(To the chief Musician. An instruction; of the sons of Korah.) As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Psalm 42 is sung by a man far from home. He is shut out of the place of worship, mocked by enemies, and left with nothing but God Himself. The picture of a thirsty deer raises the question the whole psalm turns on: do we want God's gifts, or God Himself?
The psalm's heading names the sons of Korah. Who they were shapes how one writer reads the whole psalm.
Psalm 42 is addressed to the chief Musician, who is Christ, but it is called "a contemplation of the sons of Korah." The earth opened and swallowed Korah, but his sons did not die in his rebellion (Num. 26:11). So they picture the future remnant of Israel: sons of a rebellious father, but brought in faith to God through tribulation.
The psalm is not sung from comfort. Where the singer stands explains what his faith holds on to.
The great theme of the psalm is the faith of the soul in God Himself. Cast out of the land, and cut off from the blessings of the sanctuary, the soul clings to God as its only resource, when all else is gone.
Two things come out of the picture: what God becomes to the thirsty soul, and what the streams stand for.
God has become to the soul the one great Circumstance. And this is no exaggerated estimate, but the simplest reckoning that can be. The Living One is also the Life-giving One, and the very life itself of the soul. The water brooks are the fitting picture, as we well know, of the Spirit of God, who both awakens these desires and satisfies them.
Nobody arrives at this longing on their own. One writer traces it back to the trial itself. He also reads the water as a picture of God's word, so commentators differ on that detail.
There is no doubt that the trial of lonely suffering is the reason for the psalmist's thirsting for the living God, for sadly, this thirst needs to be awakened. We do not long for water until we are thirsty. So it is God who brings us down to such a point of thirst by allowing hard circumstances. In the heat of the day a deer pants for the water brooks (v. 1). Water symbolizes the word of God (Eph. 5:26), and when it flows, as a brook does, this emphasizes the energy of the Spirit of God in making God's word vital to the soul (John 7:38-39).
What this man misses looks at first like homesickness for the crowd. But losing that is what drives his longing past it.
It thirsts after God Himself… No doubt the psalm refers to the circumstances. The soul has lost God in the happy circumstances that supported it more or less. That loss forces the soul to lean on God Himself and look for Him more completely, and, as we shall see, to draw its joy from there… His soul is athirst for God. He had lost the joy of the crowd, but he now panted after God Himself, where there was none of this… The individual heart wants God for itself.
The same writer names what that loss exposed.
He was taunted about the public enjoyment of Him — "where was his God?" He had lost the outward display, the shared joy. The soul may lean upon that, and in our case may depend on it heavily without realizing, drinking at the streams and pools.
A soul like this will pray. One writer draws the line straight from the verse to prayer.
When we speak of prayer, we do not mean a duty done at set times, carried out faithfully no matter how tiresome it feels. We mean something we cannot live without… "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God," cried the Psalmist. The man who feels like that will pray. He must; he cannot live without it.
- Stripped — The singer is driven from his land and his place of worship. Every other support is gone, so God alone is left.
- Thirsty — The panting is not natural. God allows the hard circumstances that create the thirst. No one longs for water until they are dry.
- Purified — The trial takes away the crowd and the shared joy. Those are the very things a soul can lean on without noticing.
- Satisfied — The streams picture the Spirit of God. He stirs up the desire, and He meets it.
- Personal — What is left is a heart that wants God for itself. Such a heart prays, because it cannot live without it.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God when shall I come and appear before God?
This psalm opens with a man far from the place where Israel worshipped God. His cry is not for relief but for God Himself. What makes a soul thirst like this, and what can answer it?
This longing did not grow in comfort. Being driven away from everything he once enjoyed left the psalmist with only God to want.
The godly man had been going with the multitude to the house of God, but that is all over. He is driven away... It was a dreadful trial. It was so with Christ on the cross, and with Him even more, for He declared He was forsaken. The trial tested what God was to them by faith. The heart of the godly pants after God. It was not just for His blessings; they were gone. What He Himself was became all the more precious.
Stripped of everything else, the soul does not overrate God. It sees Him as He is. And the thirst is not something the soul works up on its own.
God has brought this about by withdrawing Himself. To the awakened heart that withdrawal is now a deep bitterness. God has become to it the One great Circumstance. This is not an exaggeration. It is the plainest reckoning there can be. The Living One is also the Life-giving One; and the very life itself of the soul. The water brooks are the fitting picture, as we well know, of the Spirit of God, who both awakens these desires and satisfies them.
