Psalm 42 - As the Hart Panteth After the Water Brooks
A psalm of deep longing for God's presence amid tears and distant memory.
Psalm 42 opens in Psalms 42:1 comparing the soul's thirst for God to a hart panting after water brooks, while tears have become the psalmist's food day and night. He remembers leading festive worship at God's house, a memory now sharpened by distance and taunts of "Where is thy God?"
To the Overseer. -- An Instruction. By sons of Korah. As a hart doth pant for streams of water, So my soul panteth toward Thee, O God.
My soul thirsted for God, for the living God, When do I enter and see the face of God?
My tear hath been to me bread day and night, In their saying unto me all the day, `Where `is' thy God?'
These I remember, and pour out my soul in me, For I pass over into the booth, I go softly with them unto the house of God, With the voice of singing and confession, The multitude keeping feast!
What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? Yea, art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him: The salvation of my countenance -- My God!
In me doth my soul bow itself, Therefore I remember Thee from the land of Jordan, And of the Hermons, from the hill Mizar.
Deep unto deep is calling At the noise of Thy water-spouts, All Thy breakers and Thy billows passed over me.
By day Jehovah commandeth His kindness, And by night a song `is' with me, A prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my rock, `Why hast Thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning in the oppression of an enemy?
With a sword in my bones Have mine adversaries reproached me, In their saying unto me all the day, `Where `is' thy God?'
What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? And what! art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him, The salvation of my countenance, and my God!