Psalms 42

1 ¹As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

2 ²My soul thirsts for God, for ³the living God. When shall I come and ⁴appear before God?^[a]

3 ⁵My tears have been my food day and night, ⁶while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?"

4 These things I remember, as I ⁷pour out my soul: ⁸how I would go ⁹with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, ¹⁰a multitude keeping festival.

5 ¹¹Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you ¹²in turmoil within me? ¹³Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation^[b]

6 and my God.My soul is cast down within me; therefore I ¹⁴remember you ¹⁵from the land of Jordan and of ¹⁶Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; ¹⁷all your breakers and your ¹⁸waves have gone over me.

8 By day the LORD ¹⁹commands his steadfast love, and at ²⁰night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God, ²¹my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? ²²Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?"

10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, ²³while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?"

11 ²⁴Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Psalms 42 Commentary

Chapter 42

The conflict in the soul of a believer.

Verses 1-5 The psalmist looked to the Lord as his chief good, and set his heart upon him accordingly; casting anchor thus at first, he rides out the storm. A gracious soul can take little satisfaction in God's courts, if it do not meet with God himself there. Living souls never can take up their rest any where short of a living God. To appear before the Lord is the desire of the upright, as it is the dread of the hypocrite. Nothing is more grievous to a gracious soul, than what is intended to shake its confidence in the Lord. It was not the remembrance of the pleasures of his court that afflicted David; but the remembrance of the free access he formerly had to God's house, and his pleasure in attending there. Those that commune much with their own hearts, will often have to chide them. See the cure of sorrow. When the soul rests on itself, it sinks; if it catches hold on the power and promise of God, the head is kept above the billows. And what is our support under present woes but this, that we shall have comfort in Him. We have great cause to mourn for sin; but being cast down springs from unbelief and a rebellious will; we should therefore strive and pray against it.

Verses 6-11 The way to forget our miseries, is to remember the God of our mercies. David saw troubles coming from God's wrath, and that discouraged him. But if one trouble follow hard after another, if all seem to combine for our ruin, let us remember they are all appointed and overruled by the Lord. David regards the Divine favour as the fountain of all the good he looked for. In the Saviour's name let us hope and pray. One word from him will calm every storm, and turn midnight darkness into the light of noon, the bitterest complaints into joyful praises. Our believing expectation of mercy must quicken our prayers for it. At length, is faith came off conqueror, by encouraging him to trust in the name of the Lord, and to stay himself upon his God. He adds, And my God; this thought enabled him to triumph over all his griefs and fears. Let us never think that the God of our life, and the Rock of our salvation, has forgotten us, if we have made his mercy, truth, and power, our refuge. Thus the psalmist strove against his despondency: at last his faith and hope obtained the victory. Let us learn to check all unbelieving doubts and fears. Apply the promise first to ourselves, and then plead it to God.

Cross References

• 1. [Joel 1:20]
• 2. Psalms 63:1; John 7:37; [Isaiah 41:17; Isaiah 55:1]; See Psalms 84:2
• 3. Psalms 84:2; Joshua 3:10; Daniel 6:26
• 4. Psalms 84:7; [Exodus 23:17]
• 5. Psalms 80:5; Psalms 102:9
• 6. ver. 10; Psalms 79:10; Psalms 115:2; Joel 2:17; Micah 7:10
• 7. Psalms 62:8; 1 Samuel 1:15; Job 30:16; Lamentations 2:19
• 8. [Isaiah 30:29]
• 9. Psalms 55:14
• 10. [2 Samuel 6:15]
• 11. ver. 11; Psalms 43:5; [Matthew 26:38; John 12:27]
• 12. Psalms 77:3
• 13. Lamentations 3:24
• 14. Jonah 2:7
• 15. 2 Samuel 17:22, 24
• 16. Deuteronomy 3:9
• 17. Jonah 2:3
• 18. Psalms 88:7; See Psalms 32:6
• 19. Psalms 44:4; Psalms 68:28; Psalms 71:3; Psalms 133:3
• 20. Job 35:10; [Psalms 4:4; Psalms 16:7; Psalms 63:6; Psalms 77:6; Psalms 119:55, 62, 148; Psalms 149:5]
• 21. See Psalms 18:2; 2 Samuel 22:2
• 22. Psalms 38:6; Psalms 43:2
• 23. See ver. 3
• 24. See ver. 5

Footnotes

• [a]. Revocalization yields and see the face of God
• [b]. Hebrew the salvation of my face; also verse 11 and 43:5

Chapter Summary

To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah. Of the word "Maschil," See Gill on "Ps 32:1," title. Korah was he who was at the head of a conspiracy against Moses and Aaron, for which sin the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed alive him and his company, and fire devoured two hundred and fifty more; the history of which is recorded in Numbers 16:1; yet all his posterity were not cut off, Numbers 26:11; some were in David's time porters, or keepers of the gates of the tabernacle, and some were singers; see 1 Chronicles 6:33; and to the chief musician was this psalm directed for them to sing, for they were not the authors of it, as some {b} have thought; but most probably David himself composed it; and it seems to have been written by him, not as representing the captives in Babylon, as Theodoret, but on his own account, when he was persecuted by Saul, and driven out by men from abiding in the Lord's inheritance, and was in a strange land among the Heathen, where he was reproached by them; and everything in this psalm agrees with his state and condition; or rather when he fled from his son Absalom, and was in those parts beyond Jordan, mentioned in this psalm; see 2 Samuel 17:24; so the Syriac inscription, the song which David sung in the time of his persecution, desiring to return to Jerusalem.

{b} So R. Moses in Muis, Gussetius, Ebr. Comment. p. 918, & others.