Longing
This morning, we’re going to read two psalms—Psalm 42 and Psalm 43. These two psalms make up one poem.
Your Bible may have a footnote, indicating that many Hebrew manuscripts put these two psalms together into one.
There’s a common theme, a common refrain (like the chorus of a song). These psalms go together. So, we’ll read them together.
These two psalms make quite the song. It’s beautiful. It’s deep. It’s moody and thought-provoking. These psalms were written by the Sons of Korah.
The “Sons of Korah” were appointed by King David, employed in the performance of the temple music. They’re temple musicians.
Their father, Korah, you might remember if you’ve read the book of Numbers, led a rebellion when the Israelites were wandering in the desert. Korah and 250 community leaders rebelled against Moses, against God really. Do you remember what happened to them?
The ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed all those associated with Korah (Num 16:31-32). The line of Korah, however, did not die out (Num 26:11).
You should read the book of Numbers if you haven’t. Some crazy stuff in there.
The Sons of Korah were spared, for some reason. It seems that Korah’s sons, in gratitude to God and His mercy, dedicated themselves to producing and performing the music used to praise God.
Psalms 42-43 are absolutely stunning. This poem, from the Sons of Korah might rival Psalm 23 or any other psalm.
It’s beautiful. It’s true. It’s convicting and encouraging, and it points us to our LORD and Savior.
If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to Psalm 42. As you are able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Word:
Psalm 42–43 NIV
For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah. 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. 6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. 8 By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” 10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. 1 Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. 2 You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? 3 Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. 4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
May God add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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If you were in church in the 80s and 90s, you’ve heard a song based on verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 42. “As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after Thee…”
I can’t count the number of times my small, hometown church sang that song. It’s a nice song, but I think it misses the thrust of the psalm.
The panting, longing, desire of the deer, likened to the psalmist’s thirst for God, is not sing-songy. This kind of thirst is painful: My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
It seems a positive thing to long for God. But there’s want there. Some deficiency. The psalmist is lacking something. The singer of the song is having a terrible experience. He’s in the middle of a famine of the presence of God. There’s an absence of His grace and power.
Sinclair Ferguson writes: “Spiritual thirst is painful, not pleasant; it may produce melancholy, not melody in our lives.”
WHEN?
The songwriter expresses a deep longing, a soul-level desire for God, for the living God. He wants to go and meet with God?
He’s asking, “When?” “When can I go and meet with God?”
Here’s what’s really interesting to me… are you interested in what I find interesting here?
I’m going to tell you. What’s interesting to me is that the psalm assumes this thirst will be satiated at a place. The psalmists’ thirst will be quenched somewhere.
When can I go and meet with God?
WHERE?
The text implies that the presence of God is at the central sanctuary. At this point in time, the presence of God is located at the temple in Jerusalem.
The poet of these psalms was a person of deep faith who was living in exile at the headwaters of the Jordan River near snowcapped Mount Hermon, north of the Holy Land. While he could pray to the LORD, he sincerely missed the opportunities for worship at the temple in Jerusalem.
The longing to be with God is likened to a deer longing for streams of water.
Derek Kidner wants us to think about the fact that the psalmist uses a deer as an illustration, and not a camel.
A deer can’t store up water like a camel. A deer has to find water over and over. The deer panting indicates she’s overheated, dehydrated. Such longing, such thirst is an ever-recurring scenario. This thirst needs to be quenched again and again. This is a routine thirst.
The singer of this song routinely longs for God, for the living God. The singer can’t wait to go and meet with God.
What makes it even worse is that people are mocking him, taunting him, saying to him all day long, “Where is your God?”
Wherever it is he finds himself, he’s not where he wants to be. And the people around him know this. Some surrounding pagans keep asking why his God doesn’t come to help him in his distress.
“Why doesn’t your God show up? What sort of God is He?”
As this is happening, the psalmist remembers what used to be.
He recalls the thrill and the joy of worshiping in the temple. He used to go to the house of God…with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
The singer recalls the worship he used to be part of. He’s thinking about the congregation he used to worship with.
These are good memories, but in the absence of anything of the sort, it’s sad.
