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Commentary on Psalms 42 verses 1–5
Holy love to God as the chief good and our felicity is the power of godliness, the very life and soul of religion, without which all external professions and performances are but a shell and carcase: now here we have some of the expressions of that love. Here is,
I. Holy love thirsting, love upon the wing, soaring upwards in holy desires towards the Lord and towards the remembrance of his name (Psa 42:1, Psa 42:2): "My soul panteth, thirsteth, for God, for nothing more than God, but still for more and more of him." Now observe,
1.When it was that David thus expressed his vehement desire towards God. It was, (1.) When he was debarred from his outward opportunities of waiting on God, when he was banished to the land of Jordan, a great way off from the courts of God's house. Note, Sometimes God teaches us effectually to know the worth of mercies by the want of them, and whets our appetite for the means of grace by cutting us short in those means. We are apt to loathe that manna, when we have plenty of it, which will be very precious to us if ever we come to know the scarcity of it. (2.) When he was deprived, in a great measure, of the inward comfort he used to have in God. He now went mourning, but he went on panting. Note, If God, by his grace, has wrought in us sincere and earnest desires towards him, we may take comfort from these when we want those ravishing delights we have sometimes had in God, because lamenting after God is as sure an evidence that we love him as rejoicing in God. Before the psalmist records his doubts, and fears, and griefs, which had sorely shaken him, he premises this, That he looked upon the living God as his chief good, and had set his heart upon him accordingly, and was resolved to live and die by him; and, casting anchor thus at first, he rides out the storm.
2.What is the object of his desire and what it is he thus thirsts after. (1.) He pants after God, he thirsts for God, not the ordinances themselves, but the God of the ordinances. A gracious soul can take little satisfaction in God's courts if it do not meet with God himself there: "O that I knew where I might find him! that I might have more of the tokens of his favour, the graces and comforts of his Spirit, and the earnests of his glory." (2.) He has, herein, an eye to God as the living God, that has life in himself, and is the fountain of life and all happiness to those that are his, the living God, not only in opposition to dead idols, the works of men's hands, but to all the dying comforts of this world, which perish in the using. Living souls can never take up their rest any where short of a living God. (3.) He longs to come and appear before God, - to make himself known to him, as being conscious to himself of his own sincerity, - to attend on him, as a servant appears before his master, to pay his respects to him and receive his commands, - to give an account to him, as one from whom our judgment proceeds. To appear before God is as much the desire of the upright as it is the dread of the hypocrite. The psalmist knew he could not come into God's courts without incurring expense, for so was the law, that none should appear before God empty; yet he longs to come, and will not grudge the charges.
3.What is the degree of this desire. It is very importunate; it is his soul that pants, his soul that thirsts, which denotes not only the sincerity, but the strength, of his desire. His longing for the water of the well of Bethlehem was nothing to this. He compares it to the panting of a hart, or deer, which is naturally hot and dry, especially of a hunted buck, after the water-brooks. Thus earnestly does a gracious soul desire communion with God, thus impatient is it in the want of that communion, so impossible does it find it to be satisfied with any thing short of that communion, and so insatiable is it in taking the pleasures of that communion when the opportunity of it returns, still thirsting after the full enjoyment of him in the heavenly kingdom.
II. Holy love mourning for God's present withdrawings and the want of the benefit of solemn ordinances (Psa 42:3): "My tears have been my meat day and night during this forced absence from God's house." His circumstances were sorrowful, and he accommodated himself to them, received the impressions and returned the signs of sorrow. Even the royal prophet was a weeping prophet when he wanted the comforts of God's house. His tears were mingled with his meat; nay, they were his meat day and night; he fed, he feasted, upon his own tears, when there was such just cause for them; and it was a satisfaction to him that he found his heart so much affected with a grievance of this nature. Observe, He did not think it enough to shed a tear or two at parting from the sanctuary, to weep a farewell-prayer when he took his leave, but, as long as he continued under a forced absence from that place of his delight, he never looked up, but wept day and night. Note, Those that are deprived of the benefit of public ordinances constantly miss them, and therefore should constantly mourn for the want of them, till they are restored to them again. Two things aggravated his grief: -
1.The reproaches with which his enemies teased him: They continually say unto me, Where is thy God? (1.) Because he was absent from the ark, the token of God's presence. Judging of the God of Israel by the gods of the heathen, they concluded he had lost his God. Note, Those are mistaken who think that when they have robbed us of our Bibles, and our ministers, and our solemn assemblies, they have robbed us of our God; for, though God has tied us to them when they are to be had, he has not tied himself to them. We know where our God is, and where to find him, when we know not where his ark is, nor where to find that. Wherever we are there is a way open heaven-ward. (2.) Because God did not immediately appear for his deliverance they concluded that he had abandoned him; but herein also they were deceived: it does not follow that the saints have lost their God because they have lost all their other friends. However, by this base reflection on God and his people, they added affliction to the afflicted, and that was what they aimed at. Nothing is more grievous to a gracious soul than that which is intended to shake its hope and confidence in God.
