Continuing in our study of Psalm 42Psalm 42:3
My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?
Tears are meat! Tears are meat? What does this mean? How can tears be meat? Daily King David partakes of tears? Daily they are his meal, no food but this - my tears. So distressed that the only meat to eat is the tears I cry.
I'm thinking, like David's enemies taunting him, "where is thy God?" our own sins and doubts and unbeliefs say the same thing - they speak words of an enemy ringing and banging in the inner ear..... "where is thy God?" Oh God - come to me, satisfy my thirst, quiet my enemies. I pant for thee.
Spurgeon:
When a man comes to tears, constant tears, plenteous tears, tears that fill his cup and trencher, he is in earnest indeed. As the big tears stand in the stag's eyes in her distress, so did the salt drops glitter in the eyes of David. His appetite was gone, his tears not only seasoned his meat, but became his only meat, he had no mind for other diet. Perhaps it was well for him that the heart could open the safety valves; there is a dry grief far more terrible than showery sorrows. His tears since they were shed because God was blasphemed, were “honourable dew,” drops of holy water, such as Jehovah putteth into his bottle. “While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” Cruel taunts come naturally from coward minds. Surely they might have left the mourner alone; he could weep no more than he did - it was a supererogation of malice to pump more tears from a heart which already overflowed. Note how incessant was their jeer, and how artfully they framed it! It cut the good man to the bone to have the faithfulness of his God impugned. They had better have thrust needles into his eyes than have darted insinuations against his God.
