40.8 Your law is within my heart. See Jer 31.33; Heb 10.16.
40.9–10 The one who has been delivered has borne witness to God’s love and faithfulness before the community (cf. v. 3; 22.22–23).
40.11–17 A cry to God for help in a new situation of distress and trouble. Vv. 13–17 are the same as Ps 70.
40.16–17 The prayer concludes with the psalmist’s expression of trust and anticipated praise and joy when God’s help comes (cf. 35.27).
PSALM 41
1Happy are those who consider the poor;a
the LORD delivers them in the day of trouble.
2The LORD protects them and keeps them alive;
they are called happy in the land.
You do not give them up to the will of their enemies.
3The LORD sustains them on their sickbed;
in their illness you heal all their infirmities.b
4As for me, I said, “O LORD, be gracious to me;
heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
5My enemies wonder in malice
when I will die, and my name perish.
6And when they come to see me, they utter empty words,
while their hearts gather mischief;
when they go out, they tell it abroad.
7All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for me.
8They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me,
that I will not rise again from where I lie.
9Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,
who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.
10But you, O LORD, be gracious to me,
and raise me up, that I may repay them.
11By this I know that you are pleased with me;
because my enemy has not triumphed over me.
12But you have upheld me because of my integrity,
and set me in your presence forever.
13Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.
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a Or weak
b Heb you change all his bed
41.1–13 An individual prayer for help and deliverance from sickness is set before the congregation as instruction about God’s care of the weak and the sick. To the leader. See note on 4.1–8.
41.1–3 A didactic introduction expressing the certainty of the Lord’s healing of the sick. It is the ground of confidence on which the prayer that follows was uttered and the conclusion reached by the psalmist in light of the answered prayer.
41.1 Happy. See note on 1.1.
41.4–10 The prayer is reported, beginning and ending with petitions for the Lord to be gracious and heal (or raise up) the sick person (vv. 4, 10) and lamenting the malice of those, including friends, who may say kind words but really spread slanderous things and anticipate happily the death of the one who is sick.
41.4 For I have sinned against you reflects the understanding that the illness has also to do with God’s judgment for sin and that God’s healing involves forgiveness.
41.9 Who ate of my bread. Applied to Judas in Jn 13.18.
41.11–12 Having been healed, the one who was sick acknowledges God’s vindication and providential care and the consequent defeat of the enemies.
41.13 A doxology marks the end of each of the five sections, or “books,” of the Psalter (41.13; 72.18–19; 89.52; 106.48; 150.1–6). This doxology, which concludes the first book of the Psalter (Pss 1–41), also serves as praise and thanksgiving for God’s deliverance. Blessed. See note on 103.1–2.
BOOK II: PSALMS 42–72
PSALM 42
Longing for God and His Help in Distress
To the leader. A Maskil of the Korahites.
1As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
3My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
4These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,a
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help 6and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
8By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”
10As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
11Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
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a Meaning of Heb uncertain
42.1–43.5 An individual prayer for help by one who is cut off from the presence of God and oppressed by enemies. The psalmist seeks both to be led again into the sanctuary and defended against those who have dealt unjustly. The absence of a superscription at the beginning of Ps 43, the repetition of the refrain in 42.5, 11; 43.5, the repetition of 42.9b in 43.2b, and the common theme of coming to the sanctuary all suggest that the two psalms are to be read as a single psalm. To the leader. See note on 4.1–8. Maskil. See note on 32.1–11. Korahites, a group of temple singers (2 Chr 20.19) who may have collected and transmitted a number of psalms.
42.1–5 The intense longing to come again into the presence of God is tempered by remembrance of previous pilgrimages to the sanctuary (cf. 84.1–2).
42.3 “Where is your God?” See v. 10; note on 79.10.
42.4 Festival, one of Israel’s three great pilgrimage festivals (Deut 16).
42.6–11 In despair again, the psalmist once more remembers God. But that memory makes all the sharper the present experience of distress and the absence of God’s presence and power.
42.6 My soul is cast down. Cf. Mt 26.38; Mk 14.34. From the land…Hermon, the headwaters of the Jordan and the great Mount Hermon in the north of Syro-Palestine, suggesting that the one praying may have been in that locale. Mount Mizar is unknown but may have been a peak in the Hermon range.
PSALM 43
Prayer to God in Time of Trouble
1Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful and unjust deliver me!
2For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
why have you cast me off?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because of the oppression of the enemy?
3O send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling.
4Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy;
and I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.
5Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
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43.1–5 The sufferer pleads for God’s powerful defense against injustice and asks with great confidence to be led into the sanctuary to praise and thank God. Cf. 23.6; 27.4–6; 84.1–4.
43.3 Your holy hill, probably the temple on Zion in Jerusalem, though some have speculated that a sanctuary in the north of Palestine may have been meant.
PSALM 44
National Lament and Prayer for Help
To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Maskil.
1We have heard with our ears, O God,
our ancestors have told us,
what deeds you performed in their days,
in the days of old:
2you with your own hand drove out the nations,
but them you planted;
you afflicted the peoples,
but them you set free;
3for not by their own sword did they win the land,
nor did their own arm give them victory;
but your right hand, and your arm,
and the light of your countenance,
for you delighted in them.
4You are my King and my God;
you commanda victories for Jacob.
5Through you we push down our foes;
through your name we tread down our assailants.
6For not in my bow do I trust,
nor can my sword save me.
7But you have saved us from our foes,
and have put to confusion those who hate us.
