“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
– Psalm 43:5
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you get bullied? Do you get pushed around? Do you get angry looks? Do you get cold shoulders? Do you get ignored? Do you feel disliked? Do you feel discouraged? Do you feel alone? Do you feel abandoned? Do you look for help? Do you look for camaraderie? Do you look for encouragement? Do you make friends? Do you do caring? Do you do affirming? What a song psalm author scribed in his psalm song prayer – which is Psalm 43, has your grandpaa thinking that the guy had been forced into an untenable situation where the only option left for him to vent his frustrations or to pour out his angst was to go directly to God to straightforwardly tell God that now is the time for Him to do something for him if He really wants him to continue to worship Him. There are uncertainties as to who scribed this psalm song prayer and whether this psalm song prayer is part of the previous psalm song. The psalm song before this psalm song prayer was penned as a maskil or an enlightening for the Levi tribal clan music director who directed the Levi tribal clan choir as the Levi tribal clan choir sang or chanted the different psalm songs that were sung or chanted in the temple of God that was in the city of Jerusalem. Verse 5 – which is the final verse of both psalm songs – in this psalm song prayer, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” are the same exact words that are phrased in the same exact way. Even though the sons of Korath are referenced in the prior psalm song, David is credited as being who scribed this psalm song. Even though there are similarities between the two psalm songs – including the final verse in each psalm song along with the fifth verse in the prior song psalm – which is also identical in every way to both psalm songs’ final verse, and the two psalm songs’ reoccurring themes of the author’s or of the authors’ deep set feelings that he has been abjectly rejected by God but that he is wanting to sincerely seek God for His help, your grandpaa is not totally convinced – as some Bible commentators are, that David really is the bona fide author of both of these psalm songs. A Bible commentator for the Archeological Study Bible suggests in a footnote that the ‘ungodly nation’ that is cited in the first verse of this psalm song prayer may have been a reference to the Aramean guys and gals who were living in the city of Damascus and that the author of this psalm song prayer may have been taken captive by the Aramean people group’s army during one of their incursions into the land of Judah. David’s nemesis in his psalm song prayers was invariably King Saul. King Saul had come to jealously loathe David because of David’s popularity among the Israelite people group’s guys, gals and kids who King Saul ruled over as their first positioned king, resulting in David having to live in caves to survive from being murdered by King Saul.
What would you ask God to do about a kid – or about a guy or gal, who is always pestering you, who is always telling lies about you and who is always threatening to hurt you? Have you ever begged God to get a kid – or a guy or gal, out of your face and out of your life – like right now because of his or her insufferable attitude towards you, because of his or her disingenuous relationship with you and because of his or her relentless intimidation of you? This psalm song prayer to God is the author’s anguished plea for God to vindicate him or to deliver him from the dire, distressful place where God has him in at this time. This psalm song author communicates to your grandpaa in his psalm song prayer to God an ‘end of a rope’ desperation for God to rescue him from the ungodly nation that had captured him, from the deceitful and wicked guys who were holding him captive and from the oppressive ways of his enemies. Your grandpaa also senses that the guy who scribed this psalm song prayer knew that he had the kind of relationship with God that he could confront God because in his mind God had rejected him and that God had left him stuck on his own without any recourse to escape his inescapable predicament. This psalm song writer also knew what he needed from God as His response to his demand for Him to help him was for God to once again guide him in His light and in His truth which the psalm song author knew would take him again into God’s presence – where the psalm song author had an obvious high worship bar, where he knew that he would once again experience the joy of being in God’s company at which time he would once again sense the delight that God had for him and where he would once again praise God while playing music with a harp.
Have you felt like you are losing hope? Have you felt like you are nearing your rope’s end? Have you ever felt like you are in a place where there does seem to be any way out? Has your mind ever felt disturbed? Has your heart ever felt downcast? Has your soul ever felt abandoned? This psalm song author is telling you that when your soul causes your heart to ache and your stomach to gnaw that God is reminding you to put your hope back in Him as He will do what He has promised to do which is to fill you with praise for His sovereign purpose of assigning you to do planet Earth time. Each unbearably hard life exam that you will have is a God ordered catalyst for you to simply tell Him to support your hope which He will assuredly do. Your grandpaa would like to encourage you to daily take this psalm song to heart. Your grandpaa has learned that God will often send a life testing at a very unexpected moment.
Psalm 43 (1158)