Introduction: A Psalm of Exile
לַמְנַצֵּחַ עַל־יְדוּתוּן לְאָסָף מִזְמוֹר׃ - For the conductor, on Jeduthun, a psalm of Asaph.
Ibn Ezra explains: "al Yedutun" - set to the melody of a liturgical poem beginning with the word "Jeduthun." Some say Jeduthun is the name of a musical instrument, while others say it refers to the musical mode or melody in which the psalm was sung. However, the Midrash - Midrash Shocher Tov, cited by Rashi and Radak - expounds: concerning the alteration of the law (dat) in exile. In Rashi's words: concerning the decrees and harsh judgments that pass over Israel. "Datot" here does not mean religion in the modern sense of a religious Jew, but rather statutes and decrees: the harsh laws that the nations impose upon us in our exile, the restrictions, the suffering, and the afflictions, the judgments they bring upon the Jewish people. "Al Yedutun" - concerning the changing decrees, and the constriction of our steps in exile. And so Radak, the Malbim, and the other commentators agree: this psalm is entirely founded on the matters of exile.
"My Voice is to God" - Why the Repetition?
קוֹלִי אֶל־אֱלֹהִים וְאֶצְעָקָה קוֹלִי אֶל־אֱלֹהִים וְהַאֲזִין אֵלָי׃ - My voice is to God, and I will cry out; my voice is to God, and He will give ear to me.
Radak, in his usual manner, explains that the repetition comes to reinforce the matter, or as poetic repetition for emphasis: my voice is directed solely to You, and therefore, Master of the Universe, "He will give ear to me." That is, if one cries out to the Holy One, blessed be He, but at the same time relies on other powers to help him, in such a situation the Holy One, blessed be He, says: "Where are their gods, the rock in whom they trusted, who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations? Let them arise and help you, let them be your shelter!" If you cry out to someone else, Hashem leaves you, as the Chovot HaLevavot phrases it, in the hands of the one in whom you placed your trust. You trust in him? Go to him. Therefore, the psalmist emphasizes: Master of the Universe, my voice is directed only to You, and therefore "He will give ear to me" - when I call out to You, You will listen to me, because I am calling out to You and to no one else.
The Malbim explains the repetition differently: I am not crying out merely over my own personal concerns, but over Divine concerns. When trouble strikes, one can cry out for Hashem to rescue him from his distress; but one can also cry out because the trouble brings about a desecration of Heaven's Name, because due to the trouble His mitzvot cannot be fulfilled, and because the nations will say, "Where is their God?" In that case, I cry out not for my honor or my suffering, but for the honor of Heaven: Master of the Universe, Your honor is being desecrated among the nations. According to this, the first "my voice is to God" means that I lift my voice to God, and the second "my voice is to God" means that my outcry concerns Godly matters, the honor of Hashem. And therefore, I ask, "He will give ear to me."
The grammatical analysis of the word "veha'azin": The Malbim explains that this is an infinitive, like "ha'azanah" (listening), rather than an imperative verb. When one says "ta'azin" (listen / give ear), it is a command, but "ha'azanah" is the root, an infinitive. Here it functions as an infinitive in place of the future tense, as though it said "veya'azin elai" (and He will give ear to me). Rav Mazuz explains that "he'ezin" is in the past tense, and the prefix letter vav converts it to the future, acting as the vav conversive (vav hahipuch): "amar" is past, but "ve'amar hador ha'acharon" speaks of the future; "yomar" is future, but "vayomer elav" speaks of the past. The vav transforms future to past and past to future. Radak, on the other hand, interprets it as a supplication and a request: My voice is to You, and may You give ear to me - please, Hashem, give ear to me.
"My Hand Flows by Night" - The Ceaseless Blow
בְּיוֹם צָרָתִי אֲדֹנָי דָּרָשְׁתִּי יָדִי לַיְלָה נִגְּרָה וְלֹא תָפוּג מֵאֲנָה הִנָּחֵם נַפְשִׁי׃ - In the day of my distress I sought the Lord; my hand flows by night and does not cease; my soul refuses to be comforted.
Radak notes the precise Divine Name used: "Adonai" is written with the connotation of mastery, expressing that Hashem is Master over all. It is Him whom I seek in the day of my distress - on the day of my distress, it was the attribute of Divine Mastery that I sought.
"My hand flows by night and does not cease" - here lies a great difficulty. Ibn Ezra cites a book by one of the sages (he praises the work, yet notes that it contains errors) who interpreted "yadi" (my hand) as if it meant "eini" (my eye), which neatly resolves everything: my eye flows with tears at night without respite. But Ibn Ezra rejects this unequivocally: "my hand" is not "my eye"; people do not speak that way, and one cannot simply substitute one word for another. That is not the plain meaning of the text.
