My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and appear in God’s presence?
Parallel translations
- WEB My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
- KJV My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
- NKJV My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
- NASB My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
- NLT I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
His soul thirsts for the living God, longing to appear before Him. He desires not just relief but God's very presence.
Overview
The psalmist's craving is for fellowship with God, not merely for the temple's ritual. 'When shall I come and appear before God?' expresses heartfelt longing. This thirst finds its answer in Christ, through whom we have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Ps 63:1A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My body yearns for You in a dry and weary land without water.
- Ps 84:10For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
- John 7:37On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.
- Ps 27:4One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple.
- Rev 22:1Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
- Ps 36:8–9They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from Your river of delights.
- Ps 84:2My soul longs, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
- Ps 84:4How blessed are those who dwell in Your house! They are ever praising You. Selah
- Job 23:3If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat.
- Ps 43:4Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my greatest joy. I will praise You with the harp, O God, my God.
- 1 Th 1:9For they themselves report what kind of welcome you gave us, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God
- Jer 2:13“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
- Ps 84:7They go from strength to strength, until each appears before God in Zion.
- John 5:26For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.
- Exod 23:17Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD.
- Dan 6:26I hereby decree that in every part of my kingdom, men are to tremble in fear before the God of Daniel: For He is the living God, and He endures forever; His kingdom will never be destroyed, and His dominion will never end.
- Josh 3:10He continued, “This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that He will surely drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites.
- Jer 10:10But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 42:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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