Translation: ESV
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
The soul's thirst for God — like a deer in parched land — is the beginning of all true worship and prayer.
▸The beginning of Book II of the Psalms (Pss.
The beginning of Book II of the Psalms (Pss. 42-72) and one of the most beautiful psalms. 'Pants ('arag)' — to long deeply, to crave. The image of a deer wandering in parched land seeking water perfectly expresses the soul's longing for God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
The soul's ultimate longing is to directly experience the presence of the living God.
▸'The living God ('el hayyim)' — God who is alive, distinguished from dead idols.
My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'
Even the believer experiences the human vulnerability of weeping before the mockery 'Where is your God?'
▸The specific content of pain appears.
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
The memory of beautiful past meetings with God deepens present longing and sustains hope for the future.
▸The memory of past temple worship deepens the pain of the present.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
When cast down, preaching to oneself to hope in God is faithful self-care.
▸The refrain of Psalms 42-43 that appears three times (42:5, 42:11, 43:5).
Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
Even before the successive waves of pain, one can confess that God is behind them and cry out to God.
▸Extreme suffering is described in nature's imagery.
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
Even in the waves of suffering, God's steadfast love is by day and his song is by night.
▸Even in the midst of wave-like suffering, the psalmist confesses that God's steadfast love is present by day and night.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
Repeated despair must be met with repeated confession of hope — faith is a continuous choice.
▸The refrain of verse 5 is repeated.