Radak explains: "my hand" (yadi) means "my blow," in the sense of "behold, the hand of Hashem is upon your livestock." The blow is the sighing and heartache over the exile. Therefore it says "at night," for then a person is free from worldly pursuits, lying in bed, and all his thoughts surface and all his reflections arise. And what is "pours forth" (nigrah)? As Rashi comments: phlegm and bile - like a person who has a fresh wound oozing phlegm and pus. Nagar refers to something descending and flowing. Thus "my hand" - my wound, the blow that Hashem as it were struck me with, oozes its phlegm and bile.
And what is the nimshal? The sighing and the pain: constantly, one after the other, flowing without respite - just as pus oozes ceaselessly, so too my sighs and pain. Like "and my roarings are poured out like water," where the roarings pour like water, that is, constantly and abundantly. "And does not grow numb" (velo tafug) - there is no respite, no slackening and no weakening; the wound does not subside but drains perpetually. Tafug means ceases, from the concept of weakness, as in "and his heart grew faint (vayafoag) because he did not believe them," and "therefore the Torah grows numb (tafug)." Today people speak of an "expiration date" (ta'arich tefugah), all from the same principle of expiring validity, but the root p-g denotes slackness and weakness: a premature baby is called a pag, being frail and weak, not yet having reached full term. This is likely also the source of pagah, unripe early figs (pagei te'enah), which are still undeveloped and have not reached maturity.
"My soul refused to be comforted" - even though I try to rouse myself with words of comfort, that God will take us out of exile, and that even though the exile is prolonged He will yet redeem us, nevertheless my soul refuses to be comforted due to the multitude of troubles. When the afflictions are severe and relentless, striking again and again, it is hard to find comfort.
The Malbim explains: although on the day trouble befell me I sought Hashem and pleaded with Him to bring me from distress to relief and from darkness to light, nevertheless at night my hand poured forth and oozed from the blow upon the hand. This differs slightly from Radak, though the thrust is the same: Radak interpreted "my hand" as an idiom for the blow struck upon my body, whereas the Malbim explains that the wound is literally on the hand - the hand oozes and drains blood and pus without respite. And the parable is: like one who has a fresh wound oozing fluid and blood on his hand, serving as an illustration of what will be explained later - that until now the Holy One, blessed be He, supported me with His hand, and Hashem's hand held me, but now His hand has as it were grown weak and I have been cast off. This is what will be stated further on: "it is my affliction, the changing of the right hand of the Most High" - the right hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, which was always redeeming and saving ("Save with Your right hand"), has seemingly grown weak. Therefore, "my soul refused to be comforted," for he sees that power is gone and none is shut up or left; the hand exhibits no strength, and as it were, even the Hand on High, the hand of the Omnipresent that accompanied me always, lacks strength.
"I remember God and I moan" - When the Power of Speech Weakens
אֶזְכְּרָה אֱלֹהִים וְאֶהֱמָיָה אָשִׂיחָה וְתִתְעַטֵּף רוּחִי סֶלָה׃ - I remember God and I moan; I speak and my spirit faints, Selah.
Rashi explains: "I remember God" - the lovingkindness You used to show me in the days of my belovedness, that is what I remember. Radak explains: I mention Him constantly with my mouth and yearn for Him, meaning I yearn, seek, and cry out to connect to the Holy One, blessed be He. "I speak" (asichah) - I speak and lament in my distress, like a person whom others console and pity over the magnitude of his suffering. "And my spirit faints" (vetitatef ruchi) - as in "A prayer of the afflicted when he faints (ya'atof)," or "those who faint (ha'atufim) with hunger." In a time of distress a person wraps himself up, what we today call withdrawing into oneself. In Radak's words: like a person in a time of distress, bent over and tormented, as though wrapped part within part - curled up, with one part covering the other. That is to say: I constantly mention Hashem with my mouth and yearn for Him, and in this state I mourn my affliction, speaking and curling up within my grief.
Metzudat David explains differently from Rashi: it is not the memory of past kindnesses, but rather when I recall the heaviness of the destruction, my heart moans. This aligns better with the name Elohim, which expresses the attribute of strict justice: I recall the judgment that Hashem executed upon me at the time of the destruction, and then my heart moans; "I speak" - I recount my travails, and my spirit has been bent and afflicted for a long time.
