Psalms 43

1. JUDGE me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation : O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. 2 For thou art the God of my strength ; why hast thou cast me off ? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy ? 3 O send out thy light and thy truth ; let them lead me : Let them bring me unto thy holy hill,

And to thy tabernacles. 4 Then will I go unto the altar of God, Unto God my exceeding joy : And upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. 5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? And why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope thou in God : for I shall yet praise him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

PSALMS 42 and 43 are introduced by Delitzsch under the caption, “Homesickness for Zion in an Enemy’s Country.” B.—The forty-third Psalm has no title. It is continuous in thought and in its tone of feeling with the Psalm that precedes it. The refrain of Psalm 42 : 6, 12 is repeated in Psalm 43 : 5. These indications show conclusively that the two Psalms are a unit—a single piece of poetic composition, divided by the refrain into three sections. Doubtless there is some reason why they are numbered separately in the Psalter ; for example, the third section may have been written later than the first two sections. But in any case, the third section is homogeneous with the other two, and the unity is unbroken. W. J. Beecher.

3. This petition seems to imply a previous exclusion from the sanctuary, and thereby shows that the historical occasion of the Psalm, if not the same, was similar to that of the forty-second. The mention of the tabernacle and the holy hill, i.e., Mount Zion, shows that the Psalm is neither earlier nor later than the times of David and Solomon, before whom there was no holy hill, and after whom there was no tabernacle. This strengthens the presumption that David was himself the author of both Psalms. A.

O send out Thy light and Thy truth ; let them lead me. “Thy light”—to chase away this darkness and to guide me in Thy perfect way. “Thy truth,” in the sense here of manifesting Thy faithfulness in the fulfilment of promise. So guided all will be well. C.—He does not say “Thy light” simply ; that would be to lose sight of the Word of truth ; nor does he say “Thy truth” simply ; that would be to lose sight of the Light of the Spirit ; but he exclaims, “O send out Thy

Light and Thy Truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling.” Both are equally matters of necessity. Here is a body of divinity in a few short lines. The necessity of the light of the Spirit. The necessity of the light of the Word. The necessity of conducting ourselves according to these lights. And finally, the light at the close of such a career, which is the light of glory. E. M. G.

Man is a traveller, his life is a journey, heaven is his end, his road lieth through a wilderness, and he is in the dark. Thus circumstanced, how earnestly and devoutly ought he to pray, “O send out Thy light and Thy truth ; let them lead me, let them bring me to Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles !” For surely, “the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light” (Prov. 6 : 23). If we take this lamp in our hand it will not only point out our course in general, but also direct us in every step, and guide our feet aright in the path of holiness and peace. Bishop Horne.—When God sends His light and truth into our hearts, those will guide us to the upper world in all our devotions, as well as in all our aims and expectations ; and if we conscientiously follow that light and that truth, they will certainly bring us to the holy hill above. H.

4. Then will I go unto the altar of God. The approach to God in the holy place was by means of the altar, whence continually ascended the fragrance of the one whole, perfect burnt-offering. That altar now means all the value and everlasting efficacy of the one offering of Christ unto God for us ; and it is in the full power and blessedness thereof that we draw nigh to God. To this unspeakably blessed position, the light and the truth of God will attract the child of God. Toward this altar all the rays of the light of Divine favor and grace, and of Divine truth and holiness, have from eternity converged; and from this point they shine forth toward and upon the soul and heart of the penitent, attracting him to that altar where he may meet his God. J. Offord.

