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Psalm 142:2-4
New Catholic Bible
Psalm 142:2-4
New Catholic Bible
2 [a]I cry out to the Lord with my plea;
I entreat the Lord to grant me mercy.
3 Before him I pour out my complaint
and tell my troubles in his presence.
4 [b]No matter how faint my spirit is within me,
you are there to guide my steps.
Along the path on which I travel[c]
they have hidden a trap for me.
Footnotes
- Psalm 142:2 The psalmist uses the formal third person (customary when addressing kings) to pour out his troubles to God.
- Psalm 142:4 The psalmist is at the point of spiritual exhaustion (see Pss 76:13; 77:3; 143:4; Jon 2:8), and only God can help for he knows the faithful’s destiny, his present and future life (see Ps 139:24). Yet the Lord is not present to help him along this path of his enemies, which is filled with snares. My right: i.e., the place where one’s witness or legal counsel stood (see Pss 16:8; 109:31; 110:5; 121:5).
- Psalm 142:4 Along the path on which I travel: the present path on which the psalmist is traveling, i.e., the path of his opponents, which is covered with such snares as to fill him with dread, in contrast to the path of the Lord, which leads to such salvation as to fill him with hope (vv. 7-8).
