The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"judge me," Hebrew shophteni (שָׁפְטֵנִי), vindicate me, give the verdict for me. Psalm 42 wrestled inwardly with a thirsting, downcast soul; Psalm 43 turns outward to the courtroom. To ask God to "judge me" is not to invite condemnation but to ask for vindication, a favourable verdict from the one Judge who cannot be bought or fooled.

"plead my cause," rivah rivi (רִיבָה רִיבִי), argue my case, take up my lawsuit. "Judge me, O God, and plead my cause." He asks God to be not only the Judge on the bench but the advocate who argues for him -- to take up his lawsuit as His own.

"deceitful and unjust," mirmah ve'avlah (מִרְמָה וְעַוְלָה), fraud and injustice. These name what he is up against: fraud and injustice. Against opponents who use both, no earthly court will serve; only the Judge who cannot be deceived can give him a true verdict.

Explanation

Feel the appeal being made here. David is at the mercy of "the deceitful and unjust man," a rigged human court where fraud wins and truth loses; and rather than fight fraud with fraud, he lodges an appeal to a higher bench: "Judge me, O God." He asks God to be at once his advocate and his judge, to "plead my cause" (the words of a lawyer taking a case) and to hand down the verdict. This is where the wronged believer takes an injustice he cannot win in the world's courtrooms, out of the crooked human tribunal and into the court of heaven, where the Judge is neither deceived by lies nor swayed by power. And notice how this psalm answers the last one: Psalm 42 was full of inward questions to the soul; Psalm 43 turns those groans into a definite request for God to act. Lament has matured into petition, and the man who could only sigh now knows exactly what to ask.

Gospel Focus

"Judge me, O God, and plead my cause", the believer's cause is pleaded, and his verdict secured, in Jesus Christ, who is both our righteous Judge and our Advocate. "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1), one who takes up our case and answers every charge against us with His own blood. When Satan, or the world, or our own conscience accuses us, we do not defend ourselves; we point to Christ, "who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again... who also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:34). And the God who seems slow to judge the injustice of the wicked has appointed a day when He "will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained" (Acts 17:31), the Lord Jesus Himself, before whom every deceitful and unjust man will give account. So the wronged believer need not take vengeance or despair of justice; he commits his cause to the Judge of all the earth, who will do right, and rests in the Advocate whose righteousness is his acquittal. Plead your cause with God through Christ, and leave the verdict, and the vindication, in His faithful hands.

Word Study

"send out," Hebrew shelach (שְׁלַח), send forth (as one sends a messenger). Cut off from the house of God, the exile prays for a way home, and the verb he uses is the verb for dispatching a messenger on an errand.

"thy light," orekha (אוֹרְךָ). But notice what he asks God to send: not an army, not a map, but God's own light. What he lacks is not resources but the ability to see his way.

"thy truth," amittekha (אֲמִתֶּךָ). With the light he asks for truth. He treats the two almost as living escorts, two heavenly guides commissioned to walk a lost pilgrim home.

"lead me," yanchuni (יַנְחוּנִי). "Let them lead me; let them bring me." The light and the truth are given the work of the guide, and the exile puts himself entirely in their hands.

"holy hill," har-qodshekha (הַר־קָדְשֶׁךָ), Mount Zion. The journey has a fixed destination: God's own hill, the place from which the singer has been shut out.

"tabernacles," mishkenotekha (מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ). And beyond the hill, the dwellings of God themselves. It is not the scenery he wants but the place where God is at home among His people.

Explanation

This verse is the direct answer to the ache of the previous psalm. In Psalm 42 the soul thirsted, cut off, asking "when shall I come and appear before God?" (42:2), stranded in the far north, "the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites" (42:6), far from the temple. Here he prays for the road home, and the guides he asks for are "thy light and thy truth." He personifies them, sending them out ahead like two escorts sent to fetch an exile, and their whole task is to "bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles." Light shows the way; truth keeps it honest; together they lead the wanderer back to the altar he longed for. It is a quiet lesson in how God brings a straying or homesick soul back to Himself, not first by changing his circumstances, but by sending His light to show the path and His truth to hold him to it.

Gospel Focus

"O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me", God has sent out His Light and His Truth in one Person, Jesus Christ, who leads His people home to God. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12); and, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). The two guides the psalmist prayed for are met in Christ, who is Himself both the Light that shows the way and the Truth that is the way, and who leads us not merely to an earthly hill and tent but to the Father and the heavenly tabernacle. The exile's homeward road runs through Him: "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." And He came as the answer to this very prayer, "God sent forth his Son" (Galatians 4:4), the Light and the Truth sent out from heaven to find the lost and lead them home. So the homesick, wandering soul need only follow Him: Jesus, the sent Light and Truth, will bring you past every darkness and every lie, unto the holy hill of God and into His presence, which is your exceeding joy.

Word Study

"cast down," Hebrew tishtochachi (תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי), sunk low. For the third time the poem sounds its refrain: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" The same word that opened the questioning in Psalm 42 returns here, the soul still sunk low.

"disquieted," tehemi (תֶּהֱמִי), in turmoil. And the same inward turmoil is named alongside it. The refrain does not pretend the trouble has passed.

"hope," hochili (הוֹחִילִי), wait for. Yet the command is unchanged: "hope in God." It does not land quite the same way it did before, for now the singer has just seen himself at the altar of God, his "exceeding joy" (v4). The command to hope comes now with the destination in view.

"health of my countenance," yeshu'oth panai (יְשׁוּעֹת פָּנַי), the salvation of my face. The refrain closes by naming God as the salvation of his face -- the one who lifts the downcast look that the whole psalm has been describing.

Explanation

This refrain has now been sung three times, at Psalm 42:5, 42:11, and here, the seam that binds the two psalms into one poem. But repetition is not stagnation; each time the singer has moved. The first time he was drowning in the far country; by this third time he has prayed for the Judge to plead his cause and for the Light and Truth to lead him home, and in verse 4 he has already pictured himself at "the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy." So the third "hope in God" is spoken by a soul that can now see where it is going. And notice, tellingly, that the poem ends here, on a command to hope, not on a shout of triumph. It does not pretend the sinking feeling is finally gone; it ends still telling the soul to hope. That is honest, and it is instructive: the fight against a downcast heart is not usually won once and for all, but by preaching hope to yourself again, and again, until the altar you have glimpsed by faith becomes the altar you stand at in joy.

Gospel Focus

"Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance", the hope the poem commands three times over is made certain in Jesus Christ, the health and salvation of His people. The Hebrew behind "health of my countenance" is literally "the salvations of my face", the very word yeshu'ah that is the root of the name Jesus; the downcast face finds its salvation in the Saviour. Our hope is "the God of hope" who fills us "with all joy and peace in believing" (Romans 15:13), grounded in "a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). And the "I shall yet praise him" is faith speaking before sight, sure that the God who led the exile to the altar will not fail to turn mourning into praise. The believer who is cast down does not wait to feel better before he hopes; he sets his hope on the risen Christ and says, before the feeling comes, "I shall yet praise him." For the One who is the salvation of our face has promised that the night of a disquieted soul ends in the morning of praise, and the God who is "my God" will yet make His downcast children glad in His presence for ever.