1 When I cry answer me, O God of my righteousness; Thou hast in straits made space for me: Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. 2 Sons of men! how long shall my glory be mocked, [in that] ye love vanity, [And] seek after a lie? Selah. 3 But know that Jehovah has set apart as His own him whom He favours: Jehovah hears when I cry to Him. 4 Stand in awe, and sin not: Speak in your hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah. 5 Sacrifice sacrifices of righteousness, And trust on Jehovah. 6 Many are saying, Who will let us see good? Lift Thou upon us the light of Thy face, O Jehovah. 7 Thou hast given gladness in my heart, More than in the time of their corn and their wine [when] they abound. 8 In peace will I lie down and at once sleep: For Thou, Jehovah, in [my] loneliness, makest me dwell in safety.
Psalms iii. and iv. are a pair. They are similar in expression (_my glory, there be many which say, I laid me down and slept_), in the psalmist's situation, and in structure (as indicated by the _Selahs_). But they need not be cotemporaneous, nor need the superscription of Psalm iii. be extended to Psalm iv. Their tone is different, the fourth having little reference to the personal danger so acutely felt in Psalm iii., and being mainly a gentle, earnest remonstrance with antagonists, seeking to win them to a better mind. The strophical division into four parts of two verses each, as marked by the Selahs, is imperfectly carried out, as in Psalm iii., and does not correspond with the logical division--a phenomenon which occurs not infrequently in the Psalter, as in all poetry, where the surging thought or emotion overleaps its bounds. Dividing according to the form, we have four strophes, of which the first two are marked by Selah; dividing by the flow of thought, we have three parts of unequal length--prayer (ver. 1), remonstrance (vv. 2-5), communion and prayer (vv. 6-8).
The cry for an answer by deed is based on the name and on the past acts of God. Grammatically, it would be possible and regular to render "my God of righteousness," _i.e._, "my righteous God"; but the pronoun is best attached to "righteousness" only, as the consideration that God is righteous is less relevant than that He is the source of the psalmist's righteousness. Since He is so, He may be expected to vindicate it by answering prayer by deliverance. He who feels that all good in himself comes from God may be quite sure that, sooner or later, and by some means or other, God will witness to His own work. To the psalmist nothing was so incredible as that God should not take care of what He had planted, or let the springing crop be trodden down or rooted up. The Old Testament takes prosperity as the Divine attestation of righteousness; and though they who worship the Man of Sorrows have new light thrown on the meaning of that conception, the substance of it remains true for ever. The compellation "God of my righteousness" is still mighty with God. The second ground of the prayer is laid in the past deeds of God. Whether the clause "Thou hast in straits made space for me" be taken relatively or not, it appeals to former deliverances as reasons for man's prayer and for God's act. In many languages trouble and deliverance are symbolised by narrowness and breadth. Compression is oppression. Closely hemmed in by crowds or by frowning rocks, freedom of movement is impossible and breathing is difficult. But out in the open, one expatiates, and a clear horizon means an ample sky.
The strophe division keeps together the prayer and the beginning of the remonstrance to opponents, and does so in order to emphasise the eloquent, sharp juxtaposition of God and the "sons of men." The phrase is usually employed to mean persons of position, but here the contrast between the varying height of men's molehills is not so much in view as that between them all and the loftiness of God. The lips which by prayer have been purged and cured of quivering can speak to foes without being much abashed by their dignity or their hatred. But the very slight reference to the psalmist's own share in the hostility of these "sons of men" is noticeable. It is their false relation to God which is prominent throughout the remonstrance; and that being so, "my glory," in ver. 2, is probably to be taken, as in iii. 3, as a designation of God. It is usually understood to mean either personal or official dignity, but the suggested interpretation is more in keeping with the tone of the psalm. The enemies were really flouting God and turning that great name in which the singer gloried into a jest. They were not therefore idolaters, but practical heathen in Israel, and their "vanity" and "lies" were their schemes doomed to fail and their blasphemies. These two verses bring most vividly into view the contrast between the psalmist clinging to his helping God and the knot of opponents hatching their plans which are sure to fail.