Psalm 142:5

I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) With this verse comp. Psalm 31:3; Psalm 22:8; Psalm 16:5, &c.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 142:5. I cried, rather I cry, unto thee, O Lord — Thou knowest me and carest for me, when no one else will, and wilt not fail me nor forsake me when men do. Thou art my refuge and my portion — Thou only art both my refuge to defend me from all evil, and my portion to supply me with all the good which I need and desire; in the land of the living — Even in this life, wherein I doubt not to see thy goodness, and more especially in the life to come. There is enough in God to answer all the necessities of this present time; we live in a world of dangers and wants, but what danger need we fear, if God is our refuge; and what wants, if he be our portion? Heaven, which alone deserves to be called the land of the living, will be to all believers both a refuge and a portion.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

142:1-7 David's comfort in prayer. - There can be no situation so distressing or dangerous, in which faith will not get comfort from God by prayer. We are apt to show our troubles too much to ourselves, poring upon them, which does us no service; whereas, by showing them to God, we might cast the cares upon him who careth for us, and thereby ease ourselves. Nor should we allow any complaint to ourselves or others, which we cannot make to God. When our spirits are overwhelmed by distress, and filled with discouragement; when we see snares laid for us on every side, while we walk in his way, we may reflect with comfort that the Lord knoweth our path. Those who in sincerity take the Lord for their God, find him all-sufficient, as a Refuge, and as a Portion: every thing else is a refuge of lies, and a portion of no value. In this situation David prayed earnestly to God. We may apply it spiritually; the souls of believers are often straitened by doubts and fears. And it is then their duty and interest to beg of God to set them at liberty, that they may run the way of his commandments. Thus the Lord delivered David from his powerful persecutors, and dealt bountifully with him. Thus he raised the crucified Redeemer to the throne of glory, and made him Head over all things for his church. Thus the convinced sinner cries for help, and is brought to praise the Lord in the company of his redeemed people; and thus all believers will at length be delivered from this evil world, from sin and death, and praise their Saviour for ever.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I cried unto thee, O Lord - When there was no help; when I saw myself encompassed with dangers; when I looked on every hand and there was no "man" that would undertake for me.

I said, Thou art my refuge -

(a) My "only" refuge. I can go nowhere else.

(b) Thou art "in fact" my refuge. I can and do put my trust in thee. See the notes at Psalm 46:1.

And my portion - See the notes at Psalm 16:5.

In the land of the living - Among all those that live - all living beings. There is no one else among the living to whom I can come but to thee, the living God. My hope is not in human beings, for they are against me; not in angels, for they have not the power to rescue me. It is God only, the living God, whom I make my confidence and the ground of my hope.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. (Compare Ps 31:14; 62:7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou only art both my refuge to defend me from all evil, and

my portion to supply me with all the good which I need and desire.

In the land of the living; even in this life, wherein I doubt not to see God’s goodness, as he said, Psalm 27:13.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I cried unto thee, O Lord,.... Finding no help from man, he turns to the Lord, and directs his prayer to him in his distress;

I said, thou art my refuge; as he was, from all his enemies that were in pursuit of him, and from the storm of calamities he apprehended was coming upon him: and a refuge the Lord is to all his people in time of trouble; and where they always meet with sustenance, protection, and safety; he being a strong habitation, a strong hold, a strong refuge, to which they may resort at all times; and such is Christ to all sensible sinners that flee unto him, Hebrews 6:18;

and my portion in the land of the living; and a most excellent one he is, a large, immense, and inconceivable portion; he and all his perfections, purposes, promises, and blessings, being included in it; a soul-satisfying one, and which will never be taken away nor consumed; it is a portion in the present life; it will last as long as life lasts, and continues unto death, and at death, and for evermore, Psalm 73:26.

Geneva Study Bible

I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my {b} refuge and my portion in the land of the living.

