Psalms 42:5-6

42:5 Why are you depressed, ¹  O my soul? ² 

Why are you upset? ³ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ⁴ 

42:6 I am depressed, ⁵ 

so I will pray to you while I am trapped here in the region of the upper Jordan, ⁶ 

from Hermon, ⁷  from Mount Mizar. ⁸ 

Psalms 42:8-11

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, ⁹ 

and by night he gives me a song, ¹⁰ 

a prayer ¹¹  to the living God.

42:9 I will pray ¹²  to God, my high ridge: ¹³ 

“Why do you ignore ¹⁴  me?

Why must I walk around mourning ¹⁵ 

because my enemies oppress me?”

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ¹⁶ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ¹⁷ 

42:11 Why are you depressed, ¹⁸  O my soul? ¹⁹ 

Why are you upset? ²⁰ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ²¹ 

[42:5]  ¹ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[42:5]  ² sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[42:5]  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.

[42:5]  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.

[42:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “my God, upon me my soul bows down.” As noted earlier, “my God” belongs with the end of v. 6.

[42:6]  ⁶ 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.

[42:6]  ⁷ 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.

[42:6]  ⁸ 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.

[42:8]  ⁹ 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”).

[42:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

[42:8]  ¹¹ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

[42:9]  ¹² tn The cohortative form indicates the psalmist’s resolve.

[42:9]  ¹³ 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.

[42:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “forget.”

[42:9]  ¹⁵ sn Walk around mourning. See Ps 38:6 for a similar idea.

[42:10]  ¹⁶ 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.”

[42:10]  ¹⁷ sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

[42:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[42:11]  ¹⁹ sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[42:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

[42:11]  ²¹ 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.