Psalm 43 – Hope in God

If [enemies] persist, and, with hands red with blood, try to drag you down and kill you, remember that God is the proper judge (for he alone is righteous while that which is human is limited) and so say the words of ... [Psalm 43].

Athanasius, On the Interpretation of the Psalms

As we noted for Psalm 42, Psalm 43 used to be a the last part of that hymn until they were separated to be used in the prayer book. They express a longing for restoration by God which is combined by confident trust.

Medieval painting of guitarra latina (left) and guitarra morisca (right)
from the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th. century)
I like the way that the musicians are watching each other's playing.
Kind of like jamming at a rock concert.

Saint John Paul II has a meditation on this psalm as part of the series he did covering the prayers of the evening in the liturgy of the hours. Read the whole thing here if you like. I share this bit which talks about the Psalmist as a pilgrim toward Heaven, struggling through the darkness of trials but with joy in his heart because of the encounter with God that awaits at the end.

With Confidence on the Road Toward Heavenly Zion

The person praying has not yet reached the temple of God, he is still overwhelmed by the darkness of the trial; but now before his eyes shines the light of the future encounter, and his lips already experience the tone of the song of joy....

The Psalm then becomes the prayer of the one who is a pilgrim on earth and still finds himself in contact with evil and suffering, but has the certainty that the endpoint of history is not an abyss of death, but rather a saving encounter with God. This certainty is even stronger for Christians, to whom the Letter to the Hebrews proclaims: "You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God that judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel" (Heb. 12: 22-24).

An index of psalm posts is here.