Why are you downcast, O my soul?

A few of us spent a good hour, a few weeks back, reading and reflecting on Psalm 42-43.

We did talk about when Jesus might have prayed such a Psalm, and thought that Gethsemane was the kind of moment.

What we didn’t pick up (no reason why we should, really), was that the refrain of the Psalm (“Why are you cast down, O my soul”) is taken directly on Jesus’ lips in the garden. In the LXX, the word for downcast is perilupos, the same uncommon word Jesus uses in Mark 13:34.

So (retranslating slightly): Psalm 42:5; Psalm 42:11; Psalm 43:5

“Why are you downcast O my soul?”

Mark 13:34

“My soul is downcast.”

Thanks to R T France for pointing that out.