Bible Commentaries

Longing after Mercy in the Midst of Dark Imprisonment

In some codices of the lxx this Psalm (as Euthymius also bears witness) has no inscription at all; in others, however, it has the inscription: Ψαλμὸς τῷ Δαυεὶδ ὅτε αὐτὸν ἐδίωκεν Ἀβεσσαλὼμ ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ (Cod. Sinait. ïôå áõôïí ï õò êáôáäéùêåé). Perhaps by the same poet as Psalm 142:1-7, with which it accords in Psalm 143:4, Psalm 143:8, Psalm 143:11 (cf. Psalm 142:4, 8), it is likethis a modern offshoot of the Davidic Psalm-poetry, and is certainlycomposed as coming out of the situation of him who was persecuted byAbsalom. The Psalms of this time of persecution are distinguished fromthose of the time of the persecution by Saul by the deep melancholy intowhich the mourning of the dethroned king was turned by blending with thepenitential sorrowfulness of one conscious of his own guilt. On account ofthis fundamental feature the church has chosen Psalm 143:1-12 for the last ofits seven Psalmi poenitentialesThe Sela at the close of Psalm 143:6 divides thePsalm into two halves.

The poet pleads two motives for the answering of his prayerwhich are to be found in God Himself, viz., God's אמוּנה,truthfulness, with which He verifies the truth of His promises, that is tosay, His faithfulness to His promises; and His צדקה,righteousness, not in a recompensative legal sense, but in an evangelicalsense, in accordance with His counsel, i.e., the strictness and earnestnesswith which He maintains the order of salvation established by His holylove, both against the ungratefully disobedient and against those whoinsolently despise Him. Having entered into this order of salvation, andwithin the sphere of it serving Jahve as his God and Lord, the poet is theservant of Jahve. And because the conduct of the God of salvation, ruledby this order of salvation, or His “righteousness” according to itsfundamental manifestation, consists in His justifying the sinful man whohas no righteousness that he can show corresponding to the divineholiness, but penitently confesses this disorganized relationship, and,eager for salvation, longs for it to be set right again - because of all this, the poet prays that He would not also enter into judgment (בּוא בּמשׁפּט as in Job 9:32; Job 22:4; Job 14:3) with him, that He therefore would let mercy instead of justice have its course with him. For, apart from the fact that even the holiness of the good spirits does not coincide with God's absolute holiness, and that this defect must still be very far greater in the case of spirit-corporeal man, who has earthiness as the basis of his origin-yea, according to Psalm 51:7, man is conceived in sin, so that he is sinful from the point at which he begins to live onward - his life is indissolubly interwoven with sin, no living man possesses a righteousness that avails before God (Job 4:17; Job 9:2; Job 14:3., Job 15:14, and frequently).

(Note: Gerson observes on this point (vid., Thomasius, Dogmatik, iv. 251): I desire the righteousness of pity, which Thou bestowest in the present life, not the judgment of that righteousness which Thou wilt put into operation in the future life - the righteousness which justifies the repentant one.)

With כּי (Psalm 143:3) the poet introduces the ground of his petition for an answer, and more particularly for the forgiveness of his guilt. He is persecuted by deadly foes and is already nigh unto death, and that not without transgression of his own, so that consequently his deliverance depends upon the forgiveness of his sins, and will coincide with this. “The enemy persecuteth my soul” is a variation of language taken from Psalm 7:6 (חיּה for חיּים, as in Psalm 78:50, and frequently in the Book of Job, more particularly in the speeches of Elihu). Psalm 143:3 also recalls Psalm 7:6, but as to the words it sounds like Lamentations 3:6 (cf. Psalm 88:7). מתי עולם (lxx νεκροὺς αἰῶνος ) are either those for ever dead (the Syriac), after שׁנת עולם in Jeremiah 51:39, cf. בּית עולמו in Ecclesiastes 12:5, or those dead time out of mind (Jerome), after עם עולם in Ezekiel 26:20. The genitive construction admits both senses; the former, however, is rendered more natural by the consideration that הושׁיבני glances back to the beginning that seems to have no end: the poet seems to himself like one who is buried alive for ever. In consequence of this hostility which aims at his destruction, the poet feels his spirit within him, and consequently his inmost life, veil itself (the expression is the same as Psalm 142:4; Psalm 77:4); and in his inward part his heart falls into a state of disturbance (ישׁתּומם, a Hithpo. peculiar to the later language), so that it almost ceases to beat. He calls to mind the former days, in which Jahve was manifestly with him; he reflects upon the great redemptive work of God, with all the deeds of might and mercy in which it has hitherto been unfolded; he meditates upon the doing (בּמעשׂה, Ben-Naphtali בּמעשׂה) of His hands, i.e., the hitherto so wondrously moulded history of himself and of his people. They are echoes out of Psalm 77:4-7, Psalm 77:12. The contrast which presents itself to the Psalmist in connection with this comparison of his present circumsntaces with the past opens his wounds still deeper, and makes his prayer for help all the more urgent. He stretches forth his hands to God that He may protect and assist him (vid., Hölemann, Bibelstudien, i. 150f.). Like parched land is his soul turned towards Him, - language in which we recognise a bending round of the primary passage Psalm 63:2. Instead of לך it would be לך, if סלה (Targum לעלמין) were not, as it always is, taken up and included in the sequence of the accents.

