, actually three of Sayla words that are in there. And I actually did that on purpose. I never read those words. I know some people do, some people don't. But chances are, Sayla occurs like 71 times, I think, in about 39, 40 of the Psalms. It's probably just a musical pause. It's a kind of a musical notation.

No one, if you've come across someone who says it means such and such, Well, no, it doesn't, because no really knows what it means. That's why we translate the Hebrew. We don't translate it. We just write it in English the way it sounds in Hebrew. But it's probably a, yeah, probably just kind of some kind of musical pause or something like that. But it does occur three times here. There was a Christian band in the 80s.

I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they were called Selah. Oh, no. And I thought I was a Petro fan. This was not that. But they, I always thought that that. was like, oh, that's a good name for a Christian Bam because I'm pretty sure it just is like a musical interlude

thing. Yes, yeah. Yeah, probably that's all that you're looking at. So, anyway, I just wanted to in case people realize those three Say-Laws were there, that's the reason I didn't read them. One of the things I like about this is that I feel like David is doing some of this

speaking in faith things that maybe are not so yet, right? And so when you have this, even things like I cried aloud to the Lord and he answered me from his holy hill, did he yet when you wrote this? Or is this used like saying, like you're going to because you're promised to. And so I can say this as a fact, right? That I'm going to cry aloud to you and you're going. And I can speak of it past tense. this is how certain I am about it.

Or even saying things like, I will not be afraid of many thousands of people. This is like talking yourself into this. This is hyping yourself up here. Right. They've set themselves all around me. I'm not going to be afraid because, you know, I got the Lord with me. This is kind of like what faith sounds like sometimes. And I don't mean to say that like it speaks things and then they happen with some kind of like word of faith thing.

But if you have certain promises from God, you can take those to the bank, even if those things have not played out exactly that way yet. Yeah. Yeah, and you have that, well, it's in the Psalms, it's in the prophets, too. In fact, there's a feature of Hebrew which will be prophesying what's going to happen in the future, but it's not really presented as a future event. And that's sometimes called the prophetic perfect in Hebrew. that since I'm talking about it as if it's past tense, because I'm so certain it's going to happen in the future that I describe it as if it's already happened. That's that same kind of confidence.

It's basically what hope is, right? Hope is the confidence. Hope is the hand of trust reaching into the future and grabbing hold of the promises of God, knowing that whether it's happened now or it's going to happen in the future, it's certain. In fact, it's more certain than the rising of the sun, because God has already said something is going to happen for. us. Yeah, I mean, I like that, not to jump ahead, but I like that in verse five, he basically he says that, like, I went to sleep. I'm being hunted. You know, this is what the thing is, David, David's being hunted down. So sleep was probably like a tough thing to do, but he did it. He laid

down, went to sleep, and he awoke, right? So he woke up, which was, he views as like kind of miraculous that he was able to do this. Like, I closed my eyes, and I opened him again. The Lord, so this must be the Lord that's doing this, I sustain me, and then says, I'm not going to be afraid of anybody now. Like the little piece that he needed was, I mean, I already went to sleep once, and I didn't die in the middle of the night. I'm not going to be, I have no reason to be afraid. Obviously, the Lord is on my side.

Yeah. Yeah, things like that are add, I don't know, it's like extra dimension to it because we all have experienced sleepless nights, right? Because we're, whatever, you know, we're worried. Our minds are full of anxiety, thoughts, concerns. Maybe we've just had a terrible day, you know, and so we're laying there awake at night. Some of the Psalms do describe that.

I'm talking about you have held my eyelids open. So there are nights like that where God's like, nope, I'm not going to let you sleep. But here is like complete confidence. It's like, yeah, all these things were happening to me, but I, you know, just put my head of the pillow and I slept. and then I woke up again. And it wasn't because, you know, I just was super tired.

I did it because God's one who protected me and sustained me. Yeah. Yeah. So the beginning starts out with something that comes up, again, the many, right? Three times we hear about the many. Many are my foes. Many are rising against me. Many are saying in my soul, which of course fits with what was happening to David during

the coup of Absalom. It certainly fits with the son of David. I mean, just read the gospels, right? many of my foes described exactly what Jesus was was facing all the time everywhere everywhere he went they were listening they were challenging him they were plotting against him so many are my foes david says that son of david says that and they're saying of him there's no salvation for him in god and as i mentioned earlier i mean that fits with david fits with christ on the cross they were actually quoting Psalm 22 when they hurled those insults at Jesus, but the same thing fits here.

