1 Commentary to Psalms 42 thru 72 - Rev. John Schultz BOOK II PSALM 42-72 PSALM FORTY-TWO For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah. 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. 5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and 6 my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon-- from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. 8 By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" 10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 11 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. The first psalm in the second part of the Book of Psalms, the part we called “The Exodus Book,” is composed by the Sons of Korah. They are, undoubtedly, the descendants of the Levite Korah who perished in the rebellion against Moses.1 In the days of David they had become gatekeepers at the temple.2 The Holy Spirit had given them gifts that far surpassed their abilities necessary to fulfill their daily tasks. They had not become professional musicians, like the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun,3 but as good amateurs, they had mastered the art of praising God with their poetical gifts. Their duties took to the gates of the temple, but the topic of this psalm speaks about a man who is banished from the temple, and who finds himself in “the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon … Mount Mizar.” God’s presence here is expressed in terms of a localized and topographical revelation. This reminds us of Jesus’ answer to the woman of Samaria, in John’s Gospel: “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”4 Worship of God is not bound to any place. This psalm by the sons of Korah is a psalm of people who stand at the gate of worship. It is a hymn of people who have lost the sense of God’s presence. The psalm is the first in a series of eight.5 We further find the Psalms 84,85,87 and 88 attributed to the sons of Korah. In his commentary The Psalms, George Knight suggests that the main character in this psalm is a woman who, during an invasion by the Philistines, was captured and carried off to be sold as a slave in the Gaza Strip. This, of course, is mere conjecture. We do better to interpret this psalm as an expression in physical images of spiritual truths. The thirst is a spiritual thirst, and the captivity is spiritual, although physical absence from Jerusalem is not excluded. The first image shows us a hunted deer dying of thirst. The English word “deer” does not indicate the sex of the animal, but the Hebrew 'ayal gives us a picture of strength. Strongs Definitions says that it is “a stag or male deer.” We can see the leader of the herd, whose death would leave the other animals in disarray. It shows the picture of someone who would leave a trail of sorrow behind if he were to perish spiritually. In our fellowship with God, we never feed upon Him for our own sake alone. If we go thirsty, 1 See Numbers 16:1-35 2 See I Chr. 26:1,2 3 See I Chr. 25:1-8 4 John 4:21-24 5 See Psalms 42-49 © 2002 E-sst LLC All Rights Reserved Published by Bible-Commentaries.com Used with permission 2 Commentary to Psalms 42 thru 72 - Rev. John Schultz others will suffer the consequences also. Our prayer ought always to be: “Lord, bless me, so I can be a blessing.” He who only thirsts after God for his own fulfillment does not understand what is at stake. When God blessed Abraham, He had the salvation of the whole world on His mind. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”6 And when Jesus invited the thirsty souls to come and drink, He said: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”7 The greatest satisfaction consists of the flowing through of the blessing. Our foremost problem often is that our thirst is not intense enough. The Apostle John states twice in his Gospel that spiritual thirst is related to the fulfillment of Scripture. In the above quoted text, Jesus says: “As the Scripture has said,…” and when Jesus hangs on the cross, we read: “Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ ”8 Jesus’ thirst was a fulfillment of Scripture. The son of Korah recognized the danger that one could get so used to the presence of God, that his thirst would dry up. Thirst for God originates with God. The question is what causes thirst? Physical thirst is a signal our body gives that it needs water, more than food. A man can live for days without food. Hunger will even disappear after a few days, but thirst only increases. Panting for God, for most people, is not a daily experience. Longing for God is, usually, not the passion of our lives, because of the presence of sin. Profound longing for fellowship with God can only exist on the basis of atonement for sin. A person who never confessed his sin, and who has never received forgiveness, can never pant for God in the way described in this psalm. The psalm mentions an earlier stage in which fellowship with God was different. “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.” At the time the sons of Korah composed this psalm, it was a known fact that God was omnipresent. The fact that Jerusalem was the seat of God’s revelation did not mean that a person who traveled abroad would lose his salvation. But one could not experience this collective fellowship with God, this going “with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng,” while being away. So, the point here is not an individualistic enjoyment of spiritual blessings, but the functioning of the body of Christ; the fellowship of believers who love one another in the presence of God. In Jesus’ invitation to come and drink, we read the similarity of drinking and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We read: “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”9 The baptism by the Holy Spirit makes us members of the body of Christ. Paul says: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”10 We do not receive the Holy Spirit as isolated individuals, but only in fellowship with one another. Panting after God, therefore, is not a desire for personal fulfillment alone, but a deep longing for the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the fellowship of believers. There are also elements of a witness in this psalm. There may be people around us who say: “We cannot discover God in your lives; there are no supernatural elements that serve as an explanation for your conduct.” The world has a fine intuition that tells them that lives of individual Christians, and the fellowship of the saints ought to be a manifestation of God’s presence. As Christians, we know that we ought to lead that kind of life, but that it is impossible on a natural level.