6 Listen to my cry, For I am in desperate need. Deliver me from my persecutors, For they are stronger than me.
Why do you hide your face, And forget our affliction and our oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our body cleaves to the earth. Rise up to help us. Redeem us for your loving kindness' sake.
He will send from heaven, and save me, He rebukes the one who is pursuing me. Selah. God will send out his loving kindness and his truth. My soul is among lions. I lie among those who are set on fire, Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword.
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Commentary on Psalms 142 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 142
This psalm is a prayer, the substance of which David offered up to God when he was forced by Saul to take shelter in a cave, and which he afterwards penned in this form. Here is,
Those that are troubled in mind, body, or estate, may, in singing this psalm (if they sing it in some measure with David's spirit), both warrant his complaints and fetch in his comforts.
Maschil of David. A prayer when he was in the cave.
Psa 142:1-3
Whether it was in the cave of Adullam, or that of Engedi, that David prayed this prayer, is not material; it is plain that he was in distress. It was a great disgrace to so great a soldier, so great a courtier, to be put to such shifts for his own safety, and a great terror to be so hotly pursued and every moment in expectation of death; yet then he had such a presence of mind as to pray this prayer, and, wherever he was, still had his religion about him. Prayers and tears were his weapons, and, when he durst not stretch forth his hands against his prince, he lifted them up to his God. There is no cave so deep, so dark, but we may out of it send up our prayers, and our souls in prayer, to God. He calls this prayer Maschil-a psalm of instruction, because of the good lessons he had himself learnt in the cave, learnt on his knees, which he desired to teach others. In these verses observe,
Psa 142:4-7
The psalmist here tells us, for our instruction,