Basically, when someone says there is no salvation of Him and God, it means that God is not on his side. God's not going to step in and rescue him because he's not doing the will of God. He's not on God's side. God doesn't care about him. You know, whatever the thoughts of the speaker who says these words are, he is claiming that God is not going to do for him what needs to be done. Yeah, this is that this man is not watched with God, and God is not going to reach down and deliver him now. God is going to remain removed from him. There is no salvation for Him and God.

It's not just that God is not going to deliver this person, but it's more that God has never been with this person and will not be with them now. Yeah. And I mean, that fits with the thoughts of the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees. I mean, they all probably sincerely thought that God was on their side and not on the side of Jesus. So it wasn't just kind of a mean insult they were lobbing against them. they actually believed this, as probably did some of the followers of Absalom as well. And then when you transition to verse three, you've got this strong adversative.

So many, many, many are rising up. They're saying these sorts of things. And then we have, but you, O Lord. So they can say whatever they want, but you, O Lord. And now we have this, you know, direct address to God. Well, you, Lord are what? Well, you're a shield. You're my glory.

you're the one who who lifts my head and the lifting of the head is used in context where, you know, you're being rescued, you're being delivered, you're being given victory. So it's, you know, as opposed to having your head hanging down, you know, you won't look up because of fear or because of defeat, whatever it might be. God lifts up your head. And then he summarizes it briefly in verse four, I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me. It's real simple. I cried. He answered. He answered. I prayed, he answered. Now, he answered me, it says, from his holy hill. Now, that's a connection back to what we saw in Psalm 2, where God, speaking about his Messiah, says, as for me, I have set my king on

Zion, my holy hill. So God answering him from his holy hill is tying this all back to where God had put his words upon his Messiah saying, you're my king, you're my anointed, you're my son. So the messianic connection is there with Holy Hill. There's a, I think, I don't know if it's famous. It's well known in basketball circles. There's a video of a years and years and years ago

of a college basketball game. And I thought about it immediately. When I saw it, I thought about the lifter of my head thing, where it's like a very competitive game and a guy misses a shot and it's towards the end of the game and he's kind of jogging back and his head is down

and his teammate at like as he runs by like take this doesn't say anything to him it runs by puts his hand under his chin and just lifts his head up and just keeps running and like it was it's really cool like and then the guy's like alright and like you know like gets back into it You're like, yeah, like, everyone kind of knows, like, what that's like, where, in this case, it's God doing this.

But where you're like, man, I'm not doing well. I'm doubting. I'm discouraged. And you need someone to sit, you know, this is a chin up, right? But you actually had a visual of it where I'm going to actually take my hand and move your head from down to up. We're not doing that, which is great. And God does this a lot. And what's interesting about it is David says, okay, you're a shield about me and you're my glory in the lifter of my head.

When God does that for you, when he gets his, you know, when he gets that nail-scarred hand under your head and pops your chin up, then you see that David said, all right, I'm going to cry out to the Lord, right? He does, this, it's hard for you to cry out to the Lord with your chin buried in your chest, you know? that's not usually how it works and so god'll pop that chin up and tell you to cry out to him it's good our minds must be in sync this morning because even as i was describing those words that image popped into my head i've seen it used of the you know the player who lifted up the chin of his fellow player yeah it's a it's a great it's a great image of what god does for us that leads into five and six which is the next couplet here so i lay down and slept i woke again again for the Lord sustained me.

And because of that, I won't be afraid of all these thousands of people who have arrayed themselves against me. Now, you can read that in exactly the same way that we just read it. It's actually a, it's a great morning prayer. Like when you're getting out of bed and you're getting your cup of coffee here, you're walking until you get your cup of coffee. I mean, it's an awesome thing to say in the morning, I lay down and slept. I woke again for the Lord sustained me. Now you can read it that way, and that's perfectly legit.

You can also read it with a look toward the son of David. Who did? I mean, he did lay down in sleep and woke again. I'm thinking of him like in the boat with all this storm raging around him. Jesus is asleep. Everybody else is freaking out. He's fine. He's like, yeah, I lay down to sleep for my father will sustain me.

You can also read this in reference to the ultimate sleep to his crucifixion. and his burial. So he lay down and slept. That ultimate Sabbath on that one Saturday, where he got a good long sleep, right? Yes, yep, absolutely. So you can read this a lot of different ways. All of them are truthful, all of them are correct.

In reference to David, in reference to yourself, in reference to the son of David. So he and he woke again on Easter morning for his father sustained him. So David, us, Christ says, I'm not going to be afraid. What's there to be afraid of? Not just the many, but he adds here many thousands of people who have set themselves against me.

