properly · verb, qal infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
song
נְגִינָתִ֗יne.gi.na.Ti
H5058
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
night
בַּ֫לָּ֥יְלָהba.La.ye.lah
H3915
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
commune
אָשִׂ֑יחָה'a.Si.chah
H7878
to ponder · verb, qal infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
heart
לְבָבִ֥יle.va.Vi
H3824
the heart (as the most interior organ) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
spirit
רוּחִֽיru.Chi
H7307
wind · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 1st person feminine singular
search
וַיְחַפֵּ֥שׂvay.cha.Pes
H2664
to seek · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
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 42:8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my li…
Psalms 4:4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
Psalms 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
Lamentations 3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
Job 10:2 I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.
Job 35:10 But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;
Ecclesiastes 1:16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in…
Acts 16:25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
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…
I call to remembrance my song in the night,.... What had been an occasion of praising the Lord with a song, and which he had sung in the night seasons, when he was at leisure, his thoughts free, and he retired from company; or it now being night with him, he endeavoured to recollect what had been matter of praise and thankfulness to him, and tried to sing one of those songs now, in order to remove his melancholy thoughts and fears, but all to no purpose:
I commune with mine own heart; or "meditate" (o) with it; looked into his own heart, put questions to it, and conversed with himself, in order to find out the reason of the present dispensation:
and my spirit made diligent search; into the…
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
I meditated by night with my heart, and I dug over my spirit. I was not thinking of my anger, I was not thinking of my enemy; but my whole thought was of God. The night, which is wont to be either for rest or for lust, was for me a thinking upon the virtues. I meditated with my heart, and I dug over my spirit: that is, I dug like a field, that there I might cast the seed of the Lord's teachings.
"And I have meditated in the night with my heart" (ver. 6). No slanderous person seeketh for snares in his words, in his heart he hath meditated. "I babbled." Behold there is the former babbling. Watch again, that thy spirit faint not. I did not, he saith, I did not so babble as if it were abroad: in another way now. How now? "I did babble, and did search out my spirit." If he were searching the earth to find veins of gold, no one would say that he was foolish; nay, many men would call him wise, for desiring to come at gold: how great treasures hath a man within, and he diggeth not! This man was examining his spirit, and was speaking with that same his spirit, and in the very speaking he was babbling. He was questioning himself, was examining himself, was judge over himself. And he continueth; "I did search my spirit." He had to fear lest he should stay within his own spirit: for he had babbled without; and because all his enemies had anticipated watches, he found there sorrow, and his spirit fainted. He that did babble without, lo, now doth begin to babble within in safety, where being alone in secret, he is thinking on eternal years. ...
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Diligence · Self-examination — Self-examination
Heart · . — .
Heart, Character Of The Renewed · Meditative — Meditative
Night · Meditations in — Meditations in
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
Self-Examination · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
He calls his eyelids the "guards of my eyes." He who holds these so that they remain open when they want to shut together for sleep, is God; for his looking up to Him keeps the poet awake in spite of all overstraining of his powers. Hupfeld and others render thus: "Thou hast held, i.e., caused to last, the night-watches of mine eyes," - which is affected in thought and expression. The preterites state what has been hitherto and has not yet come to a close. He still endures, as formerly, such thumps and blows within him, as though he lay upon an anvil (פּעם), and his voice fails him. Then silent soliloquy takes the place of audible prayer; he throws himself back in thought to the days of old…
As the psalmist meditates at night, he feels so disturbed that he cannot sleep or speak. He has pleasant memories of the past, but he cannot look beyond the present moment into the future.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 77:6
I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
I call to remembrance my song in the night. At other times his spirit had a song for the darkest hour, but now he could only recall the strain as a departed memory. Where is the harp which once thrilled sympathetically to the touch of those joyful fingers? My tongue, hast thou forgotten to praise? Hast thou no skill except in mournful ditties? Ah me, how sadly fallen am I! How lamentable that I, who like the nightingale could charm the night, am now fit comrade for the hooting owl. I commune with mine own heart. He did not cease from introspection, for he was resolved to find the b…
