Should We Pray for God to Break Our Enemies' Teeth?
Taking a Closer Look at Psalm 3
Arise, O Lord!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.
Salvation belongs to the Lord;
your blessing be on your people! Selah
Thus concludes David’s prayer in Psalm 3 — With a call for God to deliver him from his enemies… for (or, you could render this “because”)… You strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.
Sounds kinda harsh, huh?
So what in the world does David mean by that? The answer to this question can only be found in understanding Psalm 3’s historical and canonical context.
Ready? Let’s jump in!
The Historical Context: Absalom Stabs His Father in the Back
Your Bible likely has a brief description at the very top of this Psalm that reads something like this: A psalm of David when he was fleeing from Absalom his son.
Wow. A dad running for his life from his son. I guess every family really does have some dysfunction.
But why was David running from Absalom in the first place? You can read about it in full in 2 Samuel 14-18, but here’s the skinny. Absalom and David had been estranged for some time, but in 2 Samuel 14, David brought him back to Jerusalem. And things were fine for a while. Fine, that is, until Absalom decided to steal the kingdom from his dad. How so? By going behind his dad’s back and talking trash about him privately to others until he had built a large enough contingent to make his move.
Here’s how he did it:
And Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate. And when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, “From what city are you?” And when he said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” 3 Absalom would say to him, “See, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you.” 4 Then Absalom would say, “Oh that I were judge in the land! Then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice.” 5 And whenever a man came near to pay homage to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him. 6 Thus Absalom did to all of Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
—2 Samuel 15:2-6 (Emphasis mine)
Fast-forward just a few verses and you’ll read about how Absalom went to Hebron with these “men of Israel” and declared himself king in open defiance to his dad. Of course, David had no idea that all this was going on. So when the news broke that Absalom had amassed a large following and was planning to come to Jerusalem to take the throne, David had no choice but to flee for his life.
And that’s the background of Psalm 3. And it’s why David prays for the Lord to arise and save him in verse 7. Which brings us back to David’s startling statement: For You strike all my enemies on the cheek; You break the teeth of the wicked.
To really understand what’s going on here, we’ve got to stand back and see the bigger picture. That is, we’ve also got to understand Psalm 3 in light of its canonical context.
The Canonical Context: The Serpent, Absalom, & the Serpent Crusher
From Genesis to Revelation, there is an overarching storyline in Scripture, of which the events of Psalm 3 are a part. So let’s rewind and go back to the beginning.
In the Beginning…
In Genesis 1-2, God creates the heavens and the earth. Land, sea, sky. Fish, birds, animals, bugs. All that good stuff. And the pinnacle of His creative acts was us… humanity. He made us in His image, blessed us, and commissioned us to rule over creation as His representatives (Gen 1:26-28).
In these early days of the story, God also gave our first parents, Adam and Eve, one prohibition: They could eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17).
And what did they do? They ate from it (Gen. 3:6).
Why? Well, partly because Satan, who took on the form of a serpent (Rev. 12:9), enticed them to disobedience by twisting God’s Word and casting doubt on its authority…
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” —Genesis 3:1-5
The temptation was too great. Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan’s distortions and plunged themselves, and all humanity with them, into sin.
But there is some good news in Genesis 3. In verse 15, God makes a promise to the Serpent:
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” —Genesis 3:15 (Emphasis mine)
This passage has been referred to as the “first gospel.” And for good reason. Here the LORD promises that one day there will be One born of woman who will crush the Serpent’s head. The only question is, who? And we begin to get an answer to this question in Genesis 12:1-3.
God’s Covenant with Abraham
Following a string of narratives which highlight the growth of human depravity, God graciously calls Abram and makes a series of promises to him:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
There’s so much that could be said here, but we’ll have to limit ourselves to just two.
First, God tells Abram that whoever blesses his descendants will be blessed and whoever curses his descendants will be cursed. This is intimately tied to the last promise: It would be through the line of Abraham that God would restore His blessing over all the peoples on earth. When we read these verses together, we see that if someone tries to stand in the way of God’s redemptive plan, they place themselves directly in the path of the freight train of God’s wrath. Turns out, God’s pretty serious when it comes to His plan to save us.
But here’s the crucial part for understanding how this ties to Psalm 3. God’s promise to Abraham, we find out later, would be fulfilled through God’s promise to David. How so? I’m glad you asked.
Abraham and David
First, we need to note some important connections between Abraham and David that let us know we’re on the right track. There are three I’ll mention here.
To begin with, in Psalm 3:3, David praised Yahweh for being his shield (מָגֵ֣ן). This is the same word used in Genesis 15:1, where the LORD tells Abraham that He would be a shield (מָגֵ֣ן) to him.1
Next, in 2 Samuel 7:9, the LORD promised David that He would make his name great. That same promise was first given to Abraham in Genesis 12:2.
Finally, in Genesis 17:6, the LORD promised Abraham that kings would come from him. And in 2 Samuel 7:13, David is promised that his kingdom would be eternal.2
What these connections show us is that God’s promise to bless all the families of the earth through Abraham’s line would be fulfilled through David’s line. And that’s what we have to keep in mind when we come to Psalm 3.
Absalom, the Serpent-Like Son
David was the rightful king through whom the serpent-crushing Seed would be born. And what was Absalom trying to do? He was attempting to thwart God’s redemptive plan. Well, remember what we said earlier about those who try to stop God’s plan to save the world? Per Genesis 12:3, they rightfully come under God’s curse.
By his very actions, Absalom showed that he was aligned with the Serpent. Which is why Jim Hamilton, Professor of Biblical Theology, comments that he is crushed in a manner similar to the serpent — with injuries to his head: the cheek and his teeth (cf. Gen. 3:15).3
I believe David remembered all these promises when he prayed for the Lord to strike and crush his enemies. This is seen by paying close attention to the last verse:
From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people. — Psalm 3:8
In other words, David connects his deliverance with God’s plan to restore His blessing over His people. Christopher Ash captures it well: “When the King prays to be saved (3:7), he does so not only for his own sake but to win blessing for his people.”4
At the center of God’s redemptive plan was for the Serpent Crusher to be born in the line of David. And despite the many attempts by the Enemy to destroy it (of which Absalom was one), God sovereignly preserved the line to ensure its success.
That’s why the New Testament begins with these words:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. — Matthew 1:1
Well, that’s all the time I have for now. I thank you so much for yours.
Warmly,
Drew
P.S. a special thank you to my paid subscribers. Your support is such an encouragement to my soul: Brad, Jim Delver, Tim Waters, All Things King Jesus, Shira, and JoAnn Dover.
Jim Hamilton, Psalms Evangelical Biblical Theological Commentary, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), 111.
Ibid., 110-111.
Ibid., 112.
Christopher Ash, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary vol 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 38.