3 O send out your light and your true word; let them be my guide: let them take me to your holy hill, and to your tents.
<To the chief music-maker; put to the Gittith A Psalm. Of the sons of Korah.> How dear are your tents, O Lord of armies!
I send up a cry to the Lord with my voice, and he gives me an answer from his holy hill. (Selah.)
For the law was given through Moses; grace and the true way of life are ours through Jesus Christ.
What came into existence in him was life, and the life was the light of men.
You will make clear your good faith to Jacob and your mercy to Abraham, as you gave your oath to our fathers from times long past.
Give me teaching so that I may do your pleasure; for you are my God: let your good Spirit be my guide into the land of righteousness.
For the Lord's heart is on Zion, desiring it for his resting-place. This is my rest for ever: here will I ever be; for this is my desire.
<NUN> Your word is a light for my feet, ever shining on my way.
But he took the tribe of Judah for himself, and the mountain of Zion, in which he had pleasure.
There is a river whose streams make glad the resting-place of God, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
Let my soul be overflowing with grief when these things come back to my mind, how I went in company to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with the song of those who were keeping the feast.
Make your steps clear to me, O Lord; give me knowledge of your ways. Be my guide and teacher in the true way; for you are the God of my salvation; I am waiting for your word all the day.
For the House of the Lord, which Moses had made in the waste land, and the altar of burned offerings, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
Then they took in the ark of God and put it inside the tent which David had put up for it; and they made offerings, burned offerings and peace-offerings before God.
It was only yesterday you came to us; why then am I to make you go up and down with us? for I have to go where I may; go back then, and take your countrymen with you, and may the Lord's mercy and good faith be with you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 43
Commentary on Psalms 43 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Elohimic Judica (the introit of the so-called Cross or Passion Sunday which opens the celebritas Passionis ), with which the supplicatory and plaintive first strophe of the Psalm begins, calls to mind the Jehovic Judica in Psalms 7:9; Psalms 26:1; Psalms 35:1, Psalms 35:24 : judge me, i.e., decide my cause (lxx κρῖνόν με , Symmachus κρῖνόν μοι ). ריבה has the tone upon the ultima before the ריבי which begins with the half-guttural ר , as is also the case in Psalms 74:22; Psalms 119:154. The second prayer runs: vindica me a gente impia ; מן standing for contra in consequence of a constr. praegnans . לא־חסיד is here equivalent to one practising no חסד towards men, that is to say, one totally wanting in that חסד , by which God's חסד is to be imitated and repaid by man in his conduct towards his fellow-men. There is some uncertainty whether by אישׁ one chief enemy, the leader of all the rest, is intended to be mentioned side by side with the unloving nation, or whether the special manner of his enemies is thus merely individualised. עולה means roguish, mischievous conduct, utterly devoid of all sense of right. In Psalms 43:2 the poet establishes his petition by a twofold Why. He loves God and longs after Him, but in the mirror of his present condition he seems to himself like one cast off by Him. This contradiction between his own consciousness and the inference which he is obliged to draw from his afflicted state cannot remain unsolved. אלהי מעזּי , God of my fortress, is equivalent to who is my fortress. Instead of אלך we here have the form אתהלּך , of the slow deliberate gait of one who is lost in his own thoughts and feelings. The sting of his pain is his distance from the sanctuary of his God. In connection with Psalms 43:3 one is reminded of Psalms 57:4 and Exodus 15:13, quite as much as of Psalms 42:9. “Light and truth” is equivalent to mercy and truth. What is intended is the light of mercy or loving-kindness which is coupled with the truth of fidelity to the promises; the light, in which the will or purpose of love, which is God's most especial nature, becomes outwardly manifest. The poet wishes to be guided by these two angels of God; he desires that he may be brought (according tot he Chethîb of the Babylonian text יבואוני , “let come upon me;” but the אל which follows does not suit this form) to the place where his God dwells and reveals Himself. “Tabernacles” is, as in Psalms 84:2; Psalms 46:5, an amplificative designation of the tent, magnificent in itself and raised to special honour by Him who dwells therein.
The poet, in anticipation, revels in the thought of that which he has prayed for, and calls upon his timorous soul to hope confidently for it. The cohortatives in Psalms 43:4 are, as in Ps 39:14 and frequently, an apodosis to the petition. The poet knows no joy like that which proceeds from God, and the joy which proceeds from Him he accounts as the very highest; hence he calls God אל שׂמחת גּילי , and therefore he knows no higher aim for his longing than again to be where the fountainhead of this exultant joy is (Hosea 9:5), and where it flows forth in streams (Psalms 36:9). Removed back thither, he will give thanks to Him with the cithern ( Beth instrum .). He calls Him אלהים אלהי , an expression which, in the Elohim-Psalms, is equivalent to יהוה אלהי in the Jahve-Psalms. The hope expressed in Psalms 43:4 casts its rays into the prayer in Psalms 43:3. In Psalms 43:5, the spirit having taken courage in God, holds this picture drawn by hope before the distressed soul, that she may therewith comfort herself. Instead of wthmy, Psalms 42:6, the expression here used, as in Ps 42:12, is וּמה־תּהמי . Variations like these are not opposed to a unity of authorship.