God’s Word for You
Psalm 142:1 Cry for mercy
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, August 11, 2025
142:1 A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer.
I cry aloud to the LORD;
I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.
The title reflects the one in Psalm 57, but while David wrote both, it’s by no means certain that they were written because of the same danger. He is in trouble, and he has no one to turn to except God alone. He also describes this Psalm as a prayer.
The “cave” here is the word magaráh, as in the Cave of Machpelah (Genesis 19:30). The lexicons also list “field” as a possible translation, based on Isaiah 32:14, but there the context is that a citadel has become a magaráh, which could as easily be a cave as an empty field. David would not find much safety or shelter in an open field, however desolate, compared with the shelter of a dark cave. Curiously, the scribes who added the accent marks combined “cave” as if it were an adjective before the word “prayer,” giving us the alternative title: “This is David’s Cave Prayer.” However, we are not bound to the accents, and in this case it might be best to pass over this odd phenomenon.
Hidden away, David prays. “I cry aloud to the Lord.” From an ordinary point of view, it doesn’t seem to make sense for a man hiding in a cave, frightened for his life, to start shouting. This Psalm has seven verses, and in four of them David talks about crying out in a loud voice or pouring out his complaint (vs. 1, 2, 5 and 6). He is either confident that the Lord can hear him but his enemies cannot, or else he is convinced that even if his earthly enemies hear him, they won’t know where he is or how to get to him. Some of the caves around the Dead Sea are like this, but so are some of the caves in the mountains of Judea. This is a question that doesn’t need to be solved (David was not, in fact, killed or even arrested while in a cave), so we don’t need to list any possible solutions beyond these.
He cries to the Lord, and his cry is first of all for mercy. Mercy is an aspect of God’s universal loving will as it is described in Scripture. There is also grace, which is the undeserved love or favor of God (Romans 4:4; Ephesians 2:8). Then there is his love, which moves God to give help and give gifts of every kind (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:4-5). There is also his goodness, so far as God seeks the salvation of the poor sinner (Titus 3:4; Psalm 23:6). And there is his compassion, sometimes joined with the word “tenderness” (Isaiah 63:15; Philippians 2:1, by hendiadys).
Mercy is especially what moves God in his compassion to help poor sinners with our misery. Mercy is one of the blessings Paul wishes on his friend Timothy when he writes to him just before his execution (2 Timothy 1:2). This word first occurs in the Bible when God sent two angels to pull Lot and his family out of the condemned city of Sodom before he destroyed it, when they “led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them” (Genesis 19:16).
God shows his mercy by helping people in times of trouble, by helping us to keep steadfast in our faith until the end, and in smaller troubles, too. By doing this, he watches over us like the Good Shepherd that he is, that David also prays about (Psalm 23:1, 28:9). He leads us like a flock to a good place where we can be safe, and well-nourished with the Word from the Holy Spirit and with whatever we need for the lives of our bodies, and where we will be gathered together in order to give help and support to one another. For the Lord does not want us to be separate and alone, desperate and in need. He rescues us from these things. He wants us to pray together, to hear the Word of God together, to work for the good of the church together, and to receive the forgiveness of our sins in the sacraments together. This way we will be strengthened in our faith and in our families, and we will remember as we live and work together that each of us is a forgiven child of God, not a rival or an enemy or a person to be tolerated, but a friend in Jesus; a companion in life. He shows us mercy so that we will be led to show one another mercy. As Jesus says: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). And as he said to a man he had healed, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19).
Jude teaches a lesson about mercy that is good to remember. He encourages us to be careful of getting mixed up in the sins of other people, but still to show them mercy: “Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 1:21-23). For even in our own acts of mercy and kindness, we do nothing right or well without the mercy and forgiveness and protection of God.
Pray for mercy, for the Lord is full of compassion and mercy (James 5:11), and he will pour out his love for you in every need. And don’t be afraid to cry out as loudly as you like.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.