Psalm 42:6–10
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.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 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?”
We are just going to get both days of the downer stuff out of the way before we get to the good stuff Thursday and Friday. So we will come back to v. 5 and 11 tomorrow.
Just as the psalmist reported that his soul pants for God in v. 1, now he reports that his soul is downcast within him. His despair is so great that his soul, his inner life is downcast. In this midst of this despair the palmist remembers the presence of God in yet another image of water. Here he remembers the power of God like the deep of the waters, the roar of the waterfalls, the waves and the breakers sweeping over him. The deep specifically calls to mind the Genesis account of the beginning of the flood of Noah (Gen. 7:11). The waves and breakers sweeping over him are the same terms Jonah uses to describe his punishment from God in Jonah 2:3, his prayer from the belly of the fish. Both of these incidents are examples of God's punishment for failure to uphold God's commands. The psalmist applies these images to point to God's punishment he has dealt out to the people of Israel in the exile. The overwhelming power of God as seen in this punishment is symbolized by the greatness of the deep and the waterfall and the waves and breakers.
Yet in the midst of this punishment he can say that God directs his love by day and at night his song is with him. Both are comforting indications of God's presence even in a foreign land, even in the midst of his punishment. He pleads with God that he has forgotten him. He is left to be oppressed by his enemy. He is taunted by his foes who say to him "Where is your God?" This he references in verse 3 as well. This leaves his bones in "mortal agony." This is quite the dramatic description of the pain he is experiencing at the hands of God's punishment. Not only are they in exile, away from the land, the temple and the people of God, but they are experiencing taunts and jeers, challenging the existence of their God. This, for the psalmist, is about as bad as it gets.