Answer Me When I Call
1 For the Chief Musician; on stringed instruments. A Psalm by David. Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness. Give me relief from my distress. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer. 2 You sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonor? Will you love vanity and seek after falsehood? Selah. 3 But know that Yahweh has set apart for himself him who is godly; Yahweh will hear when I call to him. 4 Stand in awe, and don’t sin. Search your own heart on your bed, and be still. Selah. 5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness. Put your trust in Yahweh. 6 Many say, “Who will show us any good?” Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us. 7 You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased. 8 In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you alone, Yahweh, make me live in safety.
An evening prayer that answers the question everyone is asking, and answers it with a face rather than with goods.
For the Chief Musician; on stringed instruments. A Psalm by David. Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness. Give me relief from my distress. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.
The opening line contains its own argument. God of my righteousness — the righteousness in question is not the petitioner's own achievement but something belonging to God and reckoned to him, and it is the ground on which the request is made. Nothing is asked on the strength of his own record, and the request that follows is for relief from my distress, which he expects because of whose righteousness it is.
You sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonor? Will you love vanity and seek after falsehood? Selah.
The psalm turns from God to the people slandering him, and the charge is that they prefer what is not true. It is not that they have been deceived; they love vanity, and the psalm treats the affection as the problem.
Stand in awe, and don’t sin. Search your own heart on your bed, and be still. Selah.
The counsel offered to opponents is not to change their behavior toward him but to be quiet and think. On your bed, in the dark, with nobody watching — the one setting in which a person is least able to keep up an act. Paul quotes the first half in a passage about anger Ephesians 4:26, where the same instruction serves: the emotion is not forbidden, the settling of it into sin is.
Many say, “Who will show us any good?” Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us.
The question is the perennial one, asked in every generation by people looking for something that will finally satisfy. The psalm does not dismiss it. It answers it with a different request altogether — not show us good, but show us your face — and the phrase is lifted from the blessing the priests were told to pronounce over Israel Numbers 6:25.
You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased.
The comparison is deliberately concrete. Harvest and vintage were the two happiest occasions in an agricultural year, and the claim is that this is better — made by a man currently under attack, comparing his position to that of people having a good year.
In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you alone, Yahweh, make me live in safety.
As in the psalm before it, the evidence offered is sleep. The word alone carries the weight: not chiefly, not also — the security is single-sourced, which is why it survives a bad harvest and a hostile crowd.
settled What this mark means