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Why are you so disheartened, O my soul?
    Why do you sigh within me?
Place your hope in God,
    for I will once again praise him,
    my Savior and my God.[a]
My soul is disheartened within me;
    therefore, I remember you
from the land of Jordan and Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.[b]
The depths of the sea resound
    in the roar of your waterfalls;[c]
all your waves and your breakers
    sweep over me.

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 42:6 Why . . . my God: this refrain appears three times in this double psalm (vv. 6, 12; 43:5) and indicates that the two parts were originally one psalm (see note on v. 12).
  2. Psalm 42:7 Mount Mizar: not identified. The translation from the land . . . supposes a Levite exiled to the springs of the Jordan, at the foot of Mount Hermon. If we think of him as exiled in Babylon, the translation would be: “I will remember you / more than the land of the Jordan and Hermon, / than the lowly mountain [Zion].”
  3. Psalm 42:8 The depths of the sea resound . . . your waterfalls: the psalmist alludes to the “waterfalls” that carry God’s waters from the “depths” above to the “depths” below (see note on Ps 36:9), bringing God’s breakers sweeping over him (see Pss 69:2f; 88:8; Jon 2:3, 5). And God is involved in this danger of water toward the psalmist (see note on Ps 32:6)—he lets it happen.