Five verses with no heading of their own, which is unusual here: every neighbouring psalm in Book Two carries one. The last verse is letter for letter the last verse of Psalm 42, and a shorter form of the same refrain stands in the middle of 42 as well, so the two psalms share a spine. A number of Hebrew manuscripts count them as a single composition and most readers treat 43 as the third panel of a poem that begins at 42. Read that way, this is what the earlier psalm could not reach: 42 remembers walking to the house of God in the past tense, 43 asks to be taken there. For a learner the drill is the volitive, the first person request that ends in a long vowel: let them lead me, let them bring me, and let me come, three in a row across verses 3 and 4.
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No heading, no preamble, straight into a courtroom verb. What is asked for first is not rescue but a verdict, and the second verb asks God to argue the speaker's side rather than to preside over it.
Why must I walk about in mourning under the pressure of an enemy?
The complaint follows the plea without softening it. The God called a stronghold in the first half of the verse is asked in the second half why He has abandoned the speaker, and the two halves are simply left standing next to each other.
let them bring me to Your holy mountain and to Your dwelling places.
Complaint turns into request. Light and truth are sent out as two agents with verbs of their own, and both verbs carry the object suffix that means me, so the speaker is the one being moved.
and let me praise You with the harp, O God, my God.
The destination is named at last, and the reason for wanting it is not safety but the ability to play music. Four of the verse's twelve words are a name for God, and the final one adds the possessive suffix.
Why are you bowed down, my soul, and why do you moan upon me?
הוֹחִילִי
ho-chi-LI
wait
לֵאלֹהִים
le-lo-HIM
for God
Wait for God,
כִּי
ki
for
עוֹד
od
still
אוֹדֶנּוּ
o-de-NU
I will praise Him
יְשׁוּעֹת
ye-shu-OT
the deliverances of
פָּנַי
pa-NAI
my face
וֵאלֹהָי
ve-lo-HAI
and my God
for I shall yet praise Him, the deliverance of my face and my God.
The refrain, identical to the closing verse of Psalm 42 down to the vowel points. Nothing in the argument has been decided; the speaker turns from God back to his own soul and tells it to keep waiting.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Five verses in a tight sequence: a legal plea, a complaint, a request for an escort, a vow of what will happen on arrival, and the refrain. Notice who acts. In verse 1 God is asked to judge and to argue; in verse 3 it is light and truth that lead and bring, so what the speaker asks for is a pair of guides rather than the guide himself. The psalm ends before anything has been granted, which is why the refrain fits: the situation at verse 5 is the situation at verse 1, and the only thing that has changed is that a destination has been named.
רמז · Remez: allusion
The relationship with Psalm 42 is visible in the words, not only in the mood. Verse 5 here is character for character the twelfth and last verse of Psalm 42, while the earlier appearance of the refrain in that psalm differs in three small ways: the second question is not asked twice there, so it reads and you moan rather than and why do you moan; the imperative to wait is written short, without the yod; and it ends with His face rather than with my face and my God. A refrain that shifts slightly at each return is the standard argument for reading the two as one composition. Verse 2 works the same way: לָמָּה (la-ma, v.2) קֹדֵר (ko-der, v.2) אֶתְהַלֵּךְ (et-ha-lech, v.2) בְּלַחַץ (bla-chatz, v.2) אוֹיֵב (o-yev, v.2) repeats a run of Psalm 42:10 with one verb changed, from the simple stem to the reflexive stem of the same root, so the walking becomes something the speaker does to himself. In verse 1 the nation is described as לֹא (lo, v.1) חָסִיד (cha-sid, v.1), not chasid, which turns the covenant word chesed into the thing this nation lacks. The pair אוֹרְךָ (or-cha, v.3) and וַאֲמִתְּךָ (va-a-mit-cha, v.3), light and truth, is often compared to the Urim and Tummim of the priestly breastpiece, and the comparison is a reading rather than something the psalm states.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
Because the psalm has no superscription, the tradition had to decide where it begins, and the decision is still visible: some Hebrew manuscripts run 42 and 43 together as one psalm, printed bibles keep them apart, and the refrain keeps pulling them back together. Read as one, the speakers are the sons of Korah named in the heading of 42, and the whole becomes an exile poem whose only petition is to be brought back to a building. What is not asked for is worth noticing. The nation of verse 1 and the man of deceit are to be judged and escaped from, not destroyed, and the psalm spends its final two verses on an altar and a harp instead of on the enemy.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
In the mystical reading verse 3 is the centre of the psalm, because two qualities are sent out from above and it is they, not the man, who travel. Light and truth take the verbs; the speaker takes the suffixes. The ascent to the holy mountain is therefore described as something done to him rather than by him, which is the opposite of what a pilgrimage looks like from outside. The plural in מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ (mish-kno-tei-cha, v.3), dwelling places rather than one dwelling, is read as levels rather than as rooms, and verse 4 names what stands at the last of them: an altar, a name, and an instrument. Whether the harp is an instrument or the soul itself is the kind of question this level of reading exists for.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).