Psalm 77:1-10

Confidence in a Time of Crisis

For the choir director: according to Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.

1 I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me.

2 In my day of trouble I sought the Lord. My hands were lifted up all night long; I refused to be comforted.^[a]

3 I think of God; I groan;^[b] I meditate; my spirit becomes weak.^[c] Selah

4 You have kept me from closing my eyes; I am troubled and cannot speak.

5 I consider days of old, years long past.

6 At night I remember my music; I meditate in my heart, and my spirit ponders.

7 "Will the Lord reject forever^[d] and never again show favor?

8 Has His faithful love ceased forever? Is [His] promise at an end for all generations?^[e]

9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger withheld His compassion?" Selah

10 So I say, "It is my sorrow that the right hand of the Most High has changed."

Psalm 77:1-10 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.

Footnotes

• [a] Gn 37:35; Jr 31:15
• [b] Ps 42:5,11; 55:17; Ezk 7:16
• [c] Ps 143:4
• [d] Lm 2:7; 3:31
• [e] Ps 33:11; 85:5; 89:1,4
• [f] Ex 34:6-7
• [g] Lit "My piercing