Look on the right hand and see; there is no man that knoweth me refuge hath failed me; no man careth for my soul.
A man hides in a cave, hunted, and turns his head to look for one friendly face — and finds none. This is the moment when every human help runs out. Commentators read the verse on two levels: David's own experience, and words that reach forward to a greater Sufferer.
Writers place this psalm in the cave of Adullam, during David's flight from Saul. One notes the bitter irony: the man hunting David also accused him.
"And David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam" (v. 1). That is where he composed the beautiful 142nd Psalm. It expresses the feelings filling his soul in his solitude... He wrote it when — what mockery — Saul had the audacity to accuse him, saying: "My son has stirred up my servant as a lier-in-wait against me" (1 Sam. 22:8). But David found, precisely because all human refuge failed him, a sure refuge for his soul.
The complaint is not only that no one helped him. No one would even admit to knowing him.
Man has failed to help — not only in power, but in heart. Among men he found no helper, none who would own acquaintance with him. Refuge was cut off unless he found it in the LORD: no one else cared at all. A terrible place to be in — if the LORD were not His hiding-place! But if He were not, though every arm were stretched out to help him, how useless it would all be!
That last line turns the verse inside out. Every helping hand counts for nothing without God, and losing them all costs nothing with Him.
No one knows this man. The Lord knows his whole path. Losing the one drives him to find the other.
In his path there are snares for his feet hidden by the enemy; but nothing is hidden from the Lord who knows his path. There is no man that "knows" him, but the Lord knows. Every earthly refuge fails him, and no one cares for his soul. Man misunderstands him, casts him out and neglects him. So he turns to the Lord. In Him he finds a refuge from every trial, and the source of every blessing — his "portion in the land of the living."
Writers see this as the value of the extremity itself, not merely the escape from it.
Could David ever regret being found at such an extremity, abandoned by all, since it was there that his soul knew and appreciated the sovereign refuge that is found in God?
Commentators also read these words of Christ. One sets them beside the mockery and blindfolding in Luke 22:
And in the middle of all this outrage, cruelty, anguish and suffering, was there no human heart to pity or sympathise? No... But what of Peter, who really in his heart loved Jesus; Peter, who sincerely thought and said he would die for Jesus? What was he doing when Jesus was blindfolded and cruelly struck?... he was denying Jesus, with cursing and swearing. Can we ask for a greater proof that we cannot trust in ourselves, or our love, or our promises?
Another sharpens it. People wept at the cross, but no one understood Him.
The daughters of Jerusalem might weep for Jesus when they saw Him lifted up on the cross of shameful death (Luke 23:27-28)... But His sorrow none might feel or know but God. No man knew Him whom all forsook, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Only His destroyers sought His soul. Refuge failed the victim whom God had foreordained to die (verse 4).
Commentators differ here. Some read the psalm first of David in the cave. Others read it first of the Messiah, and of a faithful remnant who will walk the same road later.
Here we find the loneliness of Christ, and, as a result, of His Spirit in the remnant. But the LORD was the refuge in that loneliness. Where everything human failed, He did not... So are the saints always tried; look at Paul, "No man stood by me; but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me."
Christ passed through this Himself, so He can help those who are in it. His ministry for us today answers the complaint of this verse.
"Because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted." The tempted — so there is One on high who takes a special interest in them. He is ready to help them all. No one can say, No one cares for me. Anyone who cries out with the psalmist, "no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul," must say with the psalmist, as they think of the Lord, "You are my refuge" (Psalm 142:4-5).
- Cut off — the verse describes a man whose acquaintances will not own him; refuge is gone and no one cares for his soul.
- Known — no man knows him, but the Lord knows his path; what human eyes miss, God has already seen.
- Christ — commentators hear Jesus in these words. Only God could feel His sorrow, and the disciple who loved Him denied Him.
- Refuge — when every other shelter fails, the soul says, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living."
- Helped — Christ suffered this Himself, so He is able to help the tempted. No believer today can say that no one cares.
I cried unto thee, Jehovah; I said, Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.
David wrote these words from a cave, hunted by a king, with every ordinary source of help closed to him. The verse turns on two names he gives God — refuge and portion. He learned both when he had nothing left to lose.
Commentators tie this psalm to David's escape to the cave of Adullam, while Saul hunted him.
That is where he wrote the beautiful 142nd Psalm. It expresses the feelings that filled his soul while he was alone. "There is no man that knows me: refuge has failed me; no man cares for my soul" (v. 4)... But David found, precisely because all human refuge failed him, a sure refuge for his soul: "I cry to you, O LORD; I say, 'You are my refuge'" (Ps. 142:5). Could David ever regret being brought so low, left by everyone? It was there that his soul came to know and value the sovereign refuge found in God.
One writer marks the difference between inward pain and words spoken out to God.
There is a special character belonging to Psalm 142: "I cry to the LORD with my voice." Not only was his heart groaning, but he expresses himself openly to God.
The failure of human help is not the end of the story.
He had no refuge unless he found it in Jehovah: no one else cared at all. A terrible place to be in, if Jehovah were not his hiding-place! But if He were not, then even if every human hand reached out to help him, it would all be useless! God — how easily in our insane folly we think to do without Him, who is the one necessity for all His creatures. But such discoveries are the grand moments for the soul, when it turns to God as now to be its all.
The verse names two things. The same writer shows why one never comes without the other.
These two things go together, and nothing can part them: He cannot satisfy us in the one way unless He satisfies us in the other. They are only two sides of one need we have fallen into. We have fallen away from Him, so we are homeless and starving, away from the Father's house. To get back there is to find the one need met as surely as the other.
If God is the portion, the strength of the enemies loses its weight.
Not only does God protect him, but God Himself is the satisfying portion of his life. He really needs nothing else... As he says, "They are stronger than I," but what actual difference does this make when God is his portion?
Commentators read this phrase in more than one way. Some take it as the land where God will set up His kingdom.
The land he looks for he calls by two beautiful titles — "the land of the living" and "the land of uprightness" (Ps. 142:5; Ps. 143:6, 10). These are happy, honourable titles of God's place and kingdom in Judea, as it will be by and by. In God's reckoning, righteousness (uprightness) and life always go together, and so do sin and death.
Others press the phrase further, to a home death cannot enter.
And "in the land of the living"! For death itself does not enter the Father's house: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Even the way with Him is a "way everlasting." The life we already live is "everlasting life." The psalmist could not know these things as we do. So the truth he spoke was only fuller than he knew.
Some writers hear the verse as the trust of Christ, with death close ahead of Him.
Verse 5 expresses the unshaken trust of Jesus when within the immediate reach of the power of darkness. Jehovah was His refuge: "You are my portion in the land of the living." Death might come in between. But it was a death by which He would make both life and death for evermore His own.
Because Christ suffered when tempted, no one who feels forgotten is left without help.
"For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted." The tempted — so there is One on high who takes a special interest in them, and is ready to help every one of them. No one can say, "No one cares for me." The psalmist cried, "Refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul." Anyone who says that must do what he did: think of the Lord and say, "You are my refuge" (Psalm 142:4-5).
- Failed — Human refuge ran out first; that emptiness was the doorway, not the disaster.
- Cried — Grief became speech. The heart did not only groan; it addressed God directly.
- Refuge — God is the hiding-place; without Him, every outstretched human arm is useless.
- Portion — Shelter and satisfaction come together. With God as his portion, stronger enemies change nothing.
- Cared for — Christ Himself suffered when tempted, so no believer can say, "No one cares for me."