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.
My God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore do I remember thee from the land of the Jordan, and the Hermons, from mount Mizar.
Here the psalmist stops arguing with his own soul and turns to God, speaking from the far north of the land, nowhere near the sanctuary he longs for. Why is a crushed soul the reason he remembers God, and why name these three obscure places?
The sorrow itself is what drives him to God. One writer contrasts two ways of meeting grief.
Pride and stoical resistance to sorrow will not do. That does not draw the soul to God, but effectively and especially keeps it from Him. Here the soul had felt the sorrow and was dependent. Now it can be open with God, because God is good and faithful. Sorrow, when it is complete and helpless, gives intimacy with the one who is willing and able to help. Now that intimacy is with God. He tells his sorrow to God.
These are the places of a man shut out of worship — and the loss uncovers what he really wanted.
The godly man had been going with the multitude to the house of God, but that is all over. He is driven away, and his cry is from Jordan — the land of the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar. All God's waves are gone over him… 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.
Older translations read "the Hermonites," which sounds like the name of a people.
This name appears only in Psalm 42:6. Some translate the line, "I remember you from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermons, from the hill Mizar." It does not refer to any people called Hermonites. It refers to the peaks of Mount Hermon.
Both names carry meaning beyond the map.
"The land of Jordan (the river of death) and of the Hermons" is here very significant… The name seems clearly related to "Hormah" and herem, the "ban" — dedication to God in the judgment of what was evil… If that is the meaning, see how clear the connection is. Hermon speaks of the ban upon evil, and Jordan is the river of death — a river whose highest source is in fact Hermon!
Commentators differ over what Hermon means — the same writer notes that others read it as "prominent, high". The third name, Mizar, points to what God's dealing does to the soul.
"The hill Mizar," named with these, may speak of the condition God's dealing brings the soul into. The name means "hill of littleness," which need not be the same as "little hill." The hill may dwarf instead of being dwarfed… God brings down, that He may exalt.
Read as personal experience, the rough country is not an accident. It is the method.
Deuteronomy 8:2 tells us the object of all the trial and testing of the wilderness: "that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not." God leads us by a trying and rugged path (Hermon means "rugged") so that He may uncover the naughtiness and pride of our hearts. God loves us too well to let us stay deceived about our true character in the flesh. He puts us in the very circumstances that bring it out.
Others read the psalm as words that fit Christ before they fit us. He too kept to the edges of a land that was His by royal title.
Jesus was an outcast. He went to the hill Mizar and the land of Jordan, not to the city of the great feasts, even though the anointing of royal title was upon Him as the true Seed of David. "He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him."
Remembering God from a place like this is not nostalgia. It carries the soul forward.
Still, present circumstances are such that the soul is cast down. Yet it does not stop remembering God from the dreary mountain places beyond Jordan, the land of its banishment. There his troubles are like floods and waves that God allows to overwhelm his soul. Still, the godly man looks on to the coming day when the LORD will command His steadfast love. Meanwhile praise and prayer relieve his night.
- Cast down — admitted sorrow opens the soul to God; pride shuts Him out. Helpless grief brings us close to the One who can help.
- Driven out — with the sanctuary and its joys gone, the heart finds that it wanted God Himself, not His gifts.
- Jordan — the river of death rises out of Hermon, the ban on evil. Together the names mark the ground God puts the soul on.
- Mizar — "hill of littleness"; the rugged path exposes the pride of the heart, and God brings us low to raise us up.
- Therefore — from that low place the remembering begins. Night fills with praise and prayer, and a day is coming when God commands His steadfast love.