Psalms 143:1-7

A Prayer for Rescue from Enemies

A psalm of David.

1 O Yahweh, hear my prayer; listen to my supplications. In your faithfulness answer me, [and] in your righteousness.

2 And do not enter into judgment with your servant, because no one alive [is] righteous before you.

3 For [the] enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground. He has made me dwell in dark places like [those] long dead.

4 And [so] my spirit grows faint within me; my heart {within} me is desolate.

5 I remember [the] days of long ago; I meditate on all your doings. I muse on the labor of your hands.

6 I stretch out my hands to you; my soul [longs] for you like a dry land. Selah

7 Quickly answer me, O Yahweh; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me, or I will become like [those] descending to [the] pit.

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Psalms 143:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 143

\\<>\\. This psalm was composed by David when he fled from Absalom his son, according to the title of it in Apollinarius, the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions; so R. Obadiah Gaon: and of the same opinion is Theodoret and others. The sense he had of his sins, and his deprecating God's entering into judgment with him for them, seems to confirm it; affliction from his own family for them being threatened him, 2Sa 12:9-11; though Kimchi thinks it was written on the same account as the former, and at the same time, namely, when he was persecuted by Saul; and what is said in Ps 142:2,4, seems to agree with it. The Syriac inscription is, ``when the Edomites came against him;'' which is very foreign, since these were subdued by him.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Footnotes 3

[a]. The Hebrew Bible counts the superscription as the first verse of the psalm
[b]. Literally "in the midst of"
[c]. Hebrew "doing"