I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
The psalm belongs to the sorrows and afflictions of the Hebrew captives during the latter part of the Babylonian captivity, when persecution and distress were severe. It stands within the general account of Israel's transitions from faith and obedience to rebellion and idolatry. It presents a speaker who remembers God yet is troubled, complains, and feels overwhelmed in spirit, showing that remembering God while distressed can bring a troubled spirit and an outpouring of complaint. Such complaint portrays prayer as honestly bringing inner anguish before God. The psalms of this setting also include encouragement and assurance of divine help and final deliverance. The psalm presents God's mighty works as a comfort.
Remembering God can trouble a person whose conscience is guilty, so that a man who had dishonestly withheld money secretly returned it because he remembered God and His awareness of the theft, not because he feared human detection, and he became unable to keep the stolen money. Remembering God can likewise trouble a person with conviction of conscience, as when a youth's fearless praying awakens scoffers to remember that they too were taught to pray and have turned to scoffing.
The psalm belongs to the sorrows and afflictions of the Hebrew captives during the latter part of the Babylonian captivity, when persecution and distress were severe. It stands within the general account of Israel's transitions from faith and obedience to rebellion and idolatry. It presents a speaker who remembers God yet is troubled, complains, and feels overwhelmed in spirit, showing that remembering God while distressed can bring a troubled spirit and an outpouring of complaint. Such complaint portrays prayer as honestly bringing inner anguish before God. The psalms of this setting also include encouragement and assurance of divine help and final deliverance. The psalm presents God's mighty works as a comfort.
Remembering God can trouble a person whose conscience is guilty, so that a man who had dishonestly withheld money secretly returned it because he remembered God and His awareness of the theft, not because he feared human detection, and he became unable to keep the stolen money. Remembering God can likewise trouble a person with conviction of conscience, as when a youth's fearless praying awakens scoffers to remember that they too were taught to pray and have turned to scoffing.