A Question and a Statement: Hope triumphs!

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”  -Psalm 42:5 (repeated in 42:11, 43:5. ESV).

Psalm 42 and 43 seem to be an important hymn with three stanzas, tied together by the refrain as given in 42:5 and 11 and 43:5.  The by line attributes these psalms as a “Maschil from the sons of Korah” which gives us a definite clue as to its origin.  A “maschil” is a didactic psalm or a psalm of instruction.  It was a skillfully composed psalm, usually set to more elaborate music than a regular psalm of worship.  We would liken a Hebrew maschil to an anthem in our order of worship today.  The “sons of Korah” were a Levitical (priestly) guild.  Psalm 42 opens with a stately metaphor likening the desire to go to the temple to worship as a deer, thirsty and desiring water to assuage his thirst.  Likewise, the son of Korah is being detained far away from the place of worship in “the land of Jordan and Herman at Mount Mizar” (42:6) in Northeast Palestine.  He is being taunted by adversaries and oppressed by enemies (42:9, 10; 43:1, 2b).  The freshet floods almost overwhelm him (42:7), probably a reference to the cascades that rush down Mount Hermon when the snow melts in the spring.  This could also be a metaphor for the troubles that overwhelm the psalmist.  Remembrance of better days when he could go to the temple to worship with glad songs of praise at festival times makes him long even more to go to the house of the Lord (42:4, 43:4).  It seems at times, because of the troubles that overwhelm, that even the God whom he worships has rejected him (43.2).

But the psalmist then begins to weigh his situation.  He asks a pertinent question:  “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? (42:5a, 11a, 43:5a).  At first it seems that the Psalmist is urging himself to get back on track, to look beyond his depression, trouble and discouragement.  With each repetition of the question, resolve grows.  And then he is able to state with triumph:  “”Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God!”(42:5b, 11b; 43:5b).  Despite his troubles, his long distance from the temple where he enjoys worshiping, he has remembered:  “By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life” (42:8).  Although he has been prevented from going to the place he loves, the temple in Jerusalem where he desires to worship, he has found that he can worship wherever he is and that God is with him in far places where his enemies taunt him.  God hears and answers wherever we are.  We, therefore, can steadfastly HOPE in Him.  Hope gives us victory when we are in the foreign lands of doubt and depression, hardship and estrangement.  I like Emily Dickinson’s  poem on Hope:

            Hope is the thing with feathers

            That perches in the soul—

            And sings the tune without the words

            And never stops at all—

            And sweetest—in the gale is heard—

            And sore must be the storm—

            That could abash the little bird

            That kept so many warm—

            I’ve heard it in the chillest land—

            And on the strangest Sea—

            Yet—never—in Extremity,

            It asked a crumb of me.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?  Hope in God!  I shall praise Him, my salvation and my God!”