God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
Parallel Translations
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God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
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O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
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(63-1) A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. (63-2) O God, Thou art my God, earnestly will I seek Thee; my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a dry and weary land, where no water is.
Cross-references (36)
Passages linked to Psalms 63:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 143:6 I spread out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you, like a parched land.
- Psalms 84:2 My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
- Psalms 42:1-2 As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
- Matthew 6:33 But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
- Psalms 91:2 I will say of Yahweh, “He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.”
- Revelation 7:16-17 They will never be hungry or thirsty any more. The sun won’t beat on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
- Isaiah 41:18 I will open rivers on the bare heights, and springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
- Exodus 15:2 Yah is my strength and song. He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
- Psalms 5:3 Yahweh, in the morning you will hear my voice. In the morning I will lay my requests before you, and will watch expectantly.
- John 7:37 Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!
- Psalms 118:28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God, I will exalt you.
- Psalms 143:10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.
- Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me. Those who seek me diligently will find me.
- 1 Samuel 22:5 The prophet Gad said to David, “Don’t stay in the stronghold. Depart, and go into the land of Judah.” Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hereth.
- 1 Samuel 23:23-25 See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hides himself, and come again to me with certainty, and I will go with you. It shall happen, if he is in the land, that I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah.” They arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah on the south of the desert. Saul and his men went to seek him. When David was told, he went down to the rock, and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. When Saul heard that, he pursued David in the wilderness of Maon.
- Song of Solomon 3:1-3 By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. I will get up now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
- Psalms 31:14 But I trust in you, Yahweh. I said, “You are my God.”
- Proverbs 1:27-28 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me;
- Jeremiah 31:1 “At that time,” says Yahweh, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”
- Hosea 5:15 I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”
- Zechariah 13:9 I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, ‘It is my people;’ and they will say, ‘Yahweh is my God.’ ”
- Job 8:5 If you want to seek God diligently, make your supplication to the Almighty.
- Psalms 42:11 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
- Psalms 78:34 When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly.
- Psalms 102:3-5 For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch. My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.
- Isaiah 35:7 The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Grass with reeds and rushes will be in the habitation of jackals, where they lay.
- Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
- Exodus 17:3 The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”
- John 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
- Psalms 119:81 My soul faints for your salvation. I hope in your word.
- Song of Solomon 5:8 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, If you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am faint with love.
- 1 Samuel 26:1-3 The Ziphites came to Saul to Gibeah, saying, “Doesn’t David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert?” Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul encamped in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert, by the way. But David stayed in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness.
- 2 Samuel 15:28 Behold, I will stay at the fords of the wilderness, until word comes from you to inform me.”
- Isaiah 32:2 A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.
- Matthew 12:43 When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and doesn’t find it.
- 1 Samuel 23:14-16 David stayed in the wilderness in the strongholds, and remained in the hill country in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but God didn’t deliver him into his hand. David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph in the wood. Jonathan, Saul’s son, arose, and went to David into the woods, and strengthened his hand in God.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (27 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1. O God! thou art my God. The wilderness…
1. O God! thou art my God. The wilderness of Judah, spoken of in the title, can be no other than that of Ziph, where David wandered so long in a state of concealment. We may rely upon the truth of the record he gives us of his exercise when under his trials; and it is apparent that he never allowed himself to be so far overcome by them, as to cease lifting up his prayers to heaven, and even resting, with a firm and constant faith, upon the divine promises. Apt as we are, when assaulted by the very slightest trials, to lose the comfort of any knowledge of God we may previously have possessed, it is necessary that we should notice this, and learn, by his example, to struggle to maintain our confidence under the worst troubles that can befall us. He does more than simply pray; he sets the Lord before him as his God, that he may throw all his cares unhesitatingly upon him, deserted as he was of man, and a poor outcast in the waste and howling wilderness. His faith, shown in this persuasion of the favor and help of God, had the effect of exciting him to constant and vehement prayer for the grace which he expected. In saying that his soul thirsted, and his flesh longed, he alludes to the destitution and poverty which he lay under in the wilderness, and intimates, that though deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence, he looked to God as his meat and his drink, directing all his desires to him. When he represents his soul as thirsting, and his flesh as hungering, we are not to seek for any nice or subtile design in the distinction. He means simply that he desired God, both with soul and body. For although the body, strictly speaking, is not of itself influenced by desire, we know that the feelings of the soul intimately and extensively affect it.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain To wit, of Ziph, 1 Sam. 23:14.
To wit, of Ziph, 1 Sam. 23:14.
Though he was both hungry and in great distress, yet he made God his sufficiency and above all meat and drink.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 63:1 « A Psalm of David, when he…
Psa 63:1 « A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. » O God, thou [art] my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
When he was in the wilderness of Judah] That is, of Idumea, saith Genebrard, which bordered upon the tribe of Judah; but better understand it either of the forest of Hareth, 1Sa 22:5, or of the wilderness of Ziph, 1Sa 23:14, where David was, In deserto desertus exul, et omnis fere consolationis inept, not only destitute of outward comforts, but in some desertion of soul; Et sic miserrimus, et calamitosissimus oberravit, saith Beza.
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Ver. 1. O God, thou art my God] And that is now mine only comfort; Divini mellis alvearium, the bee hive of heavenly honey.
Early will I seek thee] Now they who seek God early have a promise that they shall find him. Aben-Ezra rendereth it, Sicut mercator gemmas, inquiram re, I will diligently seek thee, as a merchant doth the precious stones סוחד (Mercator).
My soul thirsteth for thee] Thirst is Taclith hattaavah, say the Rabbis, the perfection of desire. The whole life of a Christian is nothing else but Sanctum desiderium, saith Austin. How many broken spirits spend and exhale themselves in continual sallies, as it were, and egressions of affection unto God, thirsting after, not only a union, but a unity with him?
My flesh longeth for thee] Non habet haec vex secium, saith Aben-Ezra; this word is here only found. It is a notable metaphor, saith another interpreter, taken from women with child, to express the earnest affection that he had to God-ward. The Septuagint rendereth it ποσαπλως, Quam multipliciter. His soul, his flesh, all was on a light fire, as it were, with ardent affection towards God (R. Solomon).
In a dry and thirsty land] Where I am hardly bestead, and at a great fault for outward accommodations, but much more for sweet and spiritual communion with thee in holy ordinances; there lieth the pinch of my grief.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain My God; in covenant with me.
My God; in covenant with me.
Early, Heb.
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in the morning; which implies the doing it with greatest diligence and speed, taking the first and the best time for it, as Job 8:5; Psa 78:34; Pro 1:28.
Thirsteth for thee, i.e. for the presence and enjoyment of thee in thy house and ordinances, as the next verse declareth it.
Longeth; or, languisheth, or pineth away. The desire of my soul after thee is so vehement and insatiable, that my very body feels the effects of it, as it commonly doth of all great passions.
A dry and thirsty land, where no water is; so called, either,
1. Metaphorically; in a land where I want the refreshing waters of the sanctuary. Or,
2. Properly; I thirst not so much for water (which yet I greatly want) as for thee.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The title tells us when the psalm was penned,…
The title tells us when the psalm was penned, when David was in the wilderness of Judah; that is, in the forest of Hareth (Sa1 22:5) or in the wilderness of Ziph, Sa1 23:15. 1. Even in Canaan, though a fruitful land and the people numerous, yet there were wildernesses, places less fruitful and less inhabited than other places. It will be so in the world, in the church, but not in heaven; there it is all city, all paradise, and no desert ground; the wilderness there shall blossom as the rose. 2. The best and dearest of God's saints and servants may sometimes have their lot cast in a wilderness, which speaks them lonely and solitary, desolate and afflicted, wanting, wandering, and unsettled, and quite at a loss what to do with themselves. 3. All the straits and difficulties of a wilderness must not put us out of tune for sacred songs; but even then it is our duty and interest to keep up a cheerful communion with God. There are psalms proper for a wilderness, and we have reason to thank God that it is the wilderness of Judah we are in, not the wilderness of Sin.
David, in these verses, stirs up himself to take hold on God,
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I. By a lively active faith: O God! thou art my God. Note, In all our addresses to God we must eye him as God, and our God, and this will be our comfort in a wilderness-state. We must acknowledge that God is, that we speak to one that really exists and is present with us, when we say, O God! which is a serious word; pity it should ever be used as a by-word. And we must own his authority over us and propriety in us, and our relation to him: "Thou art my God, mine by creation and therefore my rightful owner and ruler, mine by covenant and my own consent." We must speak it with the greatest pleasure to ourselves, and thankfulness to God, as those that are resolved to abide by it: O God! thou art my God.
II. By pious and devout affections, pursuant to the choice he had made of God and the covenant he had made with him.
1. He resolves to seek God, and his favour and grace: Thou art my God, and therefore I will seek thee; for should not a people seek unto their God? Isa 8:19. We must seek him; we must covet his favour as our chief good and consult his glory as our highest end; we must seek acquaintance with him by his word and seek mercy from him by prayer. We must seek him, (1.) Early, with the utmost care, as those that are afraid of missing him; we must begin our days with him, begin every day with him: Early will I seek thee. (2.) Earnestly: "My soul thirsteth for thee and my flesh longeth for thee (that is, my whole man is affected with this pursuit) here in a dry and thirsty land." Observe, [1.] His complaint in the want of God's favourable presence. He was in a dry and thirsty land; so he reckoned it, not so much because it was a wilderness as because it was at a distance from the ark, from the word and sacraments. This world is a weary land (so the word is); it is so to the worldly that have their portion in it - it will yield them no true satisfaction; it is so to the godly that have their passage through it - it is a valley of Baca; they can promise themselves little from it. [2.] His importunity for that presence of God: My soul thirsteth, longeth, for thee. His want quickened his desires, which were very intense; he thirsted as the hunted hart for the water-brooks; he would take up with nothing short of it. His desires were almost impatient; he longed, he languished, till he should be restored to the liberty of God's ordinances. Note, Gracious souls look down upon the world with a holy disdain and look up to God with a holy desire.
2. He longs to enjoy God. What is it that he does so passionately wish for? What is his petition and what is his request? It is this (Psa 63:2), To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. That is, (1.) "To see it here in this wilderness as I have seen it in the tabernacle, to see it in secret as I have seen it in the solemn assembly." Note, When we are deprived of the benefit of public ordinances we should desire and endeavour to keep up the same communion with God in our retirements that we have had in the great congregation. A closet may be turned into a little sanctuary. Ezekiel had the visions of the Almighty in Babylon, and John in the isle of Patmos. When we are alone we may have the Father with us, and that is enough. (2.) "To see it again in the sanctuary as I have formerly seen it there." He longs to be brought out of the wilderness, not that he might see his friends again and be restored to the pleasures and gaieties of the court, but that he might have access to the sanctuary, not to see the priests there, and the ceremony of the worship, but to see thy power and glory (that is, thy glorious power, or thy powerful glory, which is put for all God's attributes and perfections), "that I may increase in my acquaintance with them and have the agreeable impressions of them made upon my heart" - so to behold the glory of the Lord as to be changed into the same image, Co2 3:18. "That I may see thy power and glory," he does not say, as I have seen them, but "as I have seen thee." We cannot see the essence of God, but we see him in seeing by faith his attributes and perfections. These sights David here pleases himself with the remembrance of. Those were precious minutes which he spent in communion with God; he loved to think them over again; these he lamented the loss of, and longed to be restored to. Note, That which has been the delight and is the desire of gracious souls, in their attendance on solemn ordinances, is to see God and his power and glory in them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain O God, thou art my God,.... Not by nature…
O God, thou art my God,.... Not by nature only, or by birth; not merely as an Israelite and son of Abraham; but by grace through Christ, and in virtue of an everlasting covenant, the blessings and promises of which were applied unto him; and he, by faith, could now claim his interest in them, and in his God as his covenant God; who is a God at hand and afar off, was his God in the wilderness of Judea, as in his palace at Jerusalem. The Targum is,
"thou art my strength;''
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early will I seek thee; or "I will morning thee" (o); I will seek thee as soon as the morning appears; and so the Targum,
"I will arise in the morning before thee;''
it has respect to prayer in the morning, and to seeking God early, and in the first place; see Psa 5:3; or "diligently" (p); as a merchant seeks for goodly pearls, or other commodities suitable for him; so Aben Ezra suggests, as if the word was to be derived, not from "the morning", but from "merchandise"; and those who seek the Lord both early and diligently shall find him, and not lose their labour, Pro 2:4;
my soul thirsteth for thee; after his word, worship, and ordinances; after greater knowledge of him, communion with him, and more grace from him; particularly after pardoning grace and justifying righteousness; see Psa 42:1; My flesh longeth for thee; which is expressive of the same thing in different words; and denotes, that he most earnestly desired, with his whole self, his heart, soul, and strength, that he might enjoy the presence of God;
in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; such was the wilderness of Judea, where he now was, and where he was destitute of the means of grace, of the ordinances of God's house, and wanted comfort and refreshment for his soul, which he thirsted and longed after, as a thirsty man after water in a desert place.
