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Psalm 3:8 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
⁸Salvation belongs to Jehovah;
your blessing is upon your people! Selah

Salvation belongs to Jehovah. That is, it appertains to God alone to save. The psalmist had no expectation of saving himself; he had no confidence in the unaided prowess of his own arm. If he was to be saved, he felt that it was to be only by God, and the praise of this was to be given to Him. The particular reference here is to temporal deliverance, or deliverance from the dangers which surrounded him then, but the declaration is as true of spiritual deliverance—of the salvation of the soul—as it is of deliverance from temporal danger. In both cases, it is true that God only saves and that all the praise is due to him.

Your blessing is upon your people. Or perhaps, rather, “thy blessing be upon thy people,” regarding this as a prayer rather than an affirmation. It is true, indeed, as an affirmation (comp. Ps. 2:12); but it accords better with the connection here and is a more appropriate conclusion of the psalm to regard it as a petition, expressing an earnest desire that the blessing of God might ever rest upon his own people. Then the thoughts of the psalmist have turned away from his own perils to the condition of others; from his individual case to that of the Church at large; and he prays that all others may find the same favors from God which he had so richly enjoyed, and which he hoped still to enjoy. It is one of the characteristics of true piety, thus, to turn from our own condition to that of others and to desire that what we enjoy may be partaken of by the people of God everywhere.

By Albert Barnes and Edward D. Andrews