Psalm 143:6

I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) With the first clause comp. Psalm 44:20.

Thirsty land.—See Psalm 63:1, which explains this elliptical sentence. As our Lord taught, God is even more ready to send the refreshing spiritual shower than man’s heart to receive it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

143:1-6 We have no righteousness of our own to plead, therefore must plead God's righteousness, and the word of promise which he has freely given us, and caused us to hope in. David, before he prays for the removal of his trouble, prays for the pardon of his sin, and depends upon mercy alone for it. He bemoans the weight upon his mind from outward troubles. But he looks back, and remembers God's former appearance for his afflicted people, and for him in particular. He looks round, and notices the works of God. The more we consider the power of God, the less we shall fear the face or force of man. He looks up with earnest desires towards God and his favour. This is the best course we can take, when our spirits are overwhelmed. The believer will not forget, that in his best actions he is a sinner. Meditation and prayer will recover us from distresses; and then the mourning soul strives to return to the Lord as the infant stretches out its hands to the indulgent mother, and thirsts for his consolations as the parched ground for refreshing rain.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I stretch forth my hands unto thee - In prayer. I have nowhere else to go. See Psalm 88:9.

My soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land - As land in a time of drought "seems" to thirst for rain. See the notes at Psalm 63:1. Compare Psalm 42:1. The word rendered "thirsty" here means properly "weary." The idea is that of a land which seems to be weary; which has no vigor of growth; and where everything seems to be exhausted. The same word occurs in Isaiah 32:2 : "As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5, 6. The distress is aggravated by the contrast of former comfort (Ps 22:3-5), for whose return he longs.

a thirsty land—which needs rain, as did his spirit God's gracious visits (Ps 28:1; 89:17).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I stretch forth my hands unto thee; I pray to thee fervently. See Poole "Psalm 141:2".

Thirsteth after thee; after thy favour and help.

As a thirsty land, to wit, thirsteth for rain.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I stretch forth my hands unto thee,.... In prayer, as the Targum adds; for this is a prayer gesture, 1 Kings 8:38; both hands were stretched forth, earnestly imploring help, and ready to receive and embrace every blessing bestowed with thankfulness;

my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. As a dry land, which wants water, gapes, and as it were thirsts for rain, which is very refreshing to it; so his soul thirsted after God, after his word and ordinances, after communion with him in them, after his grace and fresh supplies of it; particularly after pardoning grace and mercy, after the coming of Christ, and the blessings of grace by him; as reconciliation, atonement, righteousness, and salvation; after more knowledge of God and Christ, and divine truths; and after the enjoyment of them in heaven to all eternity. Some copies read, "in a thirsty land" (x), and so some versions; see Psalm 42:1.

Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psalm 3:2.

(x) Cod. Heb. Bomberg. Venet. "in terra siticulosa", Musculus, Tarnovius.

Geneva Study Bible

I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. I stretch forth]. R.V. I spread forth. Cp. Psalm 44:20; Psalm 88:9; Lamentations 1:17.

