Psalms 143:1 - Meaning and Application

Here, David humbly asks God to hear him (Psalm 143:1). He is not doubting that God will listen. Rather, he is deeply earnest about it, and he waits to see how his prayer will succeed, like the watcher in Habakkuk 2:1. He comes to God as a petitioner and asks, “Hear my prayer; listen to my pleas.”

He also comes as one who is appealing his case against his enemies. He wants God to hear the matter and judge it in faithfulness and righteousness, as the Judge of right and wrong. Or, in other words, he asks God to answer according to his faithful promises, since God is just to keep what he has said. David has no righteousness of his own to offer, so he must rely on God’s righteousness, meaning God’s faithful word and promise.

David then asks not to be dealt with in strict justice (Psalm 143:2). He seems to clarify his earlier plea, asking God to deliver him according to the righteous promises of the gospel, not the righteous threats of the law. If God were to judge him by the broken covenant of innocence, he would be lost. So he prays, “Do not bring your servant into judgment,” meaning, do not deal with me only as I deserve.

In this prayer, we must admit that we are God’s servants. We belong to him, we must obey him, and we are answerable to him. We should also confess that we have often failed him, so he would be right to examine our sins and punish us by the law. If he did that, we would have no defense at all, and we would be ruined forever. But we may still come to him with hope, because there is mercy and forgiveness with God.

David’s plea is strengthened by the fact that no living person can be declared righteous before God on the basis of personal innocence (Psalm 143:2). No one can claim that he has never sinned, or that his own goodness can pay for his sins. If God enters into judgment with us, we cannot answer him for one charge out of a thousand, as Job says (Job 9:3; Job 15:20). David therefore asks first for pardon, and only then for relief from trouble. He depends on mercy alone.

He next complains that his enemies are getting the better of him (Psalm 143:3). Saul, Israel’s first king and David’s enemy, has pursued his life with relentless hatred and has struck him down to the ground. David is not yet in the grave, but he feels as if he is almost there. Saul has also driven him into darkness, both into dark caves and into dark thoughts, into a heavy sadness like the gloom of the dead. Since men show him no mercy, he asks God for mercy instead.

David then laments the burden on his own spirit that came from these outward troubles (Psalm 143:4). He says his spirit is overwhelmed within him, and he is close to despair. When trouble presses from the outside and fear rises from within, the inner fear can feel even harsher than the enemy himself. Even the best people can, for a time, feel their hearts sink and their spirits grow desolate, and that is a weakness in them. David was a great saint and a great soldier, yet even he sometimes nearly fainted in a hard day.

He then turns to the right means for relieving his troubled spirit. He has no strength to defeat his enemy, but he will do what he can to guard his own soul and preserve inward peace. First, he looks back and remembers the days gone by, including God’s past help for his people and for himself in earlier troubles (Psalm 143:5). It often helps God’s people, when they are in distress, to think about the wonders their fathers told them, as in Psalm 77:5 and Psalm 77:11.

Next, he looks around at God’s works in creation and in the way God rules the world. “I meditate on all your works,” he says. Many people see those works, but they do not notice God’s wisdom, power, and goodness in them. They do not get the benefit they could, because they do not stop to think deeply about them. “I muse on,” or, as some read it, “I speak about,” the work of your hands, how great and good it is. The more we consider God’s power, the less we will fear what men can do to us (Isaiah 51:12-13).

Finally, David looks up toward God with eager desire for his favor (Psalm 143:6). He stretches out his hands to God like a beggar asking for help, expecting to receive something great. His soul thirsts after God. The sense is that his whole being is set toward God, like dry ground that cracks open and longs for rain. Under his affliction, he craves God’s support and comfort, and nothing else will truly ease him.

This is the best way to respond when our spirits are overwhelmed. Those who refuse this simple path will rightly sink under the weight they carry.