Psalms 42-44

Psalm 42

¹To the Overseer. -- An Instruction. By sons of Korah. As a hart doth pant for streams of water, So my soul panteth toward Thee, O God.

²My soul thirsted for God, for the living God, When do I enter and see the face of God?

³My tear hath been to me bread day and night, In their saying unto me all the day, ‘Where is thy God?'

⁴These I remember, and pour out my soul in me, For I pass over into the booth, I go softly with them unto the house of God, With the voice of singing and confession, The multitude keeping feast!

⁵What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? Yea, art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him: The salvation of my countenance -- My God!

⁶In me doth my soul bow itself, Therefore I remember Thee from the land of Jordan, And of the Hermons, from the hill Mizar.

⁷Deep unto deep is calling At the noise of Thy water-spouts, All Thy breakers and Thy billows passed over me.

⁸By day Jehovah commandeth His kindness, And by night a song is with me, A prayer to the God of my life.

⁹I say to God my rock, ‘Why hast Thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning in the oppression of an enemy?

¹⁰With a sword in my bones Have mine adversaries reproached me, In their saying unto me all the day, ‘Where is thy God?'

¹¹What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? And what! art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him, The salvation of my countenance, and my God!

Psalm 43

¹Judge me, O God, And plead my cause against a nation not pious, From a man of deceit and perverseness Thou dost deliver me,

²For thou art the God of my strength. Why hast Thou cast me off? Why mourning do I go up and down, In the oppression of an enemy?

³Send forth Thy light and Thy truth, They -- they lead me, they bring me in, Unto Thy holy hill, and unto Thy tabernacles.

⁴And I go in unto the altar of God, Unto God, the joy of my rejoicing. And I thank Thee with a harp, O God, my God.

⁵What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? And what! art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him, The salvation of my countenance, and my God!

Psalm 44

¹To the Overseer. -- By sons of Korah. An Instruction. O God, with our ears we have heard, Our fathers have recounted to us, The work Thou didst work in their days, In the days of old.

²Thou, with Thy hand, nations hast dispossessed. And Thou dost plant them. Thou afflictest peoples, and sendest them away.

³For, not by their sword Possessed they the land, And their arm gave not salvation to them, But Thy right hand, and Thine arm, And the light of Thy countenance, Because Thou hadst accepted them.

⁴Thou art He, my king, O God, Command the deliverances of Jacob.

⁵By Thee our adversaries we do push, By Thy name tread down our withstanders,

⁶For, not in my bow do I trust, And my sword doth not save me.

⁷For Thou hast saved us from our adversaries, And those hating us Thou hast put to shame.

⁸In God we have boasted all the day, And Thy name to the age we thank. Selah.

⁹In anger Thou hast cast off and causest us to blush, And goest not forth with our hosts.

¹⁰Thou causest us to turn backward from an adversary, And those hating us, Have spoiled for themselves.

¹¹Thou makest us food like sheep, And among nations Thou hast scattered us.

¹²Thou sellest Thy people -- without wealth, And hast not become great by their price.

¹³Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, A scorn and a reproach to our surrounders.

¹⁴Thou makest us a simile among nations, A shaking of the head among peoples.

¹⁵All the day my confusion is before me, And the shame of my face hath covered me.

¹⁶Because of the voice of a reproacher and reviler, Because of an enemy and a self-avenger.

¹⁷All this met us, and we did not forget Thee, Nor have we dealt falsely in Thy covenant.

¹⁸We turn not backward our heart, Nor turn aside doth our step from Thy path.

¹⁹But Thou hast smitten us in a place of dragons, And dost cover us over with death-shade.

²⁰If we have forgotten the name of our God, And spread our hands to a strange God,

²¹Doth not God search out this? For He knoweth the secrets of the heart.

²²Surely, for Thy sake we have been slain all the day, Reckoned as sheep of the slaughter.

²³Stir up -- why dost Thou sleep, O Lord? Awake, cast us not off for ever.

²⁴Why Thy face hidest Thou? Thou forgettest our afflictions and our oppression,

²⁵For bowed to the dust hath our soul, Cleaved to the earth hath our belly.

²⁶Arise, a help to us, And ransom us for thy kindness' sake.