properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
Lord
אֲדֹנָ֪י'a.do.Nai
H136
the Lord (used as a proper name of God only) · proper noun, a title
sore
יָדִ֤יya.Di
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix
ran
נִ֭גְּרָהNi.ge.rah
H5064
to flow · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
night
לַ֣יְלָהLay.lah
H3915
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
ceased
תָפ֑וּגta.Fug
H6313
to be sluggish · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
soul
נַפְשִֽׁיnaf.Shi
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
refused
מֵאֲנָ֖הme.'a.Nah
H3985
to refuse · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
comforted
הִנָּחֵ֣םhi.na.Chem
H5162
properly · verb, niphal infinitive construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 50:15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth…
Genesis 37:35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grav…
Isaiah 26:16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
Hebrews 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save h…
Esther 4:1-4 When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the ci…
Jonah 2:1-2 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,
Psalms 102:1-2 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 77:1-10
We have here the lively portraiture of a good man under prevailing melancholy, fallen into and sinking in that horrible pit and that miry clay, but struggling to get out. Drooping saints, that are of a sorrowful spirit, may here as in a glass see their own faces. The conflict which the psalmist had with his griefs and fears seems to have been over when he penned this record of it; for he says (Psa 77:1), I cried unto God, and he gave ear unto me, which, while the struggle lasted, he had not the comfortable sense of, as he had afterwards; but he inserts it in the beginning of his narrative as an intimation that his trouble did not end in despair; for God heard him, and, at length, he knew tha…
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, James 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 noti…
Psalm 77:1-6
1. My voice came to God, and I:cried: my voice came to God, and he heard me. 2. I sought the: Lord in the day of my trouble: my hand was stretched out in the night, and remitted not my soul refused to be comforted. 3. I will remember God, and will be troubled: I will meditate, and my spirit will be oppressed [or overwhelmed] with sorrow. Selah. 4. Thou hast held the watches of my eyes: I am troubled, and will not speak. 5. I have recounted the days of old, the years of ancient times. 6. I will call to remembrance my song in the night: I will commune with my heart, and my spirit will search diligently.
1. My voice came to God, and I cried. This is not a mere complaint, as some…
The Church Fathers
Prayers are recited early in the morning so that the first movements of the soul and the mind may be consecrated to God and that we may take up no other consideration before we have been cheered and heartened by the thought of God, as it is written: "I remembered God and was delighted," and that the body may not busy itself with tasks before we have fulfilled the words "To you will I pray, O Lord; in the morning you shall hear my voice. In the morning I will stand before you and will see."
Let us flee from here. You can flee in spirit, even though you are kept back in body. You can both be here and be in the presence of the Lord, if your soul clings to him and you walk after him in your thoughts, if you follow his ways, not in pretense but in faith, and take refuge in him. For he is a refuge and a power, and David says to him, "I fled to you for refuge, and I was not deceived." And so, because God is a refuge, and because he is, moreover, in heaven and above the heavens, surely we must flee from here to there, where there is peace and rest from labors and where we can feast upon the great sabbath, even as Moses said, "And the sabbaths of the land shall be food for you." For it is a banquet, and one filled with enjoyment and serenity, to rest in God and to look on his delight. We have taken refuge with God; shall we return to the world? We have died to sin; shall we seek sins again? We have renounced the world and the use of it; shall we stick fast again in its mire?
Notice, too, what the psalmist said. When he told them, "On the day of my distress I sought God," he also added, "My hands were stretched out"; further, "by night" and also "before him." What is distress? What does it mean to stretch out one's hands, and what does it mean to do so before God? There is distress when we suffer annoyances and stretching out of hands [when we engage] in good deeds. Searching by night occurs in this world when the truth has not yet shed light. This world will certainly come to an end and will meet Christ [in judgment]. And when Christ comes, he will be like the sun shining in the hearts of all people. Why did he add "before him"? The person who stretches out his hands performs good deeds. However, the person who thus performs good deeds in order to please people does not do so before God; that is, in order to please him rather than human beings. Quite rightly, then, "I was not deceived" follows; a person who has sought God in this way [may say,] "I have not been deceived." He has found what he was seeking, and therefore he has told us, "Ask, seek, knock."
Dictionary and topics
Hand — Called by Galen “the instrument of instruments.” It is the symbol of human action (Ps. 9:16; Job 9:30; Isa. 1:15; 1 Tim. 2:8). Washing the hands was a symbol of innocence (Ps. 26:6; 73:13; Matt.…
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
Seeking God · Should be: In the day of trouble — Should be: In the day of trouble
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The poet is resolved to pray without intermission, and he prays; fore his soul is comfortless and sorely tempted by the vast distance between the former days and the present times. According to the pointing, והאזין appears to be meant to be imperative after the form הקטיל, which occurs instead of הקטל and הקתילה, cf. Psa 94:1; Isa 43:8; Jer 17:18, and the mode of writing הקטיל, Psa 142:5, Kg2 8:6, and frequently; therefore et audi = ut audias (cf. Sa2 21:3). But such an isolated form of address is not to be tolerated; והאזין has been regarded as perf. consec. in the sense of ut audiat, although this modification of האזין into האזין in connection with the appearing of the Waw consec. cannot b…
Ps 77 The psalmist laments that God has turned away from him, even though he feels innocent. He reflects on his situation (77:3, 6, 12) and finds hope (see 25:5) in remembering God’s past deeds (77:11).
77:1-3 The night provides a special opportunity for prayer and meditation (77:6, 11; see 6:6; 16:7; 17:3; 30:5; 63:6; 119:55, 62, 148).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on 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.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. All day long his distress drove him to his God, so that when night came he continued still in the same search. God had hidden his face from his servant, therefore the first care of the troubled saint was to seek his Lord again. This was going to the root of the matter and removing the main impediment first. Diseases and tribulations are easily enough endured when God is found of us, but without him they crush us to the earth. My sore ran in the night, and ceased not. As by day so by night his trouble was on him and his prayer cont…