(o) "sub auroram quaero te", Piscator. (p) "Studiosissime", Gejerus, Michaelis.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain David's desire and esteem of God, ver. 1-4. His…
David's desire and esteem of God, ver. 1-4. His satisfaction, and communion with God, ver. 5, 6. His joyful dependence upon God, ver. 7, 8. His holy triumph in him, ver. 9-12. A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
Early - Hebrew. in the morning, Which implies the doing it with diligence and speed. Thirsteth - For the enjoyment of thee in thy house and ordinances. Flesh - The desire of my soul, is so vehement, that my very body feels the effects of it. No water - In a land where I want the refreshing waters of the sanctuary.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain David's soul thirsts after God, while absent from the
PSALM LXIII
David's soul thirsts after God, while absent from the
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sanctuary, and longs to be restored to the Divine
ordinances, 1, 2.
He expresses strong confidence in the Most High, and praises
him for his goodness, 3-8;
shows the misery of those who do not seek God, 9, 10;
and his own safety as king of the people, 11.
NOTES ON PSALM LXIII
The title of this Psalm is, A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judea; but instead of Judea, the Vulgate, Septuagint, AEthiopic, Arabic, several of the ancient Latin Psalters, and several of the Latin fathers, read Idumea, or Edom; still there is no evidence that David had ever taken refuge in the deserts of Idumea. The Hebrew text is that which should be preferred; and all the MSS. are in its favour. The Syriac has, "Of David, when he said to the king of Moab, My father and mother fled to thee from the face of Saul; and I also take refuge with thee." It is most probable that the Psalm was written when David took refuge in the forest of Hareth, in the wilderness of Ziph, when he fled from the court of Achish. But Calmet understands it as a prayer by the captives in Babylon.
Verse 1. O God, thou art my God] He who can say so, and feels what he says, need not fear the face of any adversary. He has God, and all sufficiency in him.
Early will I seek thee] From the dawn of day. De luce, from the light, Vulgate; as soon as day breaks; and often before this, for his eyes prevented the night-watches; and he longed and watched for God more than they who watched for the morning. The old Psalter says, God my God, til the fram light I wake; and paraphrases thus: God of all, thurgh myght; thu is my God, thurgh lufe and devocion; speciali till the I wak. Fra light, that is, fra thy tym that the light of thi grace be in me, that excites fra night of sine. And makes me wak till the in delite of luf, and swetnes in saul. Thai wak till God, that setes all thar thoght on God, and for getns the werld. Thai slep till God, that settis thair hert on ani creatur.-I wak till the, and that gars me thirst in saule and body.
What first lays hold of the heart in the morning is likely to occupy the place all the day. First impressions are the most durable, because there is not a multitude of ideas to drive them out, or prevent them from being deeply fixed in the moral feeling.
In a dry and thirsty land] בארץ beerets, IN a land: but several MSS. have כארץ keerets, AS a dry and thirsty land, &c.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 63:1. O God — O thou who art…
Psa 63:1. O God — O thou who art God, and the only living and true God, the author and end of all things, the Governor and Judge of men and angels, and the sole object of their worship; thou art my God — Mine by creation, and therefore my rightful owner and ruler; mine by covenant and my own consent, and therefore the object of my highest esteem, most fervent desire, and most entire trust and confidence. Early will I seek thee — Which clause is all expressed in one word in the Hebrew, אשׁחרךְ, ashacherecha, (a most significant term, from שׁחר, shachar, aurora, vel diluculum, the dawn of day, or morning twilight,) a phrase which no translation can very happily express. Buxtorf interprets it thus, Quasi aurorare, vel diluculare dicas, words which will not admit of being rendered into our language. The sense of them, however, is, I will prevent, or be as early as the first approach of light in seeking thee. Perhaps no version can better express the precise meaning and force of the original term than that of the Seventy, namely, προς σε ορθριζω, but it is equally difficult, if not impossible, to be literally translated into English. We find the same Hebrew phrase Isa 26:9, which our translators interpret in the same manner, namely, “With my spirit within me will I seek thee early.” The primary meaning of the word early, in both passages, is early in the morning, or before, or with the dawn of day; which implies the doing it (namely, seeking God) with the greatest speed and diligence, taking the first and best time for it. And to seek him, the reader will observe, is to covet his favour as our chief good, and to consult his glory as our highest end: it is to seek an acquaintance with him by his word, and mercy from him by prayer: it is to seek union with him, and a conformity to him by his Spirit. My soul thirsteth for thee — Eagerly desires to approach thee, to have access to thee, and to enjoy communion with thee. Thirsting, in all languages, is frequently used for earnestly longing after, or passionately desiring any thing. My flesh longeth for thee — Or, languisheth, or pineth away, as כמה, chamah, the word here used, seems properly to signify. R. Sal. renders it, arescit, it is dried up, withered, or wasted. In some approved lexicons it is interpreted of the eye growing dim, the colour changing, and the mind being weakened. As used here by the psalmist, the word implies the utmost intenseness and fervency of desire; as though it impaired his sight, altered the very hue of his body, and even injured his understanding; effects oftentimes produced by eager and unsatisfied desires. In a dry and thirsty land where no water is — Where I have not the refreshing waters of the sanctuary, and where I thirst not so much for water to refresh my body, although I also greatly want that, as for thy presence, and the communications of thy grace to refresh my soul. He experienced the vehemence of natural thirst in a wilderness, where he could get no supply of water; and by that sensation he expresses the vehemence of his spiritual thirst, of his desire after God, and the ordinances of his worship.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain O God, thou art my God - The words…
O God, thou art my God - The words here rendered God are not the same in the original. The first one - אלהים 'Elohiym - is in the plural number, and is the word which is usually employed to designate God Gen 1:1; the second - אל 'Êl - is a word which is very often applied to God with the idea of strength - a strong, a mighty One; and there is probably this underlying idea here, that God was the source of his strength, or that in speaking of God as his God, he was conscious of referring to him as Almighty. It was the divine attribute of power on which his mind mainly rested when he spoke of him as his God. He did not appeal to him merely as God, with no reference to a particular attribute; but he had particularly in his eye his power or his ability to deliver and save him. In Psa 22:1, where, in our version, we have the same expression, “My God, my God,” the two words in the original are identical, and are the same which is used here - אל 'Êl - as expressive of strength or power. The idea suggested here is, that in appealing to God, while we address him as our God, and refer to his general character as God, it is not improper to have in our minds some particular attribute of his character - power, mercy, love, truth, faithfulness, etc. - as the special ground of our appeal.
Early will I seek thee - The word used here has reference to the early dawn, or the morning; and the noun which is derived from the verb, means the aurora, the dawn, the morning. The proper idea, therefore, would be that of seeking God in the morning, or the early dawn; that is, as the first thing in the day. Compare the notes at Isa 26:9. The meaning here is, that he would seek God as the first thing in the day; first in his plans and purposes; first in all things. He would seek God before other things came in to distract and divert his attention; he would seek God when he formed his plans for the day, and before other influences came in, to control and direct him. The favor of God was the supreme desire of his heart, and that desire would be indicated by his making him the earliest - the first - object of his search. His first thoughts - his best thoughts - therefore, he resolved should be given to God. A desire to seek God as the first object in life - in youth - in each returning day - at the beginning of each year, season, month, week - in all our plans and enterprises - is one of the most certain evidences of true piety; and religion flourishes most in the soul, and flourishes only in the soul, when we make God the first object of our affections and desires.
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My soul thirsteth for thee - See the notes at Psa 42:2.
My flesh longeth for thee - All my passions and desires - my whole nature. The two words - “soul” and “flesh,” are designed to embrace the entire man, and to express the idea that he longed supremely for God; that all his desires, whether springing directly from the soul, or the needs of the body, rose to God as the only source from which they could be gratified.
In a dry and thirsty land - That is, As one longs for water in a parched desert, so my soul longs for God. The word thirsty is in the margin, as in Hebrew, weary. The idea is that of a land where, from its parched nature - its barrenness - its rocks - its heat - its desolation - one would be faint and weary on a journey.
Where no water is - No running streams; no gushing fountains; nothing to allay the thirst.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Psalms 63
Psalms 63
A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah
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O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee:
My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee
In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
2 To see thy power and thy glory,
So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
3 Because thy lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise thee.
4 Thus will I bless thee while I live:
I will lift up my hands in thy name.
5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness;
And my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips:
6 When I remember thee upon my bed,
And meditate on thee in the night watches.
7 Because thou hast been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
8 My soul followeth hard after thee:
Thy right hand upholdeth me.
9 But those that seek my soul, to destroy it,
Shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
10 They shall fall by the sword:
They shall be a portion for foxes.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God;
Every one that sweareth by him shall glory:
But the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Its Contents and Composition.—The speaker longs vehemently after Elohim=Jehovah as his God (El), and designates this longing as the thirst of one who is parched and languishing, because he was in this bodily condition when he sojourned in the dry, barren land (Psa_63:1). The mention of jackals (Psa_63:10) is against a figurative interpretation of this expression (Hitzig), derived from the fact that God is the element of life, as it were the nourishing sap of men (Hupfeld)=as in the barren land (Syriac, et al.). The description of the fate of the enemies of the Psalmist (Psa_63:10) is much more natural, if a designation of place is found in Psa_63:1 (Septuagint, Chald., Hengstenberg, Ewald, Delitzsch); and the mention of the king (Psa_63:11), is not at all in such a way that we are compelled to think of a different person from the speaker (De Wette). On the contrary, the verbs, which it is better to regard as futures than optatives, lead to the assurance of the joy of victory in the overthrow of lying and boasting enemies, who pursue the Psalmist in his flight to the wilderness, but will themselves perish in this undertaking. In this connection it is much easier to think of the royal dignity of the Psalmist, who vindicates this against his enemies and as a sign of his Divine calling, in order to strengthen his faith, than to think that the king not mentioned otherwise is to rejoice in the deliverance of the Psalmist from the hands of his enemies. This being the case, we cannot think of any other royal poet but David, especially as this Psalm not only has points of resemblance with Psalms 41. and other Davidic Psalms, but the characteristic expression of the thirsting of David and his followers is used, 2Sa_16:2; 2Sa_16:14; 2Sa_17:29 (Hengstenberg, Delitzsch), when he halted in the steppes of the wilderness one or two days (2Sa_15:23; 2Sa_15:28; 2Sa_17:16) in his flight from Absalom, before he crossed the Jordan. As well the mention of the sanctuary (Psa_63:2) as the prominence given to the royal dignity (Psa_63:11), makes it necessary to think of this period and not of the sojourn of David in the wilderness of Judah in the time of Saul (most of the older interpreters). The Psalmist thirsting in the wilderness wishes to be again near to God (Psa_63:1), as he was previously near Him in the sanctuary (Psa_63:2), and this longing is based upon the grace of God, which surpasses the dearest and most precious of all things, life (Psa_63:3), for which the singer will praise God continually (Psa_63:4). His soul lives and is nourished by this, his mouth is filled with it (Psa_63:5), as his hours of rest and the night watches are filled with meditation upon God (Psa_63:6). For God has become to him a constant help, so that he can shout for joy in the experience of Divine protection (Psa_63:7), and feels himself, in the attachment of his soul, drawn towards God, whom he thanks for his preservation (Psa_63:8). His enemies will suffer a terrible ruin (Psa_63:9-10). He, the king, on the other hand, will rejoice in God, that is to say, as one who has been delivered by God and drawn to Him; and every one who swears by God, that is, honors God as God (Deu_6:13; Isa_19:13; Isa_45:23; Isa_65:16; Amo_8:14), will glory, because the mouth of those who speak lies is stopped (Psa_63:11).—In the ancient Church, the morning service was opened with the singing of this Psalm (const, apost. II. 59; VIII. 37), partly on account of Psa_63:6, partly on account of the translation of Psa_63:1 : early I seek Thee:7
Str. I. Psa_63:1. I seek Thee (earnestly).—The older interpreters translated this: I seek Thee early, since they referred the verb שׁחַר to the noun שַׁחַר (dawn), although it properly means only a “solicitous seeking.”8—My flesh languisheth.—The Septuagint and Symm. have read incorrectly כַמָּה=as often, instead of כָּמַהּ which Symm. renders by ίμείρεται. [My flesh, in connection with my soul, indicates the whole man in his two principal parts, body and soul, as Psa_16:9; Psa_31:10; Psa_44:25, etc.—C. A. B.]
