What Does Psalm 3:1 Mean?
A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. LORD, how they multiply, those who press me! Many are they who rise against me.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me.THE KEY
The word behind “trouble me” carries the sense of binding and narrowing, so opposition here feels like pressure that closes the speaker’s space.
THE MEANING
The voice named David (דָּוִד, Dawid, “beloved”) speaks from under real pressure: trouble tightens, opposition multiplies, and people stand against him. The verse gives the reader’s present threat its full weight without pretending the crowd is small or hiding that it hurts.
THE ROOT
צָרַי
tsaray my adversaries
GROWS FROM
צרר
To bind, confine, or press into a narrow place.
“those who press me” in this verse is tsaray my adversaries. English “trouble” can sound generic, but צָרַי (tsaray, my adversaries) carries the image of binding and constriction. The verse describes opposition as pressure that crowds the speaker into a narrow place.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight; an adversary
צַר
The adversary’s name shares the language of narrowness, making the pressure feel like a closing-in.
tsarah: Distress, trouble, affliction
צָרָה
This branch shows trouble as an enclosing condition, not only an unpleasant event.
רַבּוּ
rabbu
GROWS FROM
רבב
To grow numerous or multiply.
“increased / many” in this verse is rabbu. The Hebrew repeats this root family in “how they have multiplied” and “many are they.” English separates the verb and adjective, while the repeated root makes the crowd’s increase echo within the verse.
ALSO GROWS
rabbim: Many, numerous
רַבִּים
This form names the crowd’s size directly.
hirbah: To increase or make many
הִרְבָּה
This form shares the sense of multiplying, illuminating the verse’s repeated emphasis on the swelling opposition.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
Beloved; the beloved one.
The heading names David with a word of belovedness. That naming sits beside, rather than erases, the pressure the verse describes: belovedness and opposition occupy the same frame.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved one
דּוֹד
This word carries the belovedness held in David’s name.
dodim: Love, beloved affection
דּוֹדִים
This related form gives the name’s root a language of affection, present alongside the lament.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives opposition plain speech, naming its force without making the speaker’s distress unspeakable.
Those who press me pant after me all day, for many fight against me, O High One.Incline your ear to my ringing cry, for I have been emptied exceedingly. Snatch me from my pursuers, for they are stronger than I.We are pressed on every side, yet not cramped into a narrow place; we are without a way through, yet not without a way out.THE THREAD
When evildoers, those who press me narrow and my foes, drew near against me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.Psalm 27 repeats צָרַי (tsaray, “my adversaries”), the same word used here. The connected verse shows those same adversaries stumbling, opening the lament toward another outcome without denying its danger.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us