Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 77:2
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
2. (Thus) in the day of my distress I sought the Lord:
My hand was stretched out in the night, and slacked not;
My soul refused to be comforted.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord – Compare the notes at Psa 50:15. This trouble may have been either mental or bodily; that is, it may have arisen from some form of disease, or it may have been that which sprang from difficulties in regard to the divine character, government, and dealings. That it assumed the latter form, even if it had its beginning in the former, is apparent from the following verses. Whether it was connected with any form of bodily disease must be determined by the proper interpretation of the next clause in this verse.
My sore ran in the night – Margin, My hand. It is evident that our translators sup. posed that there was some bodily disease – some running sore – which was the cause of his trouble. Hence, they so rendered the Hebrew word. But it is now generally agreed that this is without authority. The Hebrew word is hand – yad – a word which is never used in the sense of sore or wound. The Septuagint renders it, my hands are before him. The Vulgate renders it in the same manner. Luther, My hand is stretched out at night. DeWette, My hand is stretched out at night unwearied. The word which is rendered in our version ran – nagar – means to flow; and, in Niphil, to be poured out, and then, to be stretched out; which is evidently its meaning here. The idea is, that his hand was stretched out in earnest supplication, and that this continued in the night when these troubles came most upon him. See Psa 77:4, Psa 77:6. In his painful meditations in the night. watches – in thinking on God and his ways, as he lay upon his bed, he stretched out his hand in fervent prayer to God.
And ceased not – The word used here – pug – means properly to be cold; then, to be torpid, sluggish, slack. Here it means that the hand did not become weary; it did not fall from exhaustion; or, in other words, that he did not give over praying through weariness or exhaustion.
My soul refused to be comforted – I resisted all the suggestions that came to my own mind, that might have comforted me. My heart was so melancholy and downcast; my spirits were so crushed; my mind was so dark; I had become so morbid, that I loved to cherish these thoughts. I chose to dwell on them. They had obtained possession of me, and I could not let them go. There was nothing that my own mind could suggest, there was nothing that occurred to me, that would relieve the difficulty or restore peace to my soul. These sad and gloomy thoughts filled all my soul, and left no room for thoughts of consolation and peace. A truly pious man may, therefore, get into a state of mind – a sad, dispirited, melancholy, morbid state – in which nothing that can be said to him, nothing that will occur to himself, will give him comfort and peace. Compare Jer 31:15.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 77:2
My soul refused to be comforted.
Refusing to be comforted
I. When a mans soul refuses to be comforted, possibly he may be right. He may have a great spiritual sorrow, and some one, who does not at all understand his grief, may proffer to him a consolation which is far too slight. Not knowing how deep the wound is, this foolish physician may think that it can be healed with any common ointments. So, too, it is equally right to refuse to be comforted, when the comfort is untrue. When a man is under a sense of sin, I have known his friends say to him, You should not fret; you have not been so very bad. You have been, indeed, a very good sort of fellow. You have not committed any very terrible sin; God help the world if you are a great sinner! I do not know what will become of the rest Of us. Another says, You have only to pray, and go to a place of worship; perhaps be a little more regular in your attention to religion, and it will all come right again; you are not so bad as you think you are. Such talk as that is a lie, and the man whom God has really awakened to feel his state by nature will refuse to be comforted by such falsehoods as those. We have known others who have tried to comfort poor, mourning, repentant sinners in an unhallowed way. They have said, You want to raise your spirits, I can recommend you some fine old wine; it will do you a world of good. Another will say, You should really mix a little more in society, and shake yourself up; you should get with some gay, lively people, they would soon take this melancholy out of you. I am sure that a person who is really troubled in spirit will increase his sorrow if he attempts to cure it in that way. It is only putting more fuel on the flame. In danger every moment of death, and certain that, if death came, I should be lost, can I enjoy mirth? It cannot be! Refuse every comfort short of being born again, and made a new creature in Jesus.
II. But now, I want to show when this refusal is wrong. Probably he is wrong who says, My soul refused to be comforted. It is quite wrong if it be a temporal matter that causes your sorrow. Refuse not to be comforted, I pray you; you are only driving the dagger deeper into your wounds. Instead of doing that, think of the mercies that you still have, think of how God can bless your troubles. But now I will suppose that yours is a spiritual trouble. Do not refuse to be comforted, for if you do, you will be spiritually a suicide. The man who will not eat, and so dies of starvation, is as much a suicide as he that puts the pistol to his head, and blows out his brains.
