Text -- Psalms 42:9-11 (NET)

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 42:9

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.