Psalms 42:8-11

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, ¹ 

and by night he gives me a song, ² 

a prayer ³  to the living God.

42:9 I will pray ⁴  to God, my high ridge: ⁵ 

“Why do you ignore ⁶  me?

Why must I walk around mourning ⁷ 

because my enemies oppress me?”

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ⁸ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ⁹ 

42:11 Why are you depressed, ¹⁰  O my soul? ¹¹ 

Why are you upset? ¹² 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ¹³ 

[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”).

[42:8]  ² tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

[42:8]  ³ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

[42:9]  ⁴ tn The cohortative form indicates the psalmist’s resolve.

[42:9]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Or “forget.”

[42:9]  ⁷ sn Walk around mourning. See Ps 38:6 for a similar idea.

[42:10]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

[42:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

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

[42:11]  ¹² tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

[42:11]  ¹³ 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.