_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.’