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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 143:1 - 143:1
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The poet pleads two motives for the answering of his prayer which are to be found in God Himself, viz., God's אֱמוּנָה, truthfulness, with which He verifies the truth of His promises, that is to say, His faithfulness to His promises; and His צְדָקָה, righteousness, not in a recompensative legal sense, but in an evangelical sense, in accordance with His counsel, i.e., the strictness and earnestness with which He maintains the order of salvation established by His holy love, both against the ungratefully disobedient and against those who insolently despise Him. Having entered into this order of salvation, and within the sphere of it serving Jahve as his God and Lord, the poet is the servant of Jahve. And because the conduct of the God of salvation, ruled by this order of salvation, or His “righteousness” according to its fundamental manifestation, consists in His justifying the sinful man who has no righteousness that he can show corresponding to the divine holiness, 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 (בֹּוא בְּמִשְׁפָּט 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 Psa 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 כִּי (Psa 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 Psa 7:6 (חַיָּה for חַיִּים, as in Psa 78:50, and frequently in the Book of Job, more particularly in the speeches of Elihu). Psa 143:3 also recalls Psa 7:6, but as to the words it sounds like Lam 3:6 (cf. Psa 88:7). מֵתֵי עֹולָם (lxx νεκροὺς αἰῶνος) are either those for ever dead (the Syriac), after שְׁנַת עֹולָם in Jer 51:39, cf. בֵּית עֹולָמֹו in Ecc 12:5, or those dead time out of mind (Jerome), after עַם עֹולָם in Eze 26:20. The genitive construction admits both senses; the former, however, is rendered more natural by the consideration that הֹושִׁיבַנִי 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 Psa 142:4; Psa 77:4); and in his inward part his heart falls into a state of disturbance (יִשְׁתֹּומֵם, 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 (בְּמַֽעֲשֵׂה, Ben-Naphtali בְּֽמַעְשֵׂה) of His hands, i.e., the hitherto so wondrously moulded history of himself and of his people. They are echoes out of Psa 77:4-7, Psa 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 Psa 63:2. Instead of לְךָ it would be לָךְ, if סֶלָה (Targum לְעָֽלְמִין) were not, as it always is, taken up and included in the sequence of the accents.