Psalms 42:8-9

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?”

[42:8]  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.