Psalm 42 / 43
In Numbers 16 there is an account of a power struggle that took place between Moses and some of the community leaders of the Israelites. Korah, Dathan and Abiram decided that it was not fair that Aaron and his sons were the head priests. Korah, Dathan and Abiram were responsible for carrying the ark of the covenant when they moved from place to place in the wilderness but they wanted to be the priests who offered sacrifices – where the real power was. So Korah led this rebellion against Moses. Numbers says they became insolent and rose up against Moses.
In this power struggle, they made the mistake of not realizing God was on the side of Moses and Aaron. 250 of the community leaders joined in this rebellion and when it came time for a test to see who God would choose to lead Israel, the earth opened up under Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their families and they were swallowed up by the earth and consumed by fire.
But not all the sons of Korah were consumed. There were some who did not participate in this rebellion and their lives were spared. It is the descendants of these sons who became leaders in liturgical worship for Israel and whose names appear as authors of 11 of the psalms recorded in the Bible.
The psalm we are looking at today is one of those. Psalms 42 and 43 were originally one psalm but at some point in history they were divided, perhaps to make a proper number for the division of the psalms.
The sons of Korah were liturgical leaders during the time David was king, and wrote Psalm 42 / 43 during a time of crisis in the life of David.
One of the guesses is that this was written during the time when David was forced to flee Jerusalem because his son Absalom led a rebellion against him and while we cannot know this for sure, it will help to assume this so we can have a tangible way of looking at the emotions of the psalm and how they were dealt with.
David had at least eight wives plus nine concubines and at least nineteen sons.
If you have spent anytime studying families and inheritance issues, you will know that having this many wives, concubines and sons was a disaster waiting to happen. The politics within this family were intense with wives jockeying for position, making and breaking alliances in order to increase the odds that their son was the one moving up the royal ladder.
Absalom was a favorite son of his father. He was a charismatic figure who lived in style and was also much loved by the people of Israel. He had long flowing hair and drove in a magnificent chariot with fifty men running alongside. But then his half-brother, Amnon, raped his sister, Tamar. When David did nothing about this, Absalom was patient and plotted. Two years later he invited his half-brothers to a feast and when Amnon was drunk, he had his servants kill him.
Absalom fled and stayed away for three years. David, grieved for the loss of his son Amnon and his son Absalom and eventually arrangements were made so he could come back.
When he came back it was apparent that David favored Bathsheba and her oldest son, Solomon, so Absalom set out to scheme how he could take over the kingdom.
He plotted and gathered up men from around Israel who supported him and when David heard of this growing army, he fled Jerusalem and Absalom took over.
This psalm was written when Absalom was ruling in Jerusalem and David was in exile. There were a lot of emotions running through David at this time.
Despite Absalom’s rebellion, and despite the public shame that Absalom caused his father, David loved him. Later, when the rebellion was finally crushed and Absalom was killed, David grieved in a way that shamed the officers who had led the fighting for David against Absalom’s army.
So David was grieving the rebellion of his son and loving him at the same time. He was grieving the loss of his reign as ruler of Israel. His pride was hurt and the taunts of his enemies pained him. David was depressed and the Sons of Korah wrote this psalm to give him hope.
This psalm is divided into three sections, each ending with:
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
This is a psalm that describes deep emotions and we will see the progression of the psalm as it moves from depression to hope to confidence.
This first section is very familiar to us.
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
By itself it is beautiful and we sing these words to express our desire to have a more intimate relationship with God, but the Sons of Korah had a far more temporal view of this opening verse. The depression David felt was not simply a sense that he was distant from God, it was depression based on the fact that he was an exile, cut away from his rule in Jerusalem. David had a heart for God and a thirst for power and it is difficult to tell them apart.
God had called David to be king and I am not sure it was easy for him to separate his relationship with God and his being king of Israel. So to be in exile from Jerusalem was to be distant from God.
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 men say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
This was not just David’s view. His enemies used his exile to mock him. “Where is your God now that you are kicked out of Jerusalem?” This was a blow to his pride.
David’s enemies were mocking him and David was depressed. His servants came to him and pled with him, “Come King David and try this delicious food we cooked for you. Eat a little and you will feel better,” but he was not hungry. He cried day and night.
This psalm paints a picture of a man who is depressed, moping around, too upset to do anything. Those who left with David tried to improve his spirits and perhaps the Sons of Korah wrote this psalm to encourage him.
The emotion has been identified and painted with a picture. Now the Sons of Korah brought back a memory as an encouragement.
These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.
This might be a memory of the day David led the procession bringing the ark of the covenant into its new home in Jerusalem. That day David, (II Samuel 6:14)
wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, 15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
This was the day that Saul’s daughter saw him leaping and dancing before the Lord and she despised him in her heart.
“How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
But for David this was one of the greatest days of his life. It confirmed his leadership as king of Israel.
David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
The Sons of Korah brought back the memory of that wonderful day and then fixed on it as a point of hope for David. They finished with a chorus of hopeful anticipation.
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
And now we move to the second section.
The first section painted the picture of the emotional depression David was feeling, it remembered a time of glory when he led the procession of God into Jerusalem and finished on a point of hope, but he was still depressed. So the second section attacked once again his emotional state.
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.
In the first section David’s emotions were painted, now the depth of his despair is described. He uses images of waterfalls and waves. He is drowning and calling out for help. His call is like that of Jonah who cried out from the belly of the whale. Jonah 2:2-3
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
David feels hopeless in his despair. It is as if someone tried to comfort him with the first section and then in the second section he reminds them of the inadequacy of their attempt to comfort him because of how deeply he is suffering. A pat on the back is not going to work. The pain is much deeper than that. He is a drowning man.
But now comes a bit of conviction, the first light in this psalm that hope can be realized.
