Text -- Psalms 42:5-11 (NET)

42:5 Why are you depressed, O my soul? Why are you upset? Wait for God! For I will again give thanks to my God for his saving intervention. 42:6 I am depressed, so I will pray to you while I am trapped here in the region of the upper Jordan, from Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 42:7 One deep stream calls out to another at the sound of your waterfalls; all your billows and waves overwhelm me. 42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, and by night he gives me a song, a prayer to the living God. 42:9 I will pray to God, my high ridge: “Why do you ignore me? Why must I walk around mourning because my enemies oppress me?” 42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 42:11 Why are you depressed, O my soul? Why are you upset? Wait for God! For I will again give thanks to my God for his saving intervention.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 42:5

¹ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

² sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

³ tn Heb “and [why] are you in turmoil upon me?” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries on the descriptive present nuance of the preceding imperfect. See GKC 329 §111.t.

⁴ tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of his face.” The verse division in the Hebrew text is incorrect. אֱלֹהַי (’elohay, “my God”) at the beginning of v. 7 belongs with the end of v. 6 (see the corresponding refrains in 42:11 and 43:5, both of which end with “my God” after “saving acts of my face”). The Hebrew term פָּנָיו (panayv, “his face”) should be emended to פְּנֵי (pÿney, “face of”). The emended text reads, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God,” that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention.

NET Notes: Psa 42:6

¹ tn Heb “my God, upon me my soul bows down.” As noted earlier, “my God” belongs with the end of v. 6.

² tn Heb “therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan.” “Remember” is here used metonymically for prayer (see vv. 8-9). As the next line indicates, the region of the upper Jordan, where the river originates, is in view.

³ tc Heb “Hermons.” The plural form of the name occurs only here in the OT. Some suggest the plural refers to multiple mountain peaks (cf. NASB) or simply retain the plural in the translation (cf. NEB), but the final mem (ם) is probably dittographic (note that the next form in the text begins with the letter mem) or enclitic. At a later time it was misinterpreted as a plural marker and vocalized accordingly.

⁴ tn The Hebrew term מִצְעָר (mits’ar) is probably a proper name (“Mizar”), designating a particular mountain in the Hermon region. The name appears only here in the OT.

NET Notes: Psa 42:7

¹ 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).

² 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.

³ tn Heb “pass over me” (see Jonah 2:3). As he hears the sound of the rushing water, the psalmist imagines himself engulfed in the current. By implication he likens his emotional distress to such an experience.

NET Notes: Psa 42:8

¹ 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”).

² tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

³ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

NET Notes: Psa 42:9

¹ tn The cohortative form indicates the psalmist’s resolve.

² 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.

³ tn Or “forget.”

⁴ sn Walk around mourning. See Ps 38:6 for a similar idea.

NET Notes: Psa 42:10

¹ 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.”

² sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

NET Notes: Psa 42:11

¹ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

² sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

³ tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

⁴ tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of my face and my God.” The last line should be emended to read יְשׁוּעֹת פְנֵי אֱלֹהָי (yÿshu’ot fÿney ’elohay, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God”), that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention. This refrain is almost identical to the one in v. 5. See also Ps 43:5.