Psalm 143
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Speaks with:Psalms 7×2Psalms 77×2Psalms 31×2Psalms 25×2Psalms 71×1Psalms 140×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The last penitential psalm: 'Hear my prayer, O Jehovah… and in thy righteousness answer me. And enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight no man living is righteous': the verse behind Romans 3:20. The enemy hath smitten my life down; my spirit is overwhelmed. 'I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy doings… I spread forth my hands unto thee.' The morning prayer: 'Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning… Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy Spirit is good; lead me in the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Jehovah, for thy name's sake.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 143The history
The opening is a legal plea with a strange request attached: do not bring your servant into judgment, because no living person is in the right before you. The singer asks for a hearing and then asks not to be tried on the merits.
The thirst image is agricultural. In a Judean summer the ground goes months with no rain, opens in cracks wide enough to lose a foot in, and everything green either goes dormant or dies. My soul thirsts for you like a parched land is a picture with a season attached to it.
Going down to the pit means the grave, and being counted among those who go down there is the standard Old Testament way of describing death — a place where the songs and the sacrifices stop.
The remedy is memory and craft. He remembers the old days, thinks over all God has done, and meditates on the work of God's hands — the same verb used for a low murmur, because reading and thinking in that world were done out loud.
The morning matters. Justice was given at dawn and armies attacked at dawn, so asking to hear of God's steadfast love in the morning is asking for the verdict at the hour verdicts came.
What it meant to them
This became one of the songs Israel used for confession, and its honesty is the reason: it does not argue that the singer deserves rescue.
What it asks for instead is instruction — teach me to do your will, lead me on level ground — which assumes that being forgiven is the beginning of a walk, not the end of a case.
Sources cited
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament , Psalms
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 143
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 143. 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.