1 > As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants after you, God.
> How lovely are your dwellings, Yahweh of Hosts! My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
I opened my mouth wide and panted, For I longed for your commandments.
> Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised, In the city of our God, in his holy mountain.
> God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you, My flesh longs for you, In a dry and weary land, where there is no water. So I have seen you in the sanctuary, Watching your power and your glory.
> Yahweh, you have been favorable to your land. You have restored the fortunes of Jacob.
Yes, in the way of your judgments, Yahweh, have we waited for you; to your name, even to your memorial [name], is the desire of our soul. With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you earnestly: for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
> My heart overflows with a noble theme. I recite my verses for the king. My tongue is like the pen of a skillful writer.
and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who appertained to Korah, and all their goods.
Moreover, David and the captains of the host set apart for the service certain of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of those who did the work according to their service was: of the sons of Asaph: Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and Asharelah, the sons of Asaph, under the hand of Asaph, who prophesied after the order of the king. Of Jeduthun; the sons of Jeduthun: Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun with the harp, who prophesied in giving thanks and praising Yahweh. Of Heman; the sons of Heman: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth. All these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 42
Commentary on Psalms 42 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 42
If the book of Psalms be, as some have styled it, a mirror or looking-glass of pious and devout affections, this psalm in particular deserves, as much as any one psalm, to be so entitled, and is as proper as any to kindle and excite such in us: gracious desires are here strong and fervent; gracious hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, are here struggling, but the pleasing passion comes off a conqueror. Or we may take it for a conflict between sense and faith, sense objecting and faith answering.
The title does not tell us who was the penman of this psalm, but most probably it was David, and we may conjecture that it was penned by him at a time when, either by Saul's persecution or Absalom's rebellion, he was driven from the sanctuary and cut off from the privilege of waiting upon God in public ordinances. The strain of it is much the same with 63, and therefore we may presume it was penned by the same hand and upon the same or a similar occasion. In singing it, if we be either in outward affliction or in inward distress, we may accommodate to ourselves the melancholy expressions we find here; if not, we must, in singing them, sympathize with those whose case they speak too plainly, and thank God it is not our own case; but those passages in it which express and excite holy desires towards God, and dependence on him, we must earnestly endeavour to bring our minds up to.
To the chief musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.
Psa 42:1-5
Holy love to God as the chief good and our felicity is the power of godliness, the very life and soul of religion, without which all external professions and performances are but a shell and carcase: now here we have some of the expressions of that love. Here is,
Psa 42:6-11
Complaints and comforts here, as before, take their turn, like day and night in the course of nature.