my soul thirsteth for thee, as a weary land] ‘Thirsteth’ or some similar verb must be supplied. Cp. Psalm 60:1, from which the words are taken. As the parched land, wearied with long continued drought, longs for refreshing rain, so he longs for a renewal of the old manifestation of God’s goodness. Cp. Psalm 68:9, note, for rain as an emblem of Divine blessing.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - I stretch forth my hands unto thee. These recollections draw me to thee, O God, and make me stretch forth my hands in prayer to thee (Psalm 141:2b), and entreat thee for succor. My soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. As a parched and withered land. seems to look up to heaven and long for rain, so does my soul long for thee, O Lord, "and thy refreshing grace" (comp. Psalm 42:1). The "pause-mark," "selah," at the end of the verse, at once gives time for secret prayer, and makes a division of the psalm into two parts. Psalm 143:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet pleads two motives for the answering of his prayer which are to be found in God Himself, viz., God's אמוּנה, truthfulness, with which He verifies the truth of His promises, that is to say, His faithfulness to His promises; and His צדקה, righteousness, not in a recompensative legal sense, but in an evangelical sense, in accordance with His counsel, i.e., the strictness and earnestness with which He maintains the order of salvation established by His holy love, both against the ungratefully disobedient and against those who insolently despise Him. Having entered into this order of salvation, and within the sphere of it serving Jahve as his God and Lord, the poet is the servant of Jahve. And because the conduct of the God of salvation, ruled by this order of salvation, or His "righteousness" according to its fundamental manifestation, consists in His justifying the sinful man who has no righteousness that he can show corresponding to the divine holiness, but penitently confesses this disorganized relationship, and, eager for salvation, longs for it to be set right again - because of all this, the poet prays that He would not also enter into judgment (בּוא בּמשׁפּט as in Job 9:32; Job 22:4; Job 14:3) with him, that He therefore would let mercy instead of justice have its course with him. For, apart from the fact that even the holiness of the good spirits does not coincide with God's absolute holiness, and that this defect must still be very far greater in the case of spirit-corporeal man, who has earthiness as the basis of his origin-yea, according to Psalm 51:7, man is conceived in sin, so that he is sinful from the point at which he begins to live onward - his life is indissolubly interwoven with sin, no living man possesses a righteousness that avails before God (Job 4:17; Job 9:2; Job 14:3., Job 15:14, and frequently).

(Note: Gerson observes on this point (vid., Thomasius, Dogmatik, iv. 251): I desire the righteousness of pity, which Thou bestowest in the present life, not the judgment of that righteousness which Thou wilt put into operation in the future life - the righteousness which justifies the repentant one.)

With כּי (Psalm 143:3) the poet introduces the ground of his petition for an answer, and more particularly for the forgiveness of his guilt. He is persecuted by deadly foes and is already nigh unto death, and that not without transgression of his own, so that consequently his deliverance depends upon the forgiveness of his sins, and will coincide with this. "The enemy persecuteth my soul" is a variation of language taken from Psalm 7:6 (חיּה for חיּים, as in Psalm 78:50, and frequently in the Book of Job, more particularly in the speeches of Elihu). Psalm 143:3 also recalls Psalm 7:6, but as to the words it sounds like Lamentations 3:6 (cf. Psalm 88:7). מתי עולם (lxx νεκροὺς αἰῶνος) are either those for ever dead (the Syriac), after שׁנת עולם in Jeremiah 51:39, cf. בּית עולמו in Ecclesiastes 12:5, or those dead time out of mind (Jerome), after עם עולם in Ezekiel 26:20. The genitive construction admits both senses; the former, however, is rendered more natural by the consideration that הושׁיבני glances back to the beginning that seems to have no end: the poet seems to himself like one who is buried alive for ever. In consequence of this hostility which aims at his destruction, the poet feels his spirit within him, and consequently his inmost life, veil itself (the expression is the same as Psalm 142:4; Psalm 77:4); and in his inward part his heart falls into a state of disturbance (ישׁתּומם, a Hithpo. peculiar to the later language), so that it almost ceases to beat. He calls to mind the former days, in which Jahve was manifestly with him; he reflects upon the great redemptive work of God, with all the deeds of might and mercy in which it has hitherto been unfolded; he meditates upon the doing (בּמעשׂה, Ben-Naphtali בּמעשׂה) of His hands, i.e., the hitherto so wondrously moulded history of himself and of his people. They are echoes out of Psalm 77:4-7, Psalm 77:12. The contrast which presents itself to the Psalmist in connection with this comparison of his present circumsntaces with the past opens his wounds still deeper, and makes his prayer for help all the more urgent. He stretches forth his hands to God that He may protect and assist him (vid., Hlemann, Bibelstudien, i. 150f.). Like parched land is his soul turned towards Him, - language in which we recognise a bending round of the primary passage Psalm 63:2. Instead of לך it would be לך, if סלה (Targum לעלמין) were not, as it always is, taken up and included in the sequence of the accents.