Psalm 42:3 Komentář

If the book of Psalms be, as some have styled it, a mirror or looking-glass of pious and devout affections, this psalm in particular deserves, as much as any one psalm, to be so entitled, and is as proper as any to kindle and excite such in us: gracious desires are here strong and fervent; gracious hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, are here struggling, but the pleasing passion comes off a conqueror. Or we may take it for a conflict between sense and faith, sense objecting and faith answering. I. Faith begins with holy desires towards God and communion with him (Psa 42:1, Psa 42:2). II. Sense complains of the darkness and cloudiness of the present condition, aggravated by the remembrance of the former enjoyments (Psa 42:3, Psa 42:4). III. Faith silences the complaint with the assurance of a good issue at last (Psa 42:5). IV. Sense renews its complaints of the present dark and melancholy state (Psa 42:6, Psa 42:7). V. Faith holds up the heart, notwithstanding, with hope that the day will dawn (Psa 42:8). VI. Sense repeats its lamentations (Psa 42:9, Psa 42:10) and sighs out the same remonstrance it had before made of its grievances. VII. Faith gets the last word (Psa 42:11), for the silencing of the complaints of sense, and, though it be almost the same with that (Psa 42:5) yet now it prevails and carries the day. The title does not tell us who was the penman of this psalm, but most probably it was David, and we may conjecture that it was penned by him at a time when, either by Saul's persecution or Absalom's rebellion, he was driven from the sanctuary and cut off from the privilege of waiting upon God in public ordinances. The strain of it is much the same with Psa 63:1-11, and therefore we may presume it was penned by the same hand and upon the same or a similar occasion. In singing it, if we be either in outward affliction or in inward distress, we may accommodate to ourselves the melancholy expressions we find here; if not, we must, in singing them, sympathize with those whose case they speak too plainly, and thank God it is not our own case; but those passages in it which express and excite holy desires towards God, and dependence on him, we must earnestly endeavour to bring our minds up to. To the chief musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 42 To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah. Of the word "Maschil", See Gill on Psa 32:1, title. Korah was he who was at the head of a conspiracy against Moses and Aaron, for which sin the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed alive him and his company, and fire devoured two hundred and fifty more; the history of which is recorded in Num 16:1; yet all his posterity were not cut off, Num 26:11; some were in David's time porters, or keepers of the gates of the tabernacle, and some were singers; see Ch1 6:33; and to the chief musician was this psalm directed for them to sing, for they were not the authors of it, as some (b) have thought; but most probably David himself composed it; and it seems to have been written by him, not as representing the captives in Babylon, as Theodoret, but on his own account, when he was persecuted by Saul, and driven out by men from abiding in the Lord's inheritance, and was in a strange land among the Heathen, where he was reproached by them; and everything in this psalm agrees with his state and condition; or rather when he fled from his son Absalom, and was in those parts beyond Jordan, mentioned in this psalm; see Sa2 17:24; so the Syriac inscription, the song which David sung in the time of his persecution, desiring to return to Jerusalem. (b) So R. Moses in Muis, Gussetius, Ebr. Comment. p. 918, & others.

My tears have been my meat day and night,.... That is, he could not eat for sorrow, like Hannah, 1Sa 1:7,8; or while he was eating tears fell in plenty, and they were as common, day and night, as his food, and mixed with it (f); see Psa 80:5; while they continually say unto me, his enemies the Philistines, where is thy God? theirs were to be seen and pointed at, as the host of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars, and idols of gold, silver, brass, wood, and stone; wherefore they ask, where was his? but David's God was invisible; he is in the heavens, and does what he pleases, Psa 115:2; or the sense is, that if there was such a God he believed in and professed, and he was his servant, surely he would never have suffered him to fall into so much distress and calamity, but would have appeared for his relief and deliverance; and therefore tauntingly, and by way of reproach, ask where he was. (f) "--lachrymaeque alimenta fuere", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 10. Fab. 1. v. 75.

