properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
thirsteth
צָמְאָ֬הtza.me.'Ah
H6770
to thirst (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
God
לֵאלֹהִים֮le.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
living
חָ֥יchai
H2416
alive · adjective, masculine singular absolute
God
לְאֵ֪לle.'El
H410
strength · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
come
אָב֑וֹא'a.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
appear
וְ֝אֵרָאֶ֗הve.'e.ra.'Eh
H7200
to see · conjunction + verb, niphal, 1st person common singular
before
פְּנֵ֣יpe.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct
God
אֱלֹהִֽים'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 63:1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no wa…
Psalms 84:10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wicked…
John 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
Psalms 27:4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold t…
Revelation 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Psalms 36:8-9 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
Psalms 84:2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
Psalms 84:4 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 42:1-5
Holy love to God as the chief good and our felicity is the power of godliness, the very life and soul of religion, without which all external professions and performances are but a shell and carcase: now here we have some of the expressions of that love. Here is,
I. Holy love thirsting, love upon the wing, soaring upwards in holy desires towards the Lord and towards the remembrance of his name (Psa 42:1, Psa 42:2): "My soul panteth, thirsteth, for God, for nothing more than God, but still for more and more of him." Now observe,
1. When it was that David thus expressed his vehement desire towards God. It was, (1.) When he was debarred from his outward opportunities of waiting on God, when he…
appear before God--in acts of worship, the terms used in the command for the stated personal appearance of the Jews at the sanctuary.
John Gill on Psalms 42:2
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God,.... Who is so called, in opposition to the idols of the Gentiles, which were lifeless statues; and who is the author, giver, and maintainer of natural life; and who has promised and provided eternal life in his Son; and is himself the fountain of life, and the fountain of living waters, and a place of broad rivers and streams: particularly his lovingkindness, which is better than life, is a pure river of water of life, the streams where make glad the saints; and hence it is that the psalmist thirsted after God, and the discoveries of his love: saying,
when shall I come and appear before God? meaning, not in heaven, as desiring the beatific visi…
Psalm 42:1-3
1. As the hart crieth [112] for the fountains of water, so my soul crieth after thee, O Jehovah! 2. My soul hath thirsted for God, even for the living God: when shall I come to appear before the face of God? 3. My tears have been my bread day and night, while they say daily to me, Where is thy God?
1. As the hart crieth for the fountains of water, etc The meaning of these two verses simply is, that David preferred to all the enjoyments, riches, pleasures, and honors of this world, the opportunity of access to the sanctuary, that in this way he might cherish and strengthen his faith and piety by the exercises prescribed in the Law. When he says that he cried for the living God,…
The Church Fathers
Christ the Lord is the fountain of waters from which flows everything that restores us. Flowing streams can often run dry, but a fountain is always supplied with water. So we are rightly invited to hurry to the liquid of the sacred source; there our desire is never able to experience thirst.
"My soul is athirst for the living God" (ver. 2). What I am saying, that "as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so longs my soul after Thee, O God," means this, "My soul is athirst for the living God." For what is it athirst? "When shall I come and appear before God?" This it is for which I am athirst, to "come and to appear before Him." I am athirst in my pilgrimage, in my running; I shall be filled on my arrival. But "When shall I come?" And this, which is soon in the sight of God, is late to our "longing." "When shall I come and appear before God?" This too proceeds from that "longing," of which in another place comes that cry, "One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." Wherefore so? "That I may behold" (he saith) "the beauty of the Lord." "When shall I come and appear before the Lord?"...
The person, however, who has once tasted virtue and has come to understand its nature by his own experience of the good is no longer the kind of person who must be dragged away from his passionate attachment to evil by necessity and warning and compelled to look to virtue. On the contrary, he has an excessive thirst for what is superior.… [He] "thirsts" for participation in God more than "the hart" longs for "the fountains of water." And it follows that the person who finds the fountain after this excessive thirst draws in as much water as the abundance of his desire draws off. But he who has received what he desired in himself is full of what he desired. For that which has become full is not again emptied on the model of physical satiety, nor does that which was drunk remain inactive in itself. In whomever the divine fountain has come into existence, it transforms the one who has embraced it to itself and imparts to this person a portion of its own power.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Korahite — (1 Chronicles 9:19,31) Kor’-hite, or Kor’athite, that portion of the Kohathites who were descended from Korah. They were an important branch of the singers, (2 Chronicles 20:19) hence we find eleven…
Mizar — Smallness, a summit on the eastern ridge of Lebanon, near which David lay after escaping from Absalom (Ps. 42:6). It may, perhaps, be the present Jebel Ajlun, thus named, “the little”, in contrast…
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Psalms — The psalms are the production of various authors. “Only a portion of the Book of Psalms claims David as its author. Other inspired poets in successive generations added now one now another…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Access To God · Saints earnestly seek — Saints earnestly seek
Desire · SPIRITUAL — SPIRITUAL
Hart, The · Illustrative: (Panting for water,) of afflicted saints longing for God — Illustrative: (Panting for water,) of afflicted saints longing for God
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
Thirst · Figurative of the ar — Figurative of the ar
Zeal, Religious · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
(Heb.: 42:2-6) The poet compares the thirsting of his soul after God to the thirsting of a stag. איּל (like other names of animals is epicoene, so that there is no necessity to adopt Bצttcher's emendation כּעיּלת תערג) is construed with a feminine predicate in order to indicate the stag (hind) as an image of the soul. ערג is not merely a quiet languishing, but a strong, audible thirsting or panting for water, caused by prevailing drought, Psa 63:2; Joe 1:20; the signification desiderare refers back to the primary notion of inclinare (cf. Arab. 'l-mı̂l, the act of inclining), for the primary meaning of the verb Arab. ‛rj is to be slanting, inclined or bent, out of which has been developed the…
Pss 42–43 These psalms, like Pss 9 and 10, form a unit comprising a lament with a bittersweet refrain of hope (42:5, 11; 43:5). In many Hebrew manuscripts these two psalms are combined as one. The historical context is uncertain; these psalms might be the voice of God’s people in exile, confessing their loyalty to God as he punishes them for their prevailing apostasy. The psalmist longs for fellowship with God such as he enjoyed in Jerusalem (42:4); his memories only make him more discouraged. As the psalmist cries out to God, he recalls God’s love and faithfulness (42:8), which moves him to plead for vindication (43:1-4).
42:title The descendants of Korah were members of a Levitical choir…
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
My soul. All my nature, my inmost self. Thirsteth. Which is more than hungering; hunger you can palliate, but thirst is awful, insatiable, clamorous, deadly. O to have the most intense craving after the highest good! this is no questionable mark of grace. For God. Not merely for the temple and the ordinances, but for fellowship with God himself. None but spiritual men can sympathise with this thirst. For the living God. Because he lives, and gives to men the living water; therefore we, with greater eagerness, desire him. A dead God is a mere mockery; we loathe such a monstrous deity; but the ever living…
