Psalm 42 — As the Deer Pants for the Water Brooks
The opening psalm of Book II (Psalms 42-72), and a shift in tone and voice — not David but "the sons of Korah," and one of the most quoted expressions of spiritual longing in the Psalter: "as the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God" (v. 1). The psalmist is apparently exiled from Jerusalem, remembering when he used to lead worshippers "with the voice of joy and praise" (v. 4) while now taunted by others asking "where is your God?" (v. 3). The psalm's structure — despair, then self-address, then despair again — repeats a refrain almost word for word in verses 5 and 11.
- The refrain in verses 5 and 11 — "why are you in despair, my soul... hope in God" — has the psalmist talking to himself, addressing his own soul in the second person, a distinctive way of processing emotion by externalizing it rather than simply describing it.
- Verse 7's "deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls" uses the roar of water (likely near the Jordan's source, mentioned in v. 6) as an image for being overwhelmed — waves and billows that have "swept over me," suffering pictured as drowning.
- Psalms 42 and 43 are widely read as a single poem split into two — the refrain repeats a third time at Psalm 43:5, and Psalm 43 has no separate heading of its own in the Hebrew text, unusual for this section of the Psalter.
Psalms 42 (WEB)
1As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God.
2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
3My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
4These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day.
5Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.
6My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.
7Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.
8Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life.
9I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
11Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.