Smith DTh Thesis (final).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

Chapter 4: Analysis of Psalms 3-8The implied occasion of Psalm 3 appears to be a military crisis. Craigie(1998:71) remarks:The language and terminology employed throughout the psalmhave military overtones. . . . This military terminology, implyingthat the crisis facing the psalmist was military in nature, tends toidentify the psalm with the king, who was commander-in-chief ofthe armed forces.The psalmist’s crisis lies in the fact that he has many foes who have risen upagainst him (v. 2), claiming that the Lord will not give him victory (v. 3). Thathe was in imminent physical danger is implied by his reference to God as “ashield about me” (v. 4) and his belief that the only reason he survived thenight was because “the Lord sustained me” (v. 6). He depicts his enemies as“tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side” (v. 7, NIV). He callsupon Yahweh to render his enemies powerless by breaking their teeth (v. 8).The tone of the psalm convinced Terrien (2003) that it was not a professionalcomposition for royal use, but a prayer birthed out of an urgent personalsituation. He wrote:The extraordinary vivacity of style, in addition to the sure controlof strophic structure, cannot mask the gravity of an existential90