1 Jehovah, hear my prayer, give ear to my supplications,
In Thy faithfulness answer me, in Thy righteousness;
2 And enter not into judgment with Thy servant,
For before Thee shall no man living be righteous.
3 For the enemy has pursued my soul,
Crushed my life to the ground,
Made me to dwell in dark places, like the dead of long ago.
4 Therefore my spirit wraps itself in gloom in me,
Within me is my heart benumbed.
5 I remember the days of old,
I muse on all Thy doings,
On the work of Thy hands I brood.
6 I spread my hands to Thee,
My soul is towards Thee like a thirsty land. Selah.
7 Make haste, answer me, Jehovah; my spirit faints;
Hide not Thy face from me,
Lest I become like those that descend into the pit.
8 Make me hear Thy loving-kindness in the morning,
For in Thee do I trust;
Make me know the way in which I should go,
For to Thee do I lift my soul.
9 Deliver me from mine enemies, Jehovah,
For to Thee do I flee for refuge. (?)
10 Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God;
Let Thy good spirit lead me in a level land.
11 For Thy name's sake, Jehovah, quicken me;
In Thy righteousness bring my soul out of all straits;
12 And in Thy loving-kindness cut off my foes,
And destroy all who oppress my soul,
For I am Thy servant.
This psalm's depth of sadness and contrition, blended with yearning
trust, recalls the earlier psalms attributed to David. Probably this
general resemblance in inwardness and mood is all that is meant by the
superscription in calling it "a psalm of David." Its copious use of
quotations and allusions indicate a late date. But there is no warrant
for taking the speaker to be the personified Israel. It is clearly
divided into two equal halves, as indicated by the Selah, which is not
found in Books IV. and V., except here, and in Psalm cxl. The former
half (vv. 1-6) is complaint; the latter (vv. 7-12), petition. Each part
may again be regarded as falling into two equal portions, so that the
complaint branches out into a plaintive description of the psalmist's
peril (vv. 1-3), and a melancholy disclosure of his feelings (vv. 4-6);
while the prayer is similarly parted into cries for deliverance (vv.
7-9), and for inward enlightenment and help (vv. 10-12). But we are not
reading a logical treatise, but listening to the cry of a tried spirit,
and so need not wonder if the discernible sequence of thought is here
and there broken.
The psalmist knows that his affliction is deserved. His enemy could
not have hunted and crushed him (ver. 3) unless God had been thereby
punishing him. His peril has forced home the penitent conviction of
his sin, and therefore he must first have matters set right between
him and God by Divine forgiveness. His cry for help is not based
upon any claims of his own, nor even on his extremity of need, but
solely on God's character, and especially on the twin attributes
of Faithfulness and Righteousness. By the latter is not meant the
retributive righteousness which gives according to desert, but
that by which He maintains the order of salvation established by
His holy love. The prayer anticipates St. John's declaration that
God is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins." That answer in
righteousness is as eagerly desired as God's dealing on the footing
of retributive justice is shrunk from. "Enter not into judgment
with Thy servant" is not a prayer referring to a future appearance
before the Judge of all, but the judgment deprecated is plainly
the enmity of men, which, as the next verse complains, is crushing
the psalmist's life out of him. His cry is for deliverance from
it, but he feels that a more precious gift must precede outward
deliverance, and God's forgiveness must first be sealed on his soul.
The conviction that, when the light of God's face is turned on the
purest life, it reveals dark stains which retributive justice cannot
but condemn, is not, in the psalmist's mouth, a palliation of his
guilt. Rather, it drives him to take his place among the multitude
of offenders, and from that lowly position to cry for pardon to the
very Judge whose judgment he cannot meet. The blessedness of contrite
trust is that it nestles the closer to God, the more it feels its
unworthiness. The child hides its face on the mother's bosom when it
has done wrong. God is our refuge from God. A little beam of light
steals into the penitent's darkness, while he calls himself God's
servant, and ventures to plead that relation, though he has done
what was unworthy of it, as a reason for pardon. The significant
"For" beginning ver. 3 shows that the enemy's acts were, to the
contrite psalmist, those of God's stern justice. Vv. 3_a_, _b_, are
moulded on Psalm vii. 5, and _c_ is verbally identical with Lam.
iii. 6. "The dead of long ago" is by some rendered _dead for ever_;
but the translation adopted above adds force to the psalmist's sad
description of himself, by likening him to those forgotten ones away
back in the mists of bygone ages.
In vv. 4-6 the record of the emotions caused by his peril follows.
They begin with the natural gloom. As in Psalm cxlii. 3 (with which
this has many points of resemblance, possibly indicating identity
of author), he describes his "spirit" as swathed in dark robes of
melancholy. His heart, too, the centre of personality, was _stunned_
or _benumbed_, so that it almost ceased to beat. What should a
"servant" of Jehovah's, brought to such a pass, do? If he is truly
God's, he will do precisely what this man did. He will compel his
thoughts to take another direction, and call Memory in to fight
Despair and feed Hope. His own past and God's past are arguments
enough to cheer the most gloom-wrapped sufferer. "A sorrow's crown
of sorrow" may be "remembering happier things," but the remembrance
will be better used to discrown a sorrow which threatens to lord it
over a life. Psalm lxxvii. 5, 6, 11, 12, has shaped the expressions
here. Both the contrast of present misery with past mercy, and
the assurances of present help given by that past mercy, move the
psalmist to appeal to God, stretching out his hands in entreaty.
Psalm lxiii. 1 echoes in ver. 6_b_, the pathos and beauty of which
need no elucidation. The very cracks in parched ground are like
mouths opened for the delaying rains; so the singer's soul was gaping
wide in trouble for God's coming, which would refresh and fertilise.
