{"id":1886,"date":"2017-02-15T09:45:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T14:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/?p=1886"},"modified":"2017-02-15T09:45:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T14:45:30","slug":"psalm-142","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/psalm-142\/","title":{"rendered":"Psalm 142"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I cried unto the Lord with my voice. . . Here the cry of the poet is directed to his only hope in a time of loneliness and desperation. \u201cEven unto the Lord\u201d he makes his supplication. The superscription suggests that it was written by \u201cwhen he was in the cave.\u201d The exact circumstances are unclear, but the two incidences we have recorded in Scripture\u20141 Samuel 22:1 and 1 Samuel 24:3-4\u2014refer to the time when David was fleeing for his life from a jealous and vengeful King Saul. Not all who pray this psalm do so out of such dire conditions, though even today, in many parts of the world, faith in God is still lived at the risk of losing one&#8217;s life. Such desperate words as these can be prayed in the name of those who suffer such persecution.<\/p>\n<p>On a more personal level, however, there are two significant elements to this psalm that anyone can understand. The first is the utter sense of loneliness, even of abandonment. Not only is the psalmist in trouble, but no one cares. He looks for someone to offer compassion, but \u201cthere was no man that would know me,\u201d he laments (v.4), \u201cand no man cared for my soul.\u201d However self-sufficient we may consider ourselves to be, the human heart in such bitter times yearns for a companion.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the psalmist <em>does<\/em> have company in his condition. Despite his fear, he knows that there <em>is<\/em> one who \u201cknows his path.\u201d For the psalmist, this is no theological platitude. Placing his hope in the Lord is the conviction of his heart. Notwithstanding his vacillation between despair and trust, he expects God to \u201cbring his soul out of prison.\u201d The psalmist uses an interesting word when he describes the Lord as his \u201cportion\u201d in the land of the living (v.6). This is the same Hebrew word used to refer to the \u201cinheritance\u201d of land apportioned to the twelve tribes of Israel. As one lives off the land the psalmist \u201clives off\u201d God. The psalmist&#8217;s very life depends upon the provision given him by the Lord.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify%3Atrack%3A3L5QgoGpd5i763XLQXR6w4\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I cried unto the Lord with my voice. . . Here the cry of the poet is directed to his only hope in a time of loneliness and desperation. \u201cEven unto the Lord\u201d he makes his supplication. The superscription suggests &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/psalm-142\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}