Psa_63:2. Thus have I looked at Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory.—The change of the perfect (Psa_63:2) and the imperfect (Psa_63:4) shows that the Psalmist will continue to do, what he has previously done; and the repeated “thus,” renders prominent the similarity of his feelings prevailing under both circumstances, namely, the longing after God, which he now has in the barren land, as he once had it in the sanctuary. The supposition of a reference back to the beginning of the Psalm=so as to my God (Ewald), has little in its favor. The following interpretations are to be entirely rejected, especially on account of their not regarding the perfect: then (when my longing is quieted) I will behold (Chald., De Wette), or there, that is to say, in such a land (Luther, Geier), or: thence, that is, in consequence of which (Calvin, Rosenm., Hengstenberg) I behold Thee in the sanctuary, so that I see Thy glory, which then is understood of spiritual beholding, as if the beholder, though far off in the body, had been snatched away by his longing into the sanctuary. There is no necessity to transpose the halves of each Verse from Psa_63:2 to Psa_63:8 (Hupfeld). [The A. V. transposes the parts of Psa_63:2 without reason.—C. A. B ]
[Psa_63:3. For Thy grace is better than life.—The A. V. regards the כי as giving the reason of the praise in the second clause, and translates: because. This is possible, yet not so good as the interpretation that it gives the reason of the longing of Psa_63:1 (Hupfeld, Delitzsch, Moll, Perowne, et al.). Hengstenberg refers it to the previous Verse.9
Psa_63:4. Comp. Psa_28:2, for the lifting up of the hands in prayer.—C. A. B]
Str. II. [Psa_63:5. As with marrow and fatness.—Perowne: “An image borrowed from a rich and splendid banquet, comp. Psa_22:26; Psa_22:29; Psa_23:5-6. Hupfeld, following J. H. Mich., thinks that the reference is immediately to the sacrificial meal, which accompanied the thank-offering, here used as an image of thanksgiving (comp. Psa_50:13; Psa_54:6, etc.), and that the comparison is between his delight in rendering thanksgiving to God, and the enjoyment of the fat of the sacrifices. But the simpler explanation is the more probable, comp. Deu_32:14; Isa_25:6; Jer_31:14.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_63:6. The mention of night-watches, of which there were three, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the night (Exo_14:24; Jdg_7:19; Lam_2:19), shows that the remembrance of God with the Psalmist was not a transient occurrence, but called forth (repeated earnest meditation during the whole night, Psa_139:17 sq.
[Psa_63:7. For Thou hast been a help to me, and in the shadow of Thy wings will I shout for joy.—Perowne: “David in the present, distress, finding support in the past, and from that sure ground looking forward with confidence and joy to the future.”—For the figure in the last clause, comp. Psa_17:8; Psa_36:7; Psa_57:1; Psa_61:4.
Psa_63:8. My soul cleaveth to Thee, Thy right hand upholds me.—God holds fast to the righteous with His right hand and holds him up, whilst the righteous hangs on to God or cleaves to Him. This is a beautiful representation of the mutual affection and reciprocal relation of God and His servant.—C. A. B.]
Str. III. Psa_63:9. But they, to (their own) destruction shall they seek my soul, shall go into the abysses of the earth.—Some, after the Septuagint and Vulgate, take לְשוֹאָה=in vain (in vanum), as if they had before them לַשָּוְא. But it does not state the purpose of the enemy (most interpreters), but the consequence of their hostile pursuit, which was for the ruin of others, yet brought ruin upon themselves. The parallel clause is particularly in favor of this. The abysses of the earth, or the depths of the interior of the earth (Psa_139:15; Isa_44:23), mean here as Eph_4:9, not the clefts and caves, but the world below (Böttcher, et al.).
Psa_63:10. They shall be given up to the edge of the sword.—This is literally: they shall pour him (that is, the enemy as a collective noun) into the hands of the sword. This, would not only be unusual and obscure in English, but in the present connection would cause misunderstandings; hence transposition is necessary.10 The verb is the Hiphil of נָגַר, and not from גָּרַר. The same construction is found, Jer_18:21; Eze_35:5.—[A portion for jackals.—The idea is that, slain by the sword and left upon the field, their bodies would be the prey of jackals. Jackals are the scavengers of the East, and even enter the towns and quarrel with the dogs in the streets for carrion, 11—C. A. B.]
Psa_63:11. Every one that sweareth by Him. It is likewise correct, as far as the language is concerned, to explain: that sweareth by the king, that is, confess themselves as his subjects, and show themselves to be such (Theodoret, Ewald, Hengstenberg); but actually this is objectionable from the fact that heathen nations might very well swear by the life of the king (Gen_32:15), but an Israelite could not do this.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. In the greatest abandonment, in the desolate wilderness, in peril of body and life, the pious hold fast their communion with God in faith, and long constantly for a more complete realization of it. For God is the highest good of the pious, and as their God is not only more precious than life, but is likewise the source of all refreshment and the ground of every deliverance and help. Hence God, as the abiding object of their longing, as well as the essence of salvation, is the constant subject of their meditation and praise, in which they find the strongest nourishment and the sweetest enjoyment for their souls
2. The remembrance of the blessings which the pious have received in the sanctuary of the Lord, and the longing there experienced and gratified, for ever deeper insight into the power and glory of God, not unfrequently, in times when they are far from the sanctuary, without their own fault, and in distress of body and of soul, is violently awakened by the burning longing for consolation, assistance and deliverance from God. Since, however, it is connected with the recollection of previous benefits and assistances from God, it draws the soul into the sphere of comforting thoughts and blessed experiences, and excites it even during the time of suffering to pleasure in prayer and joy in thanksgiving, from which again grows resignation to God, confidence in deliverance from the hands of the enemies who pursue the pious to their own destruction, and the enlargement of the view, so that it embraces all who confess God.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
We can call upon God in the wilderness as well as in God’s house, yet we have no reason to undervalue the latter or give it up.—He who cannot enter the house of God, may yet thankfully remember the blessings which he has there received, as well as the benefits which God has bestowed upon him besides.—Why is the grace of God more precious than life?—To praise God is no burden, but pleasure to the pious.—With the pious sorrow as well as joy should serve to express the dependence of their souls on God, and at the same time to render this more spiritual and deeper. The longing after God in its grounds, its expressions, and consequences.—To reflect upon God’s glory, benefits and guidances is a salutary occupation, and at the same time a sweet enjoyment.—What fills the heart passes over the mouth, yet for some to everlasting confusion.—Together with Psalm cv., the daily morning prayer of the ancient Church.
Augustine: Si non traheris, ora, ut traharis.
Starke: True thankfulness has its ground in the heart, but expresses itself by words and works.—A believing soul finds its greatest pleasure in the consideration of the word of God, hence it has likewise a constant longing after it.—Where a carnal mind prevails in a man over the fear of God, the carnal will be the last before sleep, and the first after awaking.—He who loves lies is hateful to God and men, and ruins himself thereby.
Franke: What is it, that man has to seek more than this, that the Lord may be his God, who begins the ten commandments thus: I am the Lord, thy God.—Frisch: Better lose a thousand lives, than once willingly dispense with the grace of God.—Arndt: To live without God’s grace is death, to be eternally without God’s grace is eternal death.—Tholuck: The power of prayer depends on knowing God as our God.—Guenther: O that we might learn three things from David: The art of doing without a thing without pain the preparation and use of the still hours, the blessed joy in communion with God in spite of flight, hunger, thirst, a wilderness, anxiety, and need.
[Matt. Henry: Gracious souls look down upon the world with a holy disdain, and look up to God with a holy desire.—A closet may be turned into a little sanctuary.—Barnes: Nothing can be more proper than that our last thoughts, as we sink into quiet slumber, should be of God;—of His being, His character, His mercy, His loving-kindness; of the dealings of His providence, and the manifestation of His grace towards us during the day; and nothing is better fitted to compose the mind to rest, and to induce quiet and gentle slumber, than the calmness of soul which arises from the idea of an Infinite God, and from confidence in Him.—Wordsworth: Every devout soul which has loved to see God in His house, will be refreshed by visions of God in the wilderness of solitude, sorrow, sickness, and death.—Spurgeon: A weary place and a weary heart make the presence of God the more desirable; if there be nothing below and nothing within to cheer, it is a thousand mercies that we may look up and find all we need.—Life is dear, but God’s love is dearer. To dwell with God is better than life at its best.—When God gives us the marrow of His love, we must present to Him the marrow of our hearts.—We see best in the dark if we there see God best.—Night is congenial, in its silence and darkness, to a soul which would forget the world, and rise into a higher sphere.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[7][Perowne: “This is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and touching Psalms in the whole Psalter. Donne says of it: As the whole Book of Psalms is oleum effusum (as the spouse speaks of the name of Christ), an ointment poured out upon all sorts of sores, a cerecloth that supplies all bruises, a balm that searches all wounds; so are there some certain Psalms that are imperial Psalms, that command over all affections, and spread themselves over all occasions-catholic, universal Psalms, that apply to all necessities.’—And again he observes: ‘the spirit and soul of the whole Book of Psalms is contracted into this Psalm, Serm. 66.”—C. A. B.]
[8][Delitzsch admits this, yet contends that “since Psa_63:6 looks back upon the night, this expression was chosen with reference to the break of the morning, as Isa_26:9. שִׁחַר is side by side with אוָּה בלַּיְלָה,” and thus he prefers the translation: I seek Thee early.—C. A. B.]
[9][Delitzsch: “This longing after God, which is now the more violent in the wilderness afar off from the sanctuary, fills him and impels him, for God’s grace is better than life, better than natural life (see Psa_17:14), which as likewise a good thing, and the condition of all earthly blessings is a very good thing; yet God’s grace is a higher good, the highest good and the true life. His lips are to praise this God of grace, a morning song is due Him, for that which truly blesses, and that which he now, as previously, solely and alone longs for, is the grace of this God, whose infinite worth is measured only by the greatness of His power and glory .“—C. A. B.]
[10][It is better., with Perowne, Alexander, et al., to translate the power of the sword, the hand being expressive of power. Hupfeld and Delitzsch prefer the rendering: hands of the sword.—C. A.B.]
[11][Tristram Nat. Hist, of the Bible, p. Psalms 110 : “Shu’al, always in the Bible translated ‘fox’ is undoubtedly a comprehensive term, from which our own word jackal is ultimately derived, and which comprehends the jackal as well as the fox. In several instances, as in the expression, Psa_63:10, the jackal is indicated. It is the jackal rather than the fox which preys on dead bodies, and which assembles in troops on the battle-fields to feast on the slain—The natives of the East discriminate very little between the two animals, or rather look upon the fox as a small and inferior species of jackal. Indeed, their appearance to a cursory observer is very similar, the jackal having its fur of a paler color or yellowish rather than reddish in hue.”—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. My God—The “Our Father” and “Abba Father” of…
1. My God—The “Our Father” and “Abba Father” of the Old Testament, expressive of the confidence and submission of all acceptable prayer or praise.
Early—At daybreak, to be taken literally. See on Psa_46:5.
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Soul—It occurs four times, and “is the characteristic word of the psalm.”—Jebb.
Flesh longeth—The soul thirsted for God, the fountain of living water; the flesh languished from hunger for the bread of life.
Dry and thirsty land—Dry and weary land. A land which exhausted life and furnished no supply. To be taken literally of the land, but as an emblem, also, of his condition in exile, cut off from the ordinances of worship and the fellowship of saints.
Where no water is—Not absolutely, but where it was frightfully scarce. En-gedi, now Ain-jiddy, means “fountain of the kid,” from a beautiful fountain that breaks out of the rocks above the ruins of the ancient city, and about 400 feet above the plain. But such fountains are very rare in the desert. The city stood far south, near the shore of the Dead Sea, in the heart of the desert, south by east from Hebron. Its immediate vicinity was exceedingly fertile and beautiful, but David was in the adjacent desert mountains, probably el-Mersed, on the north.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. O God, thou art my God] Elohim, thou…
1. O God, thou art my God] Elohim, thou art my El. He addresses Jehovah, for Elohim here is the substitute for that Name (cp. Psa_140:6), as the Strong One to whom he can appeal with confidence in his need. Cp. Psa_42:2; Psa_42:8-9; Psa_43:4.
early will I seek thee] So the LXX, πρός σε ὀρθρίζω (the word used in Luk_21:38); and hence the use of the Psalm as a morning Psalm. Rather, however, earnestly will I seek thee; though sometimes (e.g. Isa_26:9) the word seems to be used with allusion to the supposed derivation from shachar, ‘dawn.’
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my soul … my flesh] My whole self, soul and body. Cp. Psa_84:2, ‘soul, heart, flesh’: the emotions, the reason and the will, the physical organism in and through which they act.
thirsteth for thee] See Psa_42:2, note; Psa_84:2.
longeth for thee] Pineth for thee, a strong word, occurring here only, meaning probably, ‘faints with desire.’
in a dry and thirsty, land] In a dry and weary land (Psa_143:6; Isa_32:2). These words are certainly metaphorical, not literal: it is the ‘water of life’ for which he thirsts; the spiritual refreshment with which God revives the fainting soul. But the metaphor was naturally suggested by the circumstances in which David was situated.
1, 2. Recalling the glorious visions of God which he has enjoyed in the sanctuary, the Psalmist thirsts for a renewed sense of His Presence.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Early will I seek thee.—LXX. and Vulgate, “to…
(1) Early will I seek thee.—LXX. and Vulgate, “to thee I wake early,” i.e., my waking thoughts are toward thee, and this was certainly in the Hebrew, since the verb here used has for its cognate noun the dawn. The expectancy which even in inanimate nature seems to await the first streak of morning is itself enough to show the connection of thought. (Comp. the use of the same verb in Son_7:12; and comp. Luk_21:28, New Testament Commentary.)
