“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”
The psalmist opens with the imagery of a deer panting for streams of water, so his soul pants for God. The vivid metaphor of the panting deer establishes the intensity of the psalmist's longing for God, suggesting a thirst as profound as the physical thirst of a hunted animal. This opening establishes that the psalmist's deepest need is for encounter with God. The entire psalm expresses this longing and the struggle that accompanies it.
Church Fathers on Psalms 42:1
1. We have undertaken the exposition of a Psalm corresponding to your own “longings,” on which we propose to speak to you. For the Psalm itself begins with a certain pious “longing;” and he who sings so, says, “Like as the hart desires the water-brooks, so longs my soul after You, O God” Psalm 41:1. Who is it then that says this? It is ourselves, if we be but willing! And why ask, who it is other than yourself, when it is in your power to be the thing which you are asking…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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