Psalms 42:1-8

1 A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek; I want to drink God, deep draughts of God.

2 I'm thirsty for God-alive. I wonder, "Will I ever make it - arrive and drink in God's presence?"

3 I'm on a diet of tears - tears for breakfast, tears for supper. All day long people knock at my door, Pestering, "Where is this God of yours?"

4 These are the things I go over and over, emptying out the pockets of my life. I was always at the head of the worshiping crowd, right out in front, Leading them all, eager to arrive and worship, Shouting praises, singing thanksgiving - celebrating, all of us, God's feast!

5 Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God - soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God.

6 When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you, From Jordan depths to Hermon heights, including Mount Mizar.

7 Chaos calls to chaos, to the tune of whitewater rapids. Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers crash and crush me.

8 Then God promises to love me all day, sing songs all through the night! My life is God's prayer.

Psalms 42:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

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.