The Hart and the Water-Brooks

¶ 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, O God.
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 holy day.
5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? — and why art thou disquieted in me?
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him
For the help of his countenance [or, His presence is salvation].
6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me:
Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites,
From the hill Mizar.
7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts;
All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
8 Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time,
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, Why hast thou forgotten me?
Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
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 following is an excellent poetical paraphrase of the Psalm, by Bishop Lowth: —

“As pants the wearied hart for cooling springs,
So pants my longing soul, great King of kings!

“On briny tears my famish’d soul hath fed,
‘Say, where is now thy Great Deliverer fled,

“Oft dwell my thoughts on those thrice happy days,
Our mirth was worship, all our pleasure praise,

“Why throb, my heart? why sink, my saddening soul,
My years shall yet in blissful circles roll,

“By Jordan’s banks with devious steps I stray,
E’en there Thy hand shall guide my lonely way,

“In rapid floods the vernal torrents roll,
Thine angry billows overwhelm my soul,

“Yet Thy sure mercies ever in my sight,
And ‘midst the dark and gloomy shades of night,

“Rock of my hope! great Solace of my heart!
While taunting foes thus point th’ invidious dart,

“Why faint, my soul? why doubt Jehovah’s aid?
Within His courts thy thanks shall yet be paid,

All recent explorers of Palestine speak in glowing terms of that “solemn eastern background,” with its mellow tints of blue and purple, rising conspicuous, as if a wall built by giants, from the deep gorge or valley of the Jordan. This mountain range, and especially the hills of Gilead, with their rugged ravines and forests of sycamore and terebinth, are full of blended memories of joy and sadness. From one of these slopes, the Father of the Faithful obtained his first view of his children’s heritage. On another, the Angels of God — the two bright celestial bands — greeted Jacob on his return from his sojourn in Syria. From another, trains of wailing captives on their way to Babylon, must oft and again have taken through their tears their last look of “the mountains round about Jerusalem.” Nigh the same spot, the footsteps of our blessed Redeemer Himself lingered, when death was hovering over the couch of the friend He loved at Bethany. Martha and Mary, from their Village-home, must have lifted their eyes to these same “hills,” from whence they knew, in the extremity of their anguish, their “help” alone could come. While, at a later period, the same spot was rendered illustrious as the locality of Pella, the mountain fortress and asylum whither their Lord had admonished His followers to flee, when the Imperial Eagles of Rome were gathered by Titus around the devoted city.

This “land beyond the Jordan” still further derives an imperishable interest from being the exile-retreat of the sweet Singer of Israel in the most pathetic period of his chequered life and reign. There is no more touching episode in all Hebrew history than the recorded flight of David from his capital on the occasion of the rebellion of Absalom and the defection of his people. Passing, barefoot and weeping, across the brook Kedron, and thence by the fords of Jericho, he sped northwards with his faithful adherents, and found a temporary shelter amid these remote fastnessess.

Minds of a peculiar temperament have often found it a relief, in seasons of sadness, to give expression to their pent-up feelings in poetry or song. Ancient as well as modern verse and music abound with striking examples of this, — “Songs in the Night,” when the mouldering harp was taken down from the willows by some captive spirit, and made to pour forth its strains or numbers in touching elegy. David’s own lament for Jonathan is a gush of intensified feeling which will occur to all, and which could have been penned only in an agony of tears.

It was a spirit crushed and broken with other, but not less poignant sorrows, which dictated this Psalm of his exile. May we not imagine that, in addition to the tension of feeling produced by his altered fortunes, there was in the very scene of his banishment, where the plaintive descant was composed, much to inspire poetic sentiment? The alternate calm and discord of outer nature found their response in his own chequered experiences. Nature’s Æolian harp — its invisible strings composed of rustling leaves and foaming brooks, or the harsher tones of tempest and thunder, flood and waterfall — awoke the latent harmonies of his soul. They furnished him with a key-note to discourse higher melodies, and embody struggling thoughts in inspired numbers. In reading this Psalm we at once feel that we are with the Minstrel King, not in the Tabernacle of Zion, but in some glorious “House not made with hands,” — some Cathedral whose aisles are rocky cliffs and tangled branches, and its roof the canopy of Heaven!

Let us picture him seated in one of those deep glens listening to the murmur of the rivulet and the wail of the forest. Suddenly the sky is overcast Dark clouds roll their masses along the purple peaks. The lightning flashes; and the old oaks and terebinths of Bashan bend under the tumult of the storm. The higher rivulets have swelled the channel of Jordan, — “deep calls to deep” — the waves chafe and riot along the narrow gorges. Suddenly a struggling ray of sunshine steals amid the strife, and a stray note from some bird answers joyously to its gleam. It is, however, but a gleam. The sky again threatens, fresh bolts wake the mountain echoes. The river rolls on in augmented volume, and the wind wrestles fiercely as ever with the denizens of the forest. At last the contest is at an end. The sky is calm — the air refreshed — the woods are vocal with song — ten thousand dripping boughs sparkle in the sunlight; the meadows wear a lovelier emerald; and rock, and branch, and floweret, are reflected in the bosom of the stream.

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