Psalm 42:9

I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Apparently we have now the very words of the prayer just mentioned.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

42:6-11 The way to forget our miseries, is to remember the God of our mercies. David saw troubles coming from God's wrath, and that discouraged him. But if one trouble follow hard after another, if all seem to combine for our ruin, let us remember they are all appointed and overruled by the Lord. David regards the Divine favour as the fountain of all the good he looked for. In the Saviour's name let us hope and pray. One word from him will calm every storm, and turn midnight darkness into the light of noon, the bitterest complaints into joyful praises. Our believing expectation of mercy must quicken our prayers for it. At length, is faith came off conqueror, by encouraging him to trust in the name of the Lord, and to stay himself upon his God. He adds, And my God; this thought enabled him to triumph over all his griefs and fears. Let us never think that the God of our life, and the Rock of our salvation, has forgotten us, if we have made his mercy, truth, and power, our refuge. Thus the psalmist strove against his despondency: at last his faith and hope obtained the victory. Let us learn to check all unbelieving doubts and fears. Apply the promise first to ourselves, and then plead it to God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I will say unto God my rock - I will appeal to God as my defense, my helper, my Saviour. On the word rock, as applied to God, see the notes at Psalm 18:2.

Why hast thou forgotten me? - See the notes at Psalm 22:1. He had seemed to forget and forsake him, for He did not come to interpose and save him. This is a part of the prayer which he says Psalm 42:8 that he would use.

Why go I mourning? - On the meaning of the word used here - קדר qodēr - see Psalm 35:14, note; Psalm 38:6, note. The idea is that of being bowed down, made sad, deeply afflicted, as one forsaken.

Because of the oppression of the enemy - In the oppression of the enemy; that is, during its continuance, or on account of it. The word here rendered "oppression" means distress, affliction, straits, Job 36:15; 1 Kings 22:27; Isaiah 30:20. The "enemy" here referred to may have been Absalom, who had driven him from his throne and kingdom.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9, 10. in view of which [Ps 42:8], he dictates to himself a prayer based on his distress, aggravated as it was by the cruel taunts and infidel suggestions of his foes.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will say unto God; I will expostulate the case with him.

My rock; who hath formerly been a sure refuge to me.

Why hast thou forgotten me? why dost thou now seem quite to forget and neglect me? Why go I mourning? why dost thou leave me in this mournful state, and not succour me speedily?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I will say unto God my rock,.... A name frequently given to the eternal God, Father, Son, and Spirit, Deuteronomy 32:4; See Gill on Psalm 18:2;

why hast thou forgotten me? See Gill on Psalm 13:1;

why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? meaning perhaps Saul; though it may be applied to any spiritual enemy, sin, Satan, and the world; who are very oppressive and afflicting, and occasion continual mourning to the children of God.

Geneva Study Bible

I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. I will say] Or, Let me say, the tense (voluntative, as in Psalm 42:4) emphatically expressing his resolution.

my rock] The word, lit. my cliff or crag (sela), is used of God as a refuge only in Psalm 18:2 (= 2 Samuel 22:2); Psalm 31:3 (=Psalm 71:3). On the more common word for rock (tsûr) see note on Psalm 18:2 (A.V. my strength).

The original edition of the A.V. (1611) has unto God, My rock, why; treating my rock as a vocative, with LXX and Jerome. Editions of 1612 and 1630 have God, my rock, why: and the usual punctuation God my rock, Why appears to have been introduced in editions of 1629, 1638. See Scrivener, Authorised Ed. of the English Bible, p. 165.

Why &c.] Not a demand for explanation, but the expostulation of perplexity. Cp. Psalm 13:1; Psalm 22:1; Psalm 77:9; Psalm 88:14.

mourning] Cp. Psalm 35:14, Psalm 38:6; Job 30:28.

because of the oppression of the enemy] Or, as R.V. marg. (cp. P.B.V.), while the enemy oppresseth. The substantive occurs in the Psalter only here and in Psalm 43:2; Psalm 44:24; the verb only in Psalm 56:1; Psalm 106:42. Both are used elsewhere, especially of the oppression of Israel by foreign invaders (Jdg 2:18; 1 Samuel 10:18; 2 Kings 13:4; Amos 6:14; &c.).

