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 42:6

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"My soul is disquieted on account of myself." Is it disquieted on account of God? It is on my own account it is disquieted. By the Unchangeable it was revived; it is by the changeable it is disquieted. I know that the righteousness of God remaineth; whether my own will remain stedfast, I know not. For I am alarmed by the Apostle's saying, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." [1 Corinthians 10:12] Therefore since "there is no soundness in me for myself," there is no hope either for me of myself. …

On the Psalms, Psalm 42 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Next he applies the remedy, namely of divine help. Where first he proposes the remedy. Second he explains it. He says therefore, "Within myself." Another reading has, "From myself my soul was disturbed." The first is better; as if to say: what is the reason, I ask, why, O soul, you disturb me? And this disturbance comes because however I turn to myself, I find tribulation within me. Hos. …

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