III. But now, haply you will have to repent of refusing to be comforted. Possibly you will have to repent it in a very terrible way. Suppose, now, that you should refuse to be comforted, and so should wilfully go into a yet darker and deeper dungeon of despair. Suppose that your Christian friends should grow weary of you. Where would you be then? And suppose that, because you shut your eyes to the light, God should take it away? I do hope that many here present, who have refused to be comforted, will yet regret it when they shall be enjoying the fulness of comfort. What a fool am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty I I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle. So he pulled it out of his bosom, put it in the lock, opened the door of the dungeon, and they soon passed out. Now, finally, when you and I get to heaven, we shall regret that we ever refused to be comforted. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A sermon for the most miserable of men
My main bent, this morning, is to deal with mourners who are seeking Christ, but up till now have sought Him in vain.
I. Concerning so deplorable a state of heart, alas I still so common, we will remark in the first place that it is very wonderful. It is a most surprising thing that there should be in this world persons who have the richest consolation near to hand, and persistently refuse to partake of it. Doth the ox refuse its fodder? Will the lion turn from his meat? Or the eagle loathe its nest? The refusal of consolation is the more singular because the most admirable comfort is within reach. Sin can be forgiven; sin has been forgiven; Christ has made an atonement for it. It is said that some years ago, a vessel sailing on the northern coast of the South American continent, was observed to make signals of distress. When hailed by another vessel, they reported themselves as Dying for water! Dip it up, then, was the response, you are in the mouth of the Amazon river. There was fresh water all around them, they had nothing to do but to dip it up, and yet they were dying of thirst, because they thought themselves to be surrounded by the salt sea. How often are men ignorant of their mercies! How sad that they should perish for lack of knowledge! But suppose after the sailors had received the joyful information, they had still refused to draw up the water which was in boundless plenty all around them, would it not have been a marvel?
II. Secondly, this wonderful madness has a method in it, and may be variously accounted for. In many, their refusal to be comforted arises from bodily and mental disease. It is in vain to ply with scriptural arguments those who are in more urgent need of healing medicine, or generous diet, or a change of air. In some the monstrous refusal is suggested by a proud dislike to the plan of salvation. They would be comforted, aye, that they would, but may they not do something to earn eternal life? May they not at least contribute a feeling or emotion? May they not prepare themselves for Christ? In others it is not pride, but an unholy resolve to retain some favourite sin. In some cases we have found out that the sorrowing person indulged still in a secret vice, or kept the society of the ungodly. I fear, in a great many, there is another reason for this refusing to be comforted, namely, a dishonouring unbelief in the love, and goodness, and truthfulness of God. They do not believe God to be gracious; they think Him so stern that a sinner had need plead full many a day before the stern heart of God will be touched. Oh, but you do not know my God! What is He? He is love. Some, however, have refused comfort so long, that they have grown into the habit of despair. Beware of nursing despondency. Does it creep upon you to-day through unbelief? Oh, shake it off if possible!
III. This remarkable piece of folly assumes divers forms. One is a persistent misrepresentation of the Gospel, as though it claimed some hard thing of us. Another shape of this malady is this: many continually and persistently underestimate the power of the precious blood of Jesus. There are some who will then say, But I have sinned such and such a sin. What, and cannot the blood of Jesus wash that away? All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.
IV. This refusal to be comforted involves much of wrong. When you hear the Gospel and refuse to be comforted by it, there is a wrong done to the minister of God. He sympathizes with you, he desires to comfort you, and it troubles him when he puts before you the cup of salvation, and you refuse to take it. But worse than that, you wrong Gods Gospel. You put it away as though it were a thing of nought. You wrong this precious Bible. It is full of consoling promises, and you read it, and you seem to say, It is all chaff. Oh, but the Bible does not deserve to have such a slur cast upon it. You do wrong to the dear friends who try to comfort you. Above all, you do wrong to your God, to Jesus, and to His Holy Spirit. The crucifixion of Christ is repeated by your rejection of Christ.
V. Such a refusal should not be persisted in. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. My sore ran in the night, and ceased not] This is a most unaccountable translation; the literal meaning of yadi niggerah, which we translate my sore ran, is, my hand was stretched out, i.e., in prayer. He continued during the whole night with his voice and hands lifted up to God, and ceased not, even in the midst of great discouragements.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
My sore ran: the hand in the Hebrew tongue, and Scripture use, is oft put for a blow or stroke given by the hand. Heb. My hand, or hands, (the singular number being frequently put for the plural,)
flowed or poured forth, i.e. spread abroad to God in prayer. This phrase he useth rather than were stretched out, which is frequent in like cases, to imply that his case was low and almost desperate, his spirits and strength quite gone, so that he was not able to stretch them out, as he had done.
In the night; which to others was a time of rest and quietness, but to me of torment.
