Psalms 77:3

When I would fain remember God, I was disquieted:

When I would fain muse in prayer, my spirit fainted.

The precise force of the tenses of the original is difficult to determine. The perfects in Psalms 77:2, and again in Psalms 77:4, however, shew that the poet is relating a past experience. In Psalms 77:1 he quotes, as it were, the words in which, in that hour of sorrow, he resolved to betake himself to prayer, and in Psalms 77:3, in tenses which recall the emotion of the time, though their force can hardly be given in a translation, he describes his failure to find comfort.

In its rendering my sore ran, the A.V. follows Jewish authorities in taking handin the sense of blowor wound(Job 23:2). -My wound was unstanched," is a metaphor for -my sorrow was unrelieved." But the rendering of R.V. given above is preferable. He sought God day and night, with hands unceasingly outstretched in the attitude of prayer (Psalms 28:2, note; Exodus 17:11-12). The text however is doubtful. The verb which means literally -was poured out," is not a natural one to apply to the hand; and the use of the same verb, and substantives derived from the root of the verb rendered -slacked," in Lamentations 2:18-19; Lamentations 3:49, with reference to tears, suggests that the original reading may have been, -Mine eyepoured down in the night, and slacked not." So the Targ.

my soul&c. Like Jacob, mourning for the loss of Joseph (Genesis 37:35); and Rachel, weeping for her children (Jeremiah 31:15).

For the word rendered -disquieted" cp. Psalms 42:5; Psalms 42:11; Psalms 43:5. In Psalms 55:17 it is joined with that rendered -muse in prayer," which recurs in Psalms 77:6 b, Psalms 77:12 b, and denotes meditation, musing prayer, musing or plaintive speech.

my spirit&c. Cp. Psalms 142:3; Psalms 143:4, in contexts full of parallels to this Psalm.