God my exceeding joy, literally, “the God of the joy of my exultation,” source and sustainer of all gladness and bliss; a singularly emphatic combination, such as Paul delights in. Cook.—Those that come unto God must come to Him as their exceeding joy, not only as their future bliss but as their present joy; and that not a common but an exceeding joy, far exceeding all the joys of sense and time. The phrase in the original is very emphatical—unto God the gladness of my joy, or of my triumph. Whatever we rejoice or triumph in, God must be the joy of it; all our joy in it must terminate in Him, and must pass through the gift to the Giver. When we come to God as our exceeding joy, our comforts in Him must be the matter of our praises to Him as God, and our God. H.—The joy of worship is common to all believers. It is in worship that exalted views of God are obtained. Meditation may lay the wood and the offering; but devotion kindles the fire of the altar. To pray to such a God, so beheld, is to rise in joyfulness toward heaven. To praise Him, under any true apprehension of His excellency, is joy unspeakable and full of glory. J. W. A.

Will praise Thee. Let the soul that has long lain face downward, self-centred in its sorrows, look up and away from its own darkness to God’s light, from its own wants to God’s fulness, from its own sin to the grace that abounds more exceedingly; let it lay down its burden and take up a song; and in the very effort to praise God it will mount up on wings as an eagle to a serene atmosphere and an ineffable light. It will praise God for His mercies to others, for His unspeakable gift, for His exceeding great and precious promises, for the revelation of His grace and glory, and above all, for what He is in Himself, in the plenitude, the perfection, and the blessedness of His own being. H. J. V.—Since I may, I will wear the angel look of cheerfulness and live in the light of God. When I know that I have a Father in heaven who watches over me, who forgives my sin, who strengthens every holy purpose in me, provides for all my needs, cares for me in all my cares, supports and guides me, and by acts of tenderest love and promises of everlasting blessedness allures and draws me toward His heart and home, why should I not be cheerful as my life is long? A. Raleigh.

Man will not be satisfied with family, or friendship, or acquaintance. Fresh vistas of humanity are ever opening before him, and each new friend becomes a new point of departure for the extension of his influence to a wider circle still. His motive may vary, but the instinct remains the same, and is simply the instinct to wider, deeper, more intense communion with his fellow-men. And yet, as before, its very unrest is but the measure of its failure. We are more severed from humanity than ever we were from external nature, and if the world is our prison, our fellow men are our jailers. And so in our loneliness we look within and try to find refuge in an ideal world, but only to find schism and severance in the recesses of our inmost being. We are farther off from our ideals than even from nature and mankind. All this is a fact, and a fact as universal as human experience; and Christianity, beyond other creeds, has faced and interpreted the fact. Nature, and society, and the thoughts of our hearts were created by a Person, and created for Himself; and our feelings of separation from the world and its inhabitants, and even from the inner vision of our own ideal self, are but symptoms of alienation from the Person in whom they exist. J. R. Illingworth.—No things can satisfy a living soul. No accumulation of dead matter can become the life of an immortal being. The two classes are separated by the whole diameter of the universe—matter and spirit, thing and person; and you cannot feed yourself upon the dead husks that lie there round about you—wealth, position, honor. Books, thoughts, though they are nobler than these other, are still inefficient. Principles, “causes,” emotions springing from truth, these are not enough. I want more than that, I want something to love, something to lay a hand upon, that shall return the grasp of the hand. A living man must have a living God, or his soul will perish in the midst of earthly plenty, and will thirst and die while the water of earthly delights is running all around him. We are made to need persons, not things! And we need one Being who shall be all-sufficient. We want a being, and we want one Being in whom shall be sphered all perfection, in whom shall abide all power and blessedness; beyond whom thought cannot pass, out of whose infinite circumference love does not need to wander; besides whose boundless treasures no other riches can be required; who is light for the understanding, power for the will, authority for the practical life, purpose for the efforts, motive for the doings, end and object for the feelings, home of the affections, light of our seeing, life of our love, the love of our heart, the one living God, infinite in wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth; who is all in all, and without whom everything else is misery. A. M.

5. The two voices (of despondency and trust), which at the beginning stand out in entire discord and almost harsh antagonism (vs. 2-4), are at last brought into loving harmony, so that emotion and insight, excitement and thoughtfulness are wholly reconciled, and are intimately blended. All this without artifice or constraint; the true expression of the struggles between two contending forces in a spirit at once susceptible to tenderest feeling, yet upon reflection full of strength. The art consists wholly in the highest naturalness, and the purest inspiration. The imagery also in all its details is in the highest degree tender and poetical. Ewald.

