"To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why 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.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why 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."
Psalm 42
We come with this Psalm to the second book of the Psalter, which comprises Psalms 42-72. It will not be unprofitable, as we begin this new section of the Psalter, to remind ourselves of some salient points that we have already discovered to be common ground in the Psalms. They are truly wonderful mirrors of spiritual experience, and are of enormous help, benefit and encouragement to God's people in every age. One factor that is almost constant in them is the repeated reference to 'enemies', (as here in 9, 10), enemies of different kinds and differing interpretations. The reason why this should be so is simple and categorical: one cannot take a stand for God without making enemies. The kingdom of God is a divisive force. Another notable lesson is that the Psalms are full-blooded in the range of experience that they portray. The whole gamut of human emotion, from exaltation to despair, is registered for us. There is no stoical indifference to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. David suffered: he felt his woes, he was not insensitive to the hurts and costliness of his faithfulness to God. One of the most impressive things, however, in the Psalms - and we see it again and again - is the way in which the Psalmist emerges out of the struggle and the agony into the peace, assurance and serenity of faith and victory, even when the actual circumstances of the situation remain unchanged. This is something that we see in the Psalms before us, as the following Notes will show.