Soul . . . flesh.—Or, as we say, body and soul. (Comp. Psa_84:2, “my heart and my flesh.”)
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Longeth.—Heb., khâmah, a word only occurring here, but explained as cognate with an Arabic root meaning to be black as with hunger and faintness.
In.—Rather, as. (Comp. Psa_143:6.) This is the rendering of one of the Greek versions quoted by Origen, and Symmachus has “as in,” &c
Thirsty.—See margin. Fainting is perhaps more exactly the meaning. (See Gen_25:29-30, where it describes Esau’s condition when returning from his hunt.) Here the land is imagined to be faint for want of water. The LXX. and Vulgate have “pathless.” The parched land thirsting for rain was a natural image, especially to an Oriental, for a devout religious soul eager for communion with heaven.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain A PSALM of one absent from the sanctuary, and…
A PSALM of one absent from the sanctuary, and longing to return to it (vers. 1, 2), pursued by enemies who seek his life (ver. 9), but confident in God"s protection (vers. 7, 8), and, indeed, full of joy and praise and thankfulness (vers. 3-6 and 11). Near the close he lets fall a word, which shows him to be a king; and there is some reason to think that he is passing through a "dry and thirsty land," literally as well as figuratively (ver. 1). All these indications agree exactly with the statements in the "title," that the poem was composed by David as he fled through the wilderness of Judea towards the Jordan on the revolt of Absalom. (2Sa_15:16-30 2Sa_16:1-14)
The psalm is made up of five short stanzas the first four consisting of two verses each, and the last of three.
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O God, thou art my God; or, my strong God (Eli) my Tower of strength. Early will I seek thee. The song was, perhaps, composed in the night watches, and poured forth at early dawn, when the king woke "refreshed". (comp. vers. 5, 6; and 2Sa_16:14) My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee; or, pineth for thee (the verb occurs only in this place). Soul and body equally long for God, and especially desire to worship him in the sanctuary (ver. 2). In a dry and thirsty (or, weary) land, where no water is. This is figurative, no doubt; but it may also contain an allusion to the literal fact. (2Sa_16:2 2Sa_17:29)
An invocation and a vow.
"O God... seek thee." Rightly understood, these are the sublimest words human lips can utter. My God!" To claim God as his own with joyful, adoring intelligence and absolute faith, is the highest act of which our nature is capable. It is melancholy to think that these same words may denote the degradation of our nature instead of its glory! The Prophet Isaiah, with holy indignation, restrained only by pity from utter scorn, depicts the idol worshipper falling down before his wooden image, and saying, "Deliver me, for thou art my god!". (Isa_44:14-17) Perhaps we need not go far to find even a lower depth. These words, "My God!" constantly slip from thoughtless, profane lips, as an unmeaning exclamation, with no trace of religious feeling. The poor heathen, who has some dim sense of an invisible spiritual power behind his image, may look down with wonder and pity on the educated Englishman who is devoid of all sense of worship, all consciousness of relationship to the Father of spirits. We have here
(1) an invocation; and
(2) a purpose or vow.
I DAVID"S SUBLIME DECLARATION. "O God, thou art my God!
1. The expression of worship. Our English word "God" is one of those ancient words whose original meaning is unknown, The Hebrew word for which it stands in the Bible primarily means "mighty." The object of true worship is the omnipotent, self-existent Creator. Yet observe that mere power is never set forth in Scripture as the sole or chief reason for worship, that would be heathenish. God"s wisdom, righteousness, truth, holiness, bountiful loving kindness, and pardoning mercy are everywhere regarded as his claim to our worship, obedience, trust, and love. Underneath, like the solid rock on which the temple stood, is this foundation truth of his almightiness. Worship is bowing down before God, but it is also looking up. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." The more abasing the sense of our weakness, ignorance, sin, need, the more glorious and joyful a thing it is to look out of ourselves to him with whom is "the fountain of life," and say, "O God, thou art my God!
2. The expression of the sense of personal relationship. My God!" Worship is much, but it is far from being the sum of religion. No small proof that the Bible is God"s Word to man a message from our Father to his lost children, is this that its practical aim throughout is to awaken and appeal to this sense of personal relationship to God; to show us how sin has put us in a wholly false, unnatural relation to him; to bring us back to our right place and character of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
3. Accordingly, this is the utterance of faith reasonable, happy, unlimited trust. Nature, brilliant with the glory of its Maker, ruled by the awful harmony of his unswerving laws, impresses us with the distance between the Creator and the creature. Sin adds to the sense of distance that of estrangement and fear. In Psalm 51, David says, "Thou God of my salvation!" but does not venture to say, "My God!" But when faith sees "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," and grasps his plighted word, the shadow of guilt is chased away by the joy of pardon. Love casts out fear. The soul that was "far off" is "brought nigh by the blood of Christ." Experience comes in to help faith, and the language of faith becomes also the language of adoring gratitude and exulting certainty: "O God, thou art my God!
II DAVID"S PURPOSE AND VOW. "Early will I seek thee." Our Revisers have happily kept this beautiful word "early," which an overstrained scholarship seeks to get rid of. The Hebrew word is the same with the word for "dawn." We have a similar figure in Psa_130:6, a very natural and forcible image to a nation of early risers. (comp. Alexander on Isa_26:9) This yearning of the spirit after God heart hunger, soul thirst for his presence, love, likeness, is the very voice of his Spirit in the soul. Desire, hope, quest, perseverance, are all included here (see vers. 2-5). And they who thus seek shall find, for "the Father seeketh such". (Joh_4:23) Some sincere Christians may feel this intense yearning after God an experience they would fain reach, but scarcely dare claim. Take courage; he is God of the valleys as well as of the hills. The prayer of the humble is his delight. Why not make David"s words your own with better right than he? For the ancient saint came and claimed his privilege only on the ground of God"s covenant; we claim our birthright through him who said, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God". (Joh_20:17; cf. Rom_8:16) We are met for worship, yet there may be those to whom worship is but a dead form, who have never aspired, never cared to say, "O God, thou art my God!" You pity and despise the poor Hindu idolater. Which is really on the lower platform he in his rude, dim, maimed, yet sincere fashion, expressing his sense of dependence on a higher and invisible, power, "feeling after God;" or you, with the light of nineteen Christian centuries shining full on you with the open Bible, with the music of God"s message of reconciliation filling the air, yet with man"s noblest aspiration, the quest of God; man"s deepest, purest affection, the love of God; man"s sublimest capacity, the worship of God, dead or slumbering in your soul? Alas! you do not dream what a glory, power, joy, meaning, would come into your life if from this hour you learned to say, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-11. Soul thirst.
We may imagine the psalmist in the wilderness. It is night. He stands at his tent door. The light of moon and stars falls on a sandy waste stretching into dimness and mystery. He is lonely and sad. The emptiness of all around and the memory of better times breed a great longing in his soul. It is not as if it were something new and strange, rather it is the revival of the deepest and strongest cravings of his heart, that as he muses gather force and intensity, and must express themselves in song. The key verses seem to be vers. 1, 5, 8.
I THE SOUL"S LONGING. (Vers. 1-4) When we "thirst for God," we naturally look back and recall the times when we had the truest and fullest enjoyment of his presence. We think of "the sanctuary." It was not the outward glory; it was not the splendid ritual; it was not the excitement of the great congregation; but it was the vision of God that then brought peace and joy to the soul. And that is what is craved again more life and fuller: "To see thy power and thy glory." There are often circumstances which intensify and strengthen our longings. When we come to know God, not only as God, but as our God and our Redeemer, we feel that it is a very necessity of our being, that it is our life, to see him and to serve him, to love him, to worship him, to rejoice in him as all our Salvation and all our Desire.
II THE SOUL"S SATISFACTION. (Vers. 5-7) What alone can satisfy the soul is the vision of God; not God afar off, but nigh; not God in nature, or in the Law, or in the imagination of our hearts, but God in Christ. Here is true and abiding satisfaction, infinite truth for the mind, eternal righteousness for the conscience, perfect love for the heart. Philip said, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;" and the answer of our Lord was, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The more we meditate on this possession, the more we rejoice and give thanks. We cannot but praise. "As the spirit of the whole Book of Psalms is contracted into this psalm, so is the spirit and soul of the whole psalm contracted into this verse" (Donne). "Because thou hast been my Help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice" (ver. 7).
III THE SOUL"S RESOLUTION. (Vers. 8-11) There is mutual action. The soul cleaves to God, and God cleaves to the soul. There is a double embrace we both hold and are upheld. The result is invigoration the quickening glow of life through all our being, the free and joyous resolve to cleave to God, and to follow him in love and devotion all our days. Our needs are constant, and God"s love never fails. When we are weak, his strength makes us strong; when we are weary, his comforts sustain our fainting souls; when we are ready to sink in the waters, his voice gives us courage, and his strong arm brings us salvation. God ever comes to those who want him. Desire on our part is met by satisfaction on his part. More and more as we love and serve we enter into the joy of our Lord. Our heart is prophet to our heart, and tells of vanquishment of the enemy, of the coming glory and the pleasures which are at God"s right hand forevermore. W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-8. Sublime things.
Chrysostom says, "That it was decreed and ordained by the primitive Fathers that no day should pass without the public singing of this psalm.
I THE GRANDEST CONVICTION THE CREATURE CAN HAVE. (Ver. 1) That God is ours, and that we are God"s.
II THE GRANDEST LONGING OF BODY AND SOUL. (Ver. 1)
III THE GRANDEST VISION OF LIFE. (Ver. 2) To see the power and glory of God.
IV THE GRANDEST SONG. (Ver. 3) The loving kindness of God better than life "in all the fulness of its earthly meaning.
V THE MOST ABOUNDING SATISFACTION OF THE SOUL. (Ver. 5)
VI THE SUREST AND SAFEST PROTECTION. (Ver. 7)
VII THE MOST UNFAILING SUPPORT. (Ver. 8) S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain A Psalm of David, when he was in the…
A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. This was probably written while David was fleeing from Absalom; certainly at the time he wrote it he was king (Ps 63:11), and hard pressed by those who sought his life. David did not leave off singing because he was in the wilderness, neither did he in slovenly idleness go on repeating Psalms intended for other occasions; but he carefully made his worship suitable to his circumstances, and presented to his God a wilderness hymn when he was in the wilderness. There was no desert in his heart, though there was a desert around him. We too may expect to be cast into rough places ere we go hence. In such seasons, may the Eternal Comforter abide with us, and cause us to bless the Lord at all times, making even the solitary place to become a temple for Jehovah. The distinguishing word of this Psalm is EARLY. When the bed is the softest we are most tempted to rise at lazy hours; but when comfort is gone, and the couch is hard, if we rise the earlier to seek the Lord, we have much for which to thank the wilderness.
In Ps 63:1-8 verses the writer expresses his holy desires after God, and his confidence in him, and then in Ps 63:9-11 remaining three verses he prophesies the overthrow of all his enemies. This Psalm is peculiarly suitable for the bed of sickness, or in any constrained absence from public worship.
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Ver. 1. O God, thou art my God; or, O God, thou art my Mighty One. The last Psalm left the echo of power ringing in the ear, and it is here remembered. Strong affiance bids the fugitive poet confess his allegiance to the only living God; and firm faith enables him to claim him as his own. He has no doubts about his possession of his God; and why should other believers have any? The straightforward, clear language of this opening sentence would be far more becoming in Christians than the timorous and doubtful expressions so usual among professors. How sweet is such language! Is there any other word comparable to it for delights? Meus Deus. Can angels say more?
Early will I seek thee. Possession breeds desire. Full assurance is no hindrance to diligence, but is the mainspring of it. How can I seek another man's God? but it is with ardent desire that I seek after him whom I know to be my own. Observe the eagerness implied in the time mentioned; he will not wait for noon or the cool eventide; he is up at cockcrowing to meet his God. Communion with God is so sweet that the chill of the morning is forgotten, and the luxury of the couch is despised. The morning is the time for dew and freshness, and the psalmist consecrates it to prayer and devout fellowship. The best of men have been betimes on their knees. The word early has not only the sense of early in the morning, but that of eagerness, immediateness. He who truly longs for God longs for him now. Holy desires are among the most powerful influences that stir our inner nature; hence the next sentence,
My soul thirsteth for thee. Thirst is an insatiable longing after that which is one of the most essential supports of life; there is no reasoning with it, no forgetting it, no despising it, no overcoming it by stoical indifference. Thirst will be heard; the whole man must yield to its power; even thus is it with that divine desire which the grace of God creates in regenerate men; only God himself can satisfy the craving of a soul really aroused by the Holy Spirit.
My flesh longeth for thee; by the two words soul and flesh, he denotes the whole of his being. The flesh, in the New Testament sense of it, never longs after the Lord, but rather it lusteth against the spirit; David only refers to that sympathy which is sometimes created in our bodily frame by vehement emotions of the soul. Our corporeal nature usually tugs in the other direction, but the spirit when ardent can compel it to throw in what power it has upon the other side. When the wilderness caused David weariness, discomfort, and thirst, his flesh cried out in unison with the desire of his soul.