2.The remembrance of his former liberties and enjoyments, Psa 42:4. Son, remember thy good things, is a great aggravation of evil things, so much do our powers of reflection and anticipation add to the grievance of this present time. David remembered the days of old, and then his soul was poured out in him; he melted away, and the thought almost broke his heart. he poured out his soul within him in sorrow, and then poured out his soul before God in prayer. But what was it that occasioned this painful melting of spirit? It was not the remembrance of the pleasures at court, or the entertainments of his own house, from which he was now banished, that afflicted him, but the remembrance of the free access he had formerly had to God's house and the pleasure he had in attending the sacred solemnities there. (1.) He went to the house of God, though in his time it was but a tent; nay, if this psalm was penned, as many think it was, at the time of his being persecuted by Saul, the ark was then in a private house, Sa2 6:3. But the meanness, obscurity, and inconveniency of the place did not lessen his esteem of that sacred symbol of the divine presence. David was a courtier, a prince, a man of honour, a man of business, and yet very diligent in attending God's house and joining in public ordinances, even in the days of Saul, when he and his great men enquired not at it, Ch1 13:3. Whatever others did, David and his house would serve the Lord. (2.) He went with the multitude, and thought it no disparagement to his dignity to be at the head of a crowd in attending upon God. Nay, this added to the pleasure of it, that he was accompanied with a multitude, and therefore it is twice mentioned, as that which he greatly lamented the want of now. The more the better in the service of God; it is the more like heaven, and a sensible help to our comfort in the communion of saints. (3.) He went with the voice of joy and praise, not only with joy and praise in his heart, but with the outward expressions of it, proclaiming his joy and speaking forth the high praises of his God. Note, When we wait upon God in public ordinances we have reason to do it both with cheerfulness and thankfulness, to take to ourselves the comfort and give to God the glory of our liberty of access to him. (4.) He went to keep holy-days, not to keep them in vain mirth and recreation, but in religious exercises. Solemn days are spent most comfortably in solemn assemblies.
III. Holy love hoping (Psa 42:5): Why art thou cast down, O my soul? His sorrow was upon a very good account, and yet it must not exceed its due limits, nor prevail to depress his spirits; he therefore communes with his own heart, for his relief. "Come, my soul, I have something to say to thee in thy heaviness." Let us consider, 1. The cause of it. "Thou art cast down, as one stooping and sinking under a burden, Pro 12:25. Thou art disquieted, in confusion and disorder; now why are thou so?" This may be taken as an enquiring question: "Let the cause of this uneasiness be duly weighed, and see whether it be a just cause." Our disquietudes would in many cases vanish before a strict scrutiny into the grounds and reasons of them. "Why am I cast down? Is there a cause, a real cause? Have not others more cause, that do not make so much ado? Have not we, at the same time, cause to be encouraged?" Or it may be taken as an expostulating question; those that commune much with their own hearts will often have occasion to chide them, as David here. "Why do I thus dishonour God by my melancholy dejections? Why do I discourage others and do so much injury to myself? Can I give a good account of this tumult?" 2. The cure of it: Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him. A believing confidence in God is a sovereign antidote against prevailing despondency and disquietude of spirit. And therefore, when we chide ourselves to hope in God; when the soul embraces itself it sinks; if it catch hold on the power and promise of God, it keeps the head above water. Hope in God, (1.) That he shall have glory from us: "I shall yet praise him; I shall experience such a change in my state that I shall not want matter for praise, and such a change in my spirit that I shall not want a heart for praise." It is the greatest honour and happiness of a man, and the greatest desire and hope of every good man, to be unto God for a name and a praise. What is the crown of heaven's bliss but this, that there we shall be for ever praising God? And what is our support under our present woes but this, that we shall yet praise God, that they shall not prevent nor abate our endless hallelujahs? (2.) That we shall have comfort in him. We shall praise him for the help of his countenance, for his favour, the support we have by it and the satisfaction we have in it. Those that know how to value and improve the light of God's countenance will find in that a suitable, seasonable, and sufficient help, in the worst of times, and that which will furnish them with constant matter for praise. David's believing expectation of this kept him from sinking, nay, it kept him from drooping; his harp was a palliative cure of Saul's melancholy, but his hope was an effectual cure of his own.
