Psalm 42: Wondering About the Woman at the Well
Psalm 42
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation 6 and my God.My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
Neighborhood Trees #8 | Cypress, TX | January 2023
I’ve been thinking about the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (cf. John 4:1-42). She apparently had some degree of spiritual perception and understanding. She knew that it was not proper for a Jew to speak to her, a Samaritan woman. She knew there was a difference in understanding about proper worship practices and places. She also knew that Messiah was coming. She is not a pagan. She was a sinful woman. But who cannot understand why she was forced into that lifestyle given those times and the choices she had just to survive. I don’t want to paint her as purely a victim here. We don’t really know her story other than that she had been married five times and was living with a man to whom she was not then married.
We do know she was thirsty. She came to the well to draw water. Jesus would offer her living water. She would wonder how to get it so she would never have to come to this well again. Jesus would tell her he knew more about her than she ever supposed. And when she was caught out by him, she sought to gain some freedom by questioning him about other things: where and how to worship, what the Messiah would reveal, and ultimately left her bucket to tell everyone her truest thirst had been slaked. Fully. Delightfully. Graciously. Profoundly graciously.
I wonder if she had ever prayed this psalm. Did she realize she was longing for the presence of God in her life even more than she yearned for a peaceful trip to the well? Did she understand that God had not forgotten her? Did she somehow know that there was more to the mysteries of religion than where and how to worship? Did she pray in the middle of the night for God’s steadfast love? Did she wonder if the people of that town would ever stop taunting her? Did she somehow hold on to hope in the face of all these things?
We don’t know the answers to those questions. But we do know that whenever we face taunting, isolation, fear, sleeplessness, and deep discouragement, God is only a prayer away. We’re in good company if we lament our hardships and our sins, and seek God’s steadfast love. Whether it’s the long way around we take to avoid the taunts of others, the anxious and sleepless moments of dread as we think about possible future happenings, or guilt and shame over past choices and present temptations, we can pray this psalm: with David. With the sinful woman at the well. With the tax collector in the temple (Luke 18:13). And getting to the end of the psalm, we can pray:
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
Amen.
David Bahn - Reflections 