In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. A weary place and a weary heart make the presence of God the more desirable: if there be nothing below and nothing within to cheer, it is a thousand mercies that we may look up and find all we need. How frequently have believers traversed in their experience this dry and thirsty land, where spiritual joys are things forgotten! and how truly can they testify that the only true necessity of that country is the near presence of their God! The absence of outward comforts can be borne with serenity when we walk with God; and the most lavish multiplication of them avails not when he withdraws. Only after God, therefore, let us pant. Let all desires be gathered into one. Seeking first the kingdom of God--all else shall be added unto us.
Title. When he was in the wilderness of Judah. Even in Canaan, though a fruitful land, and the people numerous, yet there were wildernesses... It will be so in the world, in the church, but not in heaven... All the straits and difficulties of a wilderness must not put us out of tune for sacred songs; but even then it is our duty and interest to keep up a cheerful communion with God. There are Psalms proper for a wilderness; and we have reason to thank God it is the wilderness of Judah we are in, not the wilderness of Sin. Matthew Henry.
Title. The Wilderness of Judah is the whole wilderness towards the east of the tribe of Judah, bounded on the north by the tribe of Benjamin, stretching southward to the south west end of the Dead Sea; westward, to the Dead Sea and the Jordan; and eastward to the mountains of Judah. E. W. Hengstenberg.
Title The term wilderness rkdm, as distinguished from hdre, (a steppe) was given to a district which was not regularly cultivated and inhabited, but used for pasturage (from rbd, to drive), being generally without wood and defective in water, but not entirely destitute of vegetation. J. P. Lange.
Title. Hagar saw God in the wilderness, and called a well by the name derived from that vision, Beerlahairoi. Ge 16:13-14. Moses saw God in the wilderness. Ex 3:1-4. Elijah saw God in the wilderness. 1Ki 19:4-18. David saw God in the wilderness. The Christian church will see God in the wilderness. Re 12:6-14. Every devout soul which has loved to see God in his house will be refreshed by visions of God in the wilderness of solitude, sorrow, sickness, and death. Christopher Wordsworth.
Whole Psalm. This is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and touching Psalms in the whole Psalter. Donne says of it: "As the whole Book of Psalms is, oleum offusun (as the spouse speaks of the name of Christ), an ointment poured out upon all sort of sores, a cerecloth that supplies all bruises, a balm that searches all wounds; so are there some certain Psalms that are imperial Psalms, that command over all affections and spread themselves over all occasions--catholic, universal Psalms, that apply themselves to all necessities. This is one of these; for of those constitutions which are called apostolical, one is that the church should meet every day to sing this Psalm. And, accordingly, St. Chrysostom testifies, `That it was decreed and ordained by the primitive Fathers, that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm.'" J. J. Stewart Perowne.
Whole Psalm. This Psalm is aptly described by Clauss as "A precious confession of a soul thirsting after God and his grace, and finding itself quickened through inward communion with him, and which knows how to commit its outward lot also into his hand." Its lesson is, that the consciousness of communion with God in trouble is the sure pledge of deliverance. This is the peculiar fountain of consolation which is opened up to the sufferer in the Psalm. The Berleb Bible describes it as a Psalm "which proceeds from a spirit really in earnest. It was the favourite Psalm of M. Schade, the famous preacher in Berlin, which he daily prayed with such earnestness and appropriation to himself, that it was impossible to hear it without emotion." E. W. Hengstenberg.
Ver. 1. O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee (or, I will diligently seek thee, as merchants precious stones that are of greatest value): my soul thirsteth for thee. He doth not say my soul thirsteth for water, but my soul thirsteth for thee; nor he doth say my soul thirsteth for the blood of my enemies, but my soul thirsteth for thee; nor he doth not say my soul thirsteth for deliverance out of this dry and thirsty land, where no water is; nor he doth not say my soul thirsteth for a crown, a kingdom, but my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee. These words are a notable metaphor, taken from women with child, to note his earnest, ardent, and strong affections towards God. Thomas Brooks.
Ver. 1. O God. This is a serious word; pity it should ever be used as a byword. Matthew Henry.
Ver. 1. My God in Hebrew is the same word with which the Lord cried out upon the cross to the Father about the ninth hour: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For in Hebrew, this Psalm begins Elohim, Eli. Now, Elohim is plural, and Eli is singular, to express the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of the Unity, the distinct subsistence of the (three) hypostases, and their consubstantiality. Psalterium Quin. Fabri stapulensis, 1513.
Ver. 1. (first clause). In David we have a notable example of a sensitive, tender, self analysing soul, living in sustained communion with God, while deeply sensible of the claims of the civil and religious polity of Israel, and, moreover, while externally devoted to a large round of exacting public duties. And in this Psalm public misfortunes do but force him back upon the central strength of the life of his spirit. For the time his crown, his palace, his honours, the hearts of his people, the love of his child, whom he loved, as we know, with such passing tenderness, are forfeited. The psalmist is alone with God. In his hour of desolation he looks up from the desert to heaven. O God, he cried, thou art my God. In the original language he does not repeat the word which is translated God. In Elohim, the true idea of the root is that of awe, while the adjectival form implies permanency. In Eli, the second word employed, the etymological idea is that of might, strength. We might paraphrase, "O thou Ever awful One, my Strength, or my Strong God art thou." But the second word, Eli, is in itself nothing less than a separate revelation of an entire aspect of the Being of God. It is, indeed, used as a proper and distinct name of God. The pronomial suffixes for the second and third persons are, as Gesenius has remarked, never once found with this name El; whereas Eli, the first person, occurs very frequently in the Psalter alone. We all of us remember it in the words actually uttered by our Lord upon the cross, and which he took from their Syriacised version of Psalm 22. The word unveils a truth unknown beyond the precincts of revelation. It teaches us that the Almighty and Eternal gives himself in the fulness of his Being to the soul that seeks him. Heathenism, indeed, in its cultus of domestic and local deities, of its penates, of its Oeoi epicwrioi, bore witness by these superstitions to the deep yearning of the human heart for the individualizing love of a higher power. To know the true God was to know that such a craving was satisfied. My God. The word represents not a human impression, or desire, or conceit, but an aspect, a truth, a necessity of the divine nature. Man can, indeed, give himself by halves; he can bestow a little of his thought, of his heart, of his endeavour, upon his brother man. In other words, man can be imperfect in his acts as he is imperfect and finite in his nature. But when God, the Perfect Being, loves the creature of his hand, he cannot thus divide his love. He must perforce love with the whole directness, and strength, and intensity of his Being; for he is God, and therefore incapable of partial and imperfect action. He must give himself to the single soul with as absolute a completeness as if there were no other being besides it, and, on his side, man knows that this gift of himself by God is thus entire; and in no narrow spirit of ambitious egotism, but as grasping and representing the literal fact, he cries, "My God." Therefore does this word enter so largely into the composition of Hebrew names. Men loved to dwell upon that wondrous relation of the Creator to their personal life which is so strikingly manifested. Therefore, when God had "so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life, "we find St. Paul writing to the Galatians as if his own single soul had been redeemed by the sacrifice of Calvary: "He loved me, and gave himself for me." Henry Parry Liddon, in "Some Words for God: being Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, 1863-1865."
Ver. 1. (first clause). There is a great deal more in it than men of the world are aware of; to say, O God, thou art my God, in this connection and conjunction: there is more in it in regard of excellency, and there is more in it in regard of difficulty likewise. It is not an unfruitful thing to say it, and it is not am easy thing to say it neither. It confers a great deal of benefit, and requires a great deal of grace, which belongs unto it, in the truth and reality of it. The benefit of it, first, is very great; yea, in effect all things else. To say God is ours, is to say the whole world is ours, and a great deal more; it is to give us title to everything which may be requisite or convenient for us. Whatever we can desire or stand in need of, it is all wrapped up in this, Thou art my God. But then, again, it is a matter of difficulty (as those things which are excellent are). It is a thing which is not so easily said as the world imagines it and thinks it to be. Indeed, it is easy to the mouth, but it is not easy to the heart. It is easy to have a fancy to say it, but it is not to have a faith to say it: this carries some kind of hardship with it, and is not presently attained unto; but the mind of man withdraws from it. There are two states and conditions in which it is very difficult to say, O God, thou art my God: the one is the state of nature and unregeneracy; and the other is the state of desertion, and the hiding of God's face from the soul. Thomas Horton(--1673).
Ver. 1. (second clause). The relations of God to his people are not bare and empty titles, but they carry some activity with them, both from him towards them, and from them also answerably towards him. Those whom God is a God to, he bestows special favours upon them; and those to whom God is a God, they return special services to him. And so we shall find it to be all along in Scripture, as this David in another place: "Thou art my God, and I will praise thee; thou art my Lord, I will exalt thee." Ps 118:28. And so here: Thou art my God; early will I seek thee. While the servants of God have claimed any interest in him, they have also exhibited duty to him. The text is an expression not only of faith, but likewise of obedience, and so to be looked upon by us. Thomas Horton.
Ver. 1. Early; in the morning, before all things, God is to be sought, otherwise he is sought in vain: as the manna, unless collected at early dawn, dissolves. Simon de Muis.
Ver. 1. My soul thirsteth for thee. Oh that Christ would come near, and stand still, and give me leave to look upon him! for to look seemeth the poor man's privilege, since he may, for nothing and without hire, behold the sun. I should have a king's life, if I had no other thing to do than for evermore to behold and eye my fair Lord Jesus: nay, suppose I were holden out at heaven's fair entry, I should be happy for evermore, to look through a hole in the door, and see my dearest and fairest Lord's face. O great King! why standest thou aloof? Why remainest thou beyond the mountains? O Well beloved, why dost thou pain a poor soul with delays? A long time out of thy glorious presence is two deaths and two hells to me. We must meet. I must see him, I dow (Am not able to do without him.) not want him. Hunger and longing for Christ hath brought on such a necessity of enjoying Christ that I will not, I dow not want him; for I cannot master nor command Christ's love. Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661).
Ver. 1. My flesh, that is, my bodily sensitive appetite, which thirsts, ardently longs for consolation, which it receives from the abounding of spiritual consolation to the soul. This meaning greatly pleases me. God giveth the upper and the nether springs. Rebekah, after drawing water in her pitcher, for Eliezer, Abraham's servant, added, "I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking, "Ge 24:19. Jacob dug a well near to Sychar, which was afterwards called Samaria, and as the woman of Samaria said, "drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle, " Joh 4:12. When Moses with the rod smote the rock twice, "the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also, "Nu 20:11. So God satisfies with this consolation both our higher and lower nature. Thomas Le Blanc.
Ver. 1. My flesh longeth for thee. The verb hmk is used only in this place, and therefore signification of it is rather uncertain, but it will receive light from the Arabic dialect. In Golius's Lexicon it signifies caligavit oculus, alteratus colore, et mente debilitatus fuit. His eye grew dim, his colour was changed, and his mind was weakened; and therefore, as used by the psalmist, implies the utmost intenseness of fervency of desire, as though it almost impaired his sight, altered the very hue of his body, and even injured his understanding; effects sometimes of eager and unsatisfied desires. Samuel Chandler.
Ver. 1. In a dry. Here we must read uyrak (Keeretz), instead of nyrak (Beeretz), for it is, like this, and not, in this (which has no force), even like this dry, wearied, and waterless region; so am I for seeing thee in the sanctuary, for beholding thy power and thy glory. Benjamin Weiss, in a "New Translation of the Book of the Psalms, with Critical Notes, "etc. 1858. Weiss appears to have the authority of several MSS for this, but he seldom errs in the direction of too little dogmatism. C. H. S.
Ver. 1-2. O God, thou art my God. He embraces him at first word, as we used to do friends at first meeting. Early will I seek thee, says he: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh (that is, myself) longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. Surely, David had some extraordinary business now with God to be done for himself, as it follows (Ps 63:2): To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary; where God had met him, and manifested himself to him... The very sight of a friend rejoiceth a man (Pr 27:17): "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man the face of his friend." It alone whets up joy by a sympathy of spirits; and in answer hereunto it is characteristically to God's people called the seeking of God's face, that is, himself, for so his face is taken: "Thou shalt have no other gods before my face; "that is, thou shalt have myself, or none but myself. Personal communion with God is the end of our graces; for as reason and the intercourse of it makes men sociable one with another, so the divine nature makes us sociable with God himself: and the life we live by is but an engine, a glass to bring God down to us. Thomas Goodwin.
Ver. 1. (first clause). While the Atheist says, "No God, "and the heathen worship "gods many, "the true believer says, "O God, thou art my God." He is so,
I. By choice.
II. By covenant.
III. By confession.
Ver. 1. (second clause). Seeking God early.
1. Early in respect of life.
2. Early in respect of diligence.
3. Early in respect of (fervour.)
4. Early in respect of times or continuance. Alexander Shanks.
Ver. 1. (second clause). Earnest seeking. That which is longed for will be eagerly sought.