Blessed is that weariness which is directed to Him; it ever brings
the showers of grace for which it longs. The construction of ver.
6_b_ is doubtful, and the supplement "thirsteth" (A.V. and R.V.) is
possibly better than the "is" given above.
The second half of the psalm is purely petition. Vv. 7-9 ask
especially for outward deliverance. They abound with reminiscences of
earlier psalms. "Make haste, answer me" recalls Psalm lxix. 17; "my
spirit faints" is like Psalm lxxxiv. 2; "Hide not Thy face from me"
is a standing petition, as in Psalms xxvii. 9, cii. 2, etc.; "Lest
I become like those who descend into the pit" is exactly reproduced
from Psalm xxviii. 1. The prayer for the manifestation of God's
loving-kindness in the morning is paralleled in Psalm xc. 14, and
that for illumination as to the way to walk in is like Exod. xxxiii.
13; Psalm xxv. 4. The plea "To Thee do I lift my soul" is found in
Psalms xxv. 1, lxxxvi. 4.
The plea appended to the petition in ver. 9_b_ is difficult.
Literally, the words run, "To Thee have I covered [myself]," which
can best be explained as a pregnant construction, equivalent to "I
have fled to Thee and hid myself in Thee." Much divergence exists
in the renderings of the clause. But a slight emendation, adopted
by Hupfeld and Cheyne from an ancient Jewish commentator, reads the
familiar expression, "I have fled for refuge." Baethgen prefers to
read "have waited," which also requires but a trivial alteration;
while Graetz reaches substantially the same result by another way,
and would render "I have hope."
A glance at these three verses of petition as a whole brings out the
sequence of the prayers and of their pleas. The deepest longing of
the devout soul is for the shining of God's face, the consciousness
of His loving regard, and that not only because it scatters fears
and foes, but because it is good to bathe in that sunshine. The next
longing is for the dawning of a glad morning, which will bring to a
waiting heart sweet whispers of God's loving-kindness, as shown by
outward deliverances. The night of fear has been dark and tearful,
but joy comes with the morning. The next need is for guidance in the
way in which a man should go, which here must be taken in the lower
sense of practical direction, rather than in any higher meaning. That
higher meaning follows in vv. 10-12; but in ver. 8 the suppliant
asks to be shown the path by which he can secure deliverance from
his foes. That deliverance is the last of his petitions. His pleas
are beautiful as examples of the logic of supplication. He begins
with his great need. His spirit faints, and he is on the edge of
the black pit into which so much brightness and strength have gone
down. The margin is slippery and crumbling; his feet are feeble. One
Helper alone can hold him up. But his own exceeding need is not all
that he pleads. He urges his trust, his fixing of his desires, hopes,
and whole self, by a dead lift of faith, on God. That is a reason
for Divine help. Anything is possible rather than that such hope
should be disappointed. It cannot be that any man, who has fled for
sanctuary to the asylum of God's heart, should be dragged thence and
slain before the God whose altar he has vainly clasped.
The last part (vv. 10-12) puts foremost the prayer for conformity
of will with God's, and, though it closes with recurring prayer
for outward deliverance, yet breathes desires for more inward
blessings. As in the preceding verses, there are, in these closing
ones, many echoes of other psalms. The sequence of petitions and
pleas is instructive. To do, not merely to know, God's will is the
condition of all blessedness, and will be the deepest desire of
every man who is truly God's servant. But that obedience of heart
and hand must be taught by God, and He regards our taking Him for
our God as establishing a claim on Him to give all illumination
of heart and all bending of will and all skill of hand which are
necessary to make us doers of His will. His teaching is no mere
outward communication of knowledge, but an inbreathing of power to
discern, and of disposition and ability to perform, what is His
will. Ver. 10_b_ is best taken as a continuous sentence, embodying
a prayer for guidance. The plea on which it rests remains the same,
though the statement of it as a separate clause is not adopted in
our translation. For the fact that God's spirit is "good"--_i.e._,
beneficently self-communicative--heartens us to ask, and binds Him to
give, all such direction as is needed. This is not a mere repetition
of the prayer in ver. 8, but transcends it. "A level land" (or,
according to a possible suggested emendation, _path_) is one in which
the psalmist can freely walk, unhindered in doing God's will. His
next petition goes deepest of the three, inasmuch as it asks for that
new Divine life to be imparted, without which no teaching to do God's
will can be assimilated, and no circumstances, however favourable,
will conduce to doing it. He may not have known all the depth which
his prayer sounded; but no man who has real desires to conform heart
and life to the supreme will of God but must have felt his need of
a purer life to be poured into his spirit. As this prayer is deep,
so its plea is high. "For Thy name's sake"--nothing can be pleaded
of such force as that. God supremely desires the glory of His name;
and, for the sake of men whose blessedness depends on their knowing
and loving it, will do nothing that can dim its lustre. His name is
the record of His past acts, the disclosure of that in Him which
is knowable. That name contains the principles of all His future
acts. He will be what He has been. He will magnify His name; and the
humblest, most tormented soul that can say, "Thou art my God," may
be sure that Divinely given life will throb in it, and that even its
lowliness may contribute to the honour of the name.
The hunted psalmist cannot but come back, in the close of his psalm,
to his actual circumstances, for earthly needs do clog the soul's
wings. He unites righteousness and loving-kindness as co-operating
powers, as in ver. 1 he had united faithfulness and righteousness.
And as in the first verses he had blended pleas drawn from God's
character with those drawn from his relation to God, so he ends his
petitions with pleading that he is God's servant, and, as such, a fit
object of God's protection.