(b) Though all means failed him, yet he knew that God would never forsake him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. I cried … I said] I have cried … I have said. The perfect tense describes what he has done in the past and is still doing. For the form of expression I have said cp. Psalm 140:6; for my refuge (a different word from that in Psalm 142:4) see Psalm 91:2; Jeremiah 17:17; &c.; for my portion see Psalm 16:5; Psalm 73:26; Psalm 119:57; Lamentations 3:24; for in the land of the living cp. Psalm 27:13; Psalm 116:9. He trusts that he “will not die but live and declare the works of the Lord.”

5–7. Reminding God of his devotion in past times, he prays for a speedy answer to his prayer.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my Refuge. When men's fathers and mothers forsake them, the Lord taketh them up (Psalm 27:10). David looked to God as a sure Refuge at all times (Psalm 9:9; Psalm 18:1, 2; Psalm 57:1; Psalm 59:9, 16, 17). And my Portion in the land of the living; or, "my inheritance" (comp. Psalm 16:5; Psalm 73:26). Psalm 142:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The prayer of the poet now becomes deep-breathed and excited, inasmuch as he goes more minutely into the details of his straitened situation. Everywhere, whithersoever he has to go (cf. on Psalm 143:8), the snares of craftily calculating foes threaten him. Even God's all-seeing eye will not discover any one who would right faithfully and carefully interest himself in him. הבּיט, look! is a graphic hybrid form of הבּט and הבּיט, the usual and the rare imperative form; cf. הביא 1 Samuel 20:40 (cf. Jeremiah 17:18), and the same modes of writing the inf. absol. in Judges 1:28; Amos 9:8, and the fut. conv. in Ezekiel 40:3. מכּיר is, as in Ruth 2:19, cf. Psalm 10, one who looks kindly upon any one, a considerate (cf. the phrase הכּיר פּנים) well-wisher and friend. Such an one, if he had one, would be עמד על־ימינו or מימינו (Psalm 16:8), for an open attack is directed to the arms-bearing right side (Psalm 109:6), and there too the helper in battle (Psalm 110:5) and the defender or advocate (Psalm 109:31) takes his place in order to cover him who is imperilled (Psalm 121:5). But then if God looks in that direction, He will find him, who is praying to Him, unprotected. Instead of ואין one would certainly have sooner expected אשׁר or כי as the form of introducing the condition in which he is found; but Hitzig's conjecture, הבּיט ימין וראה, "looking for days and seeing," gives us in the place of this difficulty a confusing half-Aramaism in ימין equals יומין in the sense of ימים in Daniel 8:27; Nehemiah 1:4. Ewald's rendering is better: "though I look to the right hand and see (וראה), yet no friend appears for me;" but this use of the inf. absol. with an adversative apodosis is without example. Thus therefore the pointing appears to have lighted upon the correct idea, inasmuch as it recognises here the current formula הבּט וּראה, e.g., Job 35:5; Lamentations 5:1. The fact that David, although surrounded by a band of loyal subjects, confesses to having no true fiend, is to be understood similarly to the language of Paul when he says in Philippians 2:20 : "I have no man like-minded." All human love, since sin has taken possession of humanity, is more or less selfish, and all fellowship of faith and of love imperfect; and there are circumstances in life in which these dark sides make themselves felt overpoweringly, so that a man seems to himself to be perfectly isolated and turns all the more urgently to God, who alone is able to supply the soul's want of some object to love, whose love is absolutely unselfish, and unchangeable, and unbeclouded, to whom the soul can confide without reserve whatever burdens it, and who not only honestly desires its good, but is able also to compass it in spite of every obstacle. Surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies, and misunderstood, or at least not thoroughly understood, by his friends, David feels himself broken off from all created beings. On this earth every kind of refuge is for him lost (the expression is like Job 11:20). There is no one there who should ask after or care for his soul, and should right earnestly exert himself for its deliverance. Thus, then, despairing of all visible things, he cries to the Invisible One. He is his "refuge" (Psalm 91:9) and his "portion" (Psalm 16:5; Psalm 73:26), i.e., the share in a possession that satisfies him. To be allowed to call Him his God - this it is which suffices him and outweighs everything. For Jahve is the Living One, and he who possesses Him as his own finds himself thereby "in the land of the living" (Psalm 27:13; Psalm 52:7). He cannot die, he cannot perish.