Bible Soap

Scripture:

Psalm 42-44

Selected verses:

42:7 (NIV)

 “Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.”

Observation:

I’ve heard people use this phrase ‘deep calling unto deep’ in prayers and songs and had no idea what it’s really supposed to mean (maybe they didn’t when they prayed it either!). So I have found a few alternative translations:

New Century Version: “Troubles have come again and again, sounding like waterfalls. Your waves are crashing all around me.”

Contemporary English Version: “Your vicious waves have swept over me like an angry ocean or a roaring waterfall.”

New Living Translation: “I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.”

There are several others which keep the general sense of the NIV, but with slightly different vocabulary. Perhaps it’s just my lack of skill with poetry, but I prefer the versions that emphasize the troubles that the psalmist attributes to God in the first phrase of the verse. The NIV translation could be a poetic look at creation (though not so much in the context of the whole psalm, admittedly), but the other three quoted here make it really clear that the psalmist feels totally overwhelmed by the chaotic trouble that God has sent his way. The use of water imagery is almost certainly deliberate, in keeping with the traditional Hebrew view of the Sea as the source of chaos.

None of the translations, though, are in any doubt about the psalmist’s intention to attribute the troubles as coming from God – “your waves” is in each one and is clearly inescapable in the Hebrew.

Application:

So what do I do with this? Do I see my troubles as coming from God too? Sometimes, but I am more likely to see them as a result of human choices somewhere along the line. But perhaps this means that I assume I will be able to solve them, or play the blame game and expect someone else to sort things out because it was their fault in the first place. Perhaps the Hebrew worldview that said that everything was spiritual, leading to the idea that troubles came from God, which leads one to call out to God immediately to sort things out, had some value. How often could I call out to God, over small things as well as big, when I don’t?

Prayer:

God, please remind me that you are interested in each and every part of my life, and that I can bring troubles and problems to you, no matter the size, and no matter whether they were your fault or not. I know you can handle that!