Commentary - Psalm 143:1-6

Bird's-eye view

Psalm 143 is one of the seven penitential psalms, and it is a prayer offered up from the depths of great distress. We do not know the specific occasion, whether it was Saul's persecution or Absalom's rebellion, but the need is raw and the prayer is urgent. David begins by grounding his plea not in his own merit, but in the character of God, specifically His faithfulness and righteousness. This is a gospel-saturated prayer. He then honestly confesses his own inability to stand before a holy God, acknowledging that no man living is righteous. After describing the suffocating assault of his enemies, which has brought him to the brink of death and despair, David makes a crucial pivot. He turns from his circumstances and his own fainting heart to a deliberate remembrance of God's mighty works in the past. This act of remembering fuels his desire, and he concludes this section by stretching out his hands to God, his soul thirsting for God like a parched and cracked land longs for rain.

Outline

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 O Yahweh, hear my prayer, Give ear to my supplications! Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness!

David begins where every true prayer must begin, with a cry for God to simply hear him. This is not a meditative exercise; it is a real plea to a real God who can and does intervene in the affairs of men. But notice the basis of his appeal. He doesn't say, "Answer me because I've been a pretty good king," or "Answer me because my enemies are so rotten." He grounds his prayer entirely in the character of God. "In Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness." This is crucial. God's faithfulness means He keeps His covenant promises. His righteousness means He is true to His own holy nature. David is appealing to God to act like God. This is a profoundly Christ-centered request, even centuries before Christ. The only way a sinner can appeal to God's righteousness for help and not for condemnation is if there is a mediator. David is praying better than he knows, asking God to be true to the promise of a Savior that He would one day send.

2 And do not enter into judgment with Your slave, For no one living is righteous in Your sight.

Here is the great paradox of gospel prayer. In one breath, David appeals to God's righteousness, and in the next, he begs God not to judge him according to that same standard. "Lord, be righteous... but please don't be righteous with me." He understands the difference between righteousness before men and righteousness before God. Before his enemies, David can claim to be in the right. But before God, he knows he is a servant, a slave, who has no independent standing. He slams the door on any kind of self-justification with the sweeping statement: "For no one living is righteous in Your sight." Not just David, not just the Israelites, but no one. This is Romans 3, preached from a windswept Judean hillside a thousand years before Paul ever put pen to papyrus. This is the necessary foundation for grace. Until you see that you have no case, you cannot throw yourself completely on the mercy of the court.

3 For the enemy has pursued my soul; He has crushed my life to the ground; He has made me inhabit dark places, like those who have long been dead.

Now David describes the pressure that is driving him to this prayer. The language is violent and suffocating. The enemy pursues, crushes, and entombs him. This is more than just having a bad day. This is a spiritual assault aimed at his very soul, his life. The goal of the enemy is to crush him flat, to grind his life into the dirt. And the result is a living death. To "inhabit dark places, like those who have long been dead" is to be cut off from the land of the living, from light, from hope, from fellowship. It is a picture of total isolation and despair. This is what our spiritual Enemy wants for every believer, to isolate us in the dark and convince us that we are as good as dead.

4 Therefore my spirit was faint within me; My heart was appalled within me.

The external assault has produced an internal collapse. When he says his spirit was faint, or overwhelmed, he is describing a kind of spiritual blackout. The lights have gone out. The word for "appalled" carries the idea of being stunned, desolated, or ravaged. His heart is not just sad; it is a wasteland. This is the honesty of the psalms. The Bible does not give us stoic heroes who never feel the crushing weight of despair. It gives us real men, like David, who are honest about their spiritual and emotional devastation. And it is in that honest devastation that they cry out to God.

5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all You have done; I muse on the work of Your hands.

This is the pivot. This is where the man of faith turns the tide. Notice the verbs: I remember, I meditate, I muse. These are active, deliberate choices. When his feelings are in the basement, when his spirit is faint, he does not continue to stare at his own navel. He forces his mind backward, to the "days of old." He gets out God's resume. He meditates on all that God has done, all His works. He muses on the work of His hands. This is the biblical cure for despair. You don't try to psych yourself up. You look back at the track record of God's faithfulness. You remember the Exodus. You remember Goliath. You remember God's covenant promises. For the Christian, we look back to the ultimate work of God's hands: the cross and the empty tomb. Remembering what God has done is the fuel for faith in what He will do.

6 I stretch out my hands to You; My soul reaches for You like a weary land. Selah.

This remembrance produces a response. He stretches out his hands, the universal posture of a supplicant, a beggar, a child reaching for his father. And then comes that stunningly beautiful simile: "My soul reaches for You like a weary land." A weary, or thirsty, land is cracked, dry, barren, and lifeless. It can do nothing to produce rain for itself. Its only hope is for water to come down from above. This is a picture of a soul that has come to the end of itself. It is not just thirsty; it is the very picture of thirst. It longs for God with a desperation that is all-consuming. And then, Selah. Pause. Stop and think about that. Let the weight of that image sink in. Is your soul a parched land, desperate for the rain of God's grace? Or is it a swamp, saturated with the stagnant waters of this world? The prayer of a righteous man begins by acknowledging he is unrighteous, and it is fueled by a desperate thirst for the only one who is.

Key Words

Righteousness

In the Bible, God's righteousness is not an abstract philosophical concept. It is His covenant faithfulness, His unwavering commitment to being true to His own character and His promises. When David appeals to God's righteousness, he is asking God to act in accordance with His revealed nature. The gospel reveals how God can be both "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26). He satisfies His own righteousness by punishing sin in Christ, so that He can righteously forgive sinners who trust in Him.

Judgment

Judgment, in this context, refers to a formal, legal examination. David is asking God not to put him on trial, not to enter into a forensic review of his life as a servant. He knows that if God were to do so, based on David's own performance, the verdict would be guilty. This is why the doctrine of imputation is so glorious. In Christ, God did enter into judgment with His servant, His Son, and He poured out the wrath we deserved upon Him. Because of that, He can now welcome us and never enter into that kind of judgment with us.

Selah

This is a Hebrew word of uncertain meaning, likely a liturgical or musical direction. But its function in the text is to command a pause. It tells the reader or singer to stop, reflect, and weigh the significance of what has just been said. It is a divine instruction to let the truth sink in. When you see Selah, don't rush past it. The Holy Spirit is telling you to stop and ponder.

Application

This psalm teaches us how to pray when we are in the crucible. First, we must ground our prayers in the right place. Not in our feelings, not in our performance, but in the unshakeable character of God as revealed in the gospel. We appeal to His faithfulness and righteousness, which meet perfectly at the cross of Christ.

Second, we must be brutally honest about our own condition. We cannot approach God demanding our rights. We must come as David did, confessing that "no one living is righteous" in His sight. True prayer is born of humility and desperation, not entitlement.

Third, when despair threatens to overwhelm us, we must engage in the discipline of remembrance. We must deliberately turn our minds away from our troubles and toward God's mighty acts in history, chief of which is our salvation in Jesus. Faith is fed by remembering God's past faithfulness.

Finally, our prayers should cultivate a holy desperation for God Himself. Our goal is not just to get out of trouble, but to get more of God. Our souls should be like that thirsty land, recognizing that He alone is the rain we need. Let us learn to pray these kinds of honest, God-centered, gospel-saturated prayers.