Psalms 42: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The writer is far from the house of God and longs for him the way a thirsty deer longs for running water. He remembers joining the crowds that went up to worship, while enemies now taunt him daily by asking where his God is. Twice he asks his own soul why it is downcast and tells it to hope in God, saying he will praise God again.

Claim by Claim

1. 42:1
   • A deer pants and longs for channels of water.
   • The speaker's soul longs for God in the same way.
   • The speaker addresses God directly.
2. 42:2
   • The speaker's soul thirsts for God.
   • The God the speaker thirsts for is the living God.
   • The speaker asks when he will come and appear before God's face.
3. 42:3
   • The speaker's tears have been his food.
   • This has been so by day and by night.
   • People say to the speaker continually, all day long, "Where is your God?"
4. 42:4
   • The speaker remembers these things.
   • The speaker pours out his soul within himself.
   • The speaker used to go with the crowd to the house of God.
   • The Hebrew for the speaker's action with the crowd is obscure: it means either that he went along with them or that he led them in procession.
   • The going to the house of God was with the sound of joy and thanksgiving.
   • The crowd was a multitude keeping a festival.
5. 42:5
   • The speaker asks his own soul why it is cast down.
   • The speaker asks why his soul is in turmoil within him.
   • The speaker commands his soul to hope in God.
   • The speaker states that he will yet praise God.
   • The reason given is the salvation that comes from God's face.
6. 42:6
   • The speaker addresses God as his God.
   • The speaker's soul is cast down within him.
   • Because of this, the speaker remembers God.
   • The speaker remembers God from the land of the Jordan.
   • The speaker remembers God from the heights of Hermon.
   • The speaker remembers God from Mount Mizar, the little mountain.
7. 42:7
   • Deep calls to deep.
   • The calling happens at the sound of God's water channels or waterfalls.
   • All of God's breakers and waves have passed over the speaker.
8. 42:8
   • By day the LORD commands his covenant love.
   • By night God's song is with the speaker.
   • A prayer to the God of the speaker's life is with him.
9. 42:9
   • The speaker will say to God, whom he calls his rock, the following words.
   • The speaker asks God why God has forgotten him.
   • The speaker asks why he goes about mourning.
   • The speaker attributes his mourning to the oppression of the enemy.
10. 42:10
    • The reproach of the speaker's enemies is like a deadly crushing or shattering in his bones.
    • The speaker's adversaries reproach him.
    • They say to him all day long, "Where is your God?"
11. 42:11
    • The speaker asks his own soul why it is cast down.
    • The speaker asks why his soul is in turmoil within him.
    • The speaker commands his soul to hope in God.
    • The speaker states that he will yet praise God.
    • God is the salvation of the speaker's face.
    • God is the speaker's God.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

42:1

A "hart" is an adult male deer; the word was ordinary English in 1611. "Soul" here translates Hebrew *nephesh*, which means the whole living person (the self, with its appetites and breath), not an immaterial part housed inside the body. The same word runs through the psalm wherever "soul" appears.

42:2

"Appear before God" is the standard Hebrew phrase for coming to the sanctuary, as worshipers did at the yearly festivals. The consonants of the Hebrew can equally be read "see the face of God," and ancient scribes seem to have softened it to the passive "be seen", the phrase carries the sense of being admitted into a person's presence, as a subject is admitted to a king. "The living God" distinguishes this God from the images of gods that filled the surrounding world.

42:3

"Meat" in 1611 English meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically. The taunt "Where is your God?" is the standard ancient jeer at someone whose god has apparently failed to act for them, the implication is that the god is absent, powerless, or non-existent.

42:4

"Pour out my soul" is a Hebrew idiom for emptying oneself of grief, letting everything out. "Kept holyday" refers to the pilgrim festivals, when crowds traveled together to the sanctuary in Jerusalem singing as they went; the psalmist is remembering being part of, and possibly at the head of: that procession. The Hebrew of the middle of this verse is difficult and the word rendered "led them" is uncertain.

42:5

This verse is a refrain: it returns almost word for word at verse 11, and a third time at the end of Psalm 43, which is why many scholars think Psalms 42 and 43 were originally a single poem. "Cast down" means sunk low, depressed; "disquieted" means agitated or churning, not merely uneasy. "Countenance" is the face; in Hebrew a face turned toward you means favor and attention, a face hidden means neglect. The Hebrew text divides the words slightly differently here, ending this line with "his face" and beginning the next verse "My God, my soul is cast down."

42:6

These are places in the far north of the land, at the headwaters of the Jordan around Mount Hermon, the opposite end of the country from Jerusalem and its sanctuary. "The Hermonites" in the King James is a mistranslation of a Hebrew plural meaning the Hermon range or its peaks; no people group is meant. Mount Mizar is otherwise unknown; the name means "littleness," so it may be a small hill rather than a proper place name.

42:7

"Deep" translates *tehom*, the great mass of water thought of as lying beneath and beyond the earth, the same word used of the waters at the world's beginning and of the sea that swallows ships. "Waterspouts" in 1611 English meant cascades or waterfalls, not the sea-tornado the word means today. "Billows" are the great rolling swells of the sea.

42:8

"LORD" printed in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants often written Yahweh, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. "Lovingkindness" translates *chesed*, the loyal, committed care one party owes another within a binding relationship, closer to sworn faithfulness than to warm feeling.

42:9

"My rock" is the image of a crag or cliff-fortress, the high ground you run to when attacked, a place of safety, not a statement about hardness or stability alone.

42:10

The Hebrew of the first phrase is uncertain: the word can mean a shattering or crushing, or, on the reading the King James translators followed, a weapon driven into the bones. Either way the taunt is felt as physical injury.

42:11

This is the third time the psalm circles back to the same question and the same answer, and Psalm 43 repeats it once more. Psalm 43 has no heading of its own, and many scholars think 42 and 43 were originally a single poem in three parts, each closing with this refrain. "Health of my countenance" means the one who restores his face, since a downcast face was the visible sign of the grief he has been describing.