Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42
God's Waves and Billows
Psalm 42:7
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
Q. What are waterspouts?
A. I'm thinking water shooting up from the sea terrible to behold. And John Gill writes:
By which are meant afflictions, comparable to the deep waters of the sea, for their multitude and overwhelming nature; see Psalm 69:1; these came pouring down, one after another, upon the psalmist: as soon as one affliction over, another came, as in the case of Job; which is signified by one calling to another, and were clamorous, troublesome, and very grievous and distressing;
Q. What noise do they make?
A. You can imagine the terrific rush of noise, the gushing forth, crashing with fierceness. Waters from the DEEP uniting force with Waters deep as well. Deep calling unto deep with troubles mounting as in the noise of GOD's tremendous workings in nature - his waterspouts.
Q. And to whom do they belong?
A. To GOD, they are his waterspouts.
Still praying to GOD, "...thy waves and thy billows...."
Tremendous waves of troubles are coming over me and they are thy waves, I receive them from the hand of my God. All things are of the Lord troubles as well.
And so Matthew Poole writes:
All thy waves and thy billows; thou hast sent one sharp trial or affliction upon me after another.
Are gone over me, i.e. are gone over my head, as this same verb is used, Psa_38:4. They do not lightly sprinkle me, but almost overwhelm me.
SPURGEON:
“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts.” Thy severe dealings with me seem to excite all creation to attack me; heaven, and earth, and hell, call to each other, stirring each other up in dreadful conspiracy against my peace. As in a waterspout, the deeps above and below clasp hands, so it seemed to David that heaven and earth united to create a tempest around him. His woes were incessant and overwhelming. Billow followed billow, one sea echoed the roaring of another; bodily pain aroused mental fear, Satanic suggestions chimed in with mistrustful foreboding, outward tribulation thundered in awful harmony with inward anguish: his soul seemed drowned as in a universal deluge of trouble, over whose waves the providence of the Lord moved as a watery pillar, in dreadful majesty inspiring the utmost terror. As for the afflicted one he was like a lonely bark around which the fury of a storm is bursting, or a mariner floating on a mast, almost every moment submerged. “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” David thought that every trouble in the world had met in him, but he exaggerated, for all the breaking waves of Jehovah have passed over none but the Lord Jesus; there are griefs to which he makes his children strangers for his love's sake. Sorrow naturally states its case forcibly; the mercy is that the Lord after all hath not dealt with us according to our fears. Yet what a plight to be in! Atlantic rollers sweeping in ceaseless succession over one's head, waterspouts coming nearer and nearer, and all the ocean in uproar around the weary swimmer; most of the heirs of heaven can realise the description, for they have experienced the like. This is a deep experience unknown to babes in grace, but common enough to such as do business on great waters of affliction: to such it is some comfort to remember that the waves and billows are the Lords, “thy waves and thy billows,” says David, they are all sent, and directed by him, and achieve his designs, and the child of God knowing this, is the more resigned.
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