Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

Chapter 1: Psalms 1–17

19

Psalm 3 with Augustine – God, Our Shield and Deliverer

LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! (v. 1) They wish to exterminate the Christian name. Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him” (v. 2). For they would not imagine that they could destroy the Church, branching out so very far and wide, unless they believed that God did not care. But you, LORD, are a shield around me (v. 3). Let the people of God also say, I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side (v. 6), of the ungodly who surround me to extinguish the Christian name everywhere, if they could. But how can they be feared, when the fervency of love is inflamed by the blood of Christian martyrs as fire is inflamed by oil? Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked (v. 7). Each one of us may also say, when a multitude of vices and lusts draws us toward sin in spite of our resistance, LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! (v. 1) And, since despair of recovery generally creeps in through the accumulation of vices, as though these same vices were mocking the soul, or even as though the Devil and his angels through their poisonous suggestions were at work to make us despair, it is said with great truth, But you, LORD, are a shield around me (v. 3). I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side (v. 6). Besides those enemies which the Church universally has carried and carries, each of us also has temptations, by which, when surrounded, we may say, Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! (v. 7); that is, make me rise again. Strike all my enemies on the jaw. It is well within God’s determined purpose to pray this against the Devil