1. The soul is resolute. I will seek.
2. The soul is reasonable. I will seek.
3. The soul is ready. Early will I.
4. The soul is persevering. Let this be the resolution of both saved and unsaved. G. J. K.
CHANDLER'S "Life of David" contains an Exposition of this Psalm. Vol. 1, pp. 130-4.
"An Exposition of the 63 Psalm, "in eight Sermons, in "Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms... By THOMAS HORTON, D.D., 1675." (Folio.)
Twelve Sermons (on Ps 63:1-8) in "Sermons on various Practical Subjects. By ALEXANDER SHANKS (1731-1799), late Minister of the Associate Congregation of Jedburgh, Edinburgh, 1081."
Psalms 63:2*
Ver. 1-2. O God, thou art my God. See Psalms on "Ps 63:1" for further information.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain O God, Thou art my God; early will I…
Psa_63:1-11
O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee.
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The greatest things of the soul
I. The greatest hunger of the soul (Psa_63:1). The soul wants God, as the thirsty land the refreshing showers, as the opening flower the sunbeam.
II. The greatest faith of the soul (Psa_63:3). Lovingkindness is indeed better than life; it is independent, it is the cause of life, the redemption of life: It is lovingkindness that supplies the wants, gratifies the desires, develops the powers of life. All the elements of soul-joy,--gratitude, admiration, moral esteem, benevolence,--are awakened by lovingkindness. Lovlngkindness is heaven. Faith in this lovingkindness is the greatest faith--greatest because it is the most soul-sustaining, soul-inspiring, soul-ennobling.
III. The greatest exercise of the soul--praise. It is not a service, but a life. It is not that which merely goeth forth in sacred music and on sacred occasions; but, as a sap in the trunk of the tree runs through all its branches and leaves and blossoms, so true praise runs through all the activities of human life.
IV. The greatest satisfaction of the soul, Davids great desire was, To see Thy power and glory as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary. The blessedness of such a soul is ever with it. The pleasure of the religous man, says Dr. South, is an easy and portable pleasure, such a one as he carries about in his bosom, without alarming either the rage or the envy of the world. A man putting all his pleasures into this one is like a traveller putting all his goods into one jewel; the value is the same, and the convenience greater.
V. The greatest study of the soul (Psa_63:6).
1. Man can think upon God--not merely on what He has done, but on what He is, Himself.
2. Man, can think upon God on his bed. When all other objects are shut out from him, when the beautiful earth and the star-spangled heavens are excluded, God cart be brought into the soul as the subject of thought. No study so quickening. The thought of God vivifies the faculties and stirs the heart. None so humbling, With God before the eye of thought, all egotism wanes and dies. None so spiritualizing. With God before the minds eye, fleets, armies, markets, governments, the solemn globe itself and all it contains, dwindle into insignificance. None so enlightening. The study of God lightens up all the fields truth. All the branches have their root in God.
VI. The greatest trust of the soul (Psa_63:7). (Homilist.)
Ancient piety
This psalm was composed in the wilderness of Judaea, where the privations he sustained lent language to devotion, and ardours to piety. It shows David as he really was, resting On the promises of God, and supported by earnests and pledges of his future hope. It is a more luminous display of ancient piety.
I. Ancient piety is founded on filial confidence: O God, thou art my God; early will I seek Thee. A culprit cannot have this confidence in his judge, because he comes clothed with power to punish his crimes. But here the psalmist says, Thou art my God; mine by covenant; mine by promises; mine by innumerable blessings and answers to prayer; yea, thou art mine by full consent of heart, and by daily acts of faith, and devotion to all Thy holy will.
II. Piety is supreme in its aspirations and desires after God: My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh, etc. A prince whose heart was less impressed with piety than Davids might have said, These sands and deserts, which afford neither bread nor water, are not places for religion. Restore me to the throne, and then I will be religious; put the sceptre into my hand, and then I will defend the saint; give me the means, and then I will make all my people happy. Ah! promises of future piety do not gain much credence in heaven. The bosom-sin which seduces the heart in the desert would seduce it on the throne. Not so David: he would bring burning coals to the altar, that its ardours might glow the more when allowed to tread the hallowed courts. He asks for God alone.
III. There is a reality in the consolations of religion; and a reality which surpasses all terrestrial enjoyments (Psa_63:8).
IV. Piety: it abstracts the soul from the world; diverts it from the keen sensations of adversity; and so unites it to God, as to communicate a plenitude of Divine felicity (Psa_63:5-6). Devotion elevates the soul to the true source of felicity, to drink of streams which are never dry. The mind, contemplating its God in the wide unfoldings of revelation, spontaneously kindles with the fire of the altar, and with grateful utterance of the heart.
V. The enjoyments of piety are inseparably connected with the exercises of devotion (Psa_63:5). While the psalmist was musing on all the ways of providence and grace, the fire kindled in his heart.
VI. It was by these exercises, and by experience, that the ancient saints became decided in character, and attained the full assurance of faith and comfort (Psa_63:7). Those who waver in the faith, and are inconstant in duty, and whose religion is only like a winters sun, find a failure in bringing the plants of grace to perfection.
VII. The brightest trait of piety is yet to come: she holds fast her assurance and joy in the times of affliction, and foresees deliverance before the arm of salvation can actually appear. In all her troubles, the voice of despair is never heard. She lays hold on the promises, and embraces the sure mercies of David. Hear the psalmists words in the wilderness, when all his enemies account him as lost and undone (Psa_63:9-10). You who may be tried in various ways, and with the long-continued strokes of affliction, take to yourselves the full cup of comfort from the Word of the Lord. Davids God is your God, and He will deliver you in His own time, and in His own way, out of all your troubles. (James Sutcliffe, M. A.)
Davids owning of, and application to, God
I. His owning of God. O God, thou art my God. This was a good beginning, and a very fair preface to that which follows after. And it is that, indeed, which lays a foundation to all the rest. It is that which must be necessarily premised in all our addresses to God, and petitions for anything from Him.
1. It is an expression of faith. David calls God his God, as having taken Him so to be to him. God is in a common and general sense the God of all men, as He is said to be the Saviour of all men (1Ti_4:10). Namely, in regard of common and general blessings which He bestows upon them, of Creation and Providence. But for believers, and those which are His children, as the prophet David here was, He is their God more especially, in a more peculiar manner, above any besides; He is to them a God in covenant, engaging Himself to them, to do them good, and to provide graciously for them. And they call Him their God thus, and with this emphasis upon it.
(1) The benefit of it is very great; yea, in effect all things else. To say, God is ours, is to say, The whole world is ours, and a great deal more; it is to give us title to everything which may be requisite or convenient for us. Whatever we can desire or stand in need of, it is all wrapt up in this, Thou art my God.
(2) It is an hard thing, too, it is a matter of difficulty. There are two states and conditions in which it is very difficult to say, O God, thou art my God; the one is the state of nature and unregeneracy; and the other is the state of desertion, and the hiding of Gods face from the soul.
2. It is an expression also of obedience and self-resignation. Those whom God is a God to, He does bestow special favours upon them; and those to whom God is a God, they do return special services to Him; which is here now considerable of us. And so we shall find it to be all along in Scripture (Psa_118:28).
II. His application to Him.
1. His resolution, what he would do, Early will I seek Thee. He promises to seek after God, and to do it betimes, which is an enlargement of it; where, while he signifies his own purpose, he does likewise signify our duty; while he tells us what shall be done by him, he tells us also what is to be done by us, namely, to seek the Lord early; not only to seek Him, but to be forward in our seeking of Him.
(1) Early as to the time of the day. Early, that is, in the morning. We should give God the first of our thoughts every day.
(2) Early, as to the time of our life, in the morning of our age. For men to defer their repentance and reformation to their old age, and when they have spent all their time before in the pursuit of their lusts, to think to seek God then, and that will be time enough;--thats but a vain conceit and imagination in them.
(3) Early as to the time of Gods judgments, and providential dispensations. We must seek Him early, that is, before He fetches us to Him, and compels us, as it were, to the seeking of Him. It is better in regard of piety, and it is better in regard of safety. It is more ingenuity in us in respect of God, and it is more wisdom in us in respect of ourselves. For hereby we save both Him and ourselves a great deal of labour, which otherwise He is put unto with us; and we may escape a great deal of smart which otherwise through our own wilful-nose and neglect happens unto us.
2. His intimation of the state and temper which he was now in, or the ground and reason of his resolution.
(1) The object of his desire was God Himself. As he is in a state of darkness, so he longs for God in the clearer evidence and more comfortable assurance of His favour and good-will towards him. As he is in a state of weakness, so he thirsts for God in She impartment of more of His grace, and strength, and assistance to him. As he is in a state of strangeness, some kind of distance and alienation from God; so he does also long for Him in the intercourse of communion with Him.
(2) The intention of his desire. His own necessities, and the sense and apprehension of them. This puts him upon this desire. A good Christian hath so much need of God, as that he cannot be well satisfied without Him. The amiableness of the object does provoke and excite the desire. God being so exceedingly lovely and admirable, as indeed He is in His own nature, it cannot but draw on those which do discern it, very much to desire it; and theres experience also in it which does promote it, and help it on.
3. The subject of the desire, which is here signified to be the soul and the flesh; hit soul properly, his flesh by way of sympathy with it; they are both of them in it.
(1) In the midst of any outward and temporal deficiencies, we should consider and reflect upon our spiritual.
(2) The best way to correct and qualify our desires as to temporals, is to fasten them upon spirituals. When we would restrain any inordinate longing for some outward or earthly accommodation, or suppress any grief, either of the like nature, we cannot better do it, than by provoking ourselves to the desire of spiritual comforts. This helps, first, by way of diversion, and turning the stream of the affections another way, and so breaking off the violence of it, that it prevails not upon us. And then further, there is that also in spirituals which does supply and make amends to us for any temporal deficiency. (T. Horton, D. D.)
The saint claiming God as his God
I. Concerning the Deity whom faith claims. There can be no claiming or believing till He be known. It is therefore proper to begin with a display of His glory.
1. Every perfection in His glory. Had we the tongue and the voice of the seraphim, we could not declare it all. Paper broader than the earth, ink deeper than the sea, pens stronger than iron, and hands readier than the quickest scribe, could not write the thousandth part of it.
2. God is the Creator and Preserver of all (Isa_42:5).
3. God is the spring and fountain of our reconciliation by the death of His Son.
4. God is the promiser and the lawgiver. Without the promise, we could not observe the law, and without the law, we would abuse the promise.
5. Our blessedness is in God (Psa_62:1-12).
II. Concerning the claiming of property in God.
1. The Word is the ground of our claiming property in God.
2. Believing in God through our Lord Jesus Christ is the exercise of our claim. Christ and God are not divided and separated, in our believing and claiming. God was, and is, and will be in Christ. Christ was, and is, and will be in God.
3. The promises of the covenant encourage our claiming interest and property in God through Christ Jesus the Lord.
4. The exercise of the heart which believes and claims interest and property in God is recommended by the example of Christ. In the anguish and bitterness of distress He cried, My Father, and My God. And no sooner was He delivered from the power of death by a glorious resurrection, than He said, I ascend to My Fatter and your Father, and to My God and your God. Follow His example.
5. The Spirit of adoption constrains to this exercise of the heart. Without His presence and operation, no man believes and claims interest and property in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
6. No law condemns this exercise of the heart. Believing and claiming interest and property in God through Jesus Christ is against no law. Is the law against the promises of God, or the promises against the law of God? God forbid.
III. The manner in which interest and property in God should be claimed in believing.
1. In Christ. Christ is the true, and living, and only way to God. No man, said He, cometh to the Father but by Me. In claiming interest and relation in one, we claim interest and relation and property in both. The guilty and polluted cannot approach the holiness of the Lord but through, and by, and in a Mediator, whom He hath made unto them wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.
2. In humility. When we venture into the presence of the high and holy One, and say, O God, Thou art my God, humility of mind is our adorning. Our unworthiness as creatures, and our pollution as sinners, should produce in us the deepest debasement before Him.
3. With reverence. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. When the humble spirit is before Him, saying, O God, Thou art my God, it doth not allow itself to forget and disregard these instructions.
4. With confidence (Psa_48:14).
IV. Concerning the seasons in our exercise of believing and claiming relation, interest, and property in God through Christ.
1. The season of labouring. God is the glory of our strength; and believing and claiming Him in Christ, what service may we not undertake boldly, and what labour may we not endure joyfully.
2. The season of suffering. We need to abound in the believing exercises of the heart to God-ward through Christ, in order to draw in strength from the promises to endure it, and encourage and confirm hope of deliverance out of it.
3. The season of trouble and vexation of spirit.
4. The season of heaviness and grief.
5. The season of temptation. By steadfast believing, and continuance in well-doing, ye will, through the grace, and Spirit, and word of Christ, defeat every attempt to invalidate a claim, standing on His own My God and your God, My Father and your Father.
6. The season of dying. Steadfast believing in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement, will make us smile in the face of an enemy at whose appearance our heart would otherwise be alarmed and dismayed. (A. Shanks.)
