Psalms 77:1-8

1 I was crying to God with my voice; even to God with my voice, and he gave ear to me.

2 In the day of my trouble, my heart was turned to the Lord: my hand was stretched out in the night without resting; my soul would not be comforted.

3 I will keep God in memory, with sounds of grief; my thoughts are troubled, and my spirit is overcome. (Selah.)

4 You keep my eyes from sleep; I am so troubled that no words come.

5 My thoughts go back to the days of the past, to the years which are gone.

6 The memory of my song comes back to me in the night; my thoughts are moving in my heart; my spirit is searching with care.

7 Will the Lord put me away for ever? will he be kind no longer?

8 Is his mercy quite gone for ever? has his word come to nothing?

Psalms 77:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of Asaph. Jeduthun was the name of the chief musician, to whom this psalm was inscribed and sent; see 1 Chronicles 25:1, though Aben Ezra takes it to be the first word of some song, to the tune of which this was sung; and the Midrash interprets it of the subject of the psalm, which is followed by Jarchi, who explains it thus, "concerning the decrees and judgments which passed upon Israel;" that is, in the time of their present captivity, to which, as he, Kimchi, and Arama think, the whole psalm belongs. Some interpreters refer it to the affliction of the Jews in Babylon, so Theodoret; or under Ahasuerus, or Antiochus; and others to the great and last distress of the church under antichrist; though it seems to express the particular case of the psalmist, and which is common to other saints.