The title is not decoration. It appears here for the first time in the Psalms. It points back to two moments in Israel's history: a mountain where they heard His voice, and a river He brought them through.
Here, for the first time in the Psalms, we meet the term the living God. Israel heard His voice at Sinai (Deut. 5:26), and He showed His presence among His people when they crossed the Jordan (Joshua 3:10). To appear before Him was the Psalmist's desire. But circumstances were against him, and his enemies taunted him with the question, Where was his God? The living God, he affirms, is his God.
That title also rules out every substitute. Nothing lifeless will do for a heart in trouble.
Their fathers had understood what this name meant. It marked out their God, the Lord Jehovah, as completely different from the idols of the nations. Those idols had no life... Nothing short of being in the presence of the true God, who is the living God, could fulfil his desire. Idols could not satisfy him. Heathen mythology afforded no rest for the heart in its trouble.
The psalmist wants to stand in God's presence. That desire runs in both directions.
God wants us to learn this. He not only desires us to know His mercy. He also delights to have us before Him, where we find every desire satisfied in His own company... The presence of the Lord was a delight for the Psalmist, and so it should be for His people now.
The psalm speaks for someone driven out of his land. What he has lost shows what his faith now rests on.
The great theme of the psalm is the faith of the soul in God Himself. Cast out of the land, and cut off from the blessings of the sanctuary, the soul clings to God as its only resource, when all else is gone... The water brooks revive the panting deer. In the same way the soul looks to God as the life-giving One to revive it, while it waits for the time when it will appear before God in His sanctuary.
Where does such a thirst come from? It is not something a dead soul produces.
How different the expression of a soul that is born again in Ps. 42:2, "My soul thirsts for God!" So, if a soul is really seeking God, it is not death, but the first movement of life.
That first movement is not optional, and it has a deadline.
If we do not thirst here we shall thirst when it is too late; if we do not thirst as David did, "My soul thirsts for God" (Ps. 42:2), we shall thirst as the rich man did for a drop of water.
- Thirst begins — when the blessings are gone, God Himself becomes the one thing the heart must have.
- Thirst is given — the water brooks picture the Spirit of God, who both awakens the desire and satisfies it.
- Thirst names its object — not a lifeless idol, but the living God, whose voice Israel heard and whose power Israel saw.
- Thirst asks for presence — we long to appear before Him, and He delights to have us there.
- Thirst proves life — seeking God is the first movement of life. Whoever will not thirst now will thirst when it is too late.
My tears have been my bread day and night, while they say unto me all the day, Where is thy God?
This verse describes a mourner's diet: weeping day and night, with a taunting question thrown at him all day long. The trial is not lost comfort, but whether God Himself is still enough when nothing visible shows His favour.
The thirst of the opening verses goes unanswered. One writer ties the daily tears to that thirst, and hears the reasoning behind the mockery:
This thirst is very real, for nothing less than the living God can satisfy it (v. 2). And the psalmist is not afraid to come and appear before God, as merely religious people were. In fact, he deeply desires this. But while he longs for God to act, he speaks of his tears being his food day and night… They make it known that their trust is in God, and this brings the mockery of unbelievers. If there is a God, where is He? is their question (v. 3), for He does not seem to be helping them at all. But God works in His own time and in His own way.
The scoffers argue from what they can see: a believer who looks abandoned, cut off from what he once enjoyed.
The godly man's sorrows come from being surrounded by scoffers while he is cut off from his privileges. His circumstances make it look as if God has forsaken him, and the scoffers seize on that to keep raising the taunt, "Where is your God?" The soul is also distressed as it sees the enemy holding the temple, where in past days it had worshipped God together with His people. He values the privileges he once enjoyed more deeply now that they are lost.
Joel records the same jeer, thrown by invading nations at God's people.
The nations, as Joel states, had come in with power. They taunted those who had trusted in Jehovah's faithfulness with the cry, "Where is your God?" (Joel 2:17)… So this tested what God really was to them by faith. This faith is what this psalm now expresses. The heart of the godly pants after God. It was not merely for His blessings; they were gone. The preciousness of what He Himself was, was only so much the more vividly brought out. The main distress was the cry "Where is your God?"
The taunt is cruel, yet it strips away every substitute for God.
