Psalms 143:1-8

1 <> Hear my prayer, Yahweh. Listen to my petitions. In your faithfulness and righteousness, relieve me.

2 Don't enter into judgment with your servant, For in your sight no man living is righteous.

3 For the enemy pursues my soul. He has struck my life down to the ground. He has made me live in dark places, as those who have been long dead.

4 Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate.

5 I remember the days of old. I meditate on all your doings. I contemplate the work of your hands.

6 I spread forth my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you, like a parched land. Selah.

7 Hurry to answer me, Yahweh. My spirit fails. Don't hide your face from me, So that I don't become like those who go down into the pit.

8 Cause me to hear your lovingkindness in the morning, For I trust in you. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, For I lift up my soul to you.

Psalms 143:1-8 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.