A Study by Scott Sperling   Psalm 77 - A Prayer in Distress 1  I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.   2  When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. 3  I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.      Selah. 4  You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.   5  I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; 6  I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated and my spirit asked: 7  “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? 8  Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? 9  Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”        Selah.   10  Then I thought, “To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. 11  I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. 12  I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”   13  Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? 14  You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. 15  With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.          Selah.   16  The waters saw you, God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. 17  The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. 18  Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. 19  Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.   20  You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.   In this psalm, a child of God is in deep distress. In the first half of the psalm, he focusses on this distress.  In the second half of the psalm, to seek consolation, he turns his eye to God:  His works, His nature, His miraculous support for His people in the past.  “This psalm, according to the method of many other psalms, begins with sorrowful complaints, but ends with comfortable encouragements.” [Henry, 818]. In his great distress, the Psalmist utilizes the God- given weapon of prayer:  “I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me” (vss. 1-2).  The intensity of the Psalmists appeal to God is reflected in the repetition:  “I cried… I cried…”  It is also reflected in the manner of prayer.  His prayer was not an internal, mental prayer, nor even a fervently whispered prayer.  It was a vocal, and quite audible prayer, spoken—possibly even shouted—aloud.  “He used his voice also, for though vocal utterance is not necessary to the life of prayer, it often seems forced upon us by the energy of our desires. Sometimes the soul feels compelled to use the voice, for thus it finds a freer vent for its agony” [Spurgeon, 312].  “Prayer is man’s real strength; not careless prayer, which turns to God merely among other helpers, but ardent, ceaseless, unwearying prayer” [Plain, 33].  “Languid devotion, that moves not our hearts, can hardly be expected to move God” [Plumer, 741].  “No faithful prayer is ineffectual” [Trapp, 591]. The Psalmist next speaks of the depths of his distress:  “When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted.  I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.  You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak” (vss. 2-3). Though he was fervent in prayer, the Psalmist could find no “comfort”.  This passage suggests that his distress was related to sin in his life, for he felt alienated from God, and “groaned” at the thought of God.  He also, apparently, felt the tug of conscience as God would give him no rest:  “You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.”  “If our hearts or consciences condemn us, it is impossible to remember him without being troubled” [Payson, in Spurgeon, 318].  “He who is the wellspring of delight to faith, became an object of dread to the Psalmist’s distracted heart. The justice, holiness, power, and truth of God have all a dark side, and indeed all the attributes may be made to look black upon us if our eye be evil; even the brightness of divine love blinds us, and fills us with a horrible suspicion that we have neither part nor lot in it. He is wretched indeed whose memories of The Ever Blessed prove distressing to him; yet the best of men know the depth of this abyss” [Spurgeon, 313].  “Nothing can satisfy a soul which is sensible of Gods displeasure, save the sense of God’s favor” [Dickson, 188].  Note that, though the Psalmist began his prayer by “crying out”, through spiritual exhaustion his prayer has become a “groan”, a “meditation”.  He was “too troubled to speak.”  “Silence and thought succeed to the uttered prayer. But the heart still prays on in secret, though the mouth is silent.” [Perowne, 361].  “Sometimes our grief is so violent that it finds no vent, it strangles us, and we are overcome” [Timothy Rogers, in Spurgeon, 319].  “Words are but the body, the garment, the outside of prayer; sighs are nearer the heart work…  Tears have a tongue, and grammar, and language that our Father knoweth” [Samuel Rutherford, in Spurgeon, 320].  “It is better for the heart to pray without the mouth, than the mouth without the heart” [Starke, in Lange’s, 435].   Indeed, it is a good thing to alternate fervently spoken prayer with deep, quiet meditation.  In quiet meditation, we can hear God speak to us. For the Psalmist, day turned to night, but he could find no rest; sleep deserted him.  God often uses restless nights to bring us to Him in prayer, and to force us to meditate on our spiritual condition.  “A wounded spirit is able to bereave a man of the night’s rest, and affect the body with a share of its miserable condition” [Dickson, 188].  “Sleep is a great comforter, but it forsakes the sorrowful, and then their sorrow deepens and eats into the soul” [Spurgeon, 313].  “Let the anxious, careworn, but humble believer remember that it is no new thing to spend sleepless nights” [Plumer, 742]. To his credit, the Psalmist persevered in prayer, despite feeling that his prayer was going unanswered.  “They are real men of prayer with whom, when answers fail to be forthcoming, the thirst for prayer gets not weakened, but inflamed with greater ardor” [Tholuck, 323].  “Days of trouble must be days of prayer, days of inward trouble especially, when God seems to have withdrawn from us; we must seek him, and seek till we find him” [Henry, 819]. In hope of receiving some sort of comfort, the Psalmist recalls past times, times of God’s favor when his heart was at peace:  “I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remember my songs in the night”  (vss. 5-6).  “He selects the theme which believers in trouble ought always to choose; the days when the goodness of God was seen and tasted” [Tholuck, 323].  “Recollection of former mercies is the proper antidote against a temptation to despair, in the day of calamity” [Horne, 271]. His reflection on the past times of God’s favor led the Psalmist to wonder whether God’s favor had permanently left him:  “My heart meditated and my spirit asked:  ‘Will the Lord reject forever?  Will He never show His favor again?  Has His unfailing love vanished forever?  Has His promise failed for all time?  Has God forgotten to be merciful?  Has He in anger withheld his compassion?’” (vss. 6-9).  The Psalmist who, through study of God’s work in the past, and study of His revelation of Himself through His Word, knows of God’s true character, and appeals to God’s character through these questions.  The Psalmist knows of God’s desire to forgive, so he asks, “Will the Lord reject forever?  Will He never show His favor again?”  The Psalmist knows of God’s infinite store of lovingkindness, and his unbounded mercy and compassion, so he asks, “Has His unfailing love vanished forever?  Has His promise failed for all time?  Has God forgotten to be merciful?  Has He in anger withheld his compassion?”  In effect, the Psalmist is asking:  “Shall God, to whose nature it belongs to be gracious, and faithfully to keep His promises, make an exception in my case?” [Tholuck].  “The troubled conscience hungering after a sense of mercy, hath not only God’s merciful nature, and God’s constancy in his good will, but also his promises to lean unto, for supporting of itself” [Dickson, 190].  “Can God, who forgets nothing and no one (see Isa. 49:15), have forgotten his own nature, which is to be ‘merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness’ (Exod. 34:6)?  Assuredly not” [Pulpit Comm., 111]. The struggling with these questions led the Psalmist to change directions in his prayer:  “Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal:  the years when the Most High stretched out His right hand.   I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago.  I will consider all Your works and meditate on all Your mighty deeds’” (vss. 10-12).  The Psalmist now focusses directly on God’s wonderful and merciful deeds of the past, when love and protection for His people was demonstrated.  “Those who are under suffering like to think about themselves, and brood over their situation. It is better for them to meditate upon God’s doings” [Lange’s, 434]. “Whatever else may glide into oblivion, the marvelous works of the Lord in the ancient days must not be suffered to be forgotten. Memory is a fit handmaid for faith” [Spurgeon, 315].  “History and prophecy are the two great sources of comfort to the saints. The former tells us what God has done; the latter, what He will do. To faith they both reveal wondrous things” [Plumer, 740]. “This verse is the transition point from the sad experience to the joyous—from dark, depressing views to bright, uplifting thoughts of God and his ways” [Cowles, 317].  The Psalmist, who “stretched out untiring hands” to God in verse 2, is appealing to the times when God Himself “stretched out His right hand” to His people.  “Our distress and trouble make our faith weak, but they do not alter the eternal purposes of God’s love and grace.  From the very beginning God’s right hand has been working out eternal plans of mercy and love to man” [Plain, 35].  And so, the Psalmist’s prayer turns to focusing solely on God, His character and His work:  “Your ways, God, are holy.  What god is as great as our God?  You are the God who performs miracles; You display Your power among the peoples. With Your mighty arm You redeemed Your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph” (vss. 13-15).  The Psalmist begins meditating on God’s “holiness” and “greatness”.  “The evident inference from this in the mind of the psalmist, as bearing on the subject of his inquiry, is, that it is to be expected that there will be things in his administration which man cannot hope to understand; that a rash and sudden judgment should not be formed in regard to Him from His doings; that men should wait for the developments of His plans; that he should not be condemned because there are things which we cannot comprehend, or which seem to be inconsistent with goodness. This is a consideration which ought always to influence us in our views of God and His government” [Barnes, 288-289]. The Psalmist concludes with an extended meditation on one of God’s greatest works on behalf of His people, the leading of the Israelites to safety through the Red Sea:  “The waters saw You, God, the waters saw You and writhed; the very depths were convulsed.  The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder; Your arrows flashed back and forth.  Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, Your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked.  Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, though Your footprints were not seen” (vss. 16-19).  Through this episode, we learn that there are no obstacles on earth that are too great for God to overcome in order to help His people.  