O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.
O my God, my soul is cast down within me. David here follows out his own call to his soul to 'hope in God' (Psalms 42:5). Jonah evidently based his prayer (Jonah 2:7) on the prayer of David: "When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple." The great Antitype, Messiah, in Matthew 26:38 ("My soul is exceeding sorrowful" - literally, surrounded with sorrow; and John 12:27, "Now is my soul troubled"), used the very words wherewith the Septuagint translate Psalms 42:4-5 х perilupos (G4036) ei (G1487) hee (G3588) psuchee (G5590) mou (G3450) (Psalms 42:5); and Psalms 42:6, hee (G3588) psuchee (G5590) mou (G3450) etarachthee (G5015). So the Greek in Matthew 26:38 and John 12:27].
Therefore will I remember thee. It is his consolation that he can still remember God, and His past grace to him, even though he is excluded from the temple of God. Whilst he 'remembers this' his exclusion (Psalms 42:4) with bitter pain, he can also 'remember God' to his soul's consolation. The remembrance of the Lord counterbalances the remembrance of the removal of past privileges.
From the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. Translate, '(from the land) of the From the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. Translate, '(from the land) of the Hermons' - i:e., from the region beyond Jordan. Hermon, in Psalms 89:12, represents the transjordanic region, as Tabor represented the Canaanite side of Jordan. Not that David was exactly at Hermon, but he was in the transjordanic region wherein 'the Hermons' - i:e., Hermon and its fellow-mountains-were; namely, at Mahanaim, north of the Jabbok, upon the borders of Gad and Manasseh (2 Samuel 17:24; 2 Samuel 17:27; 1 Kings 2:8). The transjordanic region was regarded as in a measure separate from the Holy Land proper, as the transaction between Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh on one side, and the rest of Israel on the other shows (Joshua 22:1-29). The reference in "Mizar" is to its meaning little. The name is regarded by David as ominous of the locality where he is exiled. The greatest of earthly elevations is but little when compared with the moral elevation of the Lord's hill of Zion (Psalms 68:15-16). The greatest 'hide their diminished heads' before Yahweh (Psalms 114:4; Psalms 114:6; Isaiah 2:2).