Biblion Bible Commentary
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Has God Forgotten to Be Gracious?
Psalms 77:1-20
1 For the Chief Musician. To Jeduthun. A Psalm by Asaph. My cry goes to God! Indeed, I cry to God for help, and for him to listen to me. · WEB
A man who cannot sleep asks six questions nobody should ask, and then deliberately changes what he is thinking about.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night, and didn't get tired. My soul refused to be comforted Psalms 77:2.
The last clause is the honest one. Not that comfort was unavailable — that he refused it. Grief has a stage at which consolation is experienced as an insult, and the psalm names it without apology.
I remember God, and I groan Psalms 77:3.
Remembering God is usually the remedy in this collection. Here it makes things worse, which is a distinction most devotional writing will not make.
You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I can't speak Psalms 77:4.
Insomnia attributed directly to God, and a man too distressed to pray in words. Both are stated as facts rather than complaints.
"Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more? Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Does his promise fail for generations? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?" Psalms 77:7–9.
Six questions in three verses, and every one of them is a doctrinal impossibility. The collection prints them anyway. This is what the middle of the night does to a believer, and the psalm's willingness to write it down is the reason it is useful.
Then I thought, "I will appeal to this: the years of the right hand of the Most High" Psalms 77:10.
The turn, and it is a decision rather than a discovery. Nothing has happened. He simply chooses what to think about next, and the choice is the psalm's method: I will remember Yah's deeds... I will also meditate on all your work Psalms 77:11–12.
The difference from verse three is worth marking. Earlier he remembered God and groaned; now he remembers what God has done. The first is an idea and the second is a record, and only one of them can be examined.
Your way, God, is in the sanctuary Psalms 77:13. As in the seventy-third psalm, the resolution is located in a place.
The waters saw you, God. The waters saw you, and they writhed... The voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world Psalms 77:16–18.
The psalm ends by retelling the crossing of the sea, and it does so as a storm.
Your way was through the sea, your paths through the great waters. Your footsteps were not known Psalms 77:19.
The finest line in the psalm and the answer to all six questions. God walked through the sea and left no footprints. A man who cannot see where God has been is not looking at evidence of absence; he is looking at the only kind of track this God leaves.
You led your people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron Psalms 77:20. The storm ends with a shepherd, and the psalm stops without returning to the man's own trouble at all.
settled What this mark means