Psalm XLII by Lindley M. Stevens

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Apr 6, 1905

Psalm XLII

By Lindley M. Stevens

(An Interpretation, with the Free Use of Psalm XXIX and Other Passages.)

In a land that is thirsty and barren, In a land where no streams ever flow, As a hart that is pressed by the hunter, To thy springs, O my God, would I go. Here my tears for my thirst must suffice me; And no rest hath my soul night or day; For they seek for my life to destroy it; And where now is thy God? do they say.

When I think on these things, I am stricken With the thought of my joy in the days When I marched with thy saints, amid shoutings, As we went to the house of thy praise.

But for what, O my soul, art thou sighing? And of what is thy spirit afraid? Hope in God, for e’en yet shall I praise him! And no more shall my face be dismayed.

When to God, in my thought, I am turning, Then I stand upon Lebanon’s crown, ’Twixt the land of the Hermons and Mizar And the sea where the sun goeth down. To the east are the springs and the fountains Where the Jordan beginneth its flood, Where the dew from thy hand upon Hermon Floweth down on the mountains of God. To the west, on the sea, is thy thunder, On the Great Sea thy voice and thy fire; There the flash of thy sword over Zidon; Now the tread of thy host upon Tyre. Nearer cometh thy voice in its glory; And thy cedars, O Lebanon, now, At the blast of the breath of his nostrils, Do they bend, and they break, and they bow, With the voice of thy waves and thy billows ’Mid the rush and the roar and the sweep, While on me falls a torrent of blessing: Lo, the deep calleth loud unto deep; Lo, the hills at thy presence have melted; Now doth Lebanon leap like a ram; Now doth Sirion flee as a bullock; And the Mizar doth skip like a lamb. Now at Kadesh the wilderness trembles At the voice of thy thunderings loud— Lo, the brightness that causeth to vanish All the hail, and the fire, and the cloud. Spring the hinds and their fawns from the cover; Now their heads do the mountains upraise; In thy temple all creatures say, Glory; In thy light all the earth singeth praise. Unto thee would I bring adoration, And a gift on thine altar would lay; But this mount were too little for burning, Nor its beasts were sufficient to slay.

But what comes with the cool and the fragrance, With the shade and the smell of the wood? With the splash of the brooks and the fountains, With thy praise in the voice of the flood? For returneth the heat and the burning: Where no rain ever falleth I stand: Neither tree nor a rock giveth shadow: Lo, the thirst, and the sun, and the sand.

As a dream when awakened from slumber, So the vision hath vanished away: And I say, Hath the Lord, then, forgotten? And where now is thy God? do they say.

Though afar from the land of his blessing, Be the vision for years or for days, Yet I know that his mercy shall hold me; For his help shall I offer him praise. Still by night shall his blessing be with me, Nor by day shall his goodness forsake; Unto him will I sing in the darkness; And my prayer unto him will I make.

Then for what, O my soul, art thou sighing? And of what is thy spirit afraid? Hope in God, for e’en yet shall I praise him; And no more shall my face be dismayed.

—Lindley M. Stevens, in the American Friend.