Fathers

Psalms 42

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As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day. Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me. Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life. I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 42:4

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"I thought on these things, and poured out my soul above myself" [Psalm 42:4]. When would my soul attain to that object of its search, which is "above my soul," if my soul were not to "pour itself out above itself"? For were it to rest in itself, it would not see anything else beyond itself; and in seeing itself, would not, for all that, see God. Let then my insulting enemies now say, "Where is your God?" aye, let them say it! …

Exposition on Psalm 42 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

"These things I remembered." Above, the Psalmist set forth his desire, and the cause of the desire; here, however, he sets forth the remedy against the cause, namely sadness. And concerning this he proposes or does two things. First he sets forth a remedy from his own meditation. Second, from divine help, at "Within myself." Concerning the first he does two things. First he proposes the remedy. Second, through this remedy, the impediment of sadness, at "Why are you sad?" In the remedy he proposes first the meditation. …

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