Psalm 143
A Psalm of David
1 Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
answer me in your righteousness.
2 Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.
3 For the enemy has pursued me,
crushing my life to the ground,
making me sit in darkness like those long dead.
4 Therefore my spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.
5 I remember the days of old;
I think about all your deeds;
I meditate on the works of your hands.
6 I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
7 Answer me quickly, O LORD;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
8 Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
9 Save me, O LORD, from my enemies;
I have fled to you for refuge.
10 Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me
on a level path.
11 For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life.
In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.
12 In your steadfast love cut off my enemies,
and destroy all my adversaries,
for I am your servant.
The paradox of this psalm is that the speaker comes from a stance of submissiveness in need of God’s gracious deliverance while having enough trust in the relationship with their God to address God in a demanding way. The psalmist asks for God to: Hear, give ear, answer (1) do not enter into judgment (2), do not hide your face, let me hear, teach (7-8), save (9), teach, let your spirit lead (10), preserve, bring me out (11) cut off, and destroy (12). Yet the tone of the psalm for all these petitions comes from the position of one not asking for God’s action based on their worthiness or merit, but instead as one seeking a gracious God who will act decisively on behalf of God’s servant.
The psalm begins with an appeal to two of God’s characteristics: faithfulness (‘emet) and righteousness (tzedakah) and ends with an appeal to God’s righteousness and steadfast love (hesed). Righteousness is key to the movement of the psalm as the psalmist appeals twice to God’s righteousness but declares their own inability to be righteous before God. The idea that no person is righteous before God echo some of the declarations of Job and Ecclesiastes.[1] Job and his dialogue partners who seek a reason for Job’s suffering circle around this idea of the inability of a person to stand before God and the book ends with Job in humility answering God that he cannot stand before God. Ecclesiastes seeks meaning in the emptiness the teacher feels at his accomplishments and realizes that his actions eventually bring them into judgment before God. Now this servant of God in their unworthiness asks for God to forgo judgment based on worthiness and respond to their desperate need in grace.
The servant’s position is one of weakness. As in the previous psalm they are hunted, but in this psalm they have been captured and oppressed. The language is that of being near death: life crushed into the ground, sitting in darkness like the dead, a fainting spirit and an appalled heart at their inability to resist their persecutors actions. In this vulnerable state they remember[2] times past when God acted and they thirst for God like a parched land for rain. If in this moment of metaphors of being near death or being parched like the desert if God hides God’s face the speaker will be like the dead who descend to the Pit. Their spirit/breath[3] is failing and the long to hear of God’s steadfast love (hesed) in the morning that can bring their deliverance. They lift up their whole being (NRSV soul, Hebrew nephesh) to God requiring God’s instruction that they may walk in God’s way.
The servant asks for God’s deliverance for the sake of God’s name and reputation and not for their own worthiness. It is God’s righteousness that can bring them out of trouble, God’s steadfast love that will cut off their enemies and destroy their adversaries. The title of servant/slave (Hebrew abad) ties the speaker to the household of God and although this is a title of servitude it also implies responsibility of the master of the house defending and protecting the entire household. Yet, this servant of God is completely dependent upon God for delivering them from the threshold of death and saving them from their oppressors. In their own weakness they can only hope and remember the gracious nature of their God.
The servant of God’s dependence upon receiving a gracious deliverance without being able to stand before God in righteousness provided a scriptural building block for the Apostle Paul’s concept of justification by faith. As Paul can state in Romans 3:20,” For no human will be justified before him by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” Paul, like the psalmist, would lean into the relationship of the individual to their God relying on grace instead of justice. Like the psalmist, Paul spoke from a position of unworthiness desperate for God’s gracious deliverance of God’s servant.
[1] Job 9:2, 32; 14:3; 15:14; 22: 2-4; 25:4; Ecclesiastes 11:9; 12: 14. See also Psalm 14:3 and 130:3.
[2] Remember (zakar) is a powerful concept in Hebrew utilized over two hundred times in the Old Testament. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 982) The thing remembered becomes the central thing to the person remembering, often the one thing they are holding onto.
[3] Hebrew ruach means breath, spirit, or wind.