David's not even being hyperbolic here. Yeah, it's just true. It's like, yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good. You know, if God is on your side, you're always in the majority. So that's the way it is for David and for us and for Christ. Yeah, we might say something like this, I will not be afraid of that. Now there's not a thousand people out there trying to get me,

David by David probably not even being you know he's not even exaggerating here it's like I got like literally a thousand guys trying to kill me right now yeah he was uh he was definitely in that literal situation and then uh verse so the last two verses uh kind of quite nicely quite poetically uses the same verb that we heard back in verse one so in verse one he says many are rising against me and in verse seven he says arise oh Lord So this is what my enemies are doing So I need you to stand up God

Arise O Lord And then do for me What they say You wouldn't do for me They say There's no salvation for Him and God And so David says Save me, oh my God

My being that word of faith Not just oh God but my God So I belong to him He belongs to me, my God And then we have the image really it's you could you could apply this to more like to animals like you're breaking the teeth of the wicked so you've got this animal wild animal coming at you and they of course have as their primary weapon their their fangs whatever the animal might be so you're breaking the teeth of the wicked is a fitting way of saying you're destroying these wild animals that are against me but it's also quite fitting too when he says you strike all my enemies on the cheek you break the teeth of the wicked both of those are, of course, connected with the mouth area. And what are these enemies doing? They're saying of him, slandering him, we might say, there's no salvation for him in God. And then the Psalm ends with

this great confession. I love this. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing beyond your people. That first part, salvation belongs to the Lord. So it's his, right? It's not ours. It's not ours. We're gifted with salvation, but it doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the Lord, and he then gifts it to us. And because of that, and this is a great way for this to end, because of this, it says your blessing, he doesn't say your blessing be on me, even though that's true, but he says your blessing be on your people. So the blessing God gives to the king then flows also to the people. And that is true not only of David, but of course, especially for the son of David,

the blessing upon Christ, the fact that he's resurrected for us, blessed by his father, protected by his father, then that flows to all of us who are his people. Yeah, you got to love, there is salvation, there is no salvation for him and God, and David ending with, I mean, it's not exactly your call, is it? I mean, salvation doesn't belong to you. Yeah. Yeah, you're claiming something. You have no right to claim because it's not your property. Yeah, that's a beautiful ending. Short Psalm, but man, there's so much good stuff back to there. Yeah, by evidence that it took us 28 minutes to get through this guy. We ought to see if we can do Psalm 4. Sure one.

Can we have gravity? We'll see. Yeah, I bet we can. So Psalm 4, unlike Psalm 3, doesn't give us any kind of history behind it. So we don't know, you know, was this written? There's a lot, as I mentioned, there's a lot of similarity in language, in themes between Psalm 3 and Psalm 4. So was it written around the same time as Absalom's Rebellion? Possibly.

Completely different time? Also possible. We just can't say. Now, this one starts out as a number. number of the psalms do to the choir master with stringed instruments a psalm of david so we know it's david's psalm to the choir master is pretty typical translation of that hebrew phrase it adds with stringed instruments sometimes you will have the superscriptions of the psalms that say something about an instrument sometimes it's the name of probably a tune anyway that's the way this one starts out and he gets to gets to the point right

way. I'll go ahead and read the eight verses, then we'll jump back into it. But notice in verse one, he doesn't set the stage at all. He just starts out by telling God to answer him. No lead in. No, oh, Lord my God, no, oh, Heavenly Father, just answer me when I call, oh, God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O men, little o'er, oh sons of men, is the heap of there. O men. How long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long would you love vain words?

I think I would just translate that vanity or emptiness. The words is really not in there. But how long will you love vain words or how long will you love emptiness? And seek after lies. But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. The Lord hears when I call to him. Be angry and do not sin. Ponder in your hearts on your veds and be silent.

Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord. You have put more joy in my heart than when they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell. well in safety. That is really hard for me to read in the ESV.

I had that memorized in the New American Standard. This is my nightly prayer unless I just like immediately fall asleep. Because of the, saw me, this has been in kind of church's tradition, the night time prayer for centuries because of that closing verse in peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, oh Lord, make me dwell in safety. But, you know, when you have something memorized and you're trying to read it in other translation. I'm like got to really focus because I'm wanting to change some of the words here. Now I just a couple things to point out here. I've mentioned that it's got you know connections

with uh with Psalm 3. One of those is in verse 6 because we have this phrase there are there are many who say. I don't know why they change a translation from Psalm to Psalm but that is verbatim what you have in Psalm 3 verse 3 where it says many. are saying of my soul. There's no salvation for him at God. So that's one tie-in. You also have the connection of sleep, right? We already, we just talked about how he lay down and slept. He awoke for the Lord to saint him. And here you have, in peace, I will both lie down in sleep. For God makes me dwell in safety. And there's a couple of other shared word between the two Psalms. But yeah, he starts out right away by just telling God, hey, I need an answer here. Answer me.

