Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
Parallel translations
- WEB Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?” Selah.
- BSB Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has His anger shut off His compassion?” Selah
- NKJV Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Selah
- NASB Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah
- NLT Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion? Interlude
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Asaph asks whether God has forgotten to be gracious and shut up His compassion in anger.
Overview
These are the final and most piercing of the psalmist's anxious questions. He fears that God's grace and mercy have been withdrawn. The Selah marks the low point of the lament, yet the very act of asking these things before God prepares the way for the deliberate turn to faith that follows.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Isa 49:14–15But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
- Ps 40:11Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
- Ps 25:6Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.
- Luke 13:25–28When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:
- Isa 40:27Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
- Ps 51:1Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
- Rom 11:32For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
- Isa 63:15Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?
- 1 Jn 3:17But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 77:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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