The last part (vv. 13-18) is marked, like the two preceding, by the repetition of the name of Jehovah, and of the allusion to the psalmist's continual prayer. It is remarkable, and perhaps significant, that the time of prayer should here be "the morning," whereas in ver. 1 it was, according to Delitzsch, _the night_, or, according to the other rendering, _day and night_. The psalmist had asked in ver. 2 that his prayer might enter into God's presence; he now vows that it will come to meet Him. Possibly some lightening of his burden may be hinted at by the reference to the time of his petition. Morning is the hour of hope, of new vigour, of a fresh beginning, which may not be only a prolongation of dreary yesterdays. But if there is any such alleviation, it is only for a moment, and then the cloud settles down still more heavily. But one thing the psalmist has won by his cry. He now longs to know the reason for his affliction. He is confident that God is righteous when He afflicts, and, heavy as his sorrow is, he has passed beyond mere complaint concerning it, to the wish to understand it. The consciousness that it is chastisement, occasioned by his own evil, and meant to purge that evil away, is present, in a rudimentary form at least, in that cry, "_Why_ castest Thou off my soul?" If sorrow has brought a man to offer that prayer, it has done its work, and will cease before long, or, if it lasts, will be easier to bear, when its meaning and purpose are clear. But the psalmist rises to such a height but for a moment, though his momentary attaining it gives promise that he will, by degrees, be able to remain there permanently. It is significant that the only direct naming of Jehovah, in addition to the three which accompany the references to his prayers, is associated with this petition for enlightenment. The singer presses close to God in his faith that His hardest blows are not struck at random, and that His administration has for its basis, not caprice, but reason, moved by love and righteousness.
Such a cry is never offered in vain, even though it should be followed, as it is here, by plaintive reiterations of the sufferer's pains. These are now little more than a summary of the first part. The same idea of being in effect dead even while alive is repeated in ver. 15, in which the psalmist wails that from youth he had been but a dying man, so close to him had death seemed, or so death-like had been his life. He has borne God's terrors till he is distracted. The word rendered "I am distracted" is only used here, and consequently is obscure. Hupfeld and others deny that it is a word at all (he calls it an "Unwort"), and would read another which means _to become torpid_. The existing text is defended by Delitzsch and others, who take the word to mean to be weakened in mind or bewildered. The meaning of the whole seems to be as rendered above. But it might also be translated, as by Cheyne, "I bear Thy terrors, my senses must fail." In ver. 16 the word for wrath is in the plural, to express the manifold outbursts of that deadly indignation. The word means literally heat; and we may represent the psalmist's thought as being that the wrath shoots forth many fierce tongues of licking flame, or, like a lava stream, pours out in many branches. The word rendered "Cut me off" is anomalous, and is variously translated _annihilate_, _extinguish_, or as above. The wrath which was a fiery name in ver. 16 is an overwhelming flood in ver. 17. The complaint of ver. 8 recurs in ver. 18, in still more tragic form. All human sympathy and help are far away, and the psalmist's only familiar friend is--darkness. There is an infinitude of despair in that sad irony. But there is a gleam of hope, though faint and far, like faint daylight seen from the innermost recesses of a dark tunnel, in his recognition that his dismal solitude is the work of God's hand; for, if God has made a heart or a life empty of human love, it is that He may Himself fill it with His own sweet and all-compensating presence.