9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine. They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah. Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me. I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation. I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat. My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
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Commentary on Psalms 42 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
PSALM 42
Ps 42:1-11. Maschil—(See on Ps 32:1, title). For, or of (see Introduction) the sons of Korah. The writer, perhaps one of this Levitical family of singers accompanying David in exile, mourns his absence from the sanctuary, a cause of grief aggravated by the taunts of enemies, and is comforted in hopes of relief. This course of thought is repeated with some variety of detail, but closing with the same refrain.
1, 2. Compare (Ps 63:1).
panteth—desires in a state of exhaustion.
2. appear before God—in acts of worship, the terms used in the command for the stated personal appearance of the Jews at the sanctuary.
3. Where is thy God?—implying that He had forsaken him (compare 2Sa 16:7; Ps 3:2; 22:8).
4. The verbs are properly rendered as futures, "I will remember," &c.,—that is, the recollection of this season of distress will give greater zest to the privileges of God's worship, when obtained.
5. Hence he chides his despondent soul, assuring himself of a time of joy.
help of his countenance—or, "face" (compare Nu 6:25; Ps 4:6; 16:11).
6. Dejection again described.
therefore—that is, finding no comfort in myself, I turn to Thee, even in this distant "land of Jordan and the (mountains) Hermon, the country east of Jordan.
hill Mizar—as a name of a small hill contrasted with the mountains round about Jerusalem, perhaps denoted the contempt with which the place of exile was regarded.
7. The roar of successive billows, responding to that of floods of rain, represented the heavy waves of sorrow which overwhelmed him.
8. Still he relies on as constant a flow of divine mercy which will elicit his praise and encourage his prayer to God.
9, 10. in view of which [Ps 42:8], he dictates to himself a prayer based on his distress, aggravated as it was by the cruel taunts and infidel suggestions of his foes.
11. This brings on a renewed self-chiding, and excites hopes of relief.
health—or help.
of my countenance—(compare Ps 42:5) who cheers me, driving away clouds of sorrow from my face.
my God—It is He of whose existence and favor my foes would have me doubt.