1 With my voice to Jehovah will I cry,
With my voice to Jehovah will I make supplication.
2 I will pour out before Him my complaint,
My straits before Him will I declare.
3 When my spirit wraps itself in gloom upon me,
Then Thou--Thou knowest my path;
In the way wherein I have to go
They have hidden a snare for me.
4 Look on the right hand and see,
There is none that knows me,
Shelter is perished from me,
There is no one that makes inquiry after my soul.
5 I have cried unto Thee, Jehovah,
I have said, Thou art my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.
6 Attend to my shrill cry,
For I am become very weak;
Deliver me from my pursuers,
For they are too strong for me.
7 Bring out from prison my soul,
That I may thank Thy name;
In me shall the righteous glory,
For Thou dealest bountifully with me.
The superscription not only calls this a psalm of David's, but
specifies the circumstances of its composition. It breathes the same
spirit of mingled fear and faith which characterises many earlier
psalms; but one fails to catch the unmistakable note of freshness,
and there are numerous echoes of preceding singers. This psalmist
has as deep sorrows as his predecessors, and as firm a grasp of
Jehovah, his helper. His song runs naturally in well-worn channels,
and is none the less genuine and acceptable to God because it does.
Trouble and lack of human sympathy or help have done their best work
on him, since they have driven him to God's breast. He has cried in
vain to man; and now he has gathered himself up in a firm resolve
to cast himself upon God. Men may take offence that they are only
appealed to as a last resort, but God does not. The psalmist is too
much in earnest to be content with unspoken prayers. His voice must
help his thoughts. Wonderful is the power of articulate utterance in
defining, and often in diminishing, sorrows. Put into words, many a
burden shrinks. Speaking his grief, many a man is calmed and braced
to endure. The complaint poured out before God ceases to flood the
spirit; the straits told to Him begin to grip less tightly.
Ver. 1 resembles Psalm lxxvii. 1, and ver. 3 has the same vivid
expression for a spirit swathed in melancholy as Psalm lxxvii. 3.
Hupfeld would transfer ver. 3_a_ to ver. 2, as being superfluous
in ver. 3, and, in connection with the preceding, stating the
situation or disposition from which the psalmist's prayer flows.
If so taken, the copula (And) introducing _b_ will be equivalent
to "But," and contrasts the omniscience of God with the psalmist's
faintheartedness. If the usual division of verses is retained, the
same contrast is presented still more forcibly, and the copula may
be rendered "Then." The outpouring of complaint is not meant to tell
Jehovah what He does not know. It is for the complainer's relief,
not for God's information. However a soul is wrapped in gloom, the
thought that God knows the road which is so dark brings a little
creeping beam into the blackness. In the strength of that conviction
the psalmist beseeches Jehovah to behold what He does behold. That
is the paradox of faithful prayer, which asks for what it knows that
it possesses, and dared not ask for unless it knew. The form of the
word rendered above "Look" is irregular, a "hybrid" (Delitzsch);
but when standing beside the following "see," it is best taken
as an imperative of petition to Jehovah. The old versions render
both words as first person singular, in which they are followed by
Baethgen, Graetz, and Cheyne. It is perhaps more natural that the
psalmist should represent himself as looking round in vain for help,
than that he should ask God to look; and, as Baethgen remarks, the
copula before "There is none" in ver. 4_b_ favours this reading,
as it is superfluous with an imperative. In either case the drift
of ver. 4 is to set forth the suppliant's forlorn condition. The
"right hand" is the place for a champion or helper, but this lonely
sufferer's is unguarded, and there is none who knows him, in the
sense of recognising him as one to be helped (Ruth ii. 10, 19). Thus
abandoned, friendless, and solitary, confronted by foes, he looks
about for some place to hide in; but that too has failed him (Job xi.
20; Jer. xxv. 35; Amos ii. 14). There is no man interested enough
in him to make inquiry after his life. Whether he is alive or dead
matters not a straw to any.
Thus utterly naked of help, allies, and earthly hiding-place, what
can a man do but fling himself into the arms of God? This one does so,
as the rest of the psalm tells. He had looked all round the horizon
in vain for a safe cranny to creep into and escape. He was out in the
open, without a bush or rock to hide behind, on all the dreary level.
So he looks up, and suddenly there rises by his side an inexpugnable
fortress, as if a mountain sprang at once from the flat earth. "I have
said, Thou art my refuge!" Whoso says thus has a shelter, Some One
to care for him, and the gloom begins to thin off from his soul. The
psalmist is not only safe in consequence of his prayer, but rich; for
the soul which, by strong resolve, even in the midst of straits, claims
God as its portion will at once realise its portion in God.
The prayer for complete deliverance in vv. 6, 7, passes into
calmness, even while it continues fully conscious of peril and of
the power of the pursuers. Such is the reward of invoking Jehovah's
help. Agitation is soothed, and, even before any outward effect has
been manifest, the peace of God begins to shed itself over heart and
mind. The suppliant still spreads his needs before God, is still
conscious of much weakness, of strong persecutors, and feels that he
is, as it were, in prison (an evident metaphor, though Graetz, with
singular prosaicness, will have it to be literal); but he has hold of
God now, and so is sure of deliverance, and already begins to shape
his lips for songs of praise, and to anticipate the triumph which
his experience will afford to those who are righteous, and so are
his fellows. He was not, then, so utterly solitary as he had wailed
that he was. There were some who would joy in his joy, even if they
could not help his misery. But the soul that has to wade through deep
waters has always to do it alone; for no human sympathy reaches to
full knowledge of, or share in, even the best loved one's grief. We
have companions in joy; sorrow we have to face by ourselves. Unless
we have Jesus with us in the darkness, we have no one.
The word rendered above "shall glory" is taken in different meanings.
According to some, it is to be rendered here "surround"--_i.e._, with
congratulations; others would take the meaning to be "shall crown
themselves"--_i.e._, "triumph on my account" (Delitzsch, etc.). Graetz
suggests a plausible emendation, which Cheyne adopts, reading "glory
in," the resulting meaning being the same as that of Delitzsch. The
notion of participation in the psalmist's triumph is evidently intended
to be conveyed; and any of these renderings preserves that. Possibly
_surround_ is most in accordance with the usage of the word. Thus
the psalmist's plaints end, as plaints which are prayers ever do, in
triumph anticipated by faith, and one day to be realised in experience.