Psalms 43:3-5

Context

43:3 Reveal¹ your light² and your faithfulness!

They will lead me,³

they will escort⁴ me back to your holy hill,⁵

and to the place where you live.⁶

43:4 Then I will go⁷ to the altar of God,

to the God who gives me ecstatic joy,⁸

so that I express my thanks to you,⁹ O God, my God, with a harp.

43:5 Why are you depressed,¹⁰ O my soul?¹¹

Why are you upset?¹²

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention.¹³

[43:3] ¹tn Heb “send.”

[43:3] ²sn God’s deliverance is compared here to a light which will lead the psalmist back home to the Lord’s temple. Divine deliverance will in turn demonstrate the Lord’s faithfulness to his people.

[43:3] ³tn Or “may they lead me.” The prefixed verbal forms here and in the next line may be taken as jussives.

[43:3] ⁴tn Heb “bring.”

[43:3] ⁵sn In this context the Lord’s holy hill is Zion/Jerusalem. See Isa 66:20; Joel 2:1; 3:17; Zech 8:3; Pss 2:6; 15:1; 48:1; 87:1; Dan 9:16.

[43:3] ⁶tn Or “to your dwelling place[s].” The plural form of the noun may indicate degree or quality; this is the Lord’s special dwelling place (see Pss 46:4; 84:1; 132:5, 7).

[43:4] ⁷tn The cohortative expresses the psalmist’s resolve. Prefixed with the vav (ו) conjunctive it also expresses the result or outcome of the preceding verbs “lead” and “escort.”

[43:4] ⁸tn Heb “to God, the joy of my happiness.” The phrase “joy of my happiness” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the degree of the psalmist’s joy. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[43:4] ⁹tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive probably indicates purpose (“so that”) or intention.

[43:5] ¹⁰tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[43:5] ¹¹sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[43:5] ¹²tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

[43:5] ¹³tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of my face and my God.” The last line should be emended to read יְשׁוּעֹת פְנֵי אֱלֹהָי (yÿshu’ot fÿney ’elohay, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God,” that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention. This refrain is identical to the one in Ps 42:11. See also 42:5, which differs only slightly.