Psalm 43--Send Out Your Light and Your Truth

Psalm 43
English Standard Version
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Send Out Your Light and Your Truth
43 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
    against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
    deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
    why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?

3 Send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling!
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

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David prays for the LORD to vindicate him in the eyes of those who are his enemies.  David wants deliverance from the deceitful and unjust people of the world (unfortunately, David will realize very soon that he himself is one of those deceitful and unjust people, and he will change his tune in Psalm 51 when he cries out for mercy instead of justice).  David wonders why it is that the LORD allows the "righteous" (like how he sees himself) to be oppressed by their enemies so that he and his enemies look at the situation and would conclude that God has rejected David.  Why would God do such a thing that might harm His name and reputation among His people and among the Gentiles?

​David then cries out for God to "Send your light and truth."  I can't miss that fact that Jesus would say, "I AM the Light of the World," and "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life."  Is David asking for the Father to send the Son to lead him?  Possibly, but David just as easily could have been asking for the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ) to be the one to guide him.  Either way, we don't have "light" or "truth" apart for the nature of God for He is both "light' and "truth." (there are many references to this that I'll let you look up; many are in the gospel of John and in John's epistles)

David desires to be led to God's holy hill--that's not just Jerusalem, but a metaphor for the New Jerusalem, the City of God that is the place where God will dwell with His people once again.  David desires for that time and place where all of God's enemies will be defeated and the Lord will be their king.  At that time, our dwelling place will be in the place we worship the LORD--there will be no need for a Tabernacle or Temple, because we will live in the presence of the LORD as priests in His service who are allowed not only into The Holy Place, but the Most Holy Place.  We will have unrestricted access.  David says that if he were there in the presence of the LORD, he would go to the altar and offer a sacrifice of praise by singing and playing music on his lyre to the LORD.

David comes back to the "refrain" from Psalm 41.  "Why so downcast O my soul?......Hope in God....My salvation and my God."  David again tells his feelings to get in line with the fact that he knows the LORD is king whether it looks like it or David feels like it in the moment.  The moment David longs for exists here and now, especially for those of us in the Church age who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and can "boldly approach the throne of grace" both to pray and to worship.

The book of Psalms is full of David trying to see all sides of God's nature and character.

Exodus 34:6-7
English Standard Version
​6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Right now, David is focused on the later part of Exodus 34:7 where God says that He, "by no means will clear the guilty, visiting iniquity of the father on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation," but when he is the one who is wicked and has committed iniquity, he will ask God to be "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin."  It is not wrong to pray imprecatory prayers ("God, smite your enemies"), but we must remember that God chose to smite His own Son so that those who were His enemies might become "friends," "sons" and "daughters" and citizens of His kingdom, nor can we forget that we were once enemies of God before Christ made peace through His own blood.  We desire justice to be done, but we also need to measure that with a desire for mercy because, "It's your kindness [mercy], Lord, that leads us to repentance."