Psalm XLII

To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.

1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee,

OGod.

2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God! When shall I come and

appear before God?

3 My tears have been my meat day and night,

While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me:

For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

5 Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet pi-aise him

For the help of his countenance.

6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me!

Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and of the Ilermonites, From the hill Mizar.

7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

8 Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night his song shall be with me,

And my prayer unto the God of my life.

9 I will say unto God my rock, AVhy hast thou forgotten me V Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy V

10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; While they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?

11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within

me?
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him.
Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

The Jews begin Book II. with this Psalm. There is little doubt that their fourfold division of the Book of Psalms is arbitrary, and was suggested by the single circumstance that “Amen” happens to occur at the close of Ps. xl., lxxii., lxxxix., and cvi., which are the closing Psalms of the different divisions. The Mascldl has reference to the music. As for the sons of Korah, descendants of the rebel Korah whose children, spared by grace, took a conspicuous part in the Temple worship of song, they were only the receivers, not the writers of the Psalm. Probably the Levites who were with David (2 Sam, xv. 24) include the sons of Korah.

Here is the hart in the wilderness panting for the water brooks which it had not got at. It stands on some bank that hangs over (7^), the brook, — the water is not reached. Such is the Psalmist’s state of soul. “O that I might see the face of God!” is the force of verse 2; and verse 4 is the soul responding to itself, saying, in remembrance of past joys now withheld, “Thereon will I think, and pour out my soul within myself”

The Septuagint has translated this very nearly in the words used in Matt. xxvi. 38, and John xii. 27.

“Wiij art thou {’ TsiXu-rrog’ Septuagint) wer sorroicfal, O my soul? And lohy art thou {raaffgiig /xs) troubled within me f” Our Lord, as well as every troubled and sorrowful one of his people, could use this Psalm, when, as the true David, he was driven out, not by a son, but by his Father for our sakes — driven farther from heaven than Hermon or Jordan, or “the Little Hill,” are from Zion and the Tabernacle, hearing deeper floods calling to one another, and mustering their waters, as at the deluge the cataracts dashed upon the ark from above, while bursting fountains heaved it up from below.’* Still, He knew the issue: “For the joy set before Him he endured the cross.” He could sing in the gloom, “/ shall yet praise him, the salvation of my countenance, and my God I” The marginal reading is, “His presence is salvation;” but verse 11 is against this. The meaning is, I shall praise Him as He who shall change my marred form, and give me beauty; who shall change my humiliation into exaltation; who shall in my case, and then in the case of all my people, exchange the wilderness and its parched sands for the kingdom and its rivers of pleasure. The sorest pang of Christ, arising from reproach and scorn, was that which he felt when they cast suspicion on the love and faithfulness of his Father (ver. 10), “Where is thy God?” In proportion as sanctification advances, his members feel this, too, forgetting their own glory, and intent upon his. In the primary use of the Psalm, this taunt would be felt by David when his enemies insinuated that though God had anointed him king, yet He could not bring him to his kingdom: or even if “the sons of Korah”f wrote this Psalm, (as Hengstenberg thinks), there would be the same feeling in them in regard to this taunt flung at that devoted leader, whose cause they espoused, coming to him at Ziklag. (1 Chron. xii. 6.) But the Holy Ghost founded on these circumstances a song of Zion, which was meant fOr Zion’s King, and all his princes in their passage to the throne and kingdom. The Lord Jesus might specially call it to mind, and sing it with his disciples on that remarkable day when, at Ccesarea Philippi (Matt, xvi, 1 3), he asked what men were saying of him? On that day,

Lynch’s Narrative of Expedition to
of” deep unto deep — noise of thy

* The various cataracts of Jordan (s
Jordan) might give origin to the figur
waterspouts.”

t “The sons of Korah “have their name prefixed to fourteen Psal:i:s. Herein is free sovereign grace! The descendants of the rebel arc spared (Numb. XX vi. 11), and honoured. We find them “porters” and “over the host of the Lord,” 1 Chron. ix. 19, for they were Levites of the family of Kohath. Some of them came to David at Ziklag, 1 Chron. xii. 6, luid these may be specially the ‘• sons of Korah “mentioned here, viz., Elkanah, Jesiah, Jaser, Joshobeani, and Azarecl. Their after history, too, is interesting, grace still shining in it throughout, in the days of the later kinis.

The speaker.

14-0 PSALM XLIII. — THE RIGHTEOUS ONE CLAIMING HIS RIGHT

Hermon was in sight, and Jordan’s double-fountain close beside him, and some ‘^ Little Hill “near them, some “Mizar,”* that, by contrast, called up to mind the Hills of Zion. On that day, it may be, the Head of the Church made special use of this Psalm, and embalmed it in the hearts of his disciples, who would never afterwards fail to sing it (even as we do), with double refreshment in the thought that it had comforted the Master, expressing, as it does,

The Righteous One in his weariness looking up to the Father for refreshment.