A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM XLII.
_David’s zeal to serve God in the temple.—He encourageth his soul to trust in God._ To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah. As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where _is_ thy God? When I remember these _things_, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And _why_ art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him _for_ the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. _Yet_ the LORD will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song _shall be_ with me, _and_ my prayer unto the God of my life.
I will say unto God my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? _As_ with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, where _is_ thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me; hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, _who is_ the health of my countenance and my God. This is an ardent prayer to God; evincing an exceeding greatness of spiritual feeling, and an unutterable groaning of the Spirit. Under this similitude of a hart, at the beginning of the Psalm, the Psalmist describes his feelings in the hour of temptation, when he was wholly immersed in the extreme of distress, and absorbed in tears. For in that hour of darkness, the God of life, and peace, and light, and consolation, is not seen; but the sun of all comfort is hidden as it were behind a cloud. Then the hearts of the thus tempted feel nothing but an angry God, and a cruel avenger; and Satan increases these dismal views of misery to a wonderful extent. To these things, moreover, are often added the blasphemies of those who make derision of the afflicted, and assail them with the taunt, “Where is now thy God!”—For the world and the ungodly cannot contain themselves, when they see the saints in calamities; they cannot refrain from taunting and deriding them; from aggravating the distresses of these godly ones, and from exclaiming, in their bitterly-cutting triumph, ‘They hoped in God that he would deliver them. Where is now their delivering God? Where is now their Christ they talk so much about? This is just how such heretics ought to be served.’ For these wicked creatures judge according to the flesh and blind reason; and imagine, that affliction is a certain sign of divine anger against the saints. On the other hand, they boast of their own afflictions, or any slight adversities which they may meet with, as sufferings for the Lord’s name sake, and as martyrdoms and sorrows endured for their apostolic innocence. For those perverse and virulent wretches, those blind leaders of the blind, though they know, yet will not know, that God thus chastens his saints, that he may afterwards comfort them; but not that he may forsake, destroy, or condemn them.
The Psalmist desires, with the greatest fervency of heart, to come unto the house of the Lord, and into the congregation of those that sing and rejoice; to keep holy the sabbath, to celebrate the name of the Lord, and to see the face of the Lord; that is, he has an ardent desire to hear the word of the Lord, that he might thereby be lifted up and refreshed; being well nigh consumed in such a fiery heat of temptation and distress. The house of the Lord is where the word of God, and the promise of grace are preached. And by “the face of God,” he means the presence of God; where God, by his word, reveals himself, and his will, and grace, and gives the knowledge of them unto men. This he calls in another place ‘God’s turning, (not his back but) his face towards us.’
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.