In this second half the Psalm seems still more like a reproduction of thethoughts of earlier Psalms. The prayer, “answer me speedily, hide not Thyface from me,” sounds like Psalm 69:18; Psalm 27:9, cf. Psalm 102:3. The expression oflanguishing longing, כּלתה רוּחי, is like Psalm 84:3. And theapodosis, “else I should become like those who go down into the pit,”agrees word for word with Psalm 28:1, cf. Psalm 88:5. In connection with the words,“cause me to hear Thy loving-kindness in the early morning,” one isreminded of the similar prayer of Moses in Psalm 90:14, and with theconfirmatory “for in Thee do I trust” of Psalm 25:2, and frequently. With theprayer that the night of affliction may have an end with the next morning'sdawn, and that God's helping loving-kindness may make itself felt by him,is joined the prayer that God would be pleased to grant him to know theway that he has to go in order to escape the destruction into which theyare anxious to ensnare him. This last prayer has its type in Exodus 33:13, and in the Psalter in Psalm 25:4 (cf. Psalm 142:4); and its confirmation: for to Thee have I lifted up my soul, viz., in a craving after salvation and in the confidence of faith, has its type in Psalm 25:1; Psalm 86:4. But the words אליך כסּיתי, which are added to the petition “deliver me from mine enemies” (Psalm 59:2; Psalm 31:16), are peculiar, and in their expression without example. The Syriac version leaves them untranslated. The lxx renders: ὅτι πρὸς σὲ κατέφυγον , by which the defective mode of writing כסתי is indirectly attested, instead of which the translators read נסתי (cf. נוּס על in Isaiah 10:3); for elsewhere not חסה but נוּס is reproduced with καταφυγεῖν . The Targum renders it מימרך מנּתי לפריק, Thy Logos do I account as (my) Redeemer (i.e., regard it as such), as if the Hebrew words were to be rendered: upon Thee do I reckon or count, כסּיתי = כּסתּי, Exodus 12:4. Luther closely follows the lxx: “to Thee have I fled for refuge.” Jerome, however, inasmuch as he renders: ad te protectus sum, has pointed כסּיתי (כסּיתי). Hitzig (on the passage before us and Proverbs 7:20) reads כסתי from כּסא = סכא, to look (“towards Thee do I look”). But the Hebrew contains no trace of that verb; the full moon is called כסא (כסה), not as being “a sight or vision, species,” but from its covered orb.

The כסּתי before us only admits of two interpretations: (1) Ad (apud) te texi = to Thee have I secretly confided it (Rashi, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Coccejus, J. H. Michaelis, J. D. Michalis, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, and De Wette). But such a constructio praegnans, in connection with which כּסּה would veer round from the signification to veil (cf. כסה מן, Genesis 18:17) into its opposite, and the clause have the meaning of כּי אליך גּלּיתי, Jeremiah 11:20; Jeremiah 20:12, is hardly conceivable. (2) Ad (apud) te abscondidi, scil. me (Saadia, Calvin, Maurer, Ewald, and Hengstenberg), in favour of which we decide; for it is evident from Genesis 38:14; Deuteronomy 22:12, cf. Jonah 3:6, that כּסּה can express the act of covering as an act that is referred to the person himself who covers, and so can obtain a reflexive meaning. Therefore: towards Thee, with Thee have I made a hiding = hidden myself, which according to the sense is equivalent to חסיתּי, as Hupfeld (with a few MSS) wishes to read; but Abulwalîd has already remarked that the same goal is reached with כסּתי. Jahve, with whom he hides himself, is alone able to make known to him what is right and beneficial in the position in which he finds himself, in which he is exposed to temporal and spiritual dangers, and is able to teach him to carry out the recognised will of God (“the will of God, good and well-pleasing and perfect,” Romans 12:2); and this it is for which he prays to Him in Psalm 143:10 (רצונך; another reading, רצונך). For Jahve is indeed his God, who cannot leave him, who is assailed and tempted without and within, in error; may His good Spirit then (רוּחך טובה for הטּובה, Nehemiah 9:20)

(Note: Properly, “Thy Spirit, רוּח הטּובה, a spirit, the good one, although such irregularities may also be a negligent usage of the language, like the Arabic (msjd) ('l) -(jâm‛), the chief mosque, which many grammarians regard as a construct relationship, others as an ellipsis (inasmuch as they supply Arab. ('l) -(mkân) between the words); the former is confirmed from the Hebrew, vid., Ewald, §287, a.))

lead him in a level country, for, as it is said in Isaiah, Isaiah 26:7, in looking up to Jahve, “the path which the righteous man takes is smoothness; Thou makest the course of the righteous smooth.” The geographical term ארץ מישׁור, Deuteronomy 4:43; Jeremiah 48:21, is here applied spiritually. Here, too, reminiscences of Psalms already read meet us everywhere: cf. on “to do Thy will,” Psalm 40:9; on “for Thou art my God,” Psalm 40:6, and frequently; on “Thy good Spirit,” Psalm 51:14; on “a level country,” and the whole petition, Psalm 27:11 (where the expression is “a level path”), together with Psalm 5:9; Psalm 25:4., Psalm 31:4. And the Psalm also further unrolls itself in such now well-known thoughts of the Psalms: For Thy Name's sake, Jahve (Psalm 25:11), quicken me again (Psalm 71:20, and frequently); by virtue of Thy righteousness be pleased to bring my soul out of distress (Ps 142:8; Psalm 25:17, and frequently); and by virtue of Thy loving-kindness cut off mine enemies (Psalm 54:7). As in Psalm 143:1 faithfulness and righteousness, here loving-kindness (mercy) and righteousness, are coupled together; and that so that mercy is not named beside towtsiy', nor righteousness beside תּצמית, but the reverse (vid., on Psalm 143:1). It is impossible that God should suffer him who has hidden himself in Him to die and perish, and should suffer his enemies on the other hand to triumph. Therefore the poet confirms the prayer for the cutting off (הצמית as in Psalm 94:23) of his enemies and the destruction (האביד, elsewhere אבּד) of the oppressors of his soul (elsewhere צררי) with the words: for I am Thy servant.