(Psalm 42:7)
What was in the mind’s eye of the Sons of Korah in this Psalm?
The clue is in the next line, ‘at the noise of your waterspouts’ (waterspout is the preferred translation once we know the context).
The Hebrew word TSINNOR and this is the word used of the access gutter or spout through which David’s commander, Joab, accessed the ancient fortress of Jebus. The word is used only twice; here in Psalm 42 and in 2 Samuel 5:8 where David says, “Whoever climbs up by way of the water shaft (TSINNOR) and defeats the Jebusites.....he shall be chief and captain.”
The Gihon (meaning Gushing Up) Spring still makes a dull roar on occasions, but was, in David’s day a mighty geyser-like gusher and the water was channeled upward under its own pressure, into the fortress above.
It could be heard roaring away, day and night.
When we consider that it was at or above Gihon that David later erected a temporary tent (tabernacle) for the Ark of the Covenant and the holy items—and instituted worship there—it is not surprising that as the Korahites sang, the deep roar of Gihon could be heard below and—the gushing of it up through the TSINNOR nearby—accompanying them.
They knew, as did David, that this was the site, known from antiquity as HaMakom, The Place—the site named by Jacob as Beit-El (Bethel), House of God and that is why David erected the tent right there. The water of Gihon represented the living water of God.
And so, the Korahites wrote that, ‘deep (the powerful voice of that Living Water beneath them) calls to deep’—to the depths of the soul. And they heard it not only below, but also bubbling and surging up the TSINNOR, quite near them, to above them—‘all your waves and billows have gone over me.’
As David knew the sacredness of the site, he passed that on to his son, Solomon with the plans for the temple and it was built nearby, above the Gihon Spring, in the City of David!
There is no ‘living water’ on the alleged Temple Mount!