The enemy moves the soul forward on this path, though in a painful way — and so it is even in God's discipline… But this only throws the soul on Him. Nothing was left but what God was Himself. The enemy had driven them away from everything else — from mercies that, when misused, tended to shut God out. These the enemy succeeded in depriving the soul of, and left it only God. And the soul hoped in Him… Often the soul seeks joy and cannot get it. Joy would not purify and bless it, and to bless, God must purify. When emptied of self and seeking God, we find joy.
The words are not only a distressed believer's cry. One writer hears Christ Himself speaking them.
Zeal for God had set Him in this path of shame and sorrow, and moved Him at every turn of the path — love to man too. Yet we read: "My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'"
Because He has been there, He does not stand at a distance from those who are there now.
The Spirit of Christ is in full sympathy with them, for in all their afflictions He is afflicted. He will lead the souls of the faithful remnant through these exercises, making them His own.
The taunt does not get the last word. A later psalm records the answer.
Nothing terrifying touches them. They can talk of the waters gladdening, instead of overwhelming, them… for none less than God Himself has been their refuge. "Where is your God?" has been the enemy's reproach, and this psalm's triumph gives him the answer.
- Stripped — the sufferer has lost his place of worship and every visible mercy. What is left is thirst for the living God Himself.
- Taunted — the scoffers argue from appearances. Joel records the same jeer, thrown at a people who look forsaken.
- Tested — the pain is not mainly the lost blessings. It is whether God is real to faith when nothing confirms Him.
- Emptied — the enemy takes away all lesser comforts and leaves the soul only God. God purifies in order to bless, and chasing joy never finds it.
- Answered — Christ wept these same tears in full sympathy with His people, and God becoming their refuge silences the mocking question.
These things I remember and have poured out my soul within me how I passed along with the multitude, how I went on with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, a festive multitude.
Memory can comfort, and memory can wound. Here the singer is cut off from the place where God's people worshipped. The memory of crowded, singing processions to His house is what breaks him open.
The verse turns on the phrase "the house of God." In the Psalms, the house and the temple stand for two different things:
For God's people, the temple is linked with the distinctness and separateness of God in His holiness. There He is the object of worship. The house, on the other hand, is linked with His people's joy in being near Him: "to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival" (Ps. 42:4).
Commentators read the psalm on two levels at once. It fits an event in David's life, and it also points forward to a faithful few who are cast out.
The prophetic aspect is the remnant cast out or fled... The historic occasion is when David and his loyal followers left Jerusalem during Absalom's conspiracy... The thirst here is to drink once more of the waters. A vile mixture of Gentile self-will and Jewish apostasy had driven them away from those waters. So they confidently look to God, Who cannot deny Himself and loves His people.
The taunt "Where is your God?" comes in the verse before. This verse answers it with a memory of what he no longer has.
The soul is also distressed as it sees the enemy holding the temple. In past days it had worshipped God there, in company with His people. Privileges once enjoyed grow more precious once they are gone.
The loss he mourns hides a danger. A soul can lean on the shared joy of a worshipping crowd without noticing it.
He was taunted about the public enjoyment of Him — "where was his God?" He had lost the outward display, the common joy. The soul may lean on that, and in our case depend on it more than it knows, drinking at the streams and pools. He wanted to appear before God; when he remembers these things, he pours out his soul within him. His soul was cast down, still he hoped in God for that which was to come.
With the setting gone, what remains is God Himself.
The heart of the godly pants after God. It was not just for His blessings; they were gone. What He Himself was became all the more precious.
Commentators differ on the tense of this verse. Some early translations read it as a forward look, not a backward one. (The "verse 5" in the quote is this verse; the numbering differs.)
In the Authorized Version, the translation of verse 5 hides the sense to some degree. In the original the verse is not the language of regret at remembering privileges once enjoyed. It is the language of hope, as he looks forward to what he will enjoy. The Septuagint, Syriac and Vulgate all agree. The words are: "I shall go with the multitude, I shall go with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a feast." He is outside Jerusalem, but one day he will be inside. It is now for him a time of sorrow and reproach, but the festive day will come.
Read as memory, the verse still does not end in sadness. The soul takes hold of the past and puts it to work.
And yet the soul cannot let it go as a passing vision. Faith, stirred by it, takes firm hold of this past, to recall it and make it last. The soul rebukes its own discouragement: "Why are you cast down? and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God." Yes — here is what is permanent, what is eternal: hope in God, even though you cannot find Him; though clouds are all around Him... He Himself is promise!
