Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 42:1

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God." — Psalms 42:1 (ASV)

As the hart panteth after the water-brooks - Margin, brayeth. The word rendered "hart" – איל 'ayâl – commonly means a stag, hart, or male deer (Deuteronomy 12:15; Deuteronomy 14:5; Isaiah 35:6). The word is masculine, but in this place, it is joined with a feminine verb, as words of common gender may be, and thus denotes a hind, or female deer.

The word rendered in the text “panteth,” and in the margin “brayeth” – ערג ‛ârag – occurs only in this place and in Joel 1:20, where it is applied to the beasts of the field as “crying” to God in a time of drought. The word properly means to rise, to ascend, and then, to look up toward anything, to long for. It refers here to the intense desire of the hind for water in the heat of the day, or, as in Joel, to the desire of the cattle for water in a time of drought. Luther renders it “cries;” the Septuagint and Vulgate render it simply “desires.”

Neither the idea of panting nor braying seems to be in the original word. It is the idea of looking for, longing for, or desiring that is expressed there. By ‘water-brooks’ are meant the streams that run in valleys.

Dr. Thomson (Land and the Book, vol. i., p. 253) says, “I have seen large flocks of these panting harts gather round the water-brooks in the great deserts of Central Syria, so subdued by thirst that you could approach quite near them before they fled.”

There is an idea of tenderness in the reference to the word “hart” here – a female deer, or gazelle – which would not strike us if the reference had been to any other animal.

These creatures are so timid, so gentle, so delicate in their structure, and so much the natural objects of love and compassion, that our feelings are drawn toward them as they are to other animals in similar circumstances. We sympathize with them; we pity them; we love them; we feel deeply for them when they are pursued, when they fly away in fear, or when they are in want. The following engraving will help us to appreciate more fully the comparison employed by the psalmist. Nothing could more beautifully or appropriately describe the earnest longing of a soul after God, in the psalmist's circumstances, than this image.

So panteth my soul after thee, O God - So earnest a desire have I to come before You and to enjoy Your presence and Your favor. So sensible am I of want; so much does my soul need something that can satisfy its desires.

This was at first applied to the case of one who was cut off from the privileges of public worship and driven into exile, far from the place where he had been accustomed to unite with others in that service (Psalms 42:4). However, it also expresses the deep and earnest feelings of the heart of piety at all times and in all circumstances in regard to God.

There is no desire of the soul more intense than that which the pious heart has for God; there is no want more deeply felt than that experienced when one who loves God is cut off by any cause from communion with Him.