Yeah, I like this way to speak to God where you're – you say, answer me when I call. It sounds like something you would say to your kid. That's what he says. It's like a parent. When I call, you better pick up. Yeah. Like, what am I paying for the cell phone bill for if when I call you don't answer? Like, I'm the one person that you better pick up that phone.

But, yeah, so I do like that. He says, hey, you need to answer when I call. But then says, oh, God of my righteousness, which is nice. So David is not confused about where his righteousness comes from. He doesn't think that this is that he is possessing his own righteousness. And hey, God of my righteousness, when I call, you need to pick up. Okay. And here's why.

Because in the past, you have given me relief when I was in distress. is why I'm calling, right? So I'm calling because we've got a history here of me calling in distress and you answering. So when I call, I would like to keep that thing going. And then he does the be gracious to me and hear my prayer. So this is the admission that I do understand that you picking up is a grace. I don't deserve this. I've not earned this.

So I do realize that when I call out to you and you answer that you're doing this out of grace, I am getting something that I do not deserve when you do this. But I do expect you to do it. And this is how the Christian works, where I totally understand that God doesn't owe me anything. But he has made certain promises that I do expect him to live up to. Yeah, I mean, this is the bold audacity of children asking their father for something. right? Yeah. Listen,

yeah, you've made me your child by grace here. And so I'm I'm called upon you to be my heavenly father to rescue me, to answer me when I call. I love the image in Hebrew. It's like you're being squeezed when it says distress. So it's like you're in a tight spot.

So I, you would maybe literally be like in a tight spot you widened it for me. So I was being squeaked, like the walls are closing in. I'm being squeezed here. And you pushed those walls back. You widened it for me.

I was, you know, trapped in this crevice or whatever image you want to use. It is the idea that you are literally stressed in the sense of squeezed in. And God came in. He widened things for you. All because, of course, he's gracious. He's the God of our righteousness. So as a lot of the Psalms do, you, uh, You kind of switch back and forward.

You got to kind of be lighten your feet with the Psalms because they don't fall to the same order that our prayers do. That's fine. I mean, church prayers or extemporaneous prayers don't do this. I mean, how many times in the middle of an extemporaneous prayer or a church prayer has the one praying stopped and, like, addressed people who aren't even there? Like your enemies are just kind of generic people.

But you'll have this. It's like the psalmist will start out, oh, you know, oh God, whatever you're asking for. And then he'll turn and be like, and you guys. It's a strange thing. And you kind of get used to it the more you're in the Psalms. But that's what's happening here. He's not just praying. He's actually talking to these people.

Listen, listen, people. I got something to say to you, too. Well, it almost feels like he's like, all right, I got to cry out to God and you need to answer me. I'm in this tight spot. I'm being squeezed. I need the grace of God. and let me tell you, you guys, why I'm in this tight spot. You're not helping with this at all.

In fact, you seem to be the source of this tight spot that I'm in. So I got some thoughts about that. Yeah. It's good. It is good. And he'll do this for four more verses. So he, you know, he's going on talking to whoever he's addressing. He describes them as just people, sons of men.

So, oh, man, how long will you, are you? you're going to turn my honor to shame? You know, how longer are you going to be heaping whatever the shame might be upon me? You're not honoring me. You're not doing anything that you should do to your neighbor, but you're shaming me. You're switching things around. And why do you do this? Well, because you like, you love emptiness. And, you know, if I look at what you're running after, what you're seeking, it just lies. It's like you're, what kind of life, are you living here? This is, you know, ecclesiastity,

vanity, you know, vanity, all is vanity. You're just running after emptiness. And when I look at what, you know, is most important to you, what you're really going for, it just lies, you know? But you should know, he goes on to say. But here's what you should know, that the Lord knows those who are his. He's set them apart.

You know, I just realized, I guess I just hadn't ever looked at this until this morning, The verb that's used here for setting apart is this idea of making a distinction. So this goes all the way back like to Exodus. Remember during the plagues that God made a distinction between Israel's livestock and the Egyptians. And then after the golden calf, this is Exodus 33, 16. Moses uses that same verb when he says that God's presence with Israel is what makes them distinct. from all the other peoples.

So it's this image of being set apart by God goes all the back to the Exodus itself. And the ones he sets apart, I don't like this translation. I know that's typical translation, godly. And it's just that, man, that can be so misused. It's where we get our word, Hasid.