8In God we have boasted continually,
and we will give thanks to your name forever.
Selah
9Yet you have rejected us and abased us,
and have not gone out with our armies.
10You made us turn back from the foe,
and our enemies have gotten spoil.
11You have made us like sheep for slaughter,
and have scattered us among the nations.
12You have sold your people for a trifle,
demanding no high price for them.
13You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
the derision and scorn of those around us.
14You have made us a byword among the nations,
a laughingstockb among the peoples.
15All day long my disgrace is before me,
and shame has covered my face
16at the words of the taunters and revilers,
at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.
17All this has come upon us,
yet we have not forgotten you,
or been false to your covenant.
18Our heart has not turned back,
nor have our steps departed from your way,
19yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,
and covered us with deep darkness.
20If we had forgotten the name of our God,
or spread out our hands to a strange god,
21would not God discover this?
For he knows the secrets of the heart.
22Because of you we are being killed all day long,
and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
23Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not cast us off forever!
24Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
25For we sink down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26Rise up, come to our help.
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.
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a Gk Syr: Heb You are my King, O God; command
b Heb a shaking of the head
44.1–26 A prayer by the community for help after having been severely defeated by its enemies (cf. Pss 74; 79). To the leader. See note on 4.1–8. Korahites. See note on 42.1–43.5. Maskil. See note on 32.1–11.
44.1–3 Remembrance of the mighty deeds of God in the past on behalf of Israel. Later generations have been told the story of how the Lord gave the Israelites the land and victory over their enemies.
44.3 See Deut 8.17–18.
44.4–8 An acknowledgment of God’s help against the nation’s enemies together with thanksgiving. The first-person voice in these verses could have been a king’s, though any representative voice could speak these words on behalf of the community.
44.8 Selah. See note on 3.2.
44.9–16 But now God has abandoned the people, and they have been defeated by their enemies.
44.12 Sold your people, i.e., made them in effect slaves to their enemies (cf. Deut 32.30; Judg 2.14; 3.8; 1 Sam 12.9).
44.13 Taunt (cf. v. 10). See note on 79.10.
44.14 See 79.4; 80.6; Deut 28.37. Made us a byword. The disaster was so great that it has become proverbial among other peoples.
44.17–22 The people protest their innocence and complain that God has abandoned them unjustly.
44.18 Haunt of jackals, either the desert where jackals roam or a place of devastation where jackals eat the remains of bodies (cf. Isa 34.13; 35.7; Jer 9.11; 10.22).
44.22 Because of the people’s faithfulness to the Lord they are being defeated, so God’s honor is at stake. Quoted in Rom 8.36.
44.23–26 The prayer of the people for God to help them rather than to reject them.
44.23 Sleep, an image to convey God’s inactivity. Cf. 78.65; 121.4.
44.24 Hide your face. See notes on 10.1; 27.9.
44.26 Rise up. See note on 12.5.
PSALM 45
Ode for a Royal Wedding
To the leader: according to Lilies. Of the Korahites. A Maskil. A love song.
1My heart overflows with a goodly theme;
I address my verses to the king;
my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.
2You are the most handsome of men;
grace is poured upon your lips;
therefore God has blessed you forever.
3Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one,
in your glory and majesty.
4In your majesty ride on victoriously
for the cause of truth and to defenda the right;
let your right hand teach you dread deeds.
5Your arrows are sharp
in the heart of the king’s enemies;
the peoples fall under you.
6Your throne, O God,b endures forever and ever.
Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity;
7you love righteousness and hate wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
8your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.
From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
9daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor;
at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
10Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear;
forget your people and your father’s house,
11and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him;
12the peoplec of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts,
the richest of the people 13with all kinds of wealth.
The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes;d
14in many-colored robes she is led to the king;
behind her the virgins, her companions, follow.
15With joy and gladness they are led along
as they enter the palace of the king.
16In the place of ancestors you, O king,e shall have sons;
you will make them princes in all the earth.
17I will cause your name to be celebrated in all generations;
therefore the peoples will praise you forever and ever.
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a Cn: Heb and the meekness o
f
b Or Your throne is a throne of God, it
c Heb daughter
d Or people. 13All glorious is the princess within, gold embroidery is her clothing
e Heb lacks O king
45.1–17 A royal psalm probably composed for the wedding of the king. To the leader. See note on 4.1–8. According to Lilies. Meaning uncertain, probably referring to a particular melody. Korahites. See note on 42.1–43.5. Maskil. See note on 32.1–11.
45.1 A composer or singer addresses these words to the king to praise him.
45.2–9 Praise of the king’s appearance and strength, his love of the right and hatred of wickedness.
45.6a The meaning of this sentence is unclear. Although the king is called “my son” by God (2.7), nowhere else in the OT is the king called “God” or regarded as divine. Quoted in Heb 1.8.
45.7 The more characteristic understanding of kingship in Israel (as opposed to that in 45.6a) is found here in the notion that the king is the anointed of God.
45.8 Ivory palaces, the homes of the wealthy that contained furnishings inlaid with carved ivory.
45.9–15 The princess or queen is now addressed and praised.
45.9 Gold of Ophir was probably the finest gold then known; the location of Ophir is unknown (cf. Job 28.16; Isa 13.12).
45.10–11 These verses may actually reflect aspects of the marriage ceremony, or they may describe more generally the appropriate attitude of the bride in this marital relationship.
45.16–17 A final paean of blessing and praise to the king by the singer or composer.
PSALM 46
God’s Defense of His City and People
HarperCollins Study Bible Page 213