His hand, His look, His mere thought are to be obeyed by His creation:  “The waters saw You, God, the waters saw You and writhed; the very depths were convulsed.”  Note here, this path “through the waters” was not an easy one for the Israelites to take:  “Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, Your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked” (vs. 18).  Like the Psalmist, the Israelites were, no doubt, full of fear.  They quite probably thought that God had deserted them.  They were brought to the end of their hope, to the depths of despair, with the Egyptian army behind them, and a raging sea before them.  “The Lord draweth deep in working out the delivery and salvation of His own people, bringing them at first into extremity of danger, and then making a plain and clear escape from all their straits” [Dickson].  “Looking back to this period of their history, the psalmist saw that there was abundant reason for confiding in God, and that the mind should repose on him calmly amid all that was dark and mysterious in his dealings… In view of the past, the mind ought to be calm; encouraged by the past, however incomprehensible may be God’s doings, men may come to him, and entrust all their interests to him with the confident assurance that their salvation will be secure, and that all which seems dark and mysterious in the dealings of God will yet be made clear” [Barnes, 291].  “The same Great God who never lacked resources to humble the proudest nations of the ages long ago may be trusted to do all he wills in the ages present or future. That wisdom and power which stand out sublimely prominent in the great deeds of the ancient times will always be equal to any demand through all the ages” [Cowles, 319]. The Psalmist concludes:  “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (vs. 20).  Some see this as an abrupt ending, so much so, that they believe that we are missing the end of the psalm.  But I would say that here, in God’s perfect word, we have enough to know that the Psalmist was comforted by God’s shepherdly leading of his people through the trouble, as He “led His people like a flock.”  “As soon as the good man began to meditate on these things, he found he had gained his point; his very entrance upon this matter gave him light and joy; his fears suddenly and strangely vanished, so that he needed to go no further” [Henry, 820].  “It is a glorious attribute of faith that it does not cease in prayer and supplication till God at last causes His gracious countenance to shine, and appears with His comfort and help” [Starke, in Lange’s, 435].   Bibliography and Suggested Reading Alexander, Joseph Addison. The Psalms Translated and Explained.  Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1864.  Anonymous.  A Plain Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Oxford and London:  Parker, 1857. Barnes, Albert.  Notes on the Book of Psalms.  New York:  Harper & Brothers Publishing, 1871. Bonar, Andrew. Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms.  New York:  Robert Carter & Brothers, 1860. Bratcher, Robert G.; Reyburn, William D., eds. UBS Handbooks for the Old Testament. “Psalms”. American Bible Society, 1991. Calvin, John.  A Commentary on the Book of Psalms.  3 Vols.  Oxford: D. A. Talboys, 1840. (Originally published in Latin in 1557).  Clarke, Adam. The Holy Bible with a Commentary and Critical Notes.  Vol. III.  London:  William Tegg & Co., 1854.  (Originally published in 1831).  Cowles, Henry.  The Psalms with Notes, Critical, Explanatory and Practical.  New York:  D. Appleton & Co., 1872. Darby, John Nelson.  Practical Reflections on the Psalms.  London:  Robert L. Allan, 1870. Delitzsch, Franz.  Biblical Commentary on the Psalms. Edinburgh:  T & T Clark, 1892. (Originally published in 1860). Dickson, David. An Explication of the Other Fifty Psalms, from Ps. 50 to Ps. 100. Cornhill, U.K.:  Ralph Smith, 1653.  Exell, Joseph S. and Henry Donald Spence-Jones, eds. The Pulpit Commentary. Vols. 17, 18, & 19. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1884.  Hengstenberg, F. W.  Commentary on the Psalms.  Edinburgh:  T & T Clark, 1864. Henry, Matthew.  An Exposition of All the Books of the Old and New Testament.  Vol. II.  London: W. Baynes, 1806. (Originally published in 1710). Horne, George. A Commentary on the Book of Psalms.  New York:  Robert Carter & Brothers, 1854. Jamieson, Robert; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David.  A Commentary: Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments.  Glasgow:  William Collins, Queen’s Printer, 1863. Lange, John Peter, ed. and Philip Schaff, trans.  A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical.  New York:  Charles Scribner & Co., 1865.  Perowne, J. J. Stewart.  The Book of Psalms:  A New Translation with Explanatory Notes.  London:  George Bell & Sons, 1880. Plumer, William S.  Studies in the Book of Psalms.  Philadelphia:  J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1872. Spurgeon, Charles.  The Treasury of David.  6 Vols.  London: Marshall Brothers, Ltd., 1885. Tholuck, Augustus.  A Translation and Commentary of the Book of Psalms.  Philadelphia:  Martien, 1858. Trapp, John.  A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments. Vol. II (Ezra to Psalms).  Edmonton, Canada: Still Waters Revival Books (www.PuritanDownloads.com). (Originally published c. 1660). VanGemeren, Willem A., (Gaebelein, Frank E., ed).  Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 5 – Psalms to Song of Songs.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 1991.   Many of these books (those in public domain) can be downloaded free of charge from:  http://www.ClassicChristianLibrary.com