21. Heavenly Balm for the Depressed Soul, Psalm 42
Hymns: RHC 542 Saved by Grace, 209 Because He Lives, 227 O Glorious Day!
Psalm 42:1-11 (KJV)
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. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 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. 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 help of his countenance. 6 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. 7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. 8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. 9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? 10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? 11 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.
Heavenly Balm for The Depressed Soul
Our All Sufficient God
OUTLINE
(1) The State of Utter Despair (verse 1-5b, 6-7)
(2) There is solace in God (verse 8-11)
(a) Experience His Goodness (verse 8a)
(b) Experience His comfort in song (verse 8b)
(c) Experience the living God in prayer (verse 8c)
(d) Wait upon God (verse 5, 11)
INTRODUCTION
A Maschil is a Hebrew poem – a contemplative poem, for didactic purpose to provide instruction (BDB).
It is written for the sons of Korah. Who are the sons of Korah? It refers to company of Psalm-collectors or singers. We notice here for the first time after a series with exception of Psalm 1, 2, 10, 33 with no mention of David as the inspired writer.
They are the descendents of Levi, Exodus 6:16 through the sons of Kohath, Izhar and Korah, the families of the Korhites – Exodus 6:18 “And the sons of Kohath; Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel: and the years of the life of Kohath were an hundred thirty and three years.” And Exodus 6:23 “And the sons of Korah; Assir, and Elkanah, and Abiasaph: these are the families of the Korhites.” This is from the line of Korah that rebelled against Moses in Numbers 16:1, 11 & 32) who escaped God’s punishment. Their descendents were recorded in 1 Chronicles 6:22, 1 Chronicles 6:31-33 “And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of the LORD, after that the ark had rest. And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem: and then they waited on their office according to their order. And these are they that waited with their children. Of the sons of the Kohathites: Heman a singer, the son of Joel, the son of Shemuel.”
This psalm was written for the expressed purpose of ministering in song in the house of God.
This psalm speaks of the unhappy state of the psalmist. The depression of soul is expressed in repeated use of the phrase “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” (Verse 5a, 6a, 11a) The word “cast down” is used to picture the sinking of a person’s soul and life (Lamentations 3:20) possibly due to discouraging circumstances. This word means “bowed down, prostrate oneself, humbled”. In the Hithpael stem, it means despairing (BDB).
What are the reasons for the psalmist’s despair?
Verse 1-7 tells us that he had been aliened from the assembly of God’s people. Being away from the worship of God, in the assembly of His saints, is the cause for the psalmist’s depression.
How does he get out of this sad state? The psalmist provides for us the heavenly balm for the depressed soul.
Verse 8-11 tells us the psalmist lifts himself out of the state of depression when he realizes there is solace in God.
(1) The State of Utter Despair (verse 1-5b, 6-7)
1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 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. 5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?
Verse 1 speaks of the feeling of the psalmist who articulates his intense desire to know God more intimately with the image of a deer that thirsts for water (c.f. Psalm 63:1). Here the biblical writer use rivers and streams as symbols for God and the righteous life.
Verse 2 “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” is called an interjection or something thrown in between. The phrase “when shall I come and appear before God?” is thrown in, parenthetically as an exclamation. This literally device is called an interjection – a parenthetic addition by Way of Feeling.” The spiritual longing that accompanied exile for a person whose religion centered around pilgrimages to worship God in the temples in Jerusalem is captured” in this psalm (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery). Here denotes the inner spiritual state of the heart – being cast down.
Geographically, in the Holy Land, apart from the sea of Galilee and the Jordan River and a few fertile plains, it is dependent on springs, wells and cisterns thus the frequent experience of the thirst and the anticipation of water. The need to husband water resources, the labour of drawing and carrying water, the contrast of fresh and lone-stored water are recurrent features of the Biblical experience. The prophet Jeremiah draws the contrast to distinguish true worship from idolatry. He acknowledges God as the fountain of living waters while the latter rely on one’s own cisterns, which in fact do not hold water in Jeremiah 2:13 “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
6 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. 7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
The Psalmist was longing for the company of the saints as he was away from the centre of worship in Jersusalem dwelling in the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar (verse 6).
He remembered how that he was with the company of the saints in the house of God. He remembered the voices of joy and praise when he was able to be physically present for worship (verse 4). Isn’t it a true experience when we are in the hospital and how we long for a visitor, a church member, a friend to see us, remembering the times when we had that precious freedom of mobility.
Dr John Sung testified when he was hospitalized in 1940, “I will not get to read the Bible freely once I am hospitalized. I have been keeping my diary for some 5000 days now, and this would have to the discontinued…” He wrote his poem on 20th May 1940.
AS I LAY ILL
Glory that we’re, bearing the Cross!
Sweetly often do our tears flow!
Narrow indeed, Way of the Cross
God clears the path I now go!
Trials, suff’rings and agonies,
In these I see God’s great care;
Accusations, tribulations,
Anguish of the Cross I bear!
Look up to God, Precious God,
Heavy burdens, now behind me!
Running onwards, the path ahead,
To heav’n, I go, Lord, with Thee!