9–11. Having thus recalled God’s mercy in the past he expostulates with Him for having abandoned him, and exposed him to the sneers of his enemies.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - I will say unto God my Rock (comp. Psalm 18:1; Psalm 31:3). Why hast thou forgotten me? (see the comment on Psalm 13:1). God does not forget even when he most seems to forget (comp. Psalm 9:12; Psalm 37:28). As the event showed, he had not now forgotten David (see 2 Samuel 19:9-40). Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Why am. I allowed to remain so long an exile, sorrowing and oppressed (comp. Psalm 43:2)? Even to repentant sinners God's judgments are apt to seem too severe, too much prolonged, too grievous. Psalm 42:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 42:7-12) The poet here continues to console himself with God's help. God Himself is indeed dishonoured in him; He will not suffer the trust he has reposed in Him to go unjustified. True, עלי seems at the beginning of the line to be tame, but from עלי and אזכּרך, the beginning and end of the line, standing in contrast, עלי is made emphatic, and it is at the same time clear that על־כּן is not equivalent to אשׁר על־כּן - which Gesenius asserts in his Lexicon, erroneously referring to Psalm 1:5; Psalm 45:3, is a poetical usage of the language; an assertion for which, however, there is as little support as that כּי על־כּן in Numbers 14:43 and other passages is equivalent to על־כּן כּי. In all such passages, e.g., Jeremiah 48:36, על־כּן means "therefore," and the relationship of reason and consequence is reversed. So even here: within him his soul is bowed very low, and on account of this downcast condition he thinks continually of God, from whom he is separated. Even in Jonah 2:8 this thinking upon God does not appear as the cause but as the consequence of pain. The "land of Jordan and of Hermonim" is not necessarily the northern mountain range together with the sources of the Jordan. The land beyond the Jordan is so called in opposition to ארץ לבנון, the land on this side. According to Dietrich (Abhandlungen, S. 18), חרמונים is an amplificative plural: the Hermon, as a peak soaring far above all lower summits. John Wilson (Lands of the Bible, ii. 161) refers the plural to its two summits. But the plural serves to denote the whole range of the Antilebanon extending to the south-east, and accordingly to designate the east Jordanic country. It is not for one moment to be supposed that the psalmist calls Hermon even, in comparison with his native Zion, the chosen of God. הר מצער, i.e., the mountain of littleness: the other member of the antithesis, the majesty of Zion, is wanting, and the מן which is repeated before הר is also opposed to this. Hitzig, striking out the מ of מהר, makes it an address to Zion: "because I remember thee out of the land of Jordan and of summits of Hermon, thou little mountain;" but, according to Psalm 42:8, these words are addressed to Elohim. In the vicinity of Mitz‛are, a mountain unknown to us, in the country beyond Jordan, the poet is sojourning; from thence he looks longingly towards the district round about his home, and just as there, in a strange land, the wild waters of the awe-inspiring mountains roar around him, there seems to be a corresponding tumult in his soul. In Psalm 42:8 he depicts the natural features of the country round about him - and it may remind one quite as much of the high and magnificent waterfalls of the lake of Muzêrı̂b as of the waterfall at the course of the Jordan near Paneas and the waters that dash headlong down the mountains round about - and in Psalm 42:8 he says that he feels just as though all these threatening masses of water were following like so many waves of misfortune over his head (Tholuck, Hitzig, and Riehm). Billow follows billow as if called by one another (cf. Isaiah 6:3 concerning the continuous antiphon of the seraphim) at the roar (לקול as in Habakkuk 3:16) of the cataracts, which in their terrible grandeur proclaim the Creator, God (lxx τῶν καταῤῥακτῶν σου) - all these breaking, sporting waves of God pass over him, who finds himself thus surrounded by the mighty works of nature, but taking no delight in them; and in them all he sees nothing but the mirrored image of the many afflictions which threaten to involve him in utter destruction (cf. the borrowed passage in that mosaic work taken from the Psalms, Jonah 2:4).

He, however, calls upon himself in Psalm 42:9 to take courage in the hope that a morning will dawn after this night of affliction (Psalm 30:6), when Jahve, the God of redemption and of the people of redemption, will command His loving-kindness (cf. Psalm 44:5, Amos; 3f.); and when this by day has accomplished its work of deliverance, there follows upon the day of deliverance a night of thanksgiving (Job 35:10): the joyous excitement, the strong feeling of gratitude, will not suffer him to sleep. The suffix of שׁירה is the suffix of the object: a hymn in praise of Him, prayer (viz., praiseful prayer, Habakkuk 3:1) to the God of his life (cf. Sir. 23:4), i.e., who is his life, and will not suffer him to come under the dominion of death. Therefore will he say (אומרה), in order to bring about by prayer such a day of loving-kindness and such a night of thanksgiving songs, to the God of his rock, i.e., who is his rock (gen. apos.): Why, etc.? Concerning the different accentuation of למה here and in Psalm 43:2, vid., on Psalm 37:20 (cf. Psalm 10:1). In this instance, where it is not followed by a guttural, it serves as a "variation" Hitzig); but even the retreating of the tone when a guttural follows is not consistently carried out, vid., Psalm 49:6, cf. 1 Samuel 28:15 (Ew. 243, b). The view of Vaihinger and Hengstenberg is inadmissible, viz., that Psalm 42:10 to Psalm 42:11 are the "prayer," which the psalmist means in Psalm 42:9; it is the prayerful sigh of the yearning for deliverance, which is intended to form the burthen of that prayer. In some MSS we find the reading כּרצח instead of בּרצח; the בּ is here really synonymous with the כּ, it is the Beth essentiae (vid., Psalm 35:2): after the manner of a crushing (cf. Ezekiel 21:27, and the verb in Psalm 62:4 of overthrowing a wall) in my bones, i.e., causing me a crunching pain which seethes in my bones, mine oppressors reproach me (חרף with the transfer of the primary meaning carpere, as is also customary in the Latin, to a plucking and stripping one of his good name). The use of ב here differs from its use in Psalm 42:10; for the reproaching is not added to the crushing as a continuing state, but is itself thus crushing in its operation (vid., Psalm 42:4). Instead of בּאמר we have here the easier form of expression בּאמרם; and in the refrain פּני ואלהי, which is also to be restored in Psalm 42:6.