Week 7 Psalm 42
A couple of ‘opposing’ questions get asked in the psalm. In fact they get asked twice:
Q#1 the writer asks: where can I go to meet with God?
Q#2 some unidentified ‘men’ ask: where is your God?
Seven verses later a couple of very similar questions are asked:
Q#1 the writer asks: why have you (God) forgotten me?
Q#2 ‘foes’ ask: where is your God?
The two pairs of questions reinforce each other:
On his side the writer wonders where God is. Wonders about God’s disappearance.
The ‘men’ (now also called enemies) ask: Where is your God? But they’re just jeering at the writer.
The weird thing is that the writer and the ‘men’ are asking similar questions: Where is God?
But the difference is that as far as the ‘men’ are concerned they couldn’t care less about God while on the other hand the writer is very concerned – it’s a question he’s dead-serious about.
But with no answer in sight he changes lanes. Asks another question: why are you downcast, O my soul? And he floats the best response / resolution he can think of: put your hope in God. It isn’t an answer. But that doesn’t seem to matter to him right now.
He’ll let the anonymous ‘men’ taunt him. But he’s taking the view that the Lord’s absence isn’t the decisive issue. Put your hope in God. That’s what he needs to do. The Lord will show up eventually.
Note: quotes from Psalm 42:2-3 9-10 5 & 11 (NIV)