O Lord, how many enemies

If the King has enemies (Psalm 2), so have his servants. If God speaks (Psalm 1, Psalm 2 and many others), so he also listens (Psalm 3 to Psalm 5 and many more). Mollie Knight’s economical and straightforward paraphrase, written at Purley 1982–83, appeared first in BP (see note to no.1). The first of the Psalm titles is quite specific: ‘A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son’. Nearly 3 millennia later, this one has been variously labelled ‘The darkest hour’ and ‘The morning hymn’, the latter quoted by Spurgeon, who adds: ‘May we ever wake with holy confidence in our hearts and a song upon our lips’. The 3rd and 4th Psalm may be seen as complementary; Kirkpatrick suggests a gap of ‘some days’ between their writing. (2004 edn) includes revised texts of H F Lyte’s clearly Christian approach to both; Your promise, Lord, is perfect peace and Lord of my life, my hope, my joy. The penultimate line of Psalm 3 (v8a and in most metrical versions) makes the same affirmation as Jonah 2:9. The tune SAMSON, one of two originally recommended for these words, is considerably adapted (perhaps for the 1863 Bristol Tune Book) from the chorus Then round about the starry throne, in Handel’s 1742 oratorio Samson.

b 1917, d 1993. She was a Primary School Teacher and poet, a member with husband Trevor of Purley Baptist Ch, Surrey. She contributed paraphrases to The Book of Praises (1986), and Psalms for Today and Songs from the Psalms in 1990. Her version of the Beatitudes is included in Baptist Praise and Worship (1991, with 2 further hymns) and in the 2005 edn of A Panorama of Christian Hymnody. 10 of her texts are the Jubilate Hymns database, and her Christmas song Happy day of great rejoicing features in at least the 2 versions of Carol Praise (1987 and 2006). Nos.3, 103A, 127.