The psalmist is far from home and feels far from God. It’s not that he doesn’t believe God is everywhere. It’s not that he doesn’t believe God is not with him; after all, he’s praying to God.
But he’s missing the gathering. The worship. Everything that took place in the house of God.
We need private prayer; Jesus says (Matt 6:6). But we also need to experience the presence of God in corporate worship (Acts 2:42ff).
Do we long for the gathering of God’s people the way the psalmist does? Do we thirst for it? Do we miss the gathering as desperately as this?
Make no mistake, you, Christian, need the gathering of God’s people. There’s no substitute for it; you won’t get it by watching it online. I’m thankful for the technology, but it’s a lousy substitute for the gathering of God’s people. There’s no substitute for the gathering of Christ’s people; no other club or organization can match it.
Private times of devotion, study, and prayer are crucial to the Christian life. The experience and habit of corporate worship is also absolutely indispensable.
One without the other isn’t enough. The psalm-singer is longing, deeply and desperately, to be in the house of God. As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after Thee.
And he comes to the first chorus of his song:
Psalm 42:5 NIV
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
WHY?
The songwriter is feeling some feelings, isn’t he? It’s quite the chorus. Feels like it needs to be a deeply minor key, some deeply dissonant chord.
He asking of himself why? Why so downcast, disturbed? He realizes he’s down in the dumps. He recognizes he’s having a hard time.
But then he’s almost instructing his soul: “Come on, man. Put your hope in God.”
In dialogue with himself, the psalmist takes fresh hold of God.
One commentator writes this:
“Don’t let your feelings dictate to you; you do the dictating. Ask yourself why you are downcast and give yourself a rational answer. Remind yourself that hope means a patient but expectant waiting for God to act. Tell yourself that your day of praise will certainly come, though in God’s time, not yours.” - Clements
The psalmist recognizes the state of his soul. He understands his soul is downcast. The word “downcast” can mean low, and even collapsed. His soul is down on the ground, piled up in a heap.
His soul is curled up in the corner, sucking its thumb. He knows this and says, My soul is downcast within me, but he adds this: therefore, I will remember you.
Dale Ralph Davis writes: “This is a good thing to when when one’s soul is in the muck.”
The psalmist remembers God, even when he’s a long way from the house of God.
[SLIDE] He’s over across the Jordan River, near Mt. Hermon. Let’s call it 80 miles as the crow flies.
That’s a long, long way from where he wants to be. That’s a days-long trek, not accounting for weather or other factors that might be keeping him there. He is a long way from the house of God.
It’s not so much the distance, but the isolation that comes along with the distance.
The psalmist really wants to be in Jerusalem, gathered with the people of God, worshipping God alongside the festive throng. He wants to be among the people of God, in the place God is to be worshipped.
Do you see the thrust of the psalm? There’s a longing to be with God, to be near Him, to be in the house of God, to gather as he was used to doing.
He’s still praying to God, still pleading with God. God isn’t fully absent, but the psalmist isn’t pleased to be so far away from the place God is to be worshipped. He doesn’t want to be away any longer.
There are people who are unable to gather together to worship publicly. This might be due to age, mobility, or health issues.
In some places, governments hostile to Christianity prevent Christians from gathering.
Other times, most neglect gathering together of their own choosing. We choose to sleep-in or head to the kids’ ballgame, to the golf course or the lake. Or, it’s just easier to watch from home.
To be away from the temple, far from Jerusalem where the sanctuary is, causes the psalmist distress (this is the gist of vv. 6-11).
He knows God is not literally absent, but he also feels the sanctuary is where he meets God must fully.
Life, for the moment, feels like the water is rushing over his head, breaking over him, sweeping over him. You ever feel that way?
He wonders why God has forgotten him, why he has to go about mourning and oppressed, in agony, taunted. He asks God, “Why have you forgotten me?”
Here is the picture of all that’s overwhelming him: his footing is gone, and wave after wave submerging him.
This is the exact language Jonah uses. From inside the fish, Jonah prays to the LORD his God:
Jonah 2:3 “You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.”
For the psalmist, there’s a back-and-forth in his heart. His soul is downcast, but he remembers. Waves are crashing over him, but he comments on the LORD directing His love (the LORD’s hesed love, covenant love). He refers to God as his Rock even as he asks, “Why have you forgotten me?”
