Psalm 142:5

The psalm is headed “Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave.” Maschil is usually taken to mark a psalm of reflection or instruction. The cave is most likely one of two places from David’s years as a fugitive from Saul. At the cave of Adullam a band of men who were in distress and in debt gathered to him (1 Samuel 22:1–2). In a cave at En-gedi, Saul came in while David hid inside, and David spared his life (1 Samuel 24:1–3). In both places David was hunted, short of everything and in danger of death. Saul pursued him from one wilderness to the next (1 Samuel 23:25) with a king’s army and authority behind him, although God had already anointed David to be Israel’s next king.

The first four verses of the psalm pour out his complaint. His spirit is overwhelmed within him (Psalm 142:3), and when he looks around for help he finds that “refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul” (Psalm 142:4). Verse 5 is the turning point. The man who has just said that refuge failed him now says to God, “Thou art my refuge.”

This is the path of the Psalms’ prayers of lament, such as Psalm 22 and Psalm 69. They speak to God, describe the trouble and the enemies, ask for rescue, and close with trust or a promise of praise. Psalm 142 keeps that pattern closely, and these three verses hold its confession, its plea and its hope.

“I cried unto thee, O LORD” uses zâʻaq, the verb for crying out, especially for help in hardship, a shriek of anguish or danger. David calls on God by his covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD who has bound himself to his people. Then comes “I said” (ʼâmar), and what David says is a settled confession: “Thou art my refuge and my portion.”

A refuge, machăçeh, is a shelter or stronghold, a safe place to run to, from a root meaning to flee for protection and so to trust. In David’s world a refuge was a fortress, a hidden place or a walled city where a man could escape his enemies. David is sitting in exactly such a hiding place, and he names the LORD as his true shelter. The rock around him could be found by Saul, and the LORD is the place of safety no pursuer can reach. Scripture says this of God again and again: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1), “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27), and “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust” (Psalm 91:2).

Verse 6 turns from confession to plea. “Attend unto my cry” asks God to listen closely. The verb qâshab means to listen attentively or pay attention, literally to incline the ears. The cry is rinnâh, a raised voice, which can be a ringing shout of joy or a cry in prayer, and here it is a cry for help. It shares the English word with “I cried” in verse 5, which is zâʻaq.

David gives God his reason: “for I am brought very low.” The verb dâlal means to hang down or be feeble, and so to be brought low, emptied, impoverished, made thin. Mᵉʼôd adds “very, greatly, exceedingly.” David has come to the end of his strength, his resources and his standing among men. Elsewhere David puts the same condition beside the same trust: “But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer” (Psalm 40:17).

“Deliver me from my persecutors” uses nâtsal, to snatch away, rescue or deliver. The one delivered is “me”, and “from my persecutors” marks the danger he is taken out of. The persecutors are the ones pursuing him, from râdaph, to run after, pursue or chase, usually with hostile intent, and so to persecute. For David these were Saul and his men, who hunted him across the wilderness. The cry is one God hears: “The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles” (Psalm 34:17).

Verse 7 is the last plea of the psalm. “My soul” is nephesh, which means life, soul, self, the whole person, so David is asking God to set his whole life free. The word for prison, maçgêr, means a place shut in, a dungeon or prison. David is in a cave with Saul’s men around him, hemmed in by his enemies and by his own distress, and he calls it a prison. The word can mean a literal jail, and here it names the whole confinement he is in. Isaiah uses the same picture of what the LORD’s servant will do: “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house” (Isaiah 42:7).

These verses reach their fullest meaning in Jesus Christ, the Son of David. David hid in a cave for safety, and sinners find their shelter in Christ. Isaiah speaks of a man who “shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest” (Isaiah 32:2), and John the Baptist pointed to Jesus as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Levites had the LORD as their portion, and in Christ believers are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). He is the bread of life (John 6:35) and the giver of living water (John 4:14), the one who satisfies our deepest hunger and thirst. David hoped to see God’s goodness in the land of the living, and Christ gives everlasting life to all who believe in him (John 3:16), so the refuge and the portion last beyond this life.

Jesus too was brought very low. In Gethsemane he told his disciples, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38), and he prayed to his Father. He was pursued and crucified by persecutors who, in human terms, were stronger, and behind them stood the powers of sin, death and the devil. In his weakness he entrusted himself to the Father, and the Father answered by raising him from the dead, “because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24). Through his death he destroyed the devil and delivers all who were held in bondage by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15).

David asked to be brought out of prison, and Christ came “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1), words he read of himself in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:18). Set free from sin and death, his people can praise God’s name and worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24). God has dealt bountifully with us in Christ, blessing us “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). The righteous who gather round David are a picture of the church gathered around Christ, a people called to “shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

David prayed these words with his friends gone, his home lost and his life hunted. Everything he could lean on had failed him, and in that place he found that the LORD was still his refuge and still his share. The psalm gives us his honest words for the lowest hours: a cry, a plain admission that the enemy is stronger, and a request to be let out. It also gives us his confession, which holds whether or not the cave has opened yet.

The God shown here listens to the cry of the helpless, rescues those who cannot rescue themselves, and deals bountifully with his people. He sets prisoners free so that they can praise his name, and he brings the lonely back among his people. David’s prayer was answered, and the Son of David has answered it more fully still.