Psalms 143

Section 3. (Psalms 143:1-12; Psalms 144:1-15; Psalms 145:1-21.) Raised up out of the depth. We are now hastening to the end. In the final psalm of this section; we have only praise; the second anticipates the judgment of their enemies at hand; the first puts them upon sure ground in which they can appeal to the righteousness of God on their own behalf. This is, of course, not just as the epistle to the Romans has developed it for us in the gospel; nor is atonement brought in at all in this place. We do approach the apostle, however, negatively, in the confession that none among men can be justified before God in judgment. And the righteousness to which they can appeal therefore, is Jehovah’s faithfulness to His covenant and to His Name. The Name Jehovah was that which He attached to the covenant according to which He delivered His people out of Egypt; and though they chose at Sinai another and a legal one, yet we have seen many times in these psalms how the Spirit of God leads them continually back to that first deliverance. If the people have given up the grace in which He first appeared for them; the Name, the Unchangeable, is the guarantee that His thoughts shall abide; and though for a time they may seem to be set aside by man’s self-righteousness, He has made the law itself but the handmaid of the gospel: so far is He from having given it up. Let faith take it up at any time, it shall find it abides; and when Israel take it up, they will find it abiding for them; and the faithfulness and righteousness of God pledged to them in it. And from hence to the full deliverance and the praise will not be long. From the realization of the impossibility of self-justification before God to justification on God’s part, is not even a step; for this is His own act, and He is for us, just as we are, the Justifier of him who worketh not but believeth.

Psalms 143:1-12

The plea of righteousness where Jehovah alone is righteous. A psalm of David. This then is the principle of the first psalm here. It is the plea of righteousness in the mouth of faith, which owns that none is righteous except God alone, and which dares to say, in the consciousness of such ill desert, “in Thy faithfulness answer me; in Thy righteousness.” This the Cross makes simple for us now. The Old Testament saint could not of course see this, save dimly through the sacrificial shadows: Israel will see it when they look upon the face of Him whom they have pierced.

1. It is still prayer that we have here, until the closing verses. “Jehovah, hear my prayer; give ear unto my supplications: in Thy faithfulness answer me -in Thy righteousness!” And then follows the confession: “And enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for before Thee shall no living man be justified.”
2. We have then the plow that God has used with them to bring them into the exercises which in the end will be so fruitful. As in the hundred and forty-first psalm we heard them crying as from the mouth of Sheol, so here the psalmist speaks as one among the dwellers in darkness -even those long dead. But he is not indifferent, but his spirit overwhelmed, and his heart desolate; though he carries with him the remembrance of days of old, when God had manifestly wrought, and for Him his soul cried out as a thirsty land for rain.
3. Here then he takes refuge. There is for him no other hope. Did Jehovah hide His face, he would be like one of those going down to the pit. But as one who trusted in Him; he prayed to see early His loving-kindness, and to learn the way also in which to walk. In Jehovah he hid himself, and sought to be taught the will of Him who was his God. The spirit of faith and of obedience always go together.
4. In the last two verses we have the experience anticipated of Jehovah’s intervention. He will act in righteousness -in consistency with His nature and His Name: thus revival and deliverance are confidently looked for. All Israel’s enemies will be destroyed, the nation being owned as Jehovah’s servant in a sense which never could have been before.