My soul refused to be comforted; I rejected all those consolations which either my friends or my own mind suggested to me.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. his importunacy.
my sore ran . . .nightliterally, “my hand was spread,” or, “stretchedout” (compare Ps 44:20).
ceased notliterally,”grew not numb,” or, “feeble” (Gen 45:26;Psa 38:8).
my soul . . .comforted(compare Gen 37:35;Jer 31:15).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord,…. Not the creature, for help, and creature amusements to drive away trouble, but the Lord, in private, by prayer and supplication; a time of trouble is a time for prayer, Jas 5:13, all men have their trouble, but the people of God more especially; and there are some particular times in which they have more than usual, and then it may be said to be “a day of trouble” with them; which sometimes arises from themselves, the strength of their corruptions, the weakness of their graces, their backwardness to duties, or poor performance of them; sometimes from others, from the profaneness or persecutions of the men of the world, from the heretical notions or wicked lives of professors; sometimes from the temptations of Satan, and at other times from the Lord himself more immediately, by his withdrawing his presence from them, or by laying his afflicting hand upon them; but, let the trouble come from what quarter it may, it is always right to seek the Lord. Some think reference is had to the time of trouble mentioned in Da 12:1,
my sore ran in the night; my “stroke”, or “wound” i; so Kimchi interprets it; the wound that was made in his soul, and the pain and anguish, grief and trouble, which flowed from it; see Jer 6:7 though the word may be literally rendered “my hand” k; and the sense is, either that his hand flowed or was wet with wiping his eyes, or with the tears that flowed from his eyes, which ran down to his fingers’ ends; so the Targum,
“in the night my eye dropped with tears;”
or rather that his hand was stretched out, as waters, that are poured out and run, are spread, that is, in prayer; the stretching out of the hand being a prayer gesture:
and ceased not; was not remiss and feeble, or was not let down, as Moses’s, Ex 17:11, it denotes the constancy of prayer, and his continuance in it; he prayed without ceasing:
my soul refused to be comforted: such was the greatness of his distress, like that of Jacob’s and Rachel’s, Ge 37:35, it is right to refuse comfort and peace, which men speak to themselves upon the false foundation of their own merit and works; or any but what comes from the God of all comfort, and through Christ, in whom is all solid consolation, and by his Spirit, who is the Comforter; but it is wrong to refuse any that comes from hence, and by means of the promises, the word and ordinances and ministries of the Gospel, or Christian friends; this shows the strength of unbelief.
i “plaga mea”, Pagninus, Muis. k “Manus mea”, Montanus, Piscator, Gejerus, &c.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
2. I sought the Lord in the day of my trouble. In this verse he expresses more distinctly the grievous and hard oppression to which the Church was at that time subjected. There is, however, some ambiguity in the words. The Hebrew word יד , yad, which I have translated hand, is sometimes taken metaphorically for a wound; and, therefore, many interpreters elicit this sense, My wound ran in the night, and ceased not, (286) that is to say, My wound was not so purified from ulcerous matter as that the running from it was made to stop. But; I rather take the word in its ordinary signification, which is hand, because the verb נגרה, niggera, which he uses, signifies not only to run as a sore does, but also to be stretched forth or extended. (287) Now, when he affirms that he sought the Lord in the day of his trouble, and that his hands were stretched out to him in the night season, this denotes that prayer was his continual exercise, — that his heart was so earnestly and unweariedly engaged in that exercise, that he could not desist from it. In the concluding sentence of the verse the adversative particle although is to be supplied; and thus the meaning will be, that although the prophet found no solace and no alleviation of the bitterness of his grief, he still continued to stretch forth his hands to God. In this manner it becomes us to wrestle against despair, in order that our sorrow, although it may seem to be incurable, may not shut our mouths, and keep us from pouring out our prayers before God.
(286) This is the rendering in our English Bible, which Dr Adam Clarke pronounces to be “a most unaccountable translation.” The reading of the margin, however, “my hand,” favours the sense given by our Author.
(287) This is the translation adopted by many critics, and it appears to be the true signification of the passage. Thus Symmachus’ version is, ἡ χειρ μου νυκτοςἐκτετατο διηνεκως, “my hand was stretched out by night continually;” and, in like manner, Jerome, “ Manus mea nocte extenditur, et non quiescit.” Parkhurst renders the verse thus: “In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out by night and ceased not,” or, “without interruption.” With this agree the versions of Horsley, Mant, Fry, Adam Clarke, Walford, and others. The stretching out of the hand was an usual gesture in prayer. Instead of ידי, the Chaldee reads עיני, “ mine eye trickled down,” which Archbishop Secker and Green think likely to be the true reading.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(2) My sore ran . . .The text of this verse is evidently faulty. As it stands it is unintelligible. My hand was poured out and grew not dull (like a corpse).
