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Time after Pentecost · Proper 26 · Year A

Psalm 43

Send Out Your Light and Your Truth

The Voyage of Life: Old Age, Thomas Cole
The Voyage of Life: Old Age, Thomas Cole, 1842National Gallery of Art, Washington · public domain

Overview & Insights

“Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain.” (Psalm 43:3)

Psalms 42 and 43 are distinct psalms in the Hebrew (MT), Greek (LXX), Syriac, and Vulgate, which suggests that they were separate compositions. Yet the seamless relationship of the two poems is indicated by these factors: (1) they share a refrain (42:5, 11; 43:5); (2) Psalm 43 has no title (Ps. 71 is the only other exception in Book 2); (3) both psalms share the lament meter of 3+2; and (4) they share a similar subject.1 The psalm is an individual lament, stating the reason for the lament, which is the psalmist’s inability to visit the Jerusalem sanctuary (42:1, 4, 6; 43:3–4) and the mockery of his compatriots (42:3, 9; 43:2), evidently because of his religious devotion (43:1). There is no resolution to his dilemma, except in hope that God will in time resolve it.

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What is Psalm 43 about?

A prayer of one who feels rejected and cast down, asking God’s light and truth to lead him back to the altar, with the recurring refrain, “Why, my soul, are you downcast?… Put your hope in God.”

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