V. 2. 3. As the deer cries out for fresh water, so my soul cries out to you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come to see the face of God?
The summa of this psalm is: The believer is challenged; in the challenge he calls upon God; when he calls, he is heard and comforted. For this is not really a special teaching, but an example of one who calls upon God in his temptation and is comforted when he is heard.
But here someone might ask: since it is the case with all temptations that we flee from God, and every temptation brings with it despair, enmity, impatience and grumbling against God, how is it then that the prophet says here that he has a desire for God in his tribulation? Here a distinction must be made, for God is twofold: at times He is a hidden and covered God; as when the conscience in affliction feels sin, feels other damages, either spiritual or bodily, to which it clings, and cannot console itself that God is merciful and gracious to it. Those who judge according to this, namely the hidden image of God, fall into despair and damnation without any salvation.
3. the other image of God is uncovered, or a revealed and not a hidden God, namely the right image of the kind, gracious, merciful, reconciled God 2c. Just as the sun is of two kinds, whereas
but in truth is only One Sun, just as there is only one God. For it can be called another sun when it is covered with clouds than when it shines out of the clear sky. If now someone wanted to judge according to the then existing image of the sun when it is covered with clouds, he would have to think that it would never become day and worry about an eternal night. But this is an art, and in truth a golden art, that one thinks that when the sun is covered and hidden with clouds and fog, it will nevertheless overcome the clouds and fog and illuminate the world.
(4) This is what the prophet does when he is in trouble and straightens himself out and desires to see the sun when it has broken through the clouds. He makes a different image in his heart than he sees before his eyes. And even if his conscience frightens him, makes him feel bad, and he almost wants to succumb in despair, he still straightens up in faith, does not throw away hope, and takes comfort in the fact that God will help him and set him up again so that he may see the service of God in the place that God alone had ordered on the entire face of the earth. 2c.
V. 4. My tears are my food day and night, because they say to me daily, "Where is your God?
5. feeling that God is angry, being abandoned by God, not being able to have the Word, that hurts.
*Note of the original: "This psalm he has laid out in the castle Pretsch, early in the morning, when one wanted to go out hunting" (snd venationem). - In eastsllo krelseN can also be translated: "in the spot Pretsch", as the old translator gave it.
V. 5: When I remember this, I pour out my heart.
When I hear such words, it goes through my heart. To "pour out one's heart" is to yearn sincerely 1) and, I believe, to ask, to pray. When I hear this, I first of all pray in earnest, and then my heart bursts out.
With myself.
(7) Alone with me, no one can complain but myself. I pour out my heart before him, as if I wanted to pour it out with sighs.
For I would gladly go with the multitude, and go with them to the house of God, with rejoicing and thanksgiving among the multitude that celebrate (festum agente).
He would like to go to church, that is his opinion; he feels that he is far from God, so he would like to be with the crowd where God's word is preached. The Latin Tert has [instead of festum agente the word: sonus epulantis, that is, of the feasts, da man rühmet, prediget.
V. 6. Why are you distressed, my soul, and so troubled within me?
9. is the consolation. He has now poured out.
Wait on God, for I will thank Him yet, that He helps me with His face.
10 The face means God's presence wherever God is, whether in faith or in sight. But here it means in faith. This is my salvation, that he helps me with his dear word. So we can say: The face is the knowledge, the knowledge is the faith and the word.
V. 7. My God, my soul is distressed within me; therefore I remember you in the land of Jordan and Hermonim, in the little mountain.
11 Here he alludes to the kingdom and Zion.
1) Erlanger: "see".
V. 8. Thy floods roar, that here a deep, and there a deep roar; all thy billows and thy waves go over me.
12) "Deep" (abyssus) means a huge and great mass of water; they come against each other, he says. One flood comes upon another; when one has ceased, another cries out. But he adds that they "rush" to indicate how the conscience feels it. "Flood" is first a gathering of the waters, after which it becomes a lake that roars. This takes place at the same time (sunt corre- lativa), that here becomes a swamp and there a marsh and boils. I feel almost like Pharaoh in the Red Sea; that is what he is alluding to. He calls the beating together of the waters in the sea floods (catarractas).
V. 9. The Lord has promised his goodness by day, and by night I sing to him and pray to God for my life.
The Lord wants us to praise his mercy, or to believe that he is merciful and wants to help. When the time of mercy is, he is merciful; but when it is night, let us pray in temptation. In the daytime he wills to help, so shall I say in the 2) night. When it is day, he promises his goodness, that is the time of grace, so we should not forget it at night.
V. 10-12. I say to God, my Rock: Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk so sadly when my enemy presses me? It is as murder in my legs that my enemies revile me; for they say to me daily, Where is now thy God? Why do you grieve, my soul, and are so troubled within me? Wait upon God; for I shall yet thank him, that he is the help of my face, and my God.
14 This is a prosopopoeia. Now he sings and prays.
2) In the original: "I's", which is: I of.