Psalm 42-43 – Hope for Depression and Suffering, by Mike Cosper

If you’ve been following along the reading schedule for the BC series, then you’ll have read Psalm 43 yesterday. Psalms 42 and 43 are a series, considered by some to be a single song broken up for various temple-worship purposes. Whatever the case, they are worth considering together.

Psalm 42 begins with a well-loved verse:

As the deer pants for streams of water
so my soul pants for you, O God.

The image is of a dehydrated deer, wandering in the dry grasslands of Israel in search of streams. This isn’t about bringing the worshiper a pleasant image of Bambi drinking from a mountain stream, but an image of desperation, despair, depression, and death. Apart from the living God, the soul withers and dies.

Psalm 42 cries out from the midst of suffering, remembering better days when God’s blessing and presence was evident, when community and relationships were rich, and when worshiping together was a joyful experience. He affirms as well that God is near him in the midst of his suffering (Verses 7-8). It’s a familiar picture to those who suffer: the good times are behind us, while ahead there is only a dry desert.

Psalm 43 continues the outcry, asking God to vindicate the psalmist from the accusations of the enemy. It’s an important connection for us to make: The Psalmist recognizes that he suffers – at least in part – because of the lies of his enemies. When Isaac Watts wrote about the Psalms, he reminded Christians that our enemies are no longer the national enemies of Israel, but the world, the devil, and the inhabiting sin in our flesh. We need to remember when we suffer that not every voice we hear is our own. We need to remember that not every thought that crosses our minds is the truth.

Psalm 43 verse 3 is the turning point of hope for the two psalms, and points to the hope that exist for those who suffer:

Send forth your light and truth,
let them guide me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
Then will I go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the harp,
O God my God.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

The Psalmist recognizes that there is only one hope to pull him out of his mire. Whether it’s his own fault, his own wickedness that’s brought him to a place of shame, whether it’s a case of spiritual depression and malaise, he knows that his only hope is in God’s initiative.

In our suffering, we need to turn to our Sovereign God and cry out to Him to send us His light and His truth. His light and truth have the power to bring us into His presence – the shining light of His Spirit, which illuminates His word to our dark minds, and the Truth of His Word, the Word who has always been in existence, the Way, the Truth, and the Life: Jesus Christ.

It’s a beautiful, subtle reference to the Trinity tucked into the Psalms. It’s also a strong affirmation that our hope in dark times is in God alone.

When Isaac Watts paraphrased the Psalms, he treated these two as one. He ties up Psalm 42, Part II (which is actually part of Psalm 42 and 43) like this:

I’ll cast myself before his feet,
And say, “My God, my heav’nly rock,
Why doth thy love so long forget
The soul that groans beneath thy stroke?”

I’ll chide my heart that sinks so low,
Why should my soul indulge her grief?
Hope in the Lord, and praise him too;
He is my rest, my sure relief.

Thy light and truth shall guide me still,
Thy word shall my best thoughts employ,
And lead me to thine heav’nly hill,
My God, my most exceeding joy.

When depression burdens us, when suffering abounds, let’s join with the Psalmist and the saints before us, chiding our hearts that sink so low, and remembering our hope in the Light and Truth of the Lord.