Psalm 3
Morning Hymn of One in Distress, but Confident in God
The two Psalms forming the prologue, which treat of cognate themes, the one ethical, from the standpoint of the חכמה, and the other related to the history of redemption from the standpoint of the נבואה, are now followed by a morning prayer; for morning and evening prayers are surely the first that one expects to find in a prayer-and hymn-book. The morning hymn, Psa 3:1-8, which has the mention of the “holy hill” in common with Psa 2:1-12, naturally precedes the evening hymn Psa 4:1-8; for that Psa 3:1-8 is an evening hymn as some are of opinion, rests on grammatical misconception.
With Psa 3:1-8, begin, as already stated, the hymns arranged for music. By מזמור לדוד, a Psalm of David, the hymn which follows is marked as one designed for musical accompaniment. Since מזמור occurs exclusively in the inscriptions of the Psalms, it is no doubt a technical expression coined by David. זמר (root זם) is an onomatopoetic word, which in Kal signifies to cut off, and in fact to prune or lop (