God and the soul
The text might form a motto for what is termed, in the modern phrase, personal religion. No religion, of course, can deserve its name if it be not personal at bottom, if it do not recognize as its basis the case of the personal soul face to face with the personal God. But, even with a view to the perfection of the individual himself, religion may, nay, it must, embrace other interests besides his own. Each time that, in the earliest creed, we formally profess our belief in God, we also profess our belief in the Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints. But at least in David we have a notable example of a sensitive, tender, self-analyzing soul, living in sustained communion with God, while yet deeply sensible of the claims of the civil and religious polity of Israel. My God. The word does not represent a human impression, or desire, or conceit, but an aspect, a truth, a necessity of the Divine Nature. Man can, indeed, give himself by halves; he can bestow a little of his thought, of his heart, of his endeavour, upon his brother man. In other words, man can be imperfect in his acts, as he is imperfect and finite in his nature. But when God, the Perfect Being, loves the creature of His Hand, He cannot thus divide His love. He must give Himself to the single soul with as absolute a completeness as if there were no other being besides the soul which He loves. And, on his side, man knows that this gift of Himself by God is thus entire; and in no narrow spirit of ambitious egotism, but as grasping and representing the literal fact, he cries, My God. Therefore does this single word enter so largely into the composition of Hebrew names. Men loved to dwell upon that wondrous relation of She Creator to their personal life which it so vividly expressed. Therefore we find St. Paul writing to the Galatians as if his own soul, in its solitary anguish, had alone been redeemed by the sacrifice of Calvary: He loved me, and gave Himself for me. But hero let us observe that there are two causes within the soul which might indispose us for looking more truly and closely at the truth before us. Of these causes, the first is moral: it is the state of unrepented wilful sin. It is hostile to the assertion no less of the love than of the rights of God. It is averse from Him. It has other ends in view which are so many denials of His supreme claims upon created life. It cowers with involuntary dread at the sound of His voice among the trees of the garden. If the depraved and sinful will, still clinging to its sin, could conceivably attain to a spiritual embrace of the All-Holy God, so intimate, so endearing as is that of the psalmist, such nearness would be to it nothing less than repulsive; it would be scarcely less than an agony. The other cause is intellectual. It may, without offence, be described as the subjective spirit, which is so characteristic and predominant an influence in the thought of our day. In plain English this spirit is an intellectual selfishness, which makes man, and not God, the monarch and centre of the world of thought. Man is again to be, as of old with the Greek sophist, the measure of all things. God is as but a point on the extreme circumference of His creatures thought. Nay, more, in its more developed form, this temper makes God Himself a pure creation of the thought of His creature; and, by doing so, it at length denies His real existence. An educated man of the present day who would look God really in the face has perhaps no greater intellectual difficulty to contend with than the trammels and false points of view which strictly subjective habits of thought have imposed upon his understanding. While these habits are dominant in a man, God may be a portion, nay, the most considerable portion, of his thought; but God will not be in any true sense the mans God, before whom his soul bows, Among the many truths which the Supreme Being has disclosed to us men about Himself, there are two which, beyond others, are peculiarly calculated to enable us to realize our real relation towards Him. The first, the truth that God is our Creator. The second, the truth that He has made us for Himself, and is Himself the end and the explanation of our existence. The most simple and obvious truths are, as a rule, the most profound; and no apology is needed for asking each one of you to reflect steadily on the answer to this question, Where was I one short century ago? The lowest and vilest creatures were more than we; in that to them a being had been given, while as yet we were without one. Rut at this moment we are in possession of that blessed and awful gift which we name life. We find ourselves endowed with an understanding capable of knowledge, and with a heart formed for love. We cannot but ask how we came to be here, and we cannot worship God unless we believe that it was He who made us. Yet, though we witness around us the wreck of serious convictions, and the despair of true and noble hearts, and the triumph of false theories, and the additional difficulties of our daily struggle with unseen foes, and (it may be) with the results of our own past unfaithfulness to light and grace, we have but to look within ourselves to trace without doubt or misgiving the true law of that life which our God has given us. By gathering up the scattered fragments of the shattered statue, we can recover, if not the perfect work itself, at least the ideal which was before the Eye of the Artist. In this place we are sufficiently familiar with the presumption that there must be a correspondence and proportion between a faculty and its object. Why, then, does the human intellect crave perpetually for new fields of knowledge? It was made to apprehend an Infinite Being; it was made for God. Why does the human heart disclose, when we probe it, such inexhaustible capacities for love, and tenderness, and self-sacrifice? It was made to correspond to a love that had neither stint nor limit; it was made for God. Why does no employment, no success, no scene or field of thought, no culture of power or faculty, no love of friend or relative, arrest definitely and for all time the onward, craving, restless impulse of our inner being? No other explanation is so simple as that we were made for the Infinite and Unchangeable God, compared with whom all else is imperfect, fragile, transient, and unsatisfying. (Canon Liddon.)
The saint resolving to seek his God
I. Concerning seeking God. This includes--
1. Our belief of His existence and attributes.
2. His relation to us in Christ, created by sovereign goodness, and set in an everlasting covenant.
3. Our blessedness in Him. In lively piety the belief of this is firm and operative.
4. Our duty to worship and glorify Him in the way appointed by Himself. Hearing the Word, receiving the sacraments, singing of psalms, with humiliation, thanksgiving, and prayer, are ordinances of worship; and observing them in their seasons is seeking God in convocations and assemblies. Reading, and prayer, and praise, and instruction, are duties of piety; and performing them is seeking Him in households and families. Reading, meditation, and prayer, are holy services; and doing them is seeking Him in closets and secret places.
II. Concerning seeking God early.
1. Early in respect of life. As soon as we awake into being, capable of exercising ourselves unto godliness, it should be distinguished by seeking the knowledge of Him who gave us our spirit and our breath. Before the world seize the heart and fill it with vanity and care, it will be your wisdom who are young to seek after God; for He is your life and the length of your days.
2. Early in respect of fervour. O that all our heart, and all our soul, and all our strength, and all our mind, were in the exercises of our piety toward the Lord our God!
3. Incessantly in respect of time or continuance in well-doing. Whatever hour it be in the day of life, it is early with the pious mind. Early in the morning of youth, early in the noon of manhood, early in the evening of old age.
III. Concerning the resolution or determination of the pious man to seek God early.
1. Inclination is in a resolution or determination of mind for the exercise of piety.
2. In the resolution of the heart there is complacency in the exercise of piety.
3. Ardour in the resolution for piety. Coldness in seeking God is an infirmity of which pious men are ashamed. It quenches and grieves the Holy Spirit, who is the principle of their life and ardour.
4. Contention with the enemies of piety in the heart and in the world. Resolution to seek God early is lifting up a standard of opposition in the presence of a deceitful enemy, which hath made a settlement for itself in our heart. (A. Shanks.)
Seeking God
I. How should we seek God?
1. Intelligently.
2. Earnestly.
3. Constantly.
4. Hopefully.
II. Where should we seek Him? In the closet. In His Word. In the ordinances.
III. When should we seek Him? Early in life. In advance of temporal things.
IV. Why should we seek Him? He is the souls life--God. His nature is communicative--My God. (W. W. Wythe.)
My soul thirsteth for Thee.--
The souls thirst and satisfaction
(with Psa_63:5; Psa_63:8):--
1. The soul thirsting for God. (Psa_63:1). Now, the psalmist is a poet, and has a poets sensitiveness to the external aspects of nature, and the imagination that delights in seeing in these the reflection of his own moods. So, very beautifully, he looks upon the dreary scene around, and sees in it symbols of the yet drearier experience within. He beholds the grey monotony of the waterless wilderness, where the earth is cracked with clefts that look like mouths gaping for the rain that does not come, and he recognizes the likeness of his own yearning spirit. He feels the pangs of bodily weariness and thirst, and these seem to him to be but feeble symbols of the deeper-seated pains of desire which touch his spirit. All men thirst after God. The unrest, the deep yearnings, the longings and desires of our natures--what are they all except cries for the living God, the tendrils which are put forth, seeking after the great prop which alone is fit to lift us from the mud of this lower world? But the misery is that we do not know what we want, that we misinterpret the meaning of our desires, that we go to the wrong sources for our need; that when our souls are crying out for God we fling them worldly good and say, There, satisfy yourselves on that! At man that has a wild thing in a cage, and does not know what its food is, when he hears it yelping, will cast to it what he thinks may fit it, on which it eagerly springs, and then turns from it in disgust. So, men seek to feed their souls on the things of earth, and, all the while, what they are crying for is, not earth, but God. Shipwrecked sailors drink salt water in their wild thirst, and it makes them mad. Travellers in the desert are drawn by the mirage to seemingly shimmering lakes, fringed with palm trees; and it is nothing but sand. My soul thirsteth for Thee.
II. The seeking soul satisfied (Psa_63:5). The imagery of a feast naturally follows upon the previous metaphor of the souls thirst. Now, it is to be observed here with what beautiful and yet singular swiftness the whole mood of the psalmist changes. People may say that that is unnatural, but it is true to the deepest experiences, and it unveils for us one of the surest and most precious blessings of a true Christian life--vim that fruition is ever attendant upon desire. Gods gifts are never delayed, in the highest Of all regions. In the lower there often are long delays--the lingerings of love for our good--but in the loftiest, fruition grows side by side with longing. The same moment witnesses the petition flashed to Heaven, as with the speed of lightning, and the answer coming back to the waiting heart; as in tropical lands when the rain comes, what was barren baked earth in a day or two is rich meadow, all ablaze with flowers, and the dry torrent beds, where the stones lay white and glistening ghastly in the hot sunshine, are foaming with rushing streams and fringed with budding oleanders. This verse also tells us that the soul thus answered will be satisfied. If it be true that God is the real object of all human desire, then the contact of the seeking soul with that perfect aim of all its seeking will bring rest to every appetite, its desired food to every wish, strength for every weakness, fulness for all emptiness. Like two of the notched sticks that used to be used as tallies, the seeking soul and the giving God fit into one another, and there is nothing that we need that we cannot get in Him. Further, as our psalm tells us, the satisfied soul breaks into music. For it goes on to say, My mouth shall praise Him with joyful lips. Of course, the psalmist had still many occasions for sorrow, and doubt, and fear. Nothing had changed in his outward circumstances. The desert was still round him. The foe was still pursuing murderous in heart as before. But this had changed--God was felt to be as close as ever He had been in the sanctuary. And that consciousness altered everything, and turned all the psalmists lamentations into jubilant anthems. It transposed his music from the minor key, and his lips broke into songs of gladness. Translate these particulars into general thoughts, and they are just this:--No sorrow, nor anxiety, nor care, nor need for vigilance against danger ought to check the praise that may come, and should come, from a heart in touch with God, and a soul satisfied in Him. It is a hard lesson for some of us to learn; but it is a lesson the learning of which will be full of blessedness. There is a bird common in our northern districts which people call the storm-cock, because his note always rings out cheeriest in tempestuous weather. That is the kind of music that the Christians heart should make, responding, like an AEolian harp, to the tempests breath by music, and filling the night with praise. It is possible for us, even before sorrow and sighing have fled away, to be pilgrims on the road, with songs and everlasting joy upon our heads.
III. The satisfied soul presses closer to God (Psa_63:8). Literally translated, though, of course, much too clumsily for an English version, the words run--My soul cleaveth after Thee, expressing, in one pregnant phrase, two attitudes usually felt to be incompatible, that of calm repose and that of eager pursuit. But these two, unlike each other as they are, may be, and should be, harmoniously blended in the experience of a Christian life. On the one hand there is the clinging of satisfaction, and, on the other hand, the ever-satisfied stimulus to a closer approach. The soul that is satisfied will, and ought to, adhere with tenacity to the source that satisfies it. The dove folds its pinions when it reaches the ark, and needs no more to wing its weary way over sullen waters, vainly searching for a resting-place. Nomad tribes, when they find themselves in some rich valley, unload their camels, and pitch their tents, and say, Here will we dwell, for the land is good. And so we, if we have made experience, as we may, of God and His sweet sufficiency, and sufficient sweetness, should be delivered from temptation to go further and fare worse. And then this clinging, resulting from satisfaction, is accompanied with earnest seeking after still more of the infinite good. In other regions, and when directed to other objects, satisfaction is apt to pass into satiety, because the creature that satisfies us is limited. But when we turn ourselves to God, and seek for all that we need in Him, there can be no satiety in us, because there can be no exhaustion of that which is in Him. The blessedness of search that is sure of finding, and the blessedness of finding which is calm repose, are united in the Christian experience. And we may, at every moment, have all that we want given to us, and by the very gift our capacity, and therefore our longings, be increased. Thus, in wondrous alternation, satisfaction and thirst beget each other, and each possesses some of the others sweetness. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The saint thirsting for God
I. Concerning the fountain of living waters.
1. Where is the fountain of living waters? It is everywhere.
2. What is in the fountain of life? The incomprehensible Being with whom it is speaks of Himself in this sovereign exclusive style, I live.
