At the end of Psalm 3’s first movement, the enemies get the last word: omerim lenafshi (אֹמְרִ֪ים לְנַ֫פְשִׁ֥י) — “saying about me” — followed by the sneer, “there is no salvation for him in God” (v. 2). Then the psalm turns, and David answers: “But you, YHWH, are a shield for me… umerim roshi (וּמֵרִ֥ים רֹאשִֽׁי) — the one who lifts my head.”

Listen to those two phrases. Omerim lenafshi (אֹמְרִ֪ים לְנַ֫פְשִׁ֥י). Umerim roshi (וּמֵרִ֥ים רֹאשִֽׁי). The same run of sounds — me, rim, shi — surfacing again, but in a new context, as if the taunt had been caught in mid-air and turned around. The enemies’ words about the “self” (lenafshi לְנַ֫פְשִׁ֥י) that has no help become David’s words about the “head” (roshi רֹאשִֽׁי) that God lifts up.

The echo keeps going. The mocking mention of “God” at the close of verse 3 in Hebrew is answered by “YHWH” at the open of verse 4. Similarly, the ending of yeshuatah (יְֽשׁוּעָ֓תָה “victory”) in v. 3b sounds like attah (אַתָּ֣ה “you”) in v. 4a. Even the small words rhyme: the enemies’ en (אֵ֤ין  “there is no”) against David’s magen (מָגֵ֣ן “shield”).

It’s a chiasm — a pattern that folds back on itself — and here the reversal does something the plain sense can’t. The enemies’ sentence is literally undone, sound by sound, and reassembled into a confession of trust. As one scholar puts it, the taunt “is answered in chiastic form by the psalmist’s confident assertion.” The insult isn’t rebutted. It’s reversed.

Read more on psalms.scriptura.org → https://psalms.scriptura.org/w/Psalm_3/Poetry