Font Size
Psalm 42:7-9
New Catholic Bible
Psalm 42:7-9
New Catholic Bible
7 My soul is disheartened within me;
therefore, I remember you
from the land of Jordan and Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.[a]
8 The depths of the sea resound
in the roar of your waterfalls;[b]
all your waves and your breakers
sweep over me.
9 During the day the Lord grants his kindness,
and at night his praise is with me,
a prayer to the living God.[c]
Footnotes
- Psalm 42:7 Mount Mizar: not identified. The translation from the land . . . supposes a Levite exiled to the springs of the Jordan, at the foot of Mount Hermon. If we think of him as exiled in Babylon, the translation would be: “I will remember you / more than the land of the Jordan and Hermon, / than the lowly mountain [Zion].”
- Psalm 42:8 The depths of the sea resound . . . your waterfalls: the psalmist alludes to the “waterfalls” that carry God’s waters from the “depths” above to the “depths” below (see note on Ps 36:9), bringing God’s breakers sweeping over him (see Pss 69:2f; 88:8; Jon 2:3, 5). And God is involved in this danger of water toward the psalmist (see note on Ps 32:6)—he lets it happen.
- Psalm 42:9 Nonetheless, the psalmist is confident of God’s kindness, and this sustains him (see note on Ps 6:5). The living God: some propose the translation: “the God of my life” and understand it as the “God who gives me life.”