The Malbim explains that here the psalmist clarifies why his soul refused to be comforted: because "I remember God" - I remember that Hashem used to uphold me with His exalted hand, but now the right hand of the Most High has changed, and that same right hand that supported me has seemingly weakened. Therefore, "and I moan" (ve'ehemayah). Lehemot denotes a murmur or cooing sound, like a cooing bird - an inarticulate sound without distinct speech. That is why a crowd is called a hamon, from the root of hemiyah: when there is a crowd, there is a low rumble and rustle among the multitude. The Malbim says: from my extreme weakness, the power of speech was as if severed from me, leaving me with nothing but inarticulate moaning and whispered utterance (se'ach). Sichah refers to quiet, subdued speech; dibbur is aloud, but sichah is in a whisper and with calm deliberation - one does not say of someone who shouted at his friend that they "conversed" (sochachu). And then "my spirit faints" (vetitatef ruchi) expresses a further decline, a profound weakness where I am already near death. Thus you can understand why I said "my soul refused to be comforted": when I see that the right hand of the Most High no longer saves me, it plunges me into such a crisis that I am already on the brink of death.
"You hold the watches of my eyes" - Like One Dying
אָחַזְתָּ שְׁמֻרוֹת עֵינָי נִפְעַמְתִּי וְלֹא אֲדַבֵּר׃ - You hold the watches of my eyes; I am troubled and cannot speak.
Rashi explains: "Watches" (shemurot) is related to the watches of the night (ashmorot halaylah), when a person awakens from his sleep, his mind is clear, and his senses return to him. But with me it is not so: in this night of exile, my eyes are always glued shut like someone falling asleep. "You hold" - as though someone is seizing the eyes and shutting them, making it impossible to open them; an expression of how we are like blind men due to the numbness of heart brought on by the troubles before us, as if we have become stupified. "I am troubled and cannot speak" - I can no longer speak.
Radak notes that the phrase shemurot einayim is unique in Tanach: we find ashmurot (watches of the night) and shomrim laboker (watchmen for the morning), but nowhere else do we find shemurot einayim. He explains that shemurot denotes wakefulness and vigilance. The proof of this: one who stays awake at night is called one of the shomrim laboker, showing that shomer conveys being awake and alert. Similarly, "the night consists of three watches (mishmarot)," where in each watch there is an awakening - a donkey brays, a woman nurses her child, and so forth. Likewise, ashmoret haboker refers to the morning awakening. Thus, "You held the wakefulness of my eyes" - You kept my eyes constantly awake. And so it is with a person enduring distress: not only does he wake up at four in the morning gripped by pressure and anxiety, sleep fleeing from him, but even when he first goes to sleep, he cannot nod off. You did not allow me to fall asleep on account of the anguish of my heart.
Radak further cites Rabbi Moshe HaKohen Ibn Gikatilla, who explains that shemurot is not an action, but a descriptive noun for the eyelids, which guard (shomerot) the eyes. Accordingly, the meaning is: You held my eyelids so that they would not close and I could not fall asleep. "I was agitated and could not speak," similar to "and his spirit was agitated (vatipa'em rucho)": I lie awake at night constantly ruminating on my troubles, and by morning I cannot even open my mouth; from the sheer brokenness of my heart, I am unable to speak.
The Malbim continues the depiction of physical weakness seen in the previous verse - "I groaned," "I spoke," "my spirit became faint" - until he is like a dying man whose eyelids are gripped and shut tight. He follows the explanation of Rabbi Moshe HaKohen Ibn Gikatilla that they refer to the eyelids, which is also the standard modern Hebrew idiom for eyelids (shemurot ha'einayim). "I was agitated and could not speak" - like a dying person at the departure of the soul, who can neither see nor speak, oblivious to what is happening around him. And achazta ("You held") is used in the sense of "and he covered (vaye'echoz) the house with cedar beams," meaning enclosed and shut: in this way, You shut the guards of my eyes, which are the eyelids.
"I Considered the Days of Old" - A Life Review at the Final Moment
חִשַּׁבְתִּי יָמִים מִקֶּדֶם שְׁנוֹת עוֹלָמִים׃ - I considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
Rashi explains: to remember the lovingkindness You performed for our forefathers. Radak, on the other hand, follows his consistent approach that everything refers to the exile: when I am immersed in my afflictions in exile, I contemplate the days of old, where olamim ("ancient times" or "epochs") denotes a vast span of time, the long eras the Jewish people have endured throughout their exiles. That is to say: Master of the Universe, how many days and ages have these troubles already persisted, how long have they gone on without cessation! I calculate the times when Israel was in exile and eventually emerged, returning to their land in joy. There was a prolonged exile, yet it came to an end eventually; and that is the crux of the difficulty: when will this current exile end? The following verse speaks of those eras that transpired and concluded - Egypt and the Babylonian Exile of the First Temple. According to Rashi, however, "I considered the days of old" refers to the memory of the kindnesses Hashem performed for us from early times, not referring to exiles at all; similarly, according to his approach, "I remembered God" and "I spoke" earlier in the psalm refer to those kindnesses and favors.
