Psalm 43:4 - Printer Friendly

ESV: Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

NIV: Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

NASB: Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And I will praise You on the lyre, God, my God.

CSB: Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, my greatest joy. I will praise you with the lyre, God, my God.

NLT: There I will go to the altar of God, to God — the source of all my joy. I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God!

KJV: Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God.

NKJV: Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God.

Believing that God would bring him again to the sanctuary in Jerusalem, the psalmist anticipates a hopeful future. He looks forward to approaching the altar and praising God with music. He addresses God in a personal way as "my God." Such acts of worship would be appropriate after being delivered from enemies and pain. The writer has been honest about his struggles with discouragement (Psalm 42:9; 43:2). Yet he expects his self-pity to vanish, replaced by gratitude for God's.

The "lyre" described here was a small, U-shaped instrument with strings made from the small intestines of sheep. The strings stretched across a sounding board over an empty space and were attached to a cross bar. Modern readers would likely think of this as a small harp. The psalmist seems to have been a musician in the worship of God at the sanctuary. Although many gifted musicians enhance today's worship, all believers can joyfully praise the Lord by "singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (Colossians 3:16).

Psalm 43:1–4 asks God to come to the psalmist's assistance and defend his cause against the wicked. He expresses faith in the Lord but struggles with the feeling that God has rejected him. He prays for guidance to bring him back to the temple, where he anticipates worshiping God joyfully.

The psalmist prays to be delivered from ungodly people and injustice. He places trust in God, but grapples with feelings of abandonment during his hardships. He prays for God's light and truth to bring him back to Jerusalem, where he will gladly worship the Lord. The psalm concludes with a rhetorical question asked twice in the prior psalm (Psalm 42:5, 11).

Intricately connected in themes and phrases, Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 might have originally been a single song. Many Hebrew manuscripts render the two as one. In Psalm 43 the psalmist asks the Lord to lead him back to Jerusalem, where he could once again joyfully worship Him. This continues to express Psalm 42's concepts of discouragement overcome by purposeful faith in God.

The book of Psalms is composed of individual songs, hymns, or poems, each of which is a ''Psalm'' in and of itself. These works contain a wide variety of themes. Some Psalms focus on praising and worshipping God. Others cry out in anguish over the pain of life. Still other Psalms look forward to the coming of the Messiah. While some Psalms are related, each has its own historical and biblical context.

Accessed 4/28/2024 9:19:15 PM