I have considered Psalm 42 (“As a deer pants for water brooks…”) among\u00a0my favorite psalms for some time. The highly intimate prayer speaks to a human\u00a0need for the divine, the lonely journey through sorrow, and the unexpectedly deep rumblings of worship. I have used it as a personal prayer and as an evangelistic psalm, as it gives expression to ancient\u00a0human yearnings. I have never recommended it and the person not come back significantly moved by what they read.<\/p>\n
It is also exquisite poetry. The imagery is rich and shifting; the voice of the poet\u00a0represents himself\u00a0a deer, then a pilgrim, a mourner, and a\u00a0worshiper in the an assembly of deluges.<\/p>\n
In his superb\u00a0study of metaphors in the psalms\u00a0Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of<\/em> Metaphor <\/em>(WJK, 2002),\u00a0<\/em>William Brown has a chapter dedicated to the metaphor of water and all of its uses in the Psalter–water as chaos, grief, power, sustenance, and so on. But in his discussion, he leaves Ps 42:1-8 to the end.<\/p>\n In honor of World Water Day last Sunday, here is his summary.<\/p>\n The clash and resulting transformation of iconic metaphors is well illustrated in this passage, which draws deeply from the rhetoric of sustenance, grief, and chaos to paint a new picture of divine compassion and human pathos. Abstractly put, three controlling, yet interrelating, metaphorical schemas structure this part of the Psalm 42.<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0God as water. <\/em>The opening wilderness scene associates water with God specifically divine sustenance. As flowing streams quench the thirst of wild animals, so “seeing God” satisfies the psalmist’s fervent longing. Yet only \u00a0deprivation is found to be the norm. The metaphor of thirst maps the psalmist’s felt lack of divine aid and presence. God is out of sight; water is only a mirage. The taunting question “Where is your God?” reveals the target of the psalmist’s figurative thirst. Sustenance obtained is vindication by God (43:1).<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Self as water.<\/em> Through the metonym of tears, the psalmist identifies herself as water “poured out” in grief. Without God’s sustaining presence, without water in the wadi, the psalmist’s only resort is tears for “nourishment,” salty drops, which fail to quench a parched throat. Yet she is sustained, however, fleetingly, in her articulation of grief. With tears shed and consumed, the psalmist remembers and finds hope.<\/p>\n 3. Worship as water<\/em>. Amid the psalmist’s inward groanings, the roar of cascading waters and the din of festive worship are bound together by poetic hyperbole. Both evince God’s chesed<\/i> and song (42:8). The psalmist is left inundated, submerged in worship and in memory, with the seeds of hope in hand. The scene of onrushing water, in fact, imbues the refrainlike admonition with special significance: “Wait in God; for I shall again give praise.” Even the driest streambeds will once again be charged with rushing water, sweeping away rocks, cleansing the soil, and fructifying a parched land, albeit temporarily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here is the the passage:<\/p>\n 1\u00a0 As a deer pants for flowing streams, 5\u00a0 Why are you cast down, O my soul, My soul is cast down within me;\n
\nso pants my soul for you, O God.
\n2\u00a0 My soul thirsts for God,
\nfor the living God.
\nWhen shall I come and appear before God?
\n3\u00a0 My tears have been my food
\nday and night,
\nwhile they say to me all the day long,
\n\u201cWhere is your God?\u201d
\n4\u00a0 These things I remember,
\nas I pour out my soul:
\nhow I would go with the throng
\nand lead them in procession to the house of God
\nwith glad shouts and songs of praise,
\na multitude keeping festival.<\/p>\n
\nand why are you in turmoil within me?
\nHope in God; for I shall again praise him,
\nmy salvation 6\u00a0and my God.<\/p>\n
\ntherefore I remember you
\nfrom the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
\nfrom Mount Mizar.
\n7\u00a0 Deep calls to deep
\nat the roar of your waterfalls;
\nall your breakers and your waves
\nhave gone over me.
\n8\u00a0 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
\nand at night his song is with me,
\na prayer to the God of my life.
\nPs 42:1\u20138.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have considered Psalm 42 (“As a deer pants for water brooks…”) among\u00a0my favorite psalms for some time. The highly intimate prayer speaks \n [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,27,28,33,34,52,53,60,1],"tags":[120,125,127,142],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biblical-theology","category-faith","category-family-worship","category-hebrew-verse","category-hermeneutics","category-old-testament","category-old-testament-theology","category-preaching","category-uncategorized","tag-literary-theory","tag-old-testament","tag-poetry","tag-worship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ESBE-7l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sunergoi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Landscape-with-Waterfall.jpg?fit=1204%2C708&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunergoi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}