Psalms 42:3

3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, "Where is your God?"

Psalms 42:3 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 42:3

My tears have been my meat day and night
That is, he could not eat for sorrow, like Hannah, 1Sa 1:7,8;
or while he was eating tears fell in plenty, and they were as common, day and night, as his food, and mixed with it F6; see ( Psalms 80:5 ) ;

while they continually say unto me,
his enemies the Philistines,

where [is] thy God?
theirs were to be seen and pointed at, as the host of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars, and idols of gold, silver, brass, wood, and stone; wherefore they ask, where was his? but David's God was invisible; he is in the heavens, and does what he pleases, ( Psalms 115:2 Psalms 115:3 ) ; or the sense is, that if there was such a God he believed in and professed, and he was his servant, surely he would never have suffered him to fall into so much distress and calamity, but would have appeared for his relief and deliverance; and therefore tauntingly, and by way of reproach, ask where he was.


FOOTNOTES:

F6 "--lachrymaeque alimenta fuere", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 10. Fab. 1. v. 75.

Psalms 42:3 In-Context

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.