Psalm 42

¹As a deer longs for streams of water,[#tn Since the accompanying verb is feminine in form, the noun אָיִּל (’ayyil, “male deer”) should be emended to אַיֶּלֶת (’ayyelet, “female deer”). Haplography of the letter tav has occurred; note that the following verb begins with tav.; #tn Or “pants [with thirst].”]

so I long for you, O God!

²I thirst for God,[#tn Or “my soul thirsts.”]

for the living God.

I say, “When will I be able to go and appear in God’s presence?”

³I cannot eat, I weep day and night;[#tn Heb “My tears have become my food day and night.”]

all day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”

⁴I will remember and weep![#tn Heb “These things I will remember and I will pour out upon myself my soul.” “These things” are identified in the second half of the verse as those times when the psalmist worshiped in the Lord’s temple. The two cohortative forms indicate the psalmist’s resolve to remember and weep. The expression “pour out upon myself my soul” refers to mourning (see Job 30:16).]

For I was once walking along with the great throng to the temple of God,

shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival.

⁵Why are you depressed, O my soul?[#tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”; #sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.]

Why are you upset?

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention.

⁶I am depressed,[#tn Heb “my God, upon me my soul bows down.” As noted earlier, “my God” belongs with the end of v. 6.]

so I will pray to you while I am trapped here in the region of the upper Jordan,

from Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

⁷One deep stream calls out to another at the sound of your waterfalls;[#tn Heb “deep calls to deep.” The Hebrew noun תְּהוֹם (tÿhom) often refers to the deep sea, but here, where it is associated with Hermon, it probably refers to mountain streams. The word can be used of streams and rivers (see Deut 8:7; Ezek 31:4).; #tn The noun צִנּוֹר (tsinnor, “waterfall”) occurs only here and in 2 Sam 5:8, where it apparently refers to a water shaft. The psalmist alludes to the loud rushing sound of mountain streams and cascading waterfalls. Using the poetic device of personification, he imagines the streams calling out to each other as they hear the sound of the waterfalls.]

all your billows and waves overwhelm me.

⁸By day the Lord decrees his loyal love,[#sn The psalmist believes that the Lord has not abandoned him, but continues to extend his loyal love. To this point in the psalm, the author has used the name “God,” but now, as he mentions the divine characteristic of loyal love, he switches to the more personal divine name Yahweh (rendered in the translation as “the Lord”).]

and by night he gives me a song,

a prayer to the living God.

⁹I will pray to God, my high ridge:[#tn The cohortative form indicates the psalmist’s resolve.; #tn This metaphor pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28; Pss 18:2; 31:3.]

“Why do you ignore me?

Why must I walk around mourning

because my enemies oppress me?”

¹⁰My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone,[#tc Heb “with a shattering in my bones my enemies taunt me.” A few medieval Hebrew mss and Symmachus’ Greek version read “like” instead of “with.”]

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

¹¹Why are you depressed, O my soul?[#tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”; #sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.]

Why are you upset?

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention.