Psalm 42:1-5 – Questioning God

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 3 May 2020

Introduction

v.1 For the concertmaster, a thought-provoking one by the sons of Korah: Like a deer pants over bodies of water, so my soul pants for You, God.

v.2 My soul was thirsty for God, for the Living God: “When can I go and be seen before the face of God?” (When shall I appear before Him and meet Him?)

v.3 My tears were a daily and nightly meal to me while they were saying to me all the day, “Where is your God?”

v.4 It is these things I will remember while I spill my soul out on myself: that I would pass through with the throng; I would lead them to the house of God with the sound of singing and thanksgiving - a multitude celebrating the feast.

v.5 My soul, why are you depressing yourself and moaning over me? Develop hope towards God, because I shall praise Him again before His face [for] salvations.

Conclusion

Psalm 42:1-5 - Side-by side comparison of versionsA

LXX (Ps.41)

Brenton (LXX)

DRB (Vulgate)

KJV

NAW

MT

1 Εἰς τὸ τέλος· εἰς σύνεσιν τοῖς υἱοῖς Κορε.
2 Ὃν τρόπον ἐπιποθεῖB ἡ ἔλαφοςC ἐπὶ τὰς πηγὰςD τῶν ὑδάτων, οὕτως ἐπιποθεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου πρὸς σέ, ὁ θεός.

1 For the end, [a Psalm] for instruction, for the sons of Core. As the hart earnestly desires the fountains of water, so my soul earnestly longs for thee, O God.

1 Unto the end, understanding for the sons of Core.
2 As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God.

1 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.

1 For the concertmaster, a thought-provoking one by the sons of Korah: Like a deer pants over bodies of water, so my soul pants for You, God.

1 לַמְנַצֵּחַ מַשְׂכִּיל לִבְנֵי־קֹרַח׃
2
כְּאַיָּלE תַּעֲרֹג עַל־אֲפִיקֵיF־מָיִם כֵּן נַפְשִׁי תַעֲרֹג אֵלֶיךָ אֱלֹהִיםG׃

3 ἐδίψησεν ἡ ψυχή μου πρὸς τὸν θεὸν X τὸν ζῶντα· πότε ἥξω καὶ ὀφθήσομαι τῷ προσώπῳ τοῦ θεοῦ;

2 My soul has thirsted for the living God: when shall I come and appear before X X God?

3 My soul hath thirsted after the strongH living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?

2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

2 My soul was thirsty for God, for the Living God: “When can I go and be seen before the face of God?”

3 צָמְאָה נַפְשִׁי לֵאלֹהִים לְאֵל חָי מָתַי אָבוֹא וְאֵרָאֶהI פְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים׃

4 ἐγενήθη μοι τὰ δάκρυά μου ἄρτος ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς ἐν τῷ λέγεσθαί μοι καθ᾿ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν Ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ θεός σου;

3 My tears have been bread to me day and night, while they daily said to me, Where is thy God?

4 My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?

3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

3 My tears were a daily and nightl­y meal to me while they were saying to me all the day, “Where is your God?”

4 הָיְתָה־לִּי דִמְעָתִי לֶחֶם יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה בֶּאֱמֹרJ אֵלַי כָּל־הַיּוֹם אַיֵּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ׃

5 ταῦτα ἐμνήσθηνK καὶ ἐξέχεα ἐπ᾿L ἐμὲ τὴν ψυχήν μου, ὅτι διελεύσομαι ἐν [τόπῳ] σκηνῆς θαυμαστῆςM ἕως τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν φωνῇ ἀγαλλιάσεωςN καὶ ἐξομολογήσεως ἤχουO ἑορτάζοντοςP.

4 I remembered these things, and poured out my soul in me, for I will go to the place of thy won­drous taber­nacle, even to the house of God, with a voice of exulta­tion and thanks­giving [and of the] sound of those who keep festival.

5 These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God: With the voice of joy and praise; the noise of one feasting.

4 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.

4 It is these things I will re­member while I spill my soul out on myself: that I would pass through with the throng; I would lead them to the house of God with the sound of singing and thanks­giving - a multitude cele­brat­ing the feast.

5 אֵלֶּה אֶזְכְּרָהQ וְאֶשְׁפְּכָה עָלַיR נַפְשִׁי כִּי אֶעֱבֹר בַּסָּךְ אֶדַּדֵּם עַד־בֵּית אֱלֹהִים בְּקוֹל־רִנָּה וְתוֹדָה הָמוֹן חוֹגֵג׃

6 ἵνα τί περίλυποςS εἶ, ψυχή, καὶ [ἵναT] τί συνταράσσειςU X με; ἔλπισονV ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν, ὅτι X ἐξομολογήσομαι αὐτῷ· σωτήριον τοῦ προσώπου μουW

5 Wherefore art thou very sad, O my soul? and wherefore dost thou trouble me? hope in God; for I will give thanks to him; [he is the] salvation of my countenance.

6 Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance,

5 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 helpX of his countenance.

5 My soul, why are you depres­sing yourself and moaning over me? Develop hope towards God, because I shall praise Him again before His face [for] salvations.

6מַה־תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִיX נַפְשִׁי וַתֶּהֱמִי עָלָי הוֹחִילִי לֵאלֹהִים כִּי־עוֹד אוֹדֶנּוּ יְשׁוּעוֹת פָּנָיו׃



1The governor of our state of Kansas decreed last month that no groups larger than 10 could meet together until the threat of out-of-control transmission of a corona virus was over, so our church has been meeting by videoconference.

2Cohen cited Meiri and the Talmud as advocating for this position. Calvin, Delitzsch, and Plumer also supported this position (some of them placing it in David’s lips), and Plumer also cited Hengstenberg, Tholuck, Syriac, Rabbi Moses, Bellarmine, Gussetius, Piscator, Fabritius, Cocceius, Patrick, Gill, Dodd, Jebb, Hammond, Morison, Home, Scott and Alexander in support, with the further note that the view “that they descended from him who perished for his gainsaying... is taken by Ainsworth with entire confidence, by Gill and others.”

3Ewald put this Psalm in the mouth of Jehoiachin on his way to exile in Babylon, Hitzig in the mouth of high priest Onias III when he was taken captive by the Egyptian army, Oesterly in the mouth of an Israelite of the Northern kingdom who had been driven out by the Assyrians, and Gerald Wilson in the mouth of a Levitical musician carried into exile.

4“[T]he rebellion of Absalom was of too short continuance to make the language of this Psalm so appropriate to that occasion as to David's former exile.” ~Wm. Plumer, 1872

5Deut. 12:15-22, 14:5, 15:22, 1 Kings 4:23, and Psalms 42:1 are the only citations of this Hebrew word in the first half of the Bible. See also Lam. 1:6. Canticles and Isaiah contain the only other citations of this word, and they reference the wildness or jumping ability of this animal.

6 cf. Sampson's desperate plea to God for a drink after one of his battles against his enemies in Judges 15:18.

7“This too proceeds from that longing, of which in another place comes that cry, ‘One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.’ Wherefore so? ‘That I may behold’ (he saith) ‘the beauty of the Lord.’” ~Augustine, quoting Ps. 27:4

8The other three places that this singular form el chai occur are Josh. 3:10, Dan. 6:21-26 (Aramaic אלהא חיא), and Hos. 1:10 (quoted in Rom. 9:26). (Job 27:2 also has a form of this title in the singular but with the word order transposed.) An additional 9 OT passages render this title in the plural “elohim hay[yim]”: Deut. 5:26; 1Sam. 17:26,36; 2Ki. 19:4,16; Isa. 37:4,17; Jer. 10:10; 23:36. David’s preference for the plural in 1 Sam. could be an argument against Davidic authorship of Ps. 42 and 84, both of which are attributed to the sons of Korah.

9Acts 14:15 "...We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them” 2 Cor. 6:16a “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God...” (NKJV)

10“Whenever the ungodly triumph over us in our miseries, and spitefully taunt us, saying that God is against us, let us never forget that it is Satan who moves them to speak in this manner to overthrow our faith." ~Calvin

11...Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears...” (NAW)

12 I will tip my hat to Augustine, however, who made a case for “pours above myself” (i.e. unto God), which the Hebrew preposition could support and which would parallel Hannah pouring out her soul “before the presence of the Lord.”

13cf. Plumer: “Even the memory of hours spent in the delights of public worship is cheering to one deprived of the ordinances.” Augustine also suggested that we could contemplate the joys of heaven to the same effect: “In the house of God there is a never-ending festival: for there it is not an occasion celebrated once, and then to pass away. The angelic choir makes an eternal holiday: the presence of God's face, joy that never fails. This is a holiday of such a kind, as neither to be opened by any dawn, nor terminated by any evening. From that everlasting perpetual festivity, a certain sweet and melodious strain strikes on the ears of the heart, provided only the world do not drown the sounds... the sound of that festivity charms his ears, and bears the hart away to the water-brooks."

AMy original chart includes the NASB and NIV, but their copyright restrictions have forced me to remove them from the publicly-available edition of this chart. I have included the ESV in footnotes when it employs a word not already used by the KJV, NASB, or NIV. (NAW is my translation.) When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different from all the other translations, I underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout. And when a version omits a word which is in the Hebrew text, I insert an X. (I also place an X at the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between the various editions and versions when there are more than two different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea Scrolls containing Psalm 42 are 4Q85PsalmsC and 4Q98PsalmsU, both of which contain fragments of verse 5 (v.4 in English), highlighted in purple.

B Α= πεπρασιασμενος (“having rushed”?), Σ= σπευδει (“hurries”), Ε=πρασιασθη (“beds down”)

C Α=αυλων (“pipes”?), Ε=πεδιον (“plain”/”ground”)

D Aq= εκχουσεις (“outpouring”), Σ = διεξοδους (“exit”)

EKeil & Delitzsch commented that the masculine stag "... is construed with a feminine predicate in order to indicate the stag (hind) as an image of the soul" (the gender of which is feminine). Calvin’s commentary editor, James Anderson, on the other hand, contended that it was the female “hart” that was meant, but the gender of the deer isn’t terribly important. Joel 1:20 is the only other instance of the ensuing verb in the Hebrew Bible. Commentators debate whether its root meaning is a gasping sound (Anderson, Plumer, KJV) or whether its root meaning is to desire or to reach out (Delitzsch, LXX). Surely the opening verb of the next verse is intended to be a synonym, so that helps narrow down the meaning.

FThe basic meaning of this word has to do with holding together, containing, being connected. “Streams” does connote confluence, but I thought that the word “body” communicates more in English the idea of a contiguous mass of water.

G Two manuscripts plus the Syriac and the Targums read YHWH instead of elohim, but it refers to the same person.

H Jerome must have misinterpreted אל (God of) as “strength” (א’ל).

IThe MT pointing indicates this to be Niphal Imperfect (lit. “be seen”), and the LXX interprets it that way. The consonants would remain the same if it were Qal, however, and the Syriac and Targums interpreted it actively, as the NIV did.

JThe second half of this verse is repeated verbatim in the second half of v.11 except that in v.11, a 3rd person plural pro­nomial suffix is added to this word (“their saying”). The BHS cites manuscripts and the Syriac version reconciling the two verses with this addition in v.4.

K Σ=αναπολων

L Augustine made much of the upward direction of επι/עָלַ as in prayer directed upward to God, but that seems forced.

MΑ= εν συσκιω προβιβαζων αυτους (“in a crowd? as they advance” = MT), Σ= εις την σκηνην, διαβασταχθησομαι (“into the tabernacle, I was being lead through”?) Both comport with the MT rather than the LXX & the Vulgate. The LXX seems to have read אדדם (“I lead them”) as אדרם (“wonderful ones”). These two letters can be difficult to distinguish in handwritten manuscripts. How I wish a little more of the Dead Sea Scrolls had been preserved to settle the question!

N cf. synonymns from Aquila (αινεσεως… ευχαριστιας) & Symmachus (ευφημιας… πανηγυριζοντων)

OThe Hebrew word chamon can be interpreted as the sound of a crowd (as the LXX interpretation went) or as the crowd itself, as English translators of the MT went, as did Aquila (οχλου) & Symmachus (πληθους).

PThe Vaticanus and Sinaiticus pluralized this participle, but it doesn’t change the meaning because the singular already refers to a plurality of persons.

QVerb tenses in Hebrew are not as precise in time as English. According to Plumer, the verbs in this verse are interpreted as future by Venema, Marloratus, Hengstenberg and Alexander, they are interpreted as past by the Syriac, Arabic, Septuagint, Vulgate and Ethiopic, and in the present by Calvin, church of England, Vatablus, Piscator, Amesius, Ainsworth, Fabritius, Mudge, Green, Waterland, Edwards, Jebb, Horsley, Fry and Tholuck. I prefer the future to bring out the optative sense of the cohortative (“The cohortative lays stress on the determination underlying the action, and the personal interest in it.” ~Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar)
"[T]he cohortatives affirm that he yields himself up most thoroughly to this bittersweet remembrance and to this free outward expression of his pain" ~Delitzsch
Note that the only other place the cohortative he is found with a first person imperfect form of this verb is Psalm 77 (vs. 4, 7, & 12), where Asaph speaks. When God speaks using the same verb (Lev. 26:42; Isa. 43:25; Jer. 31:34), the cohortative never appears.
The demonstrative pronoun which is the object of this verb is in the emphatic position, first in the sentence. Delitzsch explained that it “points forwards... [to] the
כִּי ... which follows opens up the expansion of this word. The futures, as expressing the object of the remembrance, state what was a habit in the time past.”

R "עָלַי used here and further on instead of בִּי or בְּקִרְבִּי... distinguishing between the ego and the soul..."~Delitzsch

S cf. Α=κατακυπτεις (“stoop down”) & Σ=κατακαμπτη (“bend down”)

TThe LXX and Syriac versions have a second interrogative in v.11 where it is absent in the Hebrew text of this verse, but it doesn’t change the meaning because it can be supplied by ellipsis.

U Αq=οχλαζεις (“mob”), Σ=θορυβη (“make an uproar”)

V Αq & Sym=αναμεινον (“stay fixed upon”)

WSince at least the first century AD (and probably longer), scholars have debated whether it should be “my presence” or “His presence” in this verse and in the last verse of this psalm. Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotian, and more read, as the MT, autou “him,” in this verse, and “my” in v.11/12 and in 43:5. On the other hand, there are several Hebrew manu­scripts – as well as the Syriac version – which support the LXX “my” here (thus the NIV), and there are Hebrew manuscripts and ancient Coptic, Aramaic, and Greek versions which read “him” in v.11/12. Since the word “and” and the word “his” in Hebrew are spelled the same, and since early manuscripts had no spaces between words, one part of the explanation for this variant is that different translators divided the words in different places. At any rate, both statements are true, and it doesn’t change the theology presented either way. And, for what it’s worth, no Dead Sea Scroll has been discovered with this verse visible for comparison.

XThis verb is only used in these psalms of the sons of Korah - Ps. 42-44. BDB defined it as “sink down,” Holladay as “melt away,” and Delitzsch as “to sit down upon the ground like a mourner, and to bend one's self downwards,” I’m not sure where James Ward got “buckled over deep down” for lyrics to his musical setting of this psalm, but it also seems fitting. “In both verses [5 & 6] the form is reflexive, q. d.. My soul casts itself down.” ~Plumer

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