We have undertaken the exposition of a Psalm corresponding to your own "longings," on which we propose to speak to you. For the Psalm itself begins with a certain pious "longing;" and he who sings so, says, "Like as the hart desires the water-brooks, so longs my soul after You, O God" [Psalm 42:1]. Who is it then that says this? It is ourselves, if we be but willing! And why ask, who it is other than yourself, when it is in your power to be the thing which you are asking about? It is not however one individual, but it is "One Body;" but "Christ's Body is the Church." [Colossians 1:24] Such "longing" indeed is not found in all who enter the Church: let all however who have "tasted" the sweetness "of the Lord," and who own in Christ that for which they have a relish, think that they are not the only ones; but that there are such seeds scattered throughout "the field" of the Lord, this whole earth: and that there is a certain Christian unity, whose voice thus speaks, "Like as the hart desires the water-brooks, so longs my soul after You, O God." And indeed it is not ill understood as the cry of those, who being as yet Catechumens, are hastening to the grace of the holy Font. On which account too this Psalm is ordinarily chanted on those occasions, that they may long for the Fountain of remission of sins, even "as the hart for the water-brooks." Let this be allowed; and this meaning retain its place in the Church; a place both truthful and sanctioned by usage. Nevertheless, it appears to me, my brethren, that such "a longing" is not fully satisfied even in the faithful in Baptism: but that haply, if they know where they are sojourning, and whither they have to remove from hence, their "longing" is kindled in even greater intensity.
I am longing and thirsting for the worship of my living God, he is saying. “To see the face of God” means worshiping him according to the Law, and such worship was confined to Jerusalem.… very appropriately do they name God “strong and living” as they take note of the lifeless and immobile idols of the Babylonians.
Poemen said, ‘It is written, “Like as the hart longs for the waterbrooks, so longs my soul for you, O my God” (Ps. 42:1). Indeed, the harts in the desert eat many snakes and when their venom makes them burn with thirst they come to the waters to assuage their burning thirst. It is the same for monks: in the desert, they are burned by the poison of the demons and they long for Saturday and Sunday to come so that they can go to the springs of water, that is, to the Body and Blood of the Lord, to be purified from the poison of the evil ones.’
