Psalms 3:2

Many [there be] which say of my soul,.... Or "to my soul" (u), the following cutting words, which touched to the quick, reached his very heart, and like a sword pierced through it: [there is] no help

Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah. Say of my soul , [ lªnapshiy (H5315)] - better 'say TO my soul, There is no help for him in God.' Then Psalms 35:3 forms a beautiful contrast.

Of my soul, i.e. of me; the soul being commonly put for the person, as , compared with . There is no help for him in God; God hath utterly forsaken him for his many crimes, and will never help him more. Selah: this word is nowhere used but in this poetical Book of the Psalms, and in the song of ,9,13; which makes that opinion probable, that it was a musical note, directing the singer either to lift up his voice, or to make a short stop or pause, or to lengthen out the tune. But withal, it is generally placed at some remarkable passage; which gives occasion to think that it served also to quicken the attention or observation of the singer and hearer.

Psalms 3:2 Many [there be] which say of my soul, [There is] no help for him in God. Selah.Ver. 2. Many there be which say of my soul] These scoffs and sarcasms leniter volant, non leniter violant. David felt them as a murdering weapon in his bones, Psalms 42:3; Psalms 42:10, and oft complaineth of them to God, Qui satis idoneus est patientiae sequester, as Tertullian phraseth it, who will see that his saints shall lose nothing by their patience. There is no help for him in God] Salvation itself cannot save him; he is at that pass that there is neither hope of better for him, nor place of worse; there is no help, health, or deliverance for him at all. The Hebrew hath a letter more than ordinary, to increase the signifcation. R. David rendereth it, Nullum auxilium, nullum auxilium, There is no help, there is no help for him; and interpreteth it, neither in this world nor in the world to come. Thus haply his enemies argued from his sin in the matter of Uriah; concluding that God would not look at him therefore. But for that matter he had soundly repented, and made his peace, 2 Samuel 12:13 Psalms 51:1-2, though this present conspiracy, and the trouble thereupon (which lasted six months, saith Jerome, Ex tradit. Hebraeor.), was a part of the temporal punishment of that scandalous sin, 2 Samuel 12:10. But that it lay not upon his conscience it appeareth, in that on his death bed he regretteth it not, as he did his not punishing of Joab and Shimei; concerning whom he therefore leaveth his charge with his son Solomon, 1 Kings 2:5; 1 Kings 2:8. Selah] i.e. In truth, or amen, saith Aben Ezra; Plane, Tremel.; Omnino, penitus, revera, Polan. The Hebrews at this day accordingly add to the end of their prayers and epitapha Amen, Selah, twice or thrice repeated. The Greek maketh it only a musical notion, Dιαφαλμα.

(2) There is no help.—According to the current creed, misfortune implied wickedness, and the wicked were God-forsaken. David, too, had sent back Zadok with the Ark, which in the popular view meant sending away the power and the presence of God. Even Zadok seemed to share this feeling; and David’s words to him, “thou a seer” (2 Samuel 15:27), seem to contain something of a rebuke. Selah.—This curious word must apparently remain for ever what it has been ever since the first translation of the Bible was made—the puzzle of ordinary readers, and the despair of scholars. One certain fact about it has been reached, and this the very obscurity of the term confirms. It has no ethical significance, as the Targum, followed by some other of the old versions and by St. Jerome, implies, for in that case it would long ago have yielded a satisfactory meaning. There are many obscure words in Hebrew, but their obscurity arises from the infrequency of their use; but selah occurs no less than seventy-one times in the compass of thirty-nine psalms, and three times in the ode of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3:3; Habakkuk 3:9; Habakkuk 3:13). It is pretty certain that the sense “for ever,” which is the traditional interpretation of the Rabbinical schools, does not suit the majority of these places, and no other moral or spiritual rendering has ever been suggested; nor is it a poetical word, marking the end of a verse or the division into strophes, for it occurs sometimes in the very middle of a stanza, as in Psalms 20:3-4; Psalms 32:4-5; Psalms 52:3-4, and often at the end of a psalm (Psalms 46). There is only one conclusion, now universally admitted, that selah is a musical term, but in the hopeless perplexity and darkness that besets the whole subject of Hebrew music, its precise intention must be left unexplained. The conjecture that has the most probability on its side makes it a direction to play loud. The derivation from sβlah, “to raise,” is in favour of this view. The fact that in one place (Psalms 9:16) it is joined to higgaion, which is explained as a term having reference to the sound of stringed instruments, lends support to it, as also does the translation uniformly adopted in the Psalms by the LXX.: διάψαλμα—if, indeed, that word means interlude. It is curious that the interpretation next in favour to Ewald’s makes the meaning of selah exactly the opposite to his—piano instead of forte—deriving it from a word meaning “to be silent,” “to suspend.”

Verse 2. No help for him in God.] These were some of the reproaches of his enemies, Shimei and others: "He is now down, and he shall never be able to rise. God alone can save him from these his enemies; but God has visibly cast him off." These reproaches deeply affected his heart; and he mentions them with that note which so frequently occurs in the Psalms, and which occurs here for the first time, סלה selah. Much has been said on the meaning of this word; and we have nothing but conjecture to guide us. The Septuagint always translate it by Διαψαλμα diapsalma, "a pause in the Psalm." The Chaldee sometimes translates it by לעלמין lealmin, "for ever." The rest of the versions leave it unnoticed. It either comes from סל sal, to raise or elevate, and may denote a particular elevation in the voices of the performers, which is very observable in the Jewish singing to the present day; or it may come from סלה salah, to strew or spread out, intimating that the subject to which the word is attached should be spread out, meditated on, and attentively considered by the reader. Fenwick, Parkhurst, and Dodd, contend for this meaning; and think "it confirmed by Psalms 9:16, where the word higgaion is put before selah, at the end of the verse." Now higgaion certainly signifies meditation, or a fit subject for meditation; and so shows selah to be really a nota bene, attend to or mind this.

2. Faint-hearted friends may be meant, as well as insolent enemies like Shimei, who professed to regard the king’s calamities as the divine punishment for his past crimes (2 Samuel 16:8 ff.). of my soul] The ‘soul’ in O.T. language is a man’s ‘self;’ it represents him as a living, thinking, conscious individual. help] Or, salvation, as in Psalms 3:8; where see note. Cp. ‘save me’ in Psalms 3:7. But the words ‘soul’ and ‘salvation’ are not primarily to be understood in a spiritual sense. in God] As distinguished from men. All help, divine as well as human, fails him in his need. Hence the general term God is used. But where David expresses his own confident assurance (Psalms 3:8) or pleads for help (Psalms 3:4), he uses the covenant name Jehovah. The LXX however, which P.B.V. follows, reads, in his God.

Many there be which say of my soul - Or rather, perhaps, of his “life,” for so the word used here - נפשׁ nephesh - frequently means Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:23; Genesis 9:4; Genesis 35:18; 1 Kings 17:21.

2. My soul— “Soul”” (πτωׁ, nephesh) is here a Hebraism for me, myself; but is used sometimes in the psychological sense for πνευμα, or spirit, the mental ego.