Psalms 42:7-11

42:7 One deep stream calls out to another ¹  at the sound of your waterfalls; ² 

all your billows and waves overwhelm me. ³ 

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, ⁴ 

and by night he gives me a song, ⁵ 

a prayer ⁶  to the living God.

42:9 I will pray ⁷  to God, my high ridge: ⁸ 

“Why do you ignore ⁹  me?

Why must I walk around mourning ¹⁰ 

because my enemies oppress me?”

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ¹¹ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ¹² 

42:11 Why are you depressed, ¹³  O my soul? ¹⁴ 

Why are you upset? ¹⁵ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ¹⁶ 

[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).

[42:7]  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.

[42:7]  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.

[42:8]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

[42:8]  ⁶ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

[42:9]  ⁷ tn The cohortative form indicates the psalmist’s resolve.

[42:9]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Or “forget.”

[42:9]  ¹⁰ sn Walk around mourning. See Ps 38:6 for a similar idea.

[42:10]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

[42:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[42:11]  ¹⁴ sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[42:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

[42:11]  ¹⁶ 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.