The Divine Lamp

The following is an introduction to the psalm from Father Patrick Boylan’s THE PSALMS: A STUDY OF THE VULGATE PSALTER IN LIGHT OF THE HEBREW TEXT. The work is in the public domain (USA).
In both the Hebrew and the vulgate this psalm is connected to the flight of King David from Jerusalem during the rebellion of Absalom. The situation implied is that which is described in 2 Kings 15-18. As he fled to Mahanaim,David’s position seemed well nigh desperate. Many, indeed, were they who rose against him. All Israel “Had turned its heart to Absalom”. The faint-hearted friends of the King were telling him it was useless to loof for further help from God. Yet, in all his humiliation and grief, David passionately proclaims his his unbroken confidence in his God. He recalls the many tokens of his mercy in the past: he remembers how often God has been his protector, his sheild, the loved object of his proud homage, the kind friend who had so often given him hope and courage when he was straited. Wearied with the toil and friefs of his hasty flight, David, in the midst of perils, spends a night in sleep. When he awakens he sees a new and touching token of God’s watchful love in the in the safety in which he has passed the night in peaceful slumber, though threatened on every side by ruthless foes. “Let my enemies come in thousands, I will not fear them,” he says in an outburst of heroic confidence. In the same spirit of confidence, deeming the future of his hope already present, he raises the ancient battle cry of victorious Israel: “Arise, O Yahweh!” and in spirit he sees his enemies broken, and thier fangs, with which, wild-beast-like, they had threatened him, shattered. To Yahweh alone, he sees, belongs the strength of victory.

The royal prayer at the close, pointing clearly to the kingly poet, is called forth by the thought of the horrors of the civil war which has begun: “On Israel, Thy people, be t=Thy blessing, Yahweh!”

There is no good reason which can be opposed to the Davidic origin of the psalm. The reference to the holy mountain does not prove that the temple was on Zion when the poem was composed. The ark was already on Zion. Indeed, David had instructed the priests who wished to carry away the ark in his flight to bring it back to Zion. The concluding verse implies a royal author.

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