By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
In the first section, in verse three, there was a reference to day and night and a comparison of the two verses shows the progress that is being made in the psalm.
My tears have been my food
day and night,
moves to this declaration of the presence of God.
By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
Depression has moved to an affirmation of faith.
God has been silent in this suffering of David but he has not been absent and from this point the psalm moves in a more positive direction.
Strengthened by this affirmation the psalm moves on and returns to David’s suffering.
I say to God my Rock,
Notice that he calls out to God his Rock. This is a remembering in itself. This remembers a psalm David wrote when he was younger. (Psalm 40:1-2)
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
Remembering David’s experience of the security and strength of God the Sons of Korah returned to David’s complaint, his agony, the mocking he endured.
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?”
And this section concludes with the refrain, this time a little stronger in its hopeful declaration.
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
And now we move to the third section and notice how the mood changes. It begins not with a description of how David is feeling but with pleas for intercession.
Vindicate me, O God,
and plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
rescue me from deceitful and wicked men.
Even when the psalm returns to David’s depression, it is blanketed by conviction of God’s sovereignty.
You are God my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?
It is more a question than a complaint. God is David’s stronghold, so how can this be happening?
And now the Sons of Korah moved into hopeful confidence
Send forth your light and your truth,
let them guide me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
4 Then will I go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.
This is a positive, confident declaration and leads to the third time the refrain is written. The Psalms were sung and I would imagine the first time the refrain was sung it was sung flatly, without a lot of enthusiasm. The second time there was a bit more life to it. This third time it was sung with boldness and confidence.
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Notice what happened in this psalm. David’s situation did not change. He was still in the same circumstance. He was still living in exile and Absalom was ruling in Jerusalem. It is not that David received a report from Jerusalem in between the first and second or second and third sections.
What moved David from section one to section three was a growing confidence in God.
The situation did not change but his view of God changed. Because of God, hope arose.
This is what writing psalms can do. They do not change our situation but they do change our perspective.
What can we learn from this psalm? Hopefully, God has already spoken to you and you have learned something that will help you, but let me emphasize a couple lessons.
The first lesson is that the silence of God is not the same as the absence of God.
David was moping around his temporary quarters, missing Jerusalem, missing his sons, missing being king. “Why?” he cried out to God. Over and over again he prayed and pleaded with God to restore him to Jerusalem. But nothing.
This is often the way with us. We suffer in some way and cry out to God for help, for some measure of understanding, for anything, and we hear nothing in response.
Some conclude from this that God is not real or God is not interested or God does not care. This is not true.
God has promised that he will never leave us or forsake us and God keeps his promises. But there are purposes of God we do not understand. The building of our faith and character are important to God and often it is through difficult situations that God is able to effectively grow our faith and build our character.
Many times in healing sessions when people go back to a painful memory, a time of great suffering, part of the healing takes place when people realize and are able to picture Jesus being present with them in the suffering.
I heard the story of a woman who had a dream in which a man in a white robe comforted her as she sobbed because of problems in her life. The next day she was much relieved but wondered who it was that had comforted her. Later she was watching television and saw a program in which another woman recounted the same dream and said it was Jesus who had comforted her. This presence of Jesus in her suffering was what brought her to a relationship with Jesus.
God may be silent but he is never absent.
A second lesson is that it is important to persevere through difficult times.
Three times the refrain was lifted up by the Sons of Korah
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
This refrain was lifted up despite the depth of the emotional despair felt by David.
The writer of Hebrews wrote (Hebrews 11:1)
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
God allows us to go through difficult times without a neon sign appearing in the sky to reassure us because he wants us to grow in faith. When we first begin following Jesus, it is common that our prayers are answered very quickly. As we continue in our walk with Jesus, it is not that our prayers are not answered, but the testimony of great saints is that they increasingly experienced a lack of evidence for God as they went further with Jesus. This is not because God is less loving. Again, this is because faith does not grow in certainty. Faith grows in the presence of doubt and God in his love for us wants us to grow in faith.
C.S, Lewis wrote a book called The Screwtape Letters in which a senior devil, Screwtape, writes to a junior devil, Wormwood. He gives advice about how to defeat the enemy, God, in the battle for human souls. In one section Screwtape wrote this:
Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
Persevere through difficulties. Hold on to hope and affirm what is true and you will be led through the difficulties to greater faith.
Korah led a rebellion against Moses. He wanted the power of the priesthood. Some of his sons chose to distance themselves from their father and it is interesting to me that they chose to move into the direction of liturgy.
It is interesting to me because writing psalms is not a position of power. Writing psalms is an exercise in vulnerability. Writing psalms reveals our weakness. To write a psalm is to expose the emotions of your heart and then allow healing and encouragement to take place.
Several people have told me that they appreciated my vulnerability in sharing the psalms I wrote with the congregation.
This is not what people do when they want to become more powerful. People in power protect their private world and present only strength.
When I write a psalm, I reveal my weakness but the power of God in me is what grows. I do not become more powerful but God’s power in me is greater.
Once again this week I encourage you to write your own psalm.
If you are a bit depressed or discouraged this morning, I encourage you to read through this psalm and to either take the words and change them to adapt it to your own circumstance – or start fresh and write one yourself.
Remember that God is not alienated by what you say in a psalm. Be honest in expressing your feelings. Last week I handed out a sheet to help you write your own psalm. There are extra copies in the back and you can pick up one this morning on the way out if you would like.
We are all broken and we all need healing. Writing a psalm is one way of finding the healing we need. Writing psalms brings us toward wholeness.
You may not be feeling depressed this morning but I am sure you are feeling something. Start with what you are feeling and write a psalm. See where what you write takes you in your relationship with God.
I would like to print the psalms you write in the bulletin. What you write can be a blessing to others.
May God bless you as you seek wholeness.