Maybe if you've heard of the Hasidim, they get it from this particular word. But it's four from the same word that we get Hesed from. So there's one James Hamilton, who's an Old Testament guy, he's got a great two-volume commentary in the Psalms. He translates it literally as the loving kindness ones, which I kind of like. Yeah. I mean, it's not very poetic, but the Hesed ones.

You've set apart the Hesed ones for yourself. And because of that, the Lord hears when I call to him. Yeah, that would read, like, God has set apart those he has, those who have, received his loving kindness, right? And you're like, yeah. Perfect sentence. Yeah, this is, and I'd like that David does this thing where, so he doesn't say that that's him, right?

He says, just know that the Lord has set apart some people, okay? And you're like, okay, and I'm in that group, and he hears me when I call. So that's how he inserts himself into that category. is that Lord has set apart certain people, and guess what? When I call to him, he hears. So I'm in that group. I'm in that group too.

Yeah. And then in four and five, he goes on to, I don't know if he's still, I guess maybe he's still addressing these other folks, or maybe he's talking also to himself or to the Hecad ones. But he says here in words that are being quoted by Paul in Ephesians, be angry. and do not sin. Ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. So Paul in Ephesians 426, he quotes his verse from the Septuagint Septuagint version. And Paul says, you know, be angry and do not sin. And do not let the sun go down on your anger, give no opportunity to the devil. So quoting directly from Psalm 4 here. But yeah, so if you're

going to be angry, don't sin in your anger and take care of that before your eyes close. When you're on your beds, be silent, think, pray, kind of set things right, offer right sacrifices, and the way you do that is you put your trust in the Lord. Instead of seeking lies, instead of loving vain words, then try being silent, offering right sacrifices. and put your trust where it belongs. Yeah, I've always took this because people quote this a lot. Like, you know, it's possible to have righteous anger. Christians love righteous anger.

It's because everyone has anger. And if you're a Christian, you're like, well, it's good that I could have a righteous version of that. So like all my anger, of course, is righteous anger. No, this is typically not the case. I'm not run across that much righteous anger in my life. But be angry and sin not. or do not sin.

Yeah, let's you know that, like, there are things that you could be upset about or you get angry with that aren't sin, but this seems to say, and Paul seems to then take it and make it real explicit, that there's sort of an expiration date on how long you could be angry before it turns into sin, right? And he thinks it's like 24 hours max or whatever, right? Anger is a gremlin. And when the sun goes down, buddy, like when you wake up the next morning,

if you have not given that thing to God, you're in full-blown sin for sure. And I think that's what it means by offer-right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. So when your head hits the pillow, if you're angry about something, here's your options.

You can give that to the Lord or you can wake up with that anger becoming full-blown sin at this point. And the reason that I think there's talks about trust here, because usually you're angry about something that someone did or said to you or about you or whatever it is. And putting your trust in the Lord would be to then trust the Lord with that thing. Like, you know what? I'm going to let go with this thing and give it to you because you can be trusted with this

and I cannot. Yeah, yeah. And then just to kind of wrap things up here, it's because those, Those who say who will show us some good, well, God will. He's going to be the one who lifts up the light of his face upon us. And a lot of people take that as a kind of an idiom for smile, which I kind of love. It's idea that God will smile upon us. He's going to look at us.

He lifts our face, as we talked about, and then he smiles at us. And that puts joy in our hearts. It takes the place of anger, right? Yeah. More joy than over just like earthly things, like having plenty of food and drink, some of their grain and new wine abound, or having plenty of possessions. The joy comes from God smiling at us. And because of that, well, then we can lie down and sleep in peace, in Shalom.

Because God alone makes us to dwell in safety. That word for safety, by the way, is the same root as trust. So when you put your trust in the Lord, then God makes you to dwell, you could say, trustingly in safety. But of course, you're safe in him. Yeah. And as we've talked about this before, but peace is like the most elusive of all things. You want to talk about something that God gives, you can't like really get anywhere else. Pieces is fleeting. And to get that, yeah, that's better than, ooh, that's some good wine you got there. Yeah, I'll take peace over wine any day. Yeah, you talk about a rare, a rare precious commodity. Man, if you could sell peace,

you'd be you'd out rank Elon Musk five billions. Yes. For sure. Yeah. Well, good stuff. Cover two Psalms. There you go.

Making progress. Making progress. You know, of course, took longer than we thought. But that's just because there's, you know, there's always more there than you think there's going to be. Hopefully you will join us next episode. We will get into five and beyond. Chad.

I will see you then. All right. See you then.