Today’s Passage: Psalm 77
This is a sleepless night written down. A man lies awake with his hands held out to God and no comfort comes, and out of that darkness he asks five hard questions that the psalm never answers on the page. Yet Asaph does not wait for a better feeling before he prays again. Instead he turns and chooses to remember what God has already done.
We should not press the questions into one lesson and the remembering into another, as though the psalm were a tidy argument. The questions are left standing, and the remembering is simply the handhold he takes hold of in the dark.
As you read, hold this: I will remember the works of the LORD.
Context Of Asaph, in the night
The heading reads, “For the choirmaster. According to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph.” Asaph was a Levite whom David had set over the singing (1 Chronicles 16:4-5), and twelve psalms in the book carry his name. This one never tells us what the crisis was. It names only the night, for a worship leader wrote down a night that would not lift, and then Israel took his private darkness and sang it together.
Psalm 77:1-3 (BSB)
¹ For the choirmaster. According to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph. I cried out to God; I cried aloud to God to hear me. ² In the day of trouble I sought the Lord; through the night my outstretched hands did not grow weary; my soul refused to be comforted. ³ I remembered You, O God, and I groaned; I mused and my spirit grew faint. Selah
He is not quiet in his trouble. He cries out, he seeks the Lord, he keeps his hands lifted the whole night through, and still his own words are that his soul refused to be comforted. Notice that comfort is not simply absent here; it is refused, as though some part of him will not yet let the ache go. Then comes a harder line still, for he zakar, pronounced zaw-KAR. Strong's H2142, to remember, call to mind, keep in mind. This root sounds three times through the psalm, and its journey is the whole story in miniature. In verse 3 he zakar-remembers God and groans; in verse 6 he zakar-remembers his song in the night; and in verse 11 he resolves, I will zakar-remember the works of the LORD. What first simply happens to him becomes at last the thing he deliberately chooses to do. The “forgotten” of verse 9 is a different root altogether, שָׁכַח (shakach), Strong’s H7911, and the two words face each other across the psalm: the very thing he fears God has forgotten is the thing he sets himself to remember. God and groaned. In these opening verses memory does not soothe him at all. It only deepens the ache, because remembering that God exists has not yet become remembering that God rescues.
Psalm 77:4-6 (BSB)
⁴ You have kept my eyes from closing; I am too troubled to speak. ⁵ I considered the days of old, the years long in the past. ⁶ At night I remembered my song; in my heart I mused, and my spirit pondered:
Here he names God Himself as the One holding his eyes open, not merely the trouble but You, Lord, You have kept me awake. And in that long wakefulness he begins to look back, reaching for the days of old and for a song he used to know. Verse 6 breaks off mid-thought, because the questions are about to come.
Psalm 77:7-9 (BSB)
⁷ “Will the Lord spurn us forever and never show His favor again? ⁸ Is His loving devotion gone forever? Has His promise failed for all time? ⁹ Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has His anger shut off His compassion?” Selah
Here are the five questions, and they hold nothing back: whether the Lord will spurn His people forever, whether His loving devotion is gone for good, whether His promise has failed, whether God has forgotten to be gracious, whether His anger has shut off His compassion. Nothing later in the psalm answers them one by one. There is no vision, no voice from heaven, no sudden change of scene. This silence is not a gap where an answer was lost; the psalm means to let the questions hang.
Psalm 77:10-12 (BSB)
¹⁰ So I said, “I am grieved that the right hand of the Most High has changed.” ¹¹ I will remember the works of the LORD; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old. ¹² I will reflect on all You have done and ponder Your mighty deeds.
Study notes The turn is not an answer
Verse 10 still stands, and the grief in it is never taken back. What changes is not his feeling but his next move. Three times over he says it: I will remember, I will remember, I will reflect and ponder. He does not wait for the ache to lift before he is allowed to pray again; he simply sets the known facts about God down underneath the unanswered questions, like a floor laid under a dark room. Comfort was refused back in verse 2, and this chosen memory is what he holds in its place.
This is no trick for feeling better. The questions of verses 7-9 are still there on the page, unanswered, and he remembers anyway.
Psalm 77:13-15 (BSB)
¹³ Your way, O God, is holy. What god is so great as our God? ¹⁴ You are the God who works wonders; You display Your strength among the peoples. ¹⁵ With power You redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
Having resolved to remember, he now actually does it, and he does not reach for a vague sense of God’s goodness. He lays hold of one particular act: God redeemed His people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. This is the Exodus, a real and nameable thing that God had already done.
Psalm 77:16-20 (BSB)
¹⁶ The waters saw You, O God; the waters saw You and swirled; even the depths were shaken. ¹⁷ The clouds poured down water; the skies resounded with thunder; Your arrows flashed back and forth. ¹⁸ Your thunder resounded in the whirlwind; the lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. ¹⁹ Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, but Your footprints were not to be found. ²⁰ You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
The psalm ends down at the sea, among the waters and the thunder, on a path that led straight through the deep and left no footprints anyone could point to afterward. He walks the whole Exodus again in his mind as though he were standing on the shore watching it happen, and then he sees Moses and Aaron leading the people out like a flock. There is no return to verses 7-9, and no closing line that tells us he feels any better. The last word of the psalm is simply a remembered God, left standing where the prayer set Him down. The questions stay, and he remembers anyway.
I will remember the works of the LORD.