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Psalm 143

Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

A Psalm of David.

Hear my prayer, O L ord;

give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;

answer me in your righteousness.

Do not enter into judgment with your servant,

for no one living is righteous before you.

For the enemy has pursued me,

crushing my life to the ground,

making me sit in darkness like those long dead.

Therefore my spirit faints within me;

my heart within me is appalled.

I remember the days of old,

I think about all your deeds,

I meditate on the works of your hands.

I stretch out my hands to you;

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

Answer me quickly, O L ord;

my spirit fails.

Do not hide your face from me,

or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.

Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,

for in you I put my trust.

Teach me the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul.

Save me, O L ord, from my enemies;

I have fled to you for refuge.

Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God.

Let your good spirit lead me

on a level path.

For your name’s sake, O L ord, preserve my life.

In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.

In your steadfast love cut off my enemies,

and destroy all my adversaries,

for I am your servant.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

11. For thy name’s sake, O Jehovah! etc. By this expression he makes it still more clear that it was entirely of God’s free mercy that he looked for deliverance; for, had he brought forward anything of his own, the cause would not have been in God, and only in God. He is said to help us for his own name’s sake, when, although he discovers nothing in us to conciliate his favor, he is induced to interpose of his mere goodness. To the same effect is the term righteousness; for God, as I have said elsewhere, has made the deliverance of his people a means of illustrating his righteousness. He at the same time repeats what he had said as to the extraordinary extent of his afflictions: in seeking to be quickened or made alive, he declares himself to be exanimated, and that he must remain under the power of death, if the God who has the issues of life did not recover him by a species of resurrection.