Psalm 143 Part 2

This is another cry from David to God from an unidentified troubled time. This psalm is one of the 7 penitential psalms and is therefore a song of confession and humility before God. For David Prayer was not simply a ritual, or self-improvement exercise, it was a real plea made to a real God who could be appealed upon to hear, to answer, and to help. V 1 is a Hebrew parallelism, where the first line is repeated in different words for emphasis. David knew something of the character and nature of God, and this shaped his prayer life. He boldly asked God to act according to His character. In v2 David is asking God to deal with him on the basis of mercy, not justice, because justice would bring disaster (for us all). 
When David said, ’no one living is righteous’ he was not thinking of the whole world as Paul applied it in Romans 3:10&23, but of himself. His peril has forced home the conviction of sin. He must first have matters set right between him and God by divine forgiveness.

In his life, David had known suffering of many kinds, but here it is persecution and suffering of his inner being. The imagery from v’s3 & 4, of being ‘crushed’, ‘living in darkness’, being ‘overwhelmed’ and feeling a ‘heart distress’, collectively, is a powerful picture of deep misery of the soul. This had been brought upon David by his adversaries.

David spoke this long before the greater Son of David, but these words could also be in the mouth of Jesus, especially in His Gethsemane agony. In Gethsemane, before His betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus said: My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death (Matt 26:38). 
With mixed emotions and in this dark season of his soul, David considered ‘the days of old’ when things were not so bad. He probably thought of earlier days of innocence and freshness in his life with God. With us also, when the clouds gather around us, it is a blessing to remember our good times with God. We can use these memories to restore our hope.