We may be cast down, but God makes us sense His hesed-love and, though our prayers reveal our troubles, we are convinced that we are nevertheless speaking to God our Rock.
The chorus/refrain pops back up again in verse 11. The psalmist is speaking to his soul. He’s telling his innermost being to put its hope in God—Put your hope in God—that’s the only hope there is.
Where Psalm 43 starts in our Bibles, the songwriter is making petitions to God:
Vindicate me!
Plead my cause!
Rescue me!
God is the psalmist’s stronghold. His fortress. He’s still asking “Why?” But he’s expecting God’s light and faithful care to lead him.
Psalm 43:3 NIV
3 Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.
There it is! There’s his desire expressed once more. The psalmist wants to be back in Jerusalem, on that holy mountain, at the place where God dwells. But he doesn’t stop there.
The progression of thought goes like this. Holy mountain-the place where you dwell-to the altar of God-to God my joy and my delight.
THE ANSWER
God Himself is the answer for the when? the where? the why?—all the questions the psalmist is asking and wrestling with find their answer in God Himself.
Psalm 43:4 “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.”
“Far above places and circumstances and troubles, God Himself should be our exceeding joy, our only prize. And yet, how seldom do we think like that?!
C.S. Lewis writes in “Reflections on the Psalms”:
These poets knew far less reason than we for loving God. They did not know that He offered them eternal joy; still less that He would die to win it for them. Yet they express a longing for Him, for His mere presence…they long to live all their days in the Temple so that they may constantly see the beauty of the LORD (Ps. 27.4).
Their longing to go up to Jerusalem and meet with God is like a physical thirst (Ps. 42)…lacking that encounter with Him, their souls are parched like a waterless countryside (Ps. 63). They crave to be satisfied with the pleasures of His house (Ps. 65.4). Only there can they be at ease, like a bird in the nest (Ps. 84.3). One [single] day of those pleasures is better than a lifetime spent elsewhere (Ps. 84.10).
Their’s is a physical desire to be in His presence, to be with the LORD. They are glad and rejoice (Ps. 9.2). Their fingers itch for the harp/lyre (Ps. 43.4), for the lute and the harp—awake harp and lyre (Ps. 57.8); let’s have a song, bring the tambourine…we’re going to sing merrily and make a cheerful noise (Ps. 81.1-2)…let everyone clap their hands (Ps. 47.1). Let us have clashing cymbals, not only well-tuned, but loud (Ps. 150.5).
All Christians know something the Jews did not know about what it cost to redeem their souls. We are baptized into a death. Our most joyous festivals begin with, and center upon, the broken body and the shed blood. There is a tragic depth in our worship which Judaism lacks. Our joy has to be the sort of joy which can coexist with that.
Let us ask “of God no gift more urgently than His presence, the gift of Himself, joyous to the highest degree, and unmistakably real.”
This is the answer to the psalmists’ longing. It’s not when or where; it’s WHO.
In all of life’s ups and downs, in all the struggle, in all the times our souls are downcast, what we need, what will truly fill us is the LORD Himself.
There’s nothing else that will satisfy. There’s only Him. Singing songs to Him, praying to Him, gathering with His people. There’s nothing like it, and there’s nothing that can take its place.
Life can be an absolute mess, a complete trainwreck. We ask “Why, Lord?” We wonder when all the waves will stop crashing. We get down. Our souls crumble beneath the weight of it all.
In these moments, we realize God is our joy and our delight. Jesus offers to us living water, and we’ll never thirst again.
As Lewis said, God offers to us eternal joy. And Jesus gave His life to secure that joy.
The psalmist has wondered “when”, he’s heard mocking “where’s”, he’s cried anguished “whys”, there’s this certainty—somehow, someway—that all will be well.
In all of this, he returns to the chorus and sings, “I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”
In all our whens? and wheres? and whys?, there’s the reminder to place our hope in God.
Our hope and joy is found in Him, where Jesus is—not only in us, but among the gathering of His people.
Our deepest longing is satisfied in Jesus, through Him. Only Jesus.
