Psalms 42:3 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

What a striking difference is here made between the gracious soul longing after Jesus, and the heart that can take up and rest satisfied with anything but Jesus. Ordinances will not fill the soul, unless Jesus be found in the ordinances. It is a God in Christ the soul wants; and when this is not experienced, tears will denote the soul's disappointment. And yet those very tears prove that Jesus is still with his people, though, like the disciples at Emmaus, the eye of the soul is holden so as not to know him. Luke 24:16. Reader, the tear called forth by grace is like the spiced wine of the pomegranate, Song of Solomon 8:2. If David composed this Psalm, as some have thought, when driven from Jerusalem by the rebellion of his son Absalom, and referred to the taunts of Shimei as he went up the hill of mount Olivet weeping as he went, (2 Samuel 15:30; 2 Samuel 24:25) still I venture to think, that as this was the very mountain after ages made sacred by the afflictions of Jesus, we ought to keep in view the master more than the servant, who certainly was in this, as well as in numberless other instances a lively type of Jesus.