Bible Commentary - Psalms 4

This is another fairly short psalm, only 8 verses, and it is another psalm “of David”.

Unlike the previous psalm, this one is not anchored to a specific event from David’s life.  More to the point, this psalm doesn’t really seem to place it in any particular context, place or time.  It calls itself a psalm of David, but it could just as much be a psalm of anyone else.  Like I mentioned in my commentary for Psalm 3, I suspect this decontextualization is intentional.  By avoiding any specific context, it is much easier for us to relate this psalm to events or situations in our own life.  In a sense, that is the whole point of Psalms.  I mean, why bother writing down all these songs if they are only meaningful to their author and we can’t apply them to our own lives?  Of course, there are many other books that are firmly placed in a specific historical context and we can still learn from those stories and apply the lessons into our lives thousands of years later, so it’s not like this is strictly binary.  That said, it appears likely that the Psalms were intentionally constructed to limit their references to specific historical events for this reason.

On the one hand, this makes the Psalms more relatable to us.  On the other hand, it also makes the psalm much more difficult to assign to a specific time or author, which is why my introduction to Psalms was so ambiguous.

Moving on, the actual content of this psalm is somewhat diverse.  To be honest, I found this psalm really confusing.  It seems like David is praying for “relief”, and then talking about how men love deceptions and “his honor” has become a reproach?  Somehow that transitions to “tremble, but do not sin” and “offer the sacrifices of righteousness”.  I was not able to follow the logical progression here.

As I often do when I am confused, my reaction was to look up this psalm in my NIV study bible to see what other scholars thought about it.  What my NIV study bible said was that this psalm is a prayer of David, probably due to people slandering him during some period of stress like a famine or drought.  It said that people were challenging his leadership and suggesting that someone else should replace him as king.  The NIV commentary supported this narrative by picking quotes from various places through the psalm.  Verse 2 is supposedly people slandering David himself; verse 6 is supposedly people asking for a replacement king; verse 7 becomes evidence of a famine because of David’s comparison to “when their grain and new wine abounded”.

Having read that commentary, my reaction is that their story feels plausible but not entirely convincing.  They were able to construct a rendering of this psalm that fits many details.  However, I’m not convinced by their story because while they fit many of the details in the psalm, I feel like it struggles to capture the emotional center of this psalm.

For instance, suppose we assumed the NIV study bible rendering was fully correct, and that David was praying because he felt persecuted during a famine.  Why would that prayer end up in the book of Psalms?  Why would that be something that I can relate to, or sing regularly as part of the temple worship (as it was for many generations of Israelites)?  I don’t feel like this rendering of the psalm gives us an emotional core that we can connect with.

That said, I can’t really think of a better analysis to tie everything in this psalm together.  What we can say for sure is that David was in some sort of distress (v. 1), and that he was turning to the LORD.  He had confidence that God would answer him (v. 3), and he wanted to encourage everyone else to “offer sacrifices of righteousness” and trust God as well (v. 5).  Lastly, David had confidence that God would bring him through this distress, and that in God he could have peace and rest (v. 8), even more than when he was in times of plenty (v. 7).  More than this, I cannot say.

This is a psalm about going through hardship, trusting in God and finding peace through our trust in God.  Perhaps that is enough.