Psalm 143:5

Psalm 143 is a prayer of David, and it is the last of the seven psalms long grouped together as the penitential psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143), prayers marked by humility, confession and pleading for mercy. Just before these verses David says that the enemy has crushed his life to the ground and “made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead” (Psalm 143:3). His spirit is overwhelmed within him and his heart is desolate. After these two verses he goes on to pray for guidance and deliverance.

The psalm names no occasion beyond its heading. David knew more than one season like this, such as the years when Saul hunted him (1 Samuel 19–24) and his flight during Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15–18), and either would fit, though the psalm leaves the occasion unnamed. What the psalm does make clear is the turn in these verses. In the middle of his darkness David sets his mind on God’s past deeds, and from there he reaches out to God himself.

“I remember the days of old” uses zâkar, the ordinary Hebrew verb for remembering, which in another of its forms means to mention something or bring it to remembrance. Here David calls the past to mind on purpose. Remembering lay at the heart of Israel’s faith. Moses told the people, “thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 8:2). The days of old take in the great deliverances, the Passover and the going out from Egypt (Exodus 12), the wilderness years and the founding of the kingdom, and they take in the times God had helped David himself. Israel kept these memories alive in its feasts, its songs and the stories passed from one generation to the next, as a living witness to God’s covenant faithfulness and power. Another psalm makes the same resolve: “I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old” (Psalm 77:11).

“I meditate on all thy works” uses hâgâh, a verb that can mean to murmur, to utter, to ponder or to imagine. It is thought that is often spoken half aloud, a quiet going over of what is being considered. It is the same word used of the blessed man whose “delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2), and Joshua is told to meditate on the book of the law day and night (Joshua 1:8). “All thy works” reaches from the creation of the world (Genesis 1) to God’s acts in the history of his people, and in all of them his power, wisdom and steadfast love are on show. Psalm 103 is one long recounting of God’s faithfulness in this way.

“I muse on the work of thy hands” uses sîyach, which means to ponder or talk a matter over, whether within oneself or with God. It can carry wonder, and it can also carry complaint. The word for hands, yâd, is the open hand, as distinct from kaph, the closed hand, and it stands for power, means and direction. With a preposition, “by the hand of”, it marks anyone through whom something is done. “The work of thy hands” therefore says that God made and does these things himself, directly and with purpose. Scripture speaks of his hands in human terms so that we can grasp how personally he is at work in his world.

When the present is dark, God’s past acts give firm ground to stand on. David’s feelings tell him that all is lost, and the record of God’s deeds tells him that this God has delivered before and is unchanged. The God who acted in the days of old is able and willing to act again. The New Testament says the same of the Son: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). Memory of this kind looks back so that it can trust in the present, and that is why it leads David at once into prayer.

“I stretch forth my hands unto thee” uses pâras, a verb that means to break apart, to disperse or to spread, and here it is the spreading out of the hands. Stretching out the hands was a familiar posture of prayer in Israel. It shows earnest appeal, surrender and an open readiness to receive, a man with nothing in his hands asking God to fill them. Having pondered the work of God’s hands in verse 5, David now holds out his own in verse 6. The gesture is outward, and it shows a heart that has turned to God as its only hope.

“My soul thirsteth after thee” uses nephesh for soul. The word comes from a root meaning to breathe, and it means a breathing creature, life, soul, self, person, and even appetite. So when David says his soul thirsts, his whole self, his very life, is longing. He longs “after thee”, for God himself, his presence and his favour as well as his help.

“As a thirsty land” uses ʻâyêph, an adjective meaning faint, weary, languid or thirsty. The picture is ground worn out and failing for lack of water. In Israel’s dry climate rain was a matter of life and death, and a parched field has no way to water itself. David is that field, and his need of God is as urgent and as complete as the land’s need of rain.

Scripture uses this picture of thirst for the soul’s longing more than once. “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). David himself, who longs here, can also wait in quiet trust: “Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation” (Psalm 62:1). And through Isaiah God calls out to all who are dry: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters” (Isaiah 55:1). This longing is God-given, a desire he has placed in the soul so that we would come to him.

The works David mused on were done through the Son. John says that all things were made by the Word (John 1:1–3), the Word who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and Paul says that all things were created by him and in him hold together (Colossians 1:15–17). The greatest of all God’s works is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), and by the resurrection he has “begotten us again unto a lively hope” (1 Peter 1:3–5). So when believers now remember the days of old, we remember above all the cross and the empty tomb. That memory carries the same assurance it gave David, now made firmer: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

David’s thirst is answered in Christ too. Jesus stood up and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37–38), and he told the woman at the well that the water he gives “shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). He calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), and at the end of all things he promises, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely” (Revelation 21:6). The soul made dry by sin and separation from God is given life through his atoning work and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

These two verses show a man in the dark finding his way back to God in two steps. First he fills his mind with what God has done, and then he reaches out for God himself. The God they show us is one whose past deeds are a sure guide to who he is today, who works with his own hands in creation and in the lives of his people, and who alone can satisfy a soul as dry as a field in drought. David’s honest thirst is welcome before him, and in Christ the water David longed for has been given.