Charles Ellicott 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. — “I have seen large flocks of these panting stags 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” (Thomson, Land and Book, p. 172).