1 [I would lift] my voice to God and cry; [I would lift] my voice to God, that He may give ear to me. 2 In the day of my straits I sought the Lord: My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted. 3 [When] I remember God, I must sigh; [When] I muse, my spirit is covered [with gloom]. Selah.
4 Thou hast held open the guards of my eyes: I am buffeted, and cannot speak. 5 I considered the days of old, The years of ancient times. 6 I would remember my song in the night: In my heart I would muse,--and my spirit made anxious search.
7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? And will He continue no more to be favourable? 8 Is His loving-kindness ended for ever? Has His promise failed for all generations? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Or has He in anger drawn in His compassions? Selah.
10 Then I said, It is my sickness; [But I will remember] the years of the right hand of the Most High. 11 I will celebrate the deeds of Jah; For I will remember Thy wonders of old. 12 And I will meditate on all Thy work, And will muse on Thy doings.
13 O God, in holiness is Thy way: Who is a great God like God? 14 Thou, Thou art the God who doest wonders: Thou hast made known among the peoples Thy strength. 15 Thou hast redeemed with Thine arm Thy people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16 The waters saw Thee, O God; The waters saw Thee, they writhed in pangs: Yea, the abysses trembled. 17 The clouds were poured out [in] water; The skies gave [forth] a voice: Yea, Thine arrows went to and fro. 18 The voice of Thy thunder was in [Thy] chariot wheel; Lightnings illumined the world: The earth trembled and shook. 19 In the sea was Thy way, And Thy paths in great waters, And Thy footprints were not known. 20 Thou leadest Thy people like sheep, By the hand of Moses and Aaron.
The occasion of the profound sadness of the first part of this psalm may be inferred from the thoughts which brighten it into hope in the second. These were the memories of past national deliverance. It is natural to suppose that present national disasters were the causes of the sorrow which enveloped the psalmist's spirit and suggested questions of despair, only saved from being blasphemous because they were so wistful. But it by no means follows that the singer is simply the personified nation. The piercing tone of individual grief is too clear, especially in the introductory verses, to allow of that hypothesis. Rather, the psalmist has taken into his heart the troubles of his people. Public calamity has become personal pain. What dark epoch has left its marks in this psalm remains uncertain. If Delitzsch's contention that Habakkuk iii. is in part drawn from it were indubitably established, the attribution of the psalm to the times of Josiah would be plausible; but there is, at least, room for doubt whether there has been borrowing, and if so, which is original and which echo. The calamities of the Exile in their severity and duration would give reasonable ground for the psalmist's doubts whether God had not cast off His people for ever. No brief or partial eclipse of His favour would supply adequate occasion for these.
The psalm falls into two parts, in the former of which (vv. 1-9) deepest gloom wraps the singer's spirit, while in the latter (vv. 10-20) the clouds break. Each of these parts falls into three strophes, usually of three verses; but in the concluding strophe, consisting of five, Selah stands at the end of the first and third, and is not present at the end of the second, because it is more closely connected with the third than with the first. In like manner the first strophe of the second part (vv. 10-12) has no Selah, but the second has (vv. 13-15); the closing strophe (vv. 16-20) being thus parted off.