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SUMMARY
Psalms 42:1, opening Book Two of the Psalter, articulates a profound spiritual longing, likening the soul's desperate yearning for God to a hart's intense thirst for life-sustaining water in a parched land. This "Maschil," or instructive psalm, attributed to the Sons of Korah, immediately establishes a tone of deep emotional honesty and absolute dependence on the Divine, setting the stage for a heartfelt plea from one who feels separated from God's tangible presence and the sanctuary.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Psalm 42:1 is rich in literary devices that amplify its profound message. The most prominent is Simile, explicitly stated with "As... so," which directly compares the physical desperation of a thirsty deer to the spiritual yearning of the psalmist's soul. This Simile creates an immediate and powerful visual image, making the abstract concept of spiritual longing tangible and universally relatable. Coupled with this is Parallelism, a hallmark of Hebrew poetry, where the two clauses of the verse mirror each other in structure and meaning, reinforcing the comparison between the hart's need and the soul's need. The verb "panteth" is repeated, creating a strong sense of emphasis and intensity, a device known as Repetition or Anaphora (though here it's more of a thematic repetition across clauses). The use of the "hart" and "water brooks" is a form of Imagery, drawing on the natural world to evoke a universal experience of thirst and relief. Furthermore, the phrase "my soul panteth" employs a subtle form of Personification or Anthropomorphism, attributing a physical action (panting) and a deep emotional state to the immaterial soul, thereby emphasizing the holistic and visceral nature of the psalmist's spiritual yearning.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Psalm 42:1 articulates a fundamental theological truth: humanity's inherent spiritual thirst for God. Just as the physical body requires water to survive, the human soul is created with a deep, existential need for its Creator. This longing is not merely a preference but a profound, life-sustaining necessity, pointing to God as the ultimate source of life, satisfaction, and peace. The psalmist's desperation underscores the emptiness and distress that arise when one feels separated from God's presence, highlighting the vital importance of communion with the Divine for spiritual flourishing. This verse serves as a timeless reminder that true satisfaction cannot be found in worldly pursuits but only in an intimate relationship with the Living God.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Psalms 42:1 serves as a powerful mirror for the contemporary believer, inviting us to honestly assess the true object of our soul's deepest longings. In a world saturated with distractions, fleeting pleasures, and endless pursuits, this verse challenges us to ask: What do I truly pant for? Is my soul's most desperate craving for God Himself, or for temporary satisfactions that ultimately leave me parched? When we feel spiritually dry, distant from God, or overwhelmed by life's challenges, this psalm encourages us not to despair but to respond with an intensified, desperate pursuit of God. It reminds us that our spiritual vitality is directly proportional to our hunger and thirst for Him. Cultivating this "panting" involves intentional practices: fervent prayer, diligent study of God's Word, heartfelt worship, and seeking His presence in Christian community. It's a call to prioritize our relationship with God above all else, recognizing that He alone is the source of living water that truly satisfies the soul and brings enduring peace.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
What does "Maschil" mean in the superscription of Psalm 42?
Answer: "Maschil" (מַשְׂכִּיל, maskil, H4905) is a Hebrew term found in the superscriptions of 13 Psalms (e.g., Psalm 32). While its precise meaning is debated among scholars, it is generally understood to mean "instructive," "contemplative," "didactic," or "a psalm imparting wisdom." It suggests that the psalm is intended to provide insight, understanding, or moral instruction to the reader or listener, encouraging thoughtful reflection on its themes. In the case of Psalm 42, it implies that the profound expression of longing for God is not merely an emotional outpouring but also a lesson for the soul, guiding others in their own spiritual journeys.
Why is the imagery of a "hart panting" so significant?
Answer: The imagery of a "hart" (male deer, H354) "panting after the water brooks" (H4325, H650) is incredibly significant because it evokes a universal and visceral sense of extreme physical desperation. In the arid regions of the ancient Near East, water was essential for survival. A deer, especially one that might be hunted or during a prolonged dry season, would experience intense, life-threatening thirst. The verb "panteth" (Hebrew ʻârag, H6165) conveys a deep, almost audible, yearning, not just a gentle desire. By comparing the soul's longing for God to this desperate physical need, the psalmist emphasizes the absolute necessity and intensity of his spiritual hunger. It's a powerful metaphor for the soul's fundamental dependence on God for its very life and well-being, much like the body's dependence on water. This imagery resonates deeply with the human experience of longing for something essential for survival, making the spiritual truth profoundly relatable.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Psalms 42:1 finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is the living water that truly satisfies the soul's deepest thirst. The psalmist's desperate "panting" for God foreshadows humanity's inherent spiritual emptiness and longing for divine communion, a void that only God Himself can fill. Jesus, in His earthly ministry, explicitly presented Himself as the answer to this ancient yearning. He declared to the Samaritan woman at the well, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). Later, on the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and cried out, "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" (John 7:37-38). The spiritual thirst expressed in Psalm 42:1 is thus perfectly quenched by the Person and work of Christ, who, through His sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit, provides the refreshing, life-giving presence of God that the human soul so desperately craves. He is the ultimate "water brook" for which our souls pant, leading us to eternal satisfaction and communion with God, a fulfillment echoed in the promise of the New Heavens and New Earth.