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Selected Verse: Psalms 142:3 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Ps 142:3 |
King James |
When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| thou knewest . . . path--The appeal is indicative of conscious innocence; knowest it to be right, and that my affliction is owing to the snares of enemies, and is not deserved (compare Psa 42:4; Psa 61:2). |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
When my spirit was overwhelmed within me - Luther renders this, "When my spirit was in distress." The Hebrew word rendered "overwhelmed" means, in Kal, to cover as with a garment; then, to be covered as with darkness, trouble, sorrow; and then, to languish, to faint, to be feeble: Psa 77:3; Psa 107:5. The idea here is, that, in his troubles, he had no vigor, no life, no spirit. He did not see how he could escape from his troubles, and he had no heart to make an effort.
Then thou knewest my path - Thou didst see all. Thou didst see the way that I was treading, and all its darkness and dangers, implying here that God had made it an object to mark his course; to see what egress there might be - what way to escape from the danger. It was in no sense concealed from God, and no danger of the way was hidden from him. It is much for us to feel when we are in danger or difficulty that God knows it all, and that nothing can be hidden from him.
In the way wherein I walked - In my path; the path that I was treading.
Have they privily laid a snare for me - They treated me as a man would treat his neighbor, who should spread a snare, or set a trap, for him in the path which he knew he must take. The word rendered "have privily laid" means to hide, to conceal. It was so concealed that I could not perceive it. They did it unknown to me. I neither knew that it was laid, nor where it was laid. They meant to spring it upon me at a moment when I was not aware, and when I should be taken by surprise. It was not open and manly warfare; it was stealth, cunning, trick, art. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
| The prayer of the poet now becomes deep-breathed and excited, inasmuch as he goes more minutely into the details of his straitened situation. Everywhere, whithersoever he has to go (cf. on Psa 143:8), the snares of craftily calculating foes threaten him. Even God's all-seeing eye will not discover any one who would right faithfully and carefully interest himself in him. הבּיט, look! is a graphic hybrid form of הבּט and הבּיט, the usual and the rare imperative form; cf. הביא Sa1 20:40 (cf. Jer 17:18), and the same modes of writing the inf. absol. in Jdg 1:28; Amo 9:8, and the fut. conv. in Eze 40:3. מכּיר is, as in Rut 2:19, cf. Ps 10, one who looks kindly upon any one, a considerate (cf. the phrase הכּיר פּנים) well-wisher and friend. Such an one, if he had one, would be עמד על־ימינו or מימינו (Psa 16:8), for an open attack is directed to the arms-bearing right side (Psa 109:6), and there too the helper in battle (Psa 110:5) and the defender or advocate (Psa 109:31) takes his place in order to cover him who is imperilled (Psa 121:5). But then if God looks in that direction, He will find him, who is praying to Him, unprotected. Instead of ואין one would certainly have sooner expected אשׁר or כי as the form of introducing the condition in which he is found; but Hitzig's conjecture, הבּיט ימין וראה, "looking for days and seeing," gives us in the place of this difficulty a confusing half-Aramaism in ימין = יומין in the sense of ימים in Dan 8:27; Neh 1:4. Ewald's rendering is better: "though I look to the right hand and see (וראה), yet no friend appears for me;" but this use of the inf. absol. with an adversative apodosis is without example. Thus therefore the pointing appears to have lighted upon the correct idea, inasmuch as it recognises here the current formula הבּט וּראה, e.g., Job 35:5; Lam 5:1. The fact that David, although surrounded by a band of loyal subjects, confesses to having no true fiend, is to be understood similarly to the language of Paul when he says in Phi 2:20 : "I have no man like-minded." All human love, since sin has taken possession of humanity, is more or less selfish, and all fellowship of faith and of love imperfect; and there are circumstances in life in which these dark sides make themselves felt overpoweringly, so that a man seems to himself to be perfectly isolated and turns all the more urgently to God, who alone is able to supply the soul's want of some object to love, whose love is absolutely unselfish, and unchangeable, and unbeclouded, to whom the soul can confide without reserve whatever burdens it, and who not only honestly desires its good, but is able also to compass it in spite of every obstacle. Surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies, and misunderstood, or at least not thoroughly understood, by his friends, David feels himself broken off from all created beings. On this earth every kind of refuge is for him lost (the expression is like Job 11:20). There is no one there who should ask after or care for his soul, and should right earnestly exert himself for its deliverance. Thus, then, despairing of all visible things, he cries to the Invisible One. He is his "refuge" (Psa 91:9) and his "portion" (Psa 16:5; Psa 73:26), i.e., the share in a possession that satisfies him. To be allowed to call Him his God - this it is which suffices him and outweighs everything. For Jahve is the Living One, and he who possesses Him as his own finds himself thereby "in the land of the living" (Psa 27:13; Psa 52:7). He cannot die, he cannot perish. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Knowest - So as to direct me to it. My path - What paths I should chuse whereby I might escape. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| Then thou knewest my path - When Saul and his army were about the cave in which I was hidden, thou knewest my path - that I had then no way of escape but by miracle: but thou didst not permit them to know that I was wholly in their power. |
2 From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.
5 Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
3 I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
7 Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.
13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
5 The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.
9 Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
20 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost.
20 For I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state.
1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
5 Look unto the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou.
4 And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven,
27 And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king's business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.
5 The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
31 For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.
5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
8 I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
19 And her mother in law said unto her, Where hast thou gleaned to day? and where wroughtest thou? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee. And she shewed her mother in law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man's name with whom I wrought to day is Boaz.
3 And he brought me thither, and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.
8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.
28 And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.
18 Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.
40 And Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad, and said unto him, Go, carry them to the city.
8 Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.