"My tears have been my meat day and night, while they daily say unto me, Where is your God?" [Psalm 42:3]. My tears (he says) have been not bitterness, but "my bread." Those very tears were sweet unto me: being thirsty for that fountain, inasmuch as I was not as yet able to drink of it, I have eagerly made my tears my meat. For he said not, "My tears became my drink," lest he should seem to have longed for them, as for "the water-brooks:" but, still retaining that thirst wherewith I burn, and by which I am hurried away towards the water-brooks, "My tears became my meat," while I am not yet there. And assuredly he does but the more thirst for the water-brooks from making his tears his meat...."And they daily say unto me, Where is your God?" For if a Pagan should say this to me, I cannot retort it upon him, saying, "Where is yours?" inasmuch as he points with his finger to some stone, and says, "Lo, there is my God!" When I have laughed at the stone, and he who pointed to it has been put to the blush, he raises his eyes from the stone, looks up to heaven, and perhaps says, pointing his finger to the Sun, "Behold there my God! Where, I pray, is your God?" He has found something to point out to the eyes of the flesh; whereas I, on my part, not that I have not a God to show to him, cannot show him what he has no eyes to see. For he indeed could point out to my bodily eyes his God, the Sun; but what eyes has he to which I might point out the Creator of the Sun?...

Nothing nourishes like that which nourishes the spirit. Blessed are those who weep, for they will laugh.

Seeing that God is Creator, he is in everything made; seeing that he is excellence and wisdom, he is in all holy powers.… God is even in people sometimes in excellence, sometimes in accomplishment: it is of angels to behave always according to God; of demons, never; of people to behave sometimes rightly, sometimes not.

There is a weeping that springs from contemplating eternal good and longing for future light, and tears of joy and desire cannot help but break out as the soul is athirst for the mighty living God.

"My tears have been." Here he describes whence he has this desire or anxiety. And first he sets forth the cause. Second he sets forth the remedy he has against it, at "These things I remembered." And first he sets forth the greatness of his sadness. Second he sets forth the cause of this sadness. Concerning the sadness he proceeds thus: first he expresses the greatness of the sadness; second, the effect; third, the continuity. He shows the first when he says, "My tears have been my bread," into which, namely, a man bursts forth from abundant sadness. And this sadness is either over sins that impede the attainment of the thing desired, or over the troubles caused by others. He shows the second when he says, "bread." Bread refreshes; and thus also tears refresh, for a twofold reason. One is that to everyone the activity suited to his state is delightful. Hence the activity suited to sadness is delightful to the sad person, and weeping is the activity of sadness. The other reason is that when heat evaporates outward, it diminishes. And therefore he says that tears are to him like bread, as refreshing him. Or, like bread, because just as he is sustained by bread, so he is sustained in good by tears. He shows the third when he says, "day and night," namely in prosperity and adversity. Jer. 9: "I will weep day and night." And the cause of this is: "while it is said to me daily: Where is your God?" These, if they are the words of pagans, are referred to catechumens; as if to say: we, say the pagans, have a God whom we see, namely the sun. But where is your God, whom you fabricate? Respond: God can be seen, but not by you, because you are not pure of heart. Likewise, if it is said to a converted Jew by an unbelieving Jew: "Where is your God?" Let the Jew converted to the faith respond: where my God is, appears in your punishment, namely of the Jews, because you are scattered. Likewise these are the words of the sinner to the just man placed in affliction; as if to say: where is your God? Why does he not deliver you from the affliction you suffer? Let the just man respond: because these temporal things are not the reward that God gives to his servants, but heavenly things are.

Maschil--(See on Psa 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. (Psa 42:1-11) Compare (Psa 63:1). panteth--desires in a state of exhaustion.

Where is thy God?--implying that He had forsaken him (compare Sa2 16:7; Psa 3:2; Psa 22:8).