Hope thou in God. There are hours in which physical derangement darkens the windows of the soul; days in which shattered nerves make life simply endurance; months and years in which intellectual difficulties, pressing for solution, shut out God. Then faith must be replaced by hope. “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” “Clouds and darkness are round about Him: but righteousness and truth are the habitation of His throne.” “My soul, hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him.” F. W. R.

Who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Till you can say that, you must always be the slave of circumstances and the prey of every kind of temptation and distress; but when your faith is high enough to enable you to feel that all the sunshine that plays in your face is a reflection of the light of God’s countenance, and that not only the gifts, but the Giver is yours, then that “my God” will carry you on, and bear you up, superior to all the vexations of life; and the possession of God will be the dispossession of care. J. Vaughan. — He considers our need, and His help comes as constantly as the light of the sun by day. He is never removed from us nor we from Him. We cannot pass out of God—beyond the sphere of His omniscience and omnipotence, and therefore can never pass the limits where His help may not swifter than thought reach us. When stricken with pain, when overwhelmed with grief, when our life is going out in agony, when we have passed clear beyond the region where human help avails, God may be helping us. Help from God is not intermittent, it is not dependent on outward circumstances, nor upon personal health—it is not a varying quantity, but an unvarying one. We may go forth to duty, to toil, and struggle, we may go up into our chambers and lie down upon our sick and dying-beds, we may go out upon the untried scenes of eternity, relying upon it as surely as we may rely on the sun or the tides. That help, when we have sought it in the proper way, and with the proper spirit, will no more be wanting to us than the earth will fail us to tread upon—nay, it will be operative when all material things shall have passed away. J. Drummond.

The proper and natural effect, and in the absence of all disturbing or intercepting forces, the certain and sensible accompaniment of peace (or reconcilement) with God, is our own inward peace, a calm and quiet temper of mind. This peace which we have with God in Christ is inviolable; but because the sense and persuasion of it may be interrupted, the soul that is truly at peace with God may for a time be disquieted in itself, through weakness of faith, or the strength of temptation, or the darkness of desertion, losing sight of that grace, that love and light of God’s countenance, on which its tranquillity and joy depend. Leighton. — Why should we trouble ourselves about altering these varying events, since each in its turn is a manifestation of His mind and will; each in its turn is a means of discipline for us; and through all their variety a single purpose works, which tends to a single end—“that we should be partakers of His holiness.” And that is the one point of view from which we can bear to look upon the world and not be utterly bewildered and overmastered by it. Calmness and central peace are ours; a true appreciation of all outward good and a charm against the bitterest sting of outward evils are ours; a patient continuance in the place where He has set us is ours—when by fellowship with Him we have learned to look upon our work as primarily doing His will, and upon all our possessions and conditions primarily as means for making us like Himself. A. M.

The state of the most advanced Christians is often very unsatisfactory. The affections that, true as the needle to the pole, should point steadily to heaven, go wheeling about like a weather vane that shifts with shifting winds. Sinful thoughts and bad desires spring up, and every attempt to keep the heart pure, holy, heavenly, ends in miserable failure, extorting

the question, “Who is sufficient for these things?” There is no appreciable progress; and we begin to ask, Are we never to grow fit for heaven? Is our hope of it but a pious dream, a beautiful delusion? Daily called to contend with temptation, the battle often goes against us; in these passions, and tempers, and old habits are too strong for us. Not that we do not fight, but too often resisting only to be conquered, we are ready to give up the struggle, saying, It is useless. We would; but that, cheered by a voice from above and sustained by hope in God’s grace and mercy, we can turn to our souls to say, Why art thou cast down, my soul; why is my spirit disquieted

within me?—rise; resume thy arms; renew the combat; never surrender! “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” Guthrie.