Psalm 43

Psa 43:1

AN UNGODLY NATION: Heb "goi" identifies a Gentile nation -- the Assyrian invader.

(NT) Can be read as hinting that, by rejecting him, Israel would become a cast-off people -- like the Gentiles!

DECEITFUL AND WICKED MEN: Sennacherib, who accepted tribute and signed a treaty, and then pressed his invasion as hard as ever.

(NT) Caiaphas.

Psa 43:3

SEND FORTH YOUR LIGHT AND YOUR TRUTH: A plea for God to give a clear directive by means of Urim (= lights) and Thummim (= perfection). For a full discussion of this possibility, see SSD 305-310. But another poss: "light" ref the Shekinah Glory, God's sign of the king's imminent recovery (v 3b), and "truth" is an allusion to the great Promise to David which Hezekiah hoped to see continued through himself.

(NT) The ultimate vindication and triumph over the forces of evil.

LET THEM GUIDE ME: "Pray urgently and fervently for a yearning, aching realization of your need for God -- how dark and empty and meaningless everything in life is without Him: how bright and full and purposeful everything is with Him. Christ has, in God's love, opened and illuminated the way to God and to life and this is perfect obedience. We cannot achieve this of ourselves, but we can be covered by that of Christ, If we enter into and abide in Christ. Entry into Christ is by knowledge, belief and baptism. Abiding in Christ is by total dedication to learning and developing and obedience, and putting all we have and are into his service. We find no other way to life promised in the Scriptures. Any who promise or expect an easier one are deceiving and being deceived" (GVG).

Psa 43:4

THEN WILL I GO TO THE ALTAR OF GOD: 2Ki 20:8; Isa 37:14-20.

THE ALTAR OF GOD... MY JOY: David had learned two thing concerning joy. First, there is only one source of joy; it is God Himself. Second, there is only one place where we can draw from that source: it is the "altar". In spiritual terms, the "altar" is the place of sacrifice, and of commitment and consecration, the place where our lives are laid down. Through the sacrifice we make at the altar, the joy that comes from God alone is released within us. There is a great difference between joy and happiness. Joy is in the realm of the spirit -- an unchanging realm. Happiness is in the realm of the here and now, or the physical. It has been said that happiness "happens", but joy "abides". Joy is not dependent on feeling or circumstances, or on our physical conditions. Joy comes from God himself, and just like God, it is eternal, unchangeable, and unaffected by situations or circumstances. But joy is released only at the altar. We have to make up our minds, as David did, that we will go to God, to the altar -- to the place of sacrifice -- and present the living sacrifices which are our reasonable service, or logical act of worship (Rom 12:1,2). In our meeting with God beyond the things that are temporary, we discover that He alone is the source of our joy, and we bring that down from our mountaintop experience to dispense to a world only beset by what it "sees" through the five senses.

WITH THE HARP: Isa 38:20: "my songs to the stringed instruments".

Psa 43:5

SUBSCRIPTION: "FOR THE DIRECTOR OF MUSIC."