- Loss — the singer is cut off from the house of God, the place linked in the Psalms with joy in nearness to Him.
- Memory — recalling the singing crowd deepens the grief. Privileges grow more precious once they are gone.
- Exposure — the taunt "Where is your God?" strips away the outward setting and the common joy. It tests what God Himself is to faith.
- God Himself — the blessings are gone, so the Giver Himself becomes all the more precious.
- Hope — faith seizes the memory and refuses to stay downcast. On some readings the verse is not regret at all. It is confidence that he will join the festival crowd again.
Why art thou cast down, my soul, and art disquieted in me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, [for] the health of his countenance.
Far from the house of God and taunted by enemies, the psalmist stops talking to his circumstances and turns to question his own soul. Why does a believer sink, and what should he say to himself when he does?
The question is a rebuke, and the psalmist aims it at himself. One note on wording: where the ESV ends the verse with "my salvation," older translations read "the help" or "the health of his countenance," and the writers quoted here follow that older wording.
However, the memory of past blessings enjoyed leads the soul to rebuke its present despondency. It encourages the soul to hope in God for the future. What God is in Himself, not what we may happen to feel Him in this or that moment to be — that is our hope. Looking beyond the present gloom, the godly man can say, "I shall yet praise Him for the health of His countenance." The enemy is against him, but the face of God is toward him. If God is for him, who can be against him?
Loss lies behind the question. One writer also traces how the wording shifts between this verse and the psalm's closing verse.
The godly man had been going with the multitude to the house of God, but that is all over. He is driven away… The nations, as Joel says, had come in with power. They taunted those who had trusted in Jehovah's faithfulness with the cry, "Where is your God?" (Joel 2:17). It was a dreadful trial — so with Christ on the cross, and with Him even more, for He declared He was forsaken… The heart of the godly longs for God. It was not merely for His blessings; they were gone. The preciousness of what He Himself was came out all the more clearly… Notice that in verse 5 it is the help of God's countenance. In verse 11 He becomes the health of the countenance of the one who trusts in Him.
The cure he prescribes himself is very small and very large at the same time: a look at God's face.
Surely he felt that since his trust was in God, he had no proper reason to be cast down. So he encourages himself to hope in God, with the confidence that he would yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. Just to look into the Lord's face would mean wonderful help to him. That face looks with genuine compassion on His own people. It also looks with approval on every response made for His sake — that is, every action moved by faith in the living God.
The command to hope is not for a man with answers. It is for a man in the dark, with no promise left to lay hold of.
The soul rebukes its own despondency: "Hope in God." Here is what is permanent, what is eternal. Hope in God, even though you cannot find Him. Hope, though His ways are in deepest mystery, and though you could not find a single promise to claim beyond doubt. He Himself is promise! In His own all-pitying love — in the goodness of His nature, beyond all that we can tell or think — in Himself you can find refuge.
Self-rebuke here is not a hard face put on grief. The psalmist feels the sorrow and tells it out.
Pride and stoic resistance to sorrow will not do. That does not draw the soul to God. In fact it does the opposite and keeps the soul from Him. It teaches the soul, or pretends to teach it, to do without Him… Here the soul had felt the sorrow and stayed dependent. Now it can be open with God, because of His goodness and faithfulness. Sorrow, when it is complete and helpless, gives intimacy with the One who is willing and able to help.
Being low is not, by itself, a fault. The line falls elsewhere.
When the soul is distressed or cast down, that is not sin in itself. But sin comes in when there is distrust of God.
Any burdened believer can borrow the psalm's question.
Meanwhile, these Psalms hold plenty of comfort for the Christian who suffers and takes blow after blow. "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" Such words suit the spirit of reviving faith in the stress and heavy sadness of a day of conflict. One believing look at Christ wins back for the crushed and downcast believer the firm, settled place of acceptance and peace. For His presence is the full salvation of the soul. And He is present always.
- Loss — Enemies drive him from the house of God and mock him: "Where is your God?" The blessings go; God Himself stands out all the more.
- Question — Faith does not argue with the enemy first. It turns on the soul's own despondency and asks it for a reason.
- Hope — The ground is God's own nature, not a feeling or even a promise you can claim: "He Himself is promise."
- Countenance — The help is a look into a face full of compassion. By verse 11 that same face becomes the health of the believer's own.
- Honesty — Distress is not sin, and stoic hardness is no cure. Sorrow told out to God draws the soul close to Him.