The Malbim adds a striking depiction here: in portraying a dying person whose soul is about to depart, what happens to a person in their final moments? One almost always hears that one's life flashes before one's eyes like a film, a rapid review of everything that transpired throughout a lifetime. He portrays the entire nation in precisely this manner: having depicted it as on the verge of death - "You held the guards of my eyes" so that it cannot see, "I was agitated and could not speak" so that it cannot speak - during these moments of expiration and the collapse of the national body, it reflects in its final moments on what befell it in days of old, in Egypt, and subsequently through ancient generations, the eras that followed.
"I Remember My Song in the Night"
אֶזְכְּרָה נְגִינָתִי בַּלָּיְלָה עִם־לְבָבִי אָשִׂיחָה וַיְחַפֵּשׂ רוּחִי׃ - I remember my song in the night; I commune with my heart, and my spirit searches.
The Malbim explains: the melodies and songs remain in my possession as a remembrance of the miracles experienced by Israel, the greatness and success we enjoyed in ancient times - all of this I remember. "And I commune with my heart" - I converse with my heart: why has the sun of my success set? All that abundance, all that blessing, all those miracles - why did they cease? And then I try to consider: could it be because the Holy One, Blessed be He, has abandoned us and removed the nation from being a people before Him? Further on, he will explain that such an idea is impossible regarding Hashem. And why does he raise this possibility at all? Because this is the contention of the nations, particularly the claim of Christianity: that all our suffering is because Hashem has cast us off. Therefore, he raises this possibility, only to clarify later that this is inherently impossible under divine law; that is, according to the eternal law of the Creator, Blessed be He, such a thing cannot be.
Rashi explains: "In the night" refers to the days of exile, for redemption is likened to day and exile is likened to night. And what is "my song"? The psalm is attributed to Asaf, and Asaf was among the Levite singers in the Beit HaMikdash: in exile, I recall the melodies I used to play before Hashem in the Beit HaMikdash in days of old. "I commune with my heart, and my spirit searches" - now I reflect, and my spirit searches: what is truly the attribute of the Holy One, Blessed be He? Will He forsake us forever?
Ibn Ezra adds another interpretation beyond the plain meaning of playing music in days of old: an allusion to playing music at night to soothe his pain. And yet another explanation: "I remember my song in the night" - I recall how You shattered the enemies in the night. All those enemies of Israel whom Hashem crushed, whether through an angel or by Himself. If so, why does the Holy One, Blessed be He, not shatter our enemies now?
"Will the Lord Cast Off Forever?"
הַלְעוֹלָמִים יִזְנַח אֲדֹנָי וְלֹא־יֹסִיף לִרְצוֹת עוֹד׃ - Will the Lord cast off forever, and will He never be favorable again?
The Radak explains: How is this exile different from all other exiles? "Will the Lord cast off forever" - will He abandon His people in exile forever, and is His anger eternal and unending? "And will He never be favorable again" - after all, whenever He was angry with us in the past, He was ultimately appeased: after His wrath and the exile of Egypt, He was appeased and redeemed us; after the wrath of the seventy years of the Babylonian exile, He was appeased and the Second Temple was built. Yet here, there is no reconciliation. Will He never show us favor again?
In summary: The psalm is founded upon the exile, upon the "change of religions" and the harsh tribulations imposed upon us by the nations. The psalmist opens with an outcry directed entirely to Hashem alone, not merely over his own distress, but over the desecration of the honor of Heaven. He describes the pain like a wound that never ceases oozing its discharge - relentless groaning through the nights of exile, and a soul that refuses to be comforted because, as it were, that supreme right hand that always supported us seems weakened. From here on, we see a description of an ever-deepening weakness: moaning instead of speech, a faint whisper instead of a voice, a spirit fainting away, and eyes held open like those of a dying person. In these moments, like someone whose life flashes before his eyes, the nation reviews the days of old, the melodies of the Beis HaMikdash, and the miracles of the past, asking the momentous question: "Will the Lord cast off forever, and will He never be favorable again?" - a question to which the Malbim already hints that the answer will become clear later in the psalm: such an abandonment is impossible by the very nature of the Blessed Creator.