The LXX. and Vulg. have, with my hands against Him, and I was not deceived, pointing to a different reading. Symmachus has, however, my hand was stretched out, which may be a possible meaning of the Hebrew, though a comparison with Lam. 3:49 (comp. Lam. 2:18) suggests that eye was written instead of hand. The Authorised Versions sore comes from the Rabbins, who thought of the hand beating the breast, and rendered, my blows were poured out. Though the probable text may be beyond recovery, the feeling of the verse is quite palpable. It expresses the anguish of the poets soul
His vows in the night, so fierce and unavailing,
Stings of his shame and passion of his tears.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord Not only the depth of the psalmist’s sufferings is here indicated, such as God only could relieve, but his true piety. His troubles brought him nearer to God. Psa 50:15.
My sore ran in the night Hebrew, My hand was stretched out all night; that is, in the posture of earnest supplication. Psa 44:20; Psa 88:9.
Ceased not Rested not. Compare the painfulness of the attitude with Exo 17:11-12
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 77:2. My sore ran in the night, &c. My hand was spread, or stretched out in the night, and remitted not. Houbigant. Green renders it, In the night mine eye trickled down without ceasing.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Every verse tends more and more to confirm the foregoing observation: Being in an agony (saith the evangelist), he prayed more earnestly, and the sweat of his face was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Luk 22:44 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 77:2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
Ver. 2. In the day of my trouble ] The time of affliction is the time of supplication, Psa 50:15 .
My sore ran in the night
And ceased not
My soul refused to be comforted
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the LORD*. One of the 134 places where the Sopherim altered Jehovah to Adonai. See App-32.
My sore ran. Hebrew hand was outstretched: i.e. in prayer.
ceased not: i.e. to be outstretched.
My soul = I (emphatic).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
In the: Psa 18:6, Psa 50:15, Psa 88:1-3, Psa 102:1, Psa 102:2, Psa 130:1, Psa 130:2, Gen 32:7-12, Gen 32:28, 2Ki 19:3, 2Ki 19:4, 2Ki 19:15-20, Isa 26:9, Isa 26:16, Jon 2:1, Jon 2:2, 2Co 12:7, 2Co 12:8, Heb 5:7
my: Psa 6:2, Psa 6:3, Psa 38:3-8, 2Ch 6:28, Isa 1:5, Isa 1:6, Hos 5:13, Hos 6:1
sore: Heb. hand
my soul: Gen 37:35, Est 4:1-4, Pro 18:14, Jer 31:15, Joh 11:31
Reciprocal: 1Sa 4:20 – neither did she regard it Est 4:4 – but he received it not Job 5:8 – seek Job 9:27 – General Job 23:2 – my complaint Psa 6:6 – I am Psa 9:9 – in times Psa 13:2 – take Psa 16:7 – in the Psa 25:17 – General Psa 27:5 – For in Psa 30:8 – unto Psa 34:4 – sought Psa 38:17 – sorrow Psa 59:16 – day Psa 86:7 – General Psa 88:3 – soul Psa 92:2 – every night Psa 94:19 – General Psa 118:5 – called Psa 138:3 – In the day Psa 142:1 – with my voice Ecc 2:23 – his heart Son 3:1 – night Isa 22:4 – labour Jer 17:17 – a terror Lam 1:2 – weepeth Lam 3:49 – and Joh 14:1 – not Act 16:25 – prayed Rev 7:9 – a great
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 77:2. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord Being afflicted, he prayed, Jas 5:13, and being in an agony he prayed the more fervently: he cried unto God. He did not apply to the diversion of business, or of any recreation, that he might by that means shake off his trouble; but he had recourse to God in prayer, and sought his favour and grace. In this he is an example for our imitation. When under any trouble, and especially trouble of mind for sin, we must apply to God and spread our case before him. We must not endeavour to get rid of our trouble some other way, but must entreat him to remove it by lifting up the light of his countenance upon us. This, and only this, will give us peace of mind, and put joy and gladness into our hearts. My sore ran Hebrew, , jadi niggerah, my hand flowed, or poured forth, that is, was spread abroad, or stretched out to God in prayer and ceased not. So Hammond, Patrick, Waterland, and Houbigant. In the night Which to others was a time of rest and refreshment, but to me of sorrow and distress. My soul refused to be comforted Without a gracious answer from God, and an assurance that he had not cast me off, but was again reconciled to me, Psa 77:7-9. Till I should obtain this, I rejected all those consolations which either my friends or my own mind suggested.