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Psalm 42:9
I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
7Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.
8The LORD will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life.
9I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
11Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
Notice
“My rock” would sound settled on its own, yet the same sentence asks whether God has forgotten the speaker while an enemy’s oppression continues.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What would it mean for you to address God as “my rock” today?
Write on thisWhat, if anything, makes the question about being forgotten hard for you to pray?
Write on thisHow does the mention of an enemy shape your reading of this mourning?
Write on thisConnect
Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Mark 15:34At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is, being interpreted, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken …Jesus and the psalm’s speaker both address God as their own while asking why they have been left.
Psalm 43:2For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?Both prayers name God as a source of strength and ask the same question about mourning under an enemy’s oppression.
Job 30:28I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.Both speakers describe going about in mourning and speak their distress aloud.
Psalm 38:6I am in pain and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long.Both speakers describe ongoing mourning, though Psalm 38 names bodily pain where Psalm 42 names an enemy’s oppression.
Ecclesiastes 4:1Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on …Both texts connect oppression with sorrow: mourning in the psalm, and the tears of people without a comforter in Ecclesiastes.
2 Samuel 23:3The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, ‘One who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God,Both passages call God a rock, naming him as the speaker’s rock in the psalm and the Rock of Israel in Samuel.
Psalm 18:2The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.Both speakers call God “my rock,” though Psalm 18 expands the language of refuge while Psalm 42 turns toward lament.
Psalm 74:1A contemplation by Asaph. God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?Both prayers ask God why he seems to have withdrawn, using the language of being forgotten or rejected.
1 Kings 8:38whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands …The shared thread is prayer arising from personal distress; Kings describes supplication, while the psalm records the sufferer’s question.
Lamentations 5:1–16Remember, LORD, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach.The psalm asks why God has forgotten; Lamentations asks the LORD to remember and look upon his people’s reproach.
Isaiah 40:27Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and the justice due me is disregarded by my God”?Both passages voice concern that God has overlooked suffering, expressed as being forgotten or having one’s cause disregarded.
2 Samuel 22:2and he said: “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, even mine;Both speakers call God “my rock,” with Samuel adding fortress and deliverer while the psalm continues into a question.
Where this verse fits
Feeling distant from God. injustice and anger. grief.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
Your questions need no polished ending before you bring them to God. Here, the speaker still calls God his rock while asking why the oppression and mourning continue.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).