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Psalm 142:4
Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.
2I pour out my complaint before him. I tell him my troubles.
3When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, you knew my route. On the path in which I walk, they have hidden a snare for me.
4Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.
5I cried to you, LORD. I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
6Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me.
Notice
“Look on my right, and see” asks God to witness the absence of help, where no one cares and refuge has fled.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What would you want God to see if you asked him to look beside you?
Write on thisWhen, if ever, have you searched for refuge and found no one willing to help?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Jeremiah 30:17For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds,” says the LORD, “because they have called you an outcast, saying, ‘It is Zion, whom no …Both passages describe someone whom no one seeks or cares for; Jeremiah adds God's promise to heal the outcast Zion.
Psalm 69:20Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.Both speakers look for human concern and find no one offering the care or comfort they need.
Psalm 31:11Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.Both describe the absence of human support; Psalm 31 names neighbors and acquaintances who recoil or flee.
Psalm 88:18You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.Both prayers describe isolation, though Psalm 88 attributes the distance of lover and friend to God.
John 5:7The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”The sick man's lack of anyone to help him into the pool echoes the psalm's lack of anyone showing concern.
Matthew 26:56But all this has happened that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled.The disciples leaving Jesus and fleeing shares the psalm's experience of being left without human support.
Job 19:13–19“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.Job's estranged acquaintances and distant brothers share the psalm's picture of isolation from people who might offer care.
Ezekiel 34:6My sheep wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched …The scattered sheep have no one searching for them, matching the psalm's complaint that no one cares.
Psalm 88:8You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.Both prayers describe a lack of refuge or escape together with the absence of caring companions.
2 Timothy 4:16At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them.Paul's report that no one helped at his defense shares the psalm's complaint of having no one concerned for him.
1 Samuel 27:1David said in his heart, “I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the …Both texts concern the search for safety: the psalm reports refuge gone, while David considers escape into Philistine territory.
Ecclesiastes 4:1Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on …The oppressed having no comforter shares the psalm's grief over the absence of anyone who cares.
Where this verse fits
Loneliness. broken friendship. injustice and anger.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
Your prayer need not sound less lonely than this psalm. The complaint reaches God without a change in circumstances; the next verse names YHWH as refuge.
Now put it in your words.
Start an entry on Psalm 142:4. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).