A SUFFERER prays to be delivered from unjust and treacherous enemies, ver. 1–3, expresses a confident assurance that his request will be granted, ver. 4, and upbraids himself for his despondency and unbelief, ver. 5.
“Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” (Psalm 43, KJV)
As the last verse is identical with that of the preceding psalm, and the last clause of ver. 2 nearly so with that of Ps. 42:10 (9), some have inferred that this is really the third stanza or strophe of that psalm, separated from it by mistake. But the difficulty of accounting for such a mistake, a difficulty aggravated by the resemblance of the compositions, together with a very perceptible difference in the general tone of the two psalms, makes it far more probable that it is a supplementary psalm, composed by the same person, or in imitation of him, on a different occasion. The union of the two in more than thirty Hebrew manuscripts, only shews that their transcribers drew the same hasty conclusion that has since been drawn by many interpreters, and is much more easily explained than the division of the psalms in all the other copies, on the contrary hypothesis. Their juxtaposition in the Psalter is owing not merely to their mutual resemblance, but to the fact that one was actually written as an appendix or continuation of the other. The same hypothesis sufficiently accounts for the absence of a title or inscription in the psalm before us.
1. Judge me, (O) God, i.e. do me justice, vindicate my innocence, exercise thy righteousness in my behalf. See above, on Ps. 10:18, 26:1. And plead my cause, literally strive my strife, but with particular allusion to litigious or forensic contest. See above, on Ps. 35:1. Against an ungodly nation, literally from one; the idea of deliverance, as the necessary consequence of God’s being his advocate, is here implied, and afterwards expressed. The word nations (גּוֹיִם) being constantly applied to the gentiles or heathen, the use of the singular in reference to Israel always conveys an idea of reproach. Compare Isa. 1:4. Ungodly, more exactly not merciful, the Hebrew word denoting both the object and the subject of benignant pity. See above, on Ps. 37:28. From a man of fraud. See above, on Ps. 5:7 (6). And iniquity, or more precisely, perverseness, moral obliquity. Thou wilt deliver me. This is strictly an expression of strong confidence, but really includes the prayer, deliver thou me.
2. For thou art the God of my strength. The last word means properly my place of strength, my stronghold, or my fortress. See above on Ps. 27:1. For what (cause) hast thou cast me off, renounced, rejected me? The original expression is a very strong one, and implies disgust or loathing. Compare Rev. 3:16. (Why) do I go, or more exactly, shall I, must I go, i.e. go about, in different directions. The verb is an intensive form of that used in Ps. 42:10 (9), and occurs above, in Ps. 35:14, in the same connection as here. Mourning, with special reference to the neglect of neatness, both in dress and person, as a customary sign of grief. See above, on Ps. 35:14, 38:7 (6), 42:10 (9). In (i.e. during and because of) the oppression (persecution) of the enemy. All this is indirectly represented as inconsistent with the covenant relation he sustains to God.
3. Send, i.e. send forth out from thy presence. See above, on Ps. 14:7, 20:3 (2). Thy light, the light of thy countenance, thy favourable aspect, as in Ps. 4:7 (6), or more generally, light, as the opposite of darkness, and a figure for relief from that of which darkness is the emblem, to wit, danger and distress. And thy truth, thy veracity, thy faithfulness, the certain fulfilment of thy promises. See above, on Ps. 25:5, 26:3, 30:10 (9). To send it out is to exercise this attribute, to manifest it in act, by performing his engagements. They, with emphasis on the pronoun, which is otherwise superfluous in Hebrew, they and no other, nothing else. See above, on Ps. 23:4. Shall guide (conduct or lead) me, or giving the future an optative meaning, which is certainly implied in this connection, let them lead me. They shall cause me to come (or let them bring me) to thy hill of holiness (thy holy hill) and to thy dwellings, or thy tabernacles, as the Hebrew word is specially applied to the Mosaic sanctuary (Ex. 25:9, Num. 1:50). This petition seems to imply a previous exclusion from it, and thereby shews that the historical occasion of the psalm, if not the same, was similar to that of the forty-second. The form of expression seems to be borrowed from Exod. 15:13. The mention of the tabernacle and the holy hill, i.e. mount Zion, shews that the psalm is neither earlier nor later than the times of David and Solomon, before whom there was no holy hill, and after whom there was no tabernacle. This strengthens the presumption that David was himself the author of both psalms.
4. And I shall come, as an expression of strong confidence that God will save him from his present troubles, or I will come, as the expression of a purpose, amounting to a vow or solemn promise. Both these ideas, though requiring a slight variation of expression in our idiom, would be necessarily suggested to a Hebrew reader by the original verb, the paragogic form of which, however, shews that the second is the primary idea. See above, on Ps. 42:5 (4). To the altar of God (Elohim), as the place of sacrifice here put for the whole sanctuary. To God (El) the gladness of my joy, my joyous gladness, the author and the object of my highest exultation. And I will thank thee, praise thee for thy benefits, with a harp (כִּנּוֹר), the instrument on which David’s history describes him as excelling. See above, on Ps. 33:2, and compare 1 Sam. 16:16, 23. What he here vows is not mere private praise, but participation in the public praises of the sanctuary. God, my God. Not merely God in general, but my God in particular. Either expression by itself would have been insufficient to express the whole idea, God being too vague, my God too restricted, whereas the combination of the two implies that his God was not a personal, domestic, or national divinity, but the supreme God.
5. Why art thou cast down, literally why wilt thou deject thyself, implying self-rebuke for an unreasonable and untimely sadness. (O) my soul, which is really equivalent to myself. And why art thou disquieted, why wilt thou be agitated by these anxious doubts and groundless fears? See above, on Ps. 42:6 (5). Within me, literally upon me, as if his unbelieving fears weighed upon him as a heavy burden. Hope thou in God, or more exactly, wait thou for him, for his appearance, for his help, for the fulfilment of his promise. This, he is confident, will come at last. For I shall yet praise him, thank him, or acknowledge his kindness. (As) the health of my countenance, or more exactly, the salvations of my face, the salvations which are yet to cheer my clouded aspect and lift up my dejected countenance. The exact coincidence of this verse with the last of the preceding psalm, so far from proving it to be a part of it, rather proves the contrary, for reasons which have been already stated in the exposition of Ps. 42:12 (11).
Alexander, J. A. (1864). The Psalms Translated and Explained (pp. 192–194). Andrew Elliot; James Thin. (Public Domain)
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