Psalm 142
7 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 141×2Psalms 143×2Psalms 57×1Psalms 30×1Romans 8×1Isaiah 26×1
Summary
Chapter summary
'A Maschil of David, when he was in the cave; a Prayer.' 'I cry with my voice unto Jehovah… I pour out my complaint before him.' When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, thou knewest my path. The loneliest verse in the Psalter: 'Look on my right hand… refuge hath failed me; no man careth for my soul.' Then the counter-confession: 'I cried unto thee, O Jehovah; I said, Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.' Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto thy name: 'the righteous shall compass me about; for thou wilt deal bountifully with me.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 142The history
The heading names a place. The hill country of Judah is honeycombed with limestone caves, and two of them are tied to David's fugitive years — the stronghold at Adullam, where his family and about four hundred debtors and desperate men joined him, and the caves above the springs of En-gedi on the western shore of the Dead Sea.
A cave was a serious refuge. It held a large group out of the weather, it could be defended at a narrow mouth, and it was invisible from the wadi below. It was also a trap with one exit, which is why the psalm says that when he looks to the right — the side where a defender or a witness should stand — there is no one who recognizes him.
Having no refuge is stated in legal terms. There was no place to flee to, and no one who cared for his life. In Israel a man in danger could run to a city of refuge or to a patron; this singer says both doors are shut.
The word he uses for prison at the end may be the cave itself. He is safe in it and stuck in it at the same time.
What it meant to them
Israel's greatest king spent years hiding in holes in the ground, and this psalm was kept so nobody could pretend otherwise.
The turn is one sentence: you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Portion is an inheritance word — it is what a man received when the land was divided. Having lost house, position, and country, he says God is the piece of ground he still owns.
Sources cited
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 142
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 142. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.