The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"hart," Hebrew ayyal (אַיָּל), a stag, deer. The psalm opens with the image of a deer at the end of its strength: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." The creature chosen is not a tame one but a wild stag driven by need.

"panteth," ta'arog (תַּעֲרֹג), to long, cry out, pant with desire. The word carries both the gasping of the animal and the crying of the soul. And the psalm moves at once from the picture to the reality: "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God" (v2). The longing is not for a thing God gives but for God Himself.

"water brooks," aphiqei mayim (אֲפִיקֵי מָיִם), stream channels. What the hart runs toward is the channel where water flows. So the psalmist's desire has a definite object -- God's presence in worship: "when shall I come and appear before God?"

Explanation

Two things make this image sharper than it first appears. First, this is not a deer sipping at leisure by a stream; it is a hart that "panteth", a creature in distress, either hunted and run to exhaustion or wandering a dried-up country in the heat, its very survival hanging on finding water. The thirst is desperate, not pleasant. Second, look at where the psalmist is. He names the far north, "the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar" (v6), a place remote from Jerusalem and the temple. He is cut off from the house of God, and his thirst is homesickness for God's presence, "when shall I come and appear before God?" (v2). This is the mark of a living faith: not that it always feels full, but that when it is empty it pants for God Himself and nothing less, thirsting for the living God the way a hunted deer thirsts for the stream.

Gospel Focus

"My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God", the thirst this psalm describes is answered in Jesus Christ, who is Himself the living water for which the soul was made. To the woman at the well He said, "whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14); and standing in the temple He cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). The parched deer of Psalm 42 finds its stream in Christ. And the longing to "appear before God" is now open to us, for through Him we have access to the Father and shall one day see His face. Wonderfully, the Saviour who satisfies our thirst first thirsted for us: on the cross He cried, "I thirst" (John 19:28), draining the cup of our drought that we might drink freely of His grace. So when your soul pants and is dry, do not despise the thirst; it is the deer's instinct for the brook, the God-shaped longing that only Christ can fill. Come to Him and drink, and He becomes in you a well springing up to everlasting life, and at the last He will lead you to "living fountains of waters" where you shall thirst no more (Revelation 7:17).

Word Study

"cast down," Hebrew tishtochachi (תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי), bowed low, sunk down. In the depths of his sorrow the psalmist does a remarkable thing: he turns and speaks to his own soul. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" The word pictures a soul bowed low, sunk down under its own weight.

"disquieted," tehemi (תֶּהֱמִי), in turmoil, roaring, moaning. "And why art thou disquieted in me?" The second word adds noise to the sinking -- not numb despair but inward turmoil, a moaning that will not settle. He questions his own depression rather than simply submitting to it.

"hope," hochili (הוֹחִילִי), wait expectantly for. Having questioned his soul, he commands it: "hope thou in God." This is the great refrain of the psalm, returning in verse 11 and again in Psalm 43:5.

Explanation

Notice the direction of the speech: the psalmist is not merely listening to his soul, he is talking to it. There is a whole world of difference between the two. Much of our misery comes from passively listening to ourselves, letting the downcast soul pour its fears and complaints into us unchallenged. This man does the opposite: he takes himself in hand, demands a reason for the gloom, "Why art thou cast down?", and then preaches hope to himself, "hope thou in God." He does not deny the sorrow (he grants he is cast down), but he refuses to leave his soul unpastored. And this is no one-time victory: the same words come back in verse 11 and once more in Psalm 43:5, three times over, a sign that Psalms 42 and 43 are one poem, and a sign that the fight against a downcast heart must often be fought again and again. Faith is not the absence of the sinking feeling; it is the refusal to be ruled by it, answering the soul's "why" with a settled command to hope in God.

Gospel Focus

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul?... hope thou in God", the hope the psalmist preached to himself is made sure in Jesus Christ, who Himself knew the cast-down soul and turned it toward the Father. In Gethsemane He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matthew 26:38), the very language of this psalm, and yet He hoped in God and prayed, "not as I will, but as thou wilt." Because our Saviour has entered the downcast soul and come through it to resurrection, the believer's hope has a name and a ground: "the God of hope" (Romans 15:13) has given us "a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). So when your soul is cast down, do as this psalm teaches and as Christ did: do not merely listen to your fears, but speak to your soul, and set before it the risen Christ. "I shall yet praise him", the downcast believer says it in faith before he feels it, because the One in whom he hopes is faithful, and the night of a disquieted soul will end in the praise of "the health of my countenance, and my God" (v11).

Word Study

"deep," Hebrew tehom (תְּהוֹם), the deep, the primeval abyss. The imagery of the psalm turns completely over. In verse 1 the soul was dying of thirst, longing for a trickle of water; now it is drowning. "Deep calleth unto deep" -- one abyss summons another.

"waterspouts," tsinnorekha (צִנּוֹרֶיךָ), cataracts, channels. The channels that were water brooks in verse 1 have become cataracts. What the thirsty soul once looked for in a trickle now comes down on him in a roar.

"waves," mishbarekha (מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ), breakers. These are the waves that break, and they come one after another: breaker after breaker rolling over his head.

"billows," gallekha (גַּלֶּיךָ), rolling waves. "All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." Note whose they are -- thy waves; even in the drowning, the psalmist traces the flood back to the hand of God.

Explanation

The great surprise here is the reversal of the water. The psalm began with a parched deer craving a stream, too little water; now the same soul is going under a flood, too much. Both are pictures of the same distress, the felt absence of God, for the soul can be undone as truly by an overwhelming as by an emptiness. And "deep calleth unto deep" catches something true about trouble: it rarely comes single. One wave calls the next; sorrows arrive in sequence, each summoning another, the roar of one cataract answered by the next. But look closely at whose waves these are. Three times the psalmist calls them thy waterspouts, thy waves, thy billows. Even the floods that are drowning him he ascribes not to blind chance but to God. That is a strange and steadying thing to say in the middle of the deep: the very waters going over my head are still my God's, under His hand, sent and bounded by Him, and therefore not able to sweep me past His reach.

Gospel Focus

"All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me", the deepest flood this psalm knows went, in full, over the head of Jesus Christ, that His people might be drawn up onto dry ground. On the cross the true waves and billows of God's judgment rolled over Him; He was plunged into the deep of our sin and death, the baptism He spoke of, "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:50). The Saviour went down into the abyss where deep calls to deep, so that we who deserved to drown might be brought safely through. Because He entered the flood for us, the waters that go over the believer can no longer be the waters of wrath; they are, at worst, waters of trial, and even these are His, "when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee" (Isaiah 43:2). So the child of God may be in the deep and not be destroyed by it, for Christ has been to the bottom of it first. The waves that broke over Him will not finally break us; and the same Lord who was overwhelmed for us commands His lovingkindness in the daytime, and gives His song in the night (v8), until the flood recedes and the thirst is quenched forever in His presence.