¹ Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men.
² You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?
³ Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.
⁴ Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.

⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

This psalm is similar to psalm forty-two, however he does request two things: God’s light and God’s truth. This light and truth is Christ. As I age and see the events happening in the world, today I cannot help but reflect on this time in David’s life. Samuel had anointed David as a young lad to become the next king of Israel. David was probably only thirteen or fourteen at that time. I am not sure how much this affected his life at the time of the anointing, but soon after he was in the courts of Saul playing his harp for him as well as being one of his armor-bearers.

Verse three “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell”. Your light and your truth refer to God’s Word and teachings. As I reflect back on my life, I realized how God uses the events in our life to shape us. At age thirteen I entertained myself in the evening by reading. The books I read were Arthur Maxwell’s Children Bible Stories. These ten books gave me a wonderful understanding of the Bible. This led me to a deeper desire to study the Bible. Studying the examples in God’s Word will give us the hope that David writes in verse five.