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143. Psalm 143

¹ LORD, hear my prayer,
   listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
   come to my relief.
² Do not bring your servant into judgment,
   for no one living is righteous before you.
³ The enemy pursues me,
   he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
   like those long dead.
⁴ So my spirit grows faint within me;
   my heart within me is dismayed.
⁵ I remember the days of long ago;
   I meditate on all your works
   and consider what your hands have done.
⁶ I spread out my hands to you;
   I thirst for you like a parched land. The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here.

    ⁷ Answer me quickly, LORD;
   my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
   or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
⁸ Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
   for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
   for to you I entrust my life.
⁹ Rescue me from my enemies, LORD,
   for I hide myself in you.
¹⁰ Teach me to do your will,
   for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
   lead me on level ground.

    ¹¹ For your name’s sake, LORD, preserve my life;
   in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
¹² In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
   destroy all my foes,
   for I am your servant.

11. For thy name’s sake, O Jehovah! etc. By this expression he makes it still more clear that it was entirely of God’s free mercy that he looked for deliverance; for, had he brought forward anything of his own, the cause would not have been in God, and only in God. He is said to help us for his own name’s sake, when, although he discovers nothing in us to conciliate his favor, he is induced to interpose of his mere goodness. To the same effect is the term righteousness; for God, as I have said elsewhere, has made the deliverance of his people a means of illustrating his righteousness. He at the same time repeats what he had said as to the extraordinary extent of his afflictions: in seeking to be quickened or made alive, he declares himself to be exanimated, and that he must remain under the power of death, if the God who has the issues of life did not recover him by a species of resurrection.