42:1 * **[For the director of music. A maskil^ of the Sons of Korah.] As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. / *In many Hebrew manuscripts Psalms 42 and 43 constitute one psalm. / **In Hebrew texts 42:1-11 is numbered 42:2-12. / ^Title: Probably a literary or musical term
42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
42:3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
42:4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One* with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. / *See Septuagint and Syriac; the meaning of the Hebrew for this line is uncertain.
42:5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
42:6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon - from Mount Mizar.
42:7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
42:8 By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life.
42:9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
42:10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
42:11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.