Psalm 4:1-8 Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: you have enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.… I. THE PSALMIST'S APPEAL. This book is full of such appeals. It is remarkable that there has come down to us a book full of the most confidingly, reverent, pleading utterances, addressed to the unseen and eternal God. There are not many petitions in this Psalm. "Hear me when I call" — only "hear me," that is enough. Is there no heart to respond to us? Yes, He is hearing, that is enough. II. THE GROUNDS OF THE APPEAL. Two considerations on which the appeal is founded. 1. The character of God. Not simply "my righteous God," but "God, the author of my righteousness, from Whom all that is true and right in me has come." 2. And the goodness already experienced. "Thou hast enlarged me." It was not untried mercy. No one looks to history for a message of despair — at any rate, no good man — for he always finds that the storm ends in calm, that the darkest hour precedes the dawn, that the struggles result in progress. Let us also appeal for mercy to the God of righteousness, and take the past as an argument. There has been care in the past; there has been goodness in the past: Gethsemane is in the past; Calvary is in the past. Plead the past. (James Owen.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David.} Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. |
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