Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion? Interlude
Parallel translations
- WEB Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?” Selah.
- KJV Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? 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- NASB Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion?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
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 He fears that God's grace and mercy have been withdrawn.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, “Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”
- Ps 40:11Don’t withhold your tender mercies from me, Yahweh. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me.
- Ps 25:6Yahweh, remember your tender mercies and your loving kindness, for they are from old times.
- Luke 13:25–28When once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside, and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ then he will answer and tell you, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
- Isa 40:27Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and the justice due me is disregarded by my God?”
- Ps 51:1For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
- Rom 11:32For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.
- Isa 63:15Look down from heaven, and see from the habitation of your holiness and of your glory. Where are your zeal and your mighty acts? The yearning of your heart and your compassion is restrained toward me.
- 1 Jn 3:17But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain 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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