(The Journal Once Lost, complied by Levi, pg 461 & 464)
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me (verse 7). God’s sovereignty over life and death is implicit as well as in the affliction of the waters of affliction, ordinarily pictured as the destructive waters of the sea which threatens to inundate. God’s waves have gone over him laments the psalmist (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery).
Jesus was crucified at the third hour (9am in the morning). There was a supernatural darkness that covered the land from 12 pm – 3pm, a sign of God’s judgment upon the land, our Saviour suffered the most excruciating pain and agony on the cross. The nails were driven through the middle of the palm and the sole of the foot, where the nerves converge, the most painful torture for any man.
The feeling of being forsaken was so intense when Jesus bore all our sins on the cross. Its was the ninth hour (3pm in the afternoon) when Jesus gave a most agonizing cry “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). The waters of affliction overflowed. But is Jesus really forsaken by God? Jesus was left to bear the weight of all our sins. This work Jesus alone can only do, to purchase our redemption!
Alone upon the cross He hung
That others He might save;
Forsaken then by God and man
Alone, His life He gave.
Alone, alone, He bore it all alone;
He gave Himself to save His own,
He suffered, bled and died alone, alone.
Where is the hope of the afflicted? Where is the solace of the dejected in his despair?
(2) There is solace in God (verse 8-11)
8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. 9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? 10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? 11 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.
(a) Experience His Goodness (verse 8a)
8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime…
Loving kindness means goodness, kindness (BDB). This is the outworking of God’s love toward His children. The psalmist says God commands the bestowal of His blessing. Between the justice and love of God, the love of God stands as first among equals. This is His unchallenged position as God and LORD. This truth stilled the heart of the psalmist in his depression. The emphasis in the Hebrew sentence is the adverb “in daytime” or “by day” placed at the beginning of the sentence. The LORD commanded the cloud to lead the Israelites by day in the wilderness (Numbers 31:35), the outworking of His goodness.
The Apostle affirms this truth of God’s unfailing love toward His children in Romans 8:35, 38-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(b) Experience His comfort in song (verse 8b)
8 … and in the night his song shall be with me,…
The psalmist testified “in the night, his song shall be with me”. What can lift the ailing heart better than a song that stirs the heart to the blessed assurance of God’s promises.
Words: Fanny Crosby, 1891.
Music: George C. Stebbins, 1894
The hymn “Saved by Grace”…was called into being through…a sermon preached by Dr. Howard Crosby who was a distant relative and dear friend of mine. He said that no Christian should fear death, for if each of us was faithful to the grace given us by Christ, the same grace that teaches us how to live would also teach us how to die. His remarks were afterward published in a newspaper, and they were read to me by Mr. Biglow. Not many hours after I heard them I began to write the hymn.
However, these words almost didn’t see light of day. They came to public notice by accident, during a conference Fanny attended at Northfield, Massachusetts. During the meeting, the great evangelist, Dwight Moody, asked if Fanny—like so many others—would give a personal testimony to the audience. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she almost declined, but finally got up to speak, and said:
There is one hymn I have written which has never been published. I call it my soul’s poem. Sometimes when I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my heart.
Some day the silver cord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing;
But oh, the joy when I shall wake
Within the palace of the King!
Refrain
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story—Saved by grace;
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story—Saved by grace.
Some day my earthly house will fall.
I cannot tell how soon ’twill be;
But this I know—my All in All
Has now a place in Heav’n for me.
Refrain
Some day, when fades the golden sun
Beneath the rosy tinted west,
My blessèd Lord will say, “Well done!”
And I shall enter into rest.
Refrain
Some day: till then I’ll watch and wait,
My lamp all trimmed and burning bright,
That when my Savior opens the gate,
My soul to Him may take its flight.
Refrain
(c) Experience the living God in prayer (verse 8c)
8 … and my prayer unto the God of my life.
Prayer is power. The psalmist brought all his grievances and petitions to God in prayer. He cried from his heart to God in verse 9-10, “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?”
He pleaded with God to hearken to his cry! He wrestles with God in prayer, praying through until victory as did Jacob with the angel all night until day break, the angel blessed him, before proceeding to meet his angry brother Esau. The psalmist speaks of the oppression of his enemy, like thrusting the sword through to the bones, fatal. The torrential bombardment of words from his enemies overwhelmed him. Yet did he prevailed in prayer. The Holy Spirit, the divine Comforter, help to lift us out of our depression when we pray. “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).
(d) Wait upon God (verse 5b, 11)
5 … hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
11 … hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
To hope in God, is to trust and wait upon Him, to tarry with Him, come what may. Taking God at His promises, awaiting to see God in His glory. In the words of Job in Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” When the physical eyes cannot see God’s hand, the spiritual eyes see God’s deliverance by faith.
Hence, the psalmist declares, his countenance will turn from despair to hope, from grief to joy, for God has restored his spiritual health.
The final response is one of praise in gratefulness – “for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
CONCLUSION
The psalmist described his state of utter despair (verses 1-5b, 6-7) and his experience of solace from God (verses 8-11).