Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 77

I cried ... —Better, following the Hebrew literally,

“My voice to God—and let me cry;
My voice to God—and He hears me.”
The Authorised Version has followed the Septuagint and Vulgate in neglecting the striking changes in mood running through this psalm. Soliloquy and narrative alternate as the poet’s mood impels him—now to give vent to his feelings in sobs and cries, now to analyse and describe them.

My sore ran ... —The text of this verse is evidently faulty. As it stands it is unintelligible. My hand was poured out and grew not dull (like a corpse).

The Septuagint and Vulgate have, with my hands against Him, and I was not deceived, pointing to a different reading. Symmachus has, however, my hand was stretched out, which may be a possible meaning of the Hebrew, though a comparison with Lamentations 3:49 suggests that eye was written instead of hand. The Authorized Version’s sore comes from the Rabbis, who thought of the hand beating the breast, and rendered, my blows were poured out. Though the probable text may be beyond recovery, the feeling of the verse is quite palpable. It expresses the anguish of the poet’s soul—

“His vows in the night, so fierce and unavailing,
Stings of his shame and passion of his tears.”

I remembered. — A better rendering:

“If I remember God I must sigh;
I meditate, and my spirit faints.”

Or,

“Let me remember God, and sigh;
I must complain, and my spirit faints.”
The word translated as overwhelmed (Psalms 143:4) properly means covers itself up. In Psalm 107:5 it is translated as fainted.

Thou holdest mine eyes waking. —Rather, You have closed the guards of my eyes—that is, my eyelids. The Authorised Version mistakes the noun guards, for a participle, and mistranslates it by the active instead of the passive. For the verb hold in the sense of shut, see Nehemiah 7:3, and Job 26:9, where God is described as veiling His throne in cloud, and so shutting it up, as it were, from human access.

I am so troubled. —The verb is used elsewhere of the awestruck state into which the mind is thrown by a mysterious dream (Genesis 41:8; Daniel 2:1; Daniel 2:3), and once (Judges 13:25) of inspiration, such as impelled the judges of old to become the liberators of their country. The parallelism here shows that it is used in the first connection. The poet has been struck dumb (the verb is rendered strike in the Lexicons) by a mysterious dream; he is too overawed to speak.

I call to remembrance. —Better,

“Let me recall my harpings in the night;
Let me complain in my own heart,
And my spirit questions and questions.”