King on the Run from His Own Son: A Poem.

Ps. 3:1-2

Wars and other crises sometimes bring out the best in us - distress and pain are portals into the poetic words that help express the rage or sorrow, somehow, sometimes help us heal. We see it now, these days, when words fail to express the anguish of the past six months yet here and there some words, in poetry or prose, new music even - pierce us through the heart. 

The Book of Psalms, used for its healing powers, is around a lot these days. Some of the psalms are regulars at vigils and rallies. Some of the psalms are powerful enough to meet us where we need the poetic, and for some others there is a storyline that helps bring narrative into the verses, adding a dramatic dimension to the words. It’s often that combination that has made the psalms so popular. 

In The Psalms: Translation and Commentary, Robert Alter writes: 

“Through the ages, Psalms has been the most urgently, personally present of all the books of the Bible in the lives of many readers. Both Jewish and Christian tradition made it part of the daily and weekly liturgy. Untold numbers have repeatedly turned to Psalms for encouragement and comfort in moments of crisis or despair. The inner world of major Western writers from Augustine, Judah Halevi, and George Herbert to Emily Dickinson and Paul Celan was inflected by the reading of Psalms. 

But for all the power of these Hebrew poems to speak with great immediacy in many tongues to readers of different eras, they are in their origins intricately rooted in an ancient Near Eastern world that goes back to the late Bronze Age (1600–1200 BCE) and that in certain respects is quite alien to modern people.”

Alter’s magnificent translation manages to convey many of the quaint qualities of the bronze age biblical poetry in ways that make them vivid for the modern reader. And in some cases, such as today’s chapter, little is needed other than historical context to get the sense of urgency and human drama that the psalm evokes. 

This third psalm  begins with a framing story of a family feud that involves King David, the alleged author of these poems, escaping for his life. 

Back in the 15th chapter of Samuel II, King David was dealing with a coup - one of his  sons Absalom rose up against him and for a short time - prevailed. The old king had to flee his palace in Jerusalem on foot, with a few of his trusted courtiers, weeping as he went up the mount of olives. 

What went on inside his head and heart as he fled from his own and much beloved son? What are the words of an anguished father in the middle of a family feud so fierce it turns fatal? 

That’s what this psalm fills in: 

מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִ֑ד בְּ֝בׇרְח֗וֹ מִפְּנֵ֤י ׀ אַבְשָׁל֬וֹם בְּנֽוֹ׃

יְ֭הֹוָה מָה־רַבּ֣וּ צָרָ֑י רַ֝בִּ֗ים קָמִ֥ים עָלָֽי׃

“A psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom: 

O God, my foes are so many!

Many are those who attack me”

Ps. 3:1-2

Did David actually say these words at a critical moment in his life that was somehow captured for posterity? 

Traditional Jewish and Christian views considered  David to be the author of all 150 Psalms, especially numbers 3 to 41, which seem to be their own collection - all about the individual rather than the communal crisis. David is also credited as the author of Psalm 51, 138-145, and several others.  

But as Robert Alter writes, voicing what many scholars believe: 

 “The Davidic authorship enshrined in Jewish and Christian tradition has no credible historical grounding. It was a regular practice in the later biblical period to ascribe new texts to famous figures of the past.”

Whoever chose to frame this poem of distress with this storyline context, wanted to focus on finding faith even while on the run from one’s own family. The poet knew how to introduce a perennial fear as a compelling storylines that speaks to our heart. While few of the biblical readers have been monarchs dealing with rebellion, many of us have had occasions to contemplate the tumultuous relationships with loved ones and how violent these can become. 

David’s fleeing in fear wil flip by the end of the chapter but what’s captured in this moment is a father’s frail humanity, a human sense of loss and betrayal - and within all that - the words with which to ask for help, and to believe that one is protected and guarded from beyond. This sense of faith mid crisis is one of the reasons the psalms have become so important through the ages, no matter who their author really was. 

David voices fearlessness, fueled by his faith, and this becomes not just a private matter but a public trope of hope: 

לֹֽא־אִ֭ירָא מֵרִבְב֥וֹת עָ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר סָ֝בִ֗יב שָׁ֣תוּ עָלָֽי׃

I have no fear of the myriad forces

arrayed against me on every side.

Ps. 3:7

For the next few chapters we will keep revisiting the narratives of the king who turned out to be a poet, finding solace in the sounds of harps and getting sentimental  about  life’s most painful moments as a way to overcome them and rise up, again and again, as the old king did, with a new poem-prayer.  Throughout history, our ancestors have turned to these words at times of need, pursued or hiding, terrified or lost. 

Today, April 11th, is the day on which in 1945 my late father, Naphtali, 18 years old, was liberated by the American Army from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.  There were few words that day but he recalled turning to prayer and to some specific psalms throughout this horror. I dedicate today to my father’s memory, and to all the parents and children who have had to flee for their lives, then, now, victims of violence and human cruelty  - may we always find words of comfort and others to hold us, even in our darkest hours. 

Image: Marc Chagall, David Mourns Absalom, 1958

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