Psalm 42

The subtitle wasn’t part of the original psalm. “An enlightening psalm” is a guess. The original Hebrew word is maskil (mass-KEEL). Scholars say they aren’t sure what it means. They say they don’t even know if the word refers to the lyrics or the music. Maskil sounds a bit like another Hebrew word, askilkha, which means “let me enlighten you.” Some scholars associate maskil with a root word, sakal, which generates a lot of words with various meanings such as: thoughtful, instructive, wise, and proper. One theory is that the word relates to both lyrics and music. It could, for example, describe the lyrics as “thoughtful” and the music as a harmony fit for that theme.

Korah was a musical family in the tribe of Levi, one of the 12 tribes that made up the original nation of Israel. Levite families worked as priests and worship leaders and assistants for the Jewish nation.

The song reads like one of the blues the Jewish people sang after Babylonians from what is now Iraq erased the Jewish nation from the world map, leveled Jerusalem, and exiled many of the surviving Jews to what is now Iraq. There, without the Jerusalem Temple or without the ability to offer sacrifices, the only way they knew to worship was to pray.

Location of Mizar is unknown. It may have been one of the mountain peaks beside Mount Hermon, one of the highest mountains in the region.