3. What comes out of the fountain of life? Every good and every perfect gift. Particularly the Mediator and His fulness. The reconciliation of the world. The forgiveness of sins. The justification of the ungodly: The sanctification of the unholy. Grace and glory.
4. Which is the way of a thirsty man to get a drink of the fountain of life? I am the way, and the truth, and the life, ere,
II. Concerning thirsting and longing for God, with whom is the fountain of life. The rise, the tendency, the strength, the operation, and energies of these holy affections, may be observed in the following particulars--
1. The thirst for God is the desire or longing of the new heart.
2. The thirsting and longing of the renewed mind for God are influenced by the knowledge and taste of His favour in Christ Jesus. Before we thirst for God, or long for him, we must know that He is, and taste that He is gracious.
3. The thirst or longing for God is attended with crying and tears. This mourning and crying among the sons of regeneration is not the noise and din of peevishness and discontent. It is the crying of the spirit of adoption in their heart, for the nourishing and strengthening of their life, with those pleasures and joys which they believe are in its fountain.
4. Thirsting for God, the fountain of living waters, increases with indulgence. The more freely and abundantly the thirsty soul is indulged in drinking at the fountain, the keener and more vehement is its thirst.
5. In thirsting and longing for God, there are strong mixtures of faith, and love, and hope, and joy, and the other graces of the Spirit.
6. Providential occurrences give the new heart a keener sensibility in thirsting and longing for God.
III. How thirsting and longing for God, the fountain of living waters, contribute aid to the sustaining of the liveliness and vigour of piety, when cut off from the rivers and streams of the sanctuary.
1. These energies of the new heart in a dry and thirsty land, keep its intercourse with the fountain lively night and day.
2. Assurances of favour through the offices of the Mediator are sent down from the fountain to the thirsting and longing soul.
3. In thirsting and longing for God in a dry and thirsty land, experience shoots up and rises be a great height.
4. In thirsting and longing for God in a dry and thirsty land, the fruit of righteousness sown in the new heart springs, and grows, and ripens, and comes to maturity.
5. In a dry and thirsty land, piety is removed from the fat places of the earth which are full of things unfavourable to its growth.
In conclusion, observe--
1. The difference between animal and spiritual thirsting.
2. Intercourse with the Deity through the Mediator is not confined to courts, altars, and tabernacles. The whole wilderness of Judah, dry and thirsty as it might be, was a chamber of audience, into which David had access to the Deity day and night, to complain, to petition, and consult; and all around was court, altar, tabernacle, and holy of holies. He longed notwithstanding to be restored, and no wonder. Institutions for the multitude that kept holyday in the city were more desirable than the chamber opened in the field to an individual,
3. The Lord is not harsh and unkind, in schooling His chosen in a wilderness, and trying them with hunger and thirst. Their education in the science and exercises of piety requires it, and His intention is to do them good at the latter end. (A. Shanks.)
The Christians longing
All mankind are athirst. The human soul is made capacious; so capacious that nothing else can fill it, but that immortality for which man is created, and the favour and enjoyment of that God whoso creature he is. There is a relationship between the Capacity of the soul and Him who ought to fill it, such that its happiness depends on its union with Him, and is derived entirely from Him; and man, even when ignorant of God and alienated from Him, finds no real satisfaction from any other source.
I. Acceptance. This is the first stage of the desire after God, for it is the desire of the heart-stricken sinner (Psa_27:9; Psa_31:16; Psa_35:8).
II. Acquaintance with God. The desire for this must be a feature of the advanding Christian. Love begets love, and hence--we love Him (God) because He first loved us, Now, in proportion as we love any one, we desire better acquaintance, in order that we may appreciate his excellences.
III. The believer longs for communion with God. The more we love and reverence any one, the more must we long to be admitted to the privilege of intimacy, and the more highly shall we value that privilege, and fear its loss if we possess it.
IV. The Christians earnest desire is for conformity to the will and to the image of God. The faculty of imitation is instinctive. Hence the contagion of evil example; hence the instinctive imitation by children of their parents. This faculty is not destroyed in the believer, but, through grace, receives a new bias, his love and reverence for God naturally creating the desire to imitate His perfections, and thus to attain a growing conformity to His likeness. (R. J. Rowton, M. A.)
Davids desire for Gods presence
I. The prayer. With David life would lose its light, its worth, its meaning, all its delight and all its joy without God. Ask him whether man could do without God, and he would toll you that without God this world is lodgings; but with Him it is Homo--Homo--a very different thing. He would tell you that without God there is no sunlight on the world, no meaning in history, no hope for humanity, no prospect. That without God there is nothing to enfranchise the soul, to emancipate it, to enlarge it. But with Gods presence it has dignity, it develops its forces, and with Him it is secure. He would tell you that without Him the soul has no model on which to mould its life, no motive with which to animate itself in conflict, no quiet resting-place. David, above all things, wants God. He wants God--in the sense of wanting the Presence, Love, Protection, and Vindication of God. There are few people in the world that have not, in some direction or other, a conflict going on, a cause to be maintained; and one of lifes keenest pains is, when doing ones best, to be left to think that after all God does not care, and will not espouse the right, but will leave it to sink or swim, and let the wrong come off defeated or victorious, as chance may have it. David desired otherwise, and believed it. He wanted God; he expected and desired that God would plead the causes of his soul, and wherein he was right, would take his part and give him his hearts desire. Thus, in the last place of all, there comes in the wish which would have been first, second, third, fourth, and everything probably in our ease.
II. The lessons of this prayer.
1. Do not tightly part with your belief in God. It is a very comforting thing that in the long run, all religions questions resolve themselves into the great question as to whether there is or is not a God to trust. Come with the believers, and live not in the God-forsaken world, without any light loft in it, and no Rock of Ages on which to rest. Dont live in such a world as that, but live in the world whose canopy is the wing of God, and whose centre is the pierced heart of Calvary. You will find your blessedness in such a life. Men dont gather blessedness off briars, and joys off thistles.
2. Pray more fervently. The fault of our prayers is their littleness, we ask and distress God by the smallness of our asking. Ask for Himself, His glory, His beauty, His love, to rest upon you, the shadow of His wing, the whisper of His love; not small mercies, but great ones. And in order to be able to pray, do as David tells you he did, follow hard after God. (R. Glover.)
The paramount need
What thirst means in a tropical wilderness none but those who have passed through it can tell. It is an overpowering and a paralyzing need. All this the psalmist had felt. As in the long marches through the desert sands, in the awful blaze of an Eastern noon, he had sighed for the pasture lands and the springs, so life seemed but a dry and weary waste until his soul was satisfied with the sight of God. It is a parable of the life, not of the psalmist only, but of the world; it is a picture of Gods education of our race. Just as He did not teach our forefathers the arts of life--the use of iron and of fire--by an immediate inspiration, but let them find them out by slow and gradual processes, as the need of them was felt; just as He has not put intellectual truths into our minds at our birth, but lets us work them out as the satisfaction of a felt desire, so it is with religion. He does not all at once satisfy our mouths with good things. He teaches us through the discipline of thirst and want. He lets each age tread its own path, work out its own problems, cope with its own difficulties, and be brought to Him at last by the constraining force of an unsatisfied desire. I might show that the parable is true of many ages, but I will take only two--the first ages of Christianity and our own. If we look at the first ages of our faith we see that it did not all at once convince men of its truth, as the sun that rose this morning told all who had eyes to see that a light was shining. Men came to it by many paths, and the greatest of all those paths led them through the splendid scenery of philosophy; for it was an age of culture; education was general in almost all the cities of the Roman Empire, and the basis of education was philosophy. Men were as familiar with some of the technical terms of metaphysics as they are now with some of the technical terms of chemistry or of physiology. To the better sort of men at the time, philosophy was a passion; it absorbed all the other interests of life. They not only lived for their beliefs, but were sometimes ready to die for them. And they were beliefs for which a man might be content to die. I should be the last to attempt to disparage the work which philosophy then actually accomplished; but it was no substitute for religion. It failed, and that on so large a scale, and among so many types of character, that the experiment need never be tried again; there was the demonstration for all time that the soul had a thirst which philosophy could not satisfy; it was the need of God, of a God whom men could love, of a God err whom they could lean, of a God to whom they could cry out in their despair, and their failure, and their sin: My soul longeth for Thee. Side by side with philosophy was superstition. There were fantastic forms of worship, new divinities, and new modes of approaching them; but all these were various expressions of one overpowering thirst; and in the discipline of God the thirst was for a long time unsatisfied. It was not until all other waters had been found to be bitter that the masses of educated men came to drink of that living water which the Christian faith supplied--the water of the knowledge of God in Christ, which is, in the believers soul, a well of water springing up unto ever-lashing life. That was one fulfilment of the parable. It is being fulfilled again before our eyes in our own time; we, too, are passing through another kind of scenery, a scenery so new and vast that we must be ready, as I doubt not that God is ready, to forgive those who, in their wonder at the newness and vastness of it all, have come to think that this at last is a satisfaction for the soul, and that in this crown of all the ages we have found in nature a substitute for God. Alike from the mountain-tops and the ravines and the far-off stare and from the depths of the deep seas, there shine out splendours upon splendours of new knowledge, and new possibilities of knowledge, which seem to lift us into a higher sphere of living than that which to our forefathers was possible. It is splendid scenery--the world, has never seen its like--but, splendid as it is, there are needs, the deepest needs, of the soul which it does not, which it cannot, satisfy. In time there comes to all men the sense of thirst. There are few who rise at all times, there are none who rise uniformly at all times, to the heroic height of doing good for goodness sake, and of furthering justice for justices sake. The baffled efforts of the struggle for righteousness, the defects of truth, the relapse from self-control, make men weary before the day is spent; and across the evening of life, if not across its morning, there rises the sharp and sudden cry, a thirst which God alone can satisfy. And, on the other hand, in the rebound from the superabundant talk about religion which characterizes our age, from the battles of the Churches and the unsubstantial theories which claim the place of Divine verities, there are those who substitute for the whole of religion that part of it which consists, in active philanthropy. For this, again, I have no word but that of praise. Without this religion can hardly be said to exist, but it is not religion; for though religion must move about the world with the busy feet of an angel of benevolence, benevolence does net of itself satisfy the souls thirst for God. The soul comes back hungry from its errands of mercy--it needs a Diviner motive and a Diviner satisfaction. The beginning of it is neither the love of righteousness nor the practice of benevolence, but the thirst for God. Where that thirst exists there is religion; where that thirst is absent, there, in spite of all that a man may profess, religion is absent also. And that thirst is satisfied. I will speak for a moment of its satisfaction not in society at large, but in the individual soul. The satisfaction is as real as the need, and He has placed it within our own power. To the simpleminded psalmist, living as he did before the age of philosophy--I had almost said before the age of theology--the satisfaction was to appear before the visible symbol of Gods presence at Jerusalem. That, too, brethren, is part of the parable. It is true for all time. The souls satisfaction is to realize the presence of God. The other name for it is faith. It is the seeing of Him who is invisible. (Edwin Hatch, D. D.)
Passionate devotion
It is not every one who can sympathize with the intensity of devout feeling here expressed. One must have seen the power and the glory in bygone days, to thirst and long for God like this. All, however, can understand something about it; all, at least, can stand apart and admire the man with thoughts so elevated, affections so pure, a soul so predominant over sense, that his very sensuous nature longs, not for the objects of sense, but for God! In all ages we find instances of this passionate devotion, which appropriates to itself the language Of human affection, and applies it to the Infinite One. Now, what estimate are we to form of the devotion which assumes this character? Shall we condemn it as enthusiasm, or commend it as the pure and natural development of the affections towards God? Shall we cherish it in ourselves? or restrain such assimilations to human loves? I think we shall better be able to answer when we have examined a little into the conditions under which it arises. First, then, it is quite evident, those rising to this intensely passionate longing after God must have a great power of giving a reality to their ideas--I mean, of realizing their ideas as substantive, present existences. For God being known to us only in thought, must be represented by this realizing faculty of the mind as personally present with us, or no deep emotion can be awakened towards Him. You may contemplate His works, you may take the Bible and draw out a history of all He has done for mans salvation, you may reason most correctly upon the relations He sustains to your soul, you may ascribe to Him all goodness, truth, and holy beauty, all imaginable perfections; but unless you have the power of believing in the substantial reality of your ideas, no passionate love or desire (which can cling only to persons as known) can be excited within you. There may be trust, there may be reverence, there may be the deliberate surrender of the will to the great and glorious Being conceived in thought; but there can be for a merely logical, intellectual abstraction no passionate love. This, then, being undoubtedly the case, a second condition arises, namely, God, in order to be thus loved and desired, must be brought within the compass of human imagination, idealization--that is, being thought of and realized as personally present, the mind must form of Him some representation to itself, some conceivable and embraceable idea. Passionate love and desire cannot embrace the infinitely vague. Hence the fact that, within the Christian Church our Saviour and the Virgin have been made more frequently the objects of this passionate devotion than the Infinite Father. Well, then, if these be the conditions of this passionate love and desire for God, it already is evident there must be some element in it which needs toning down or modifying in some way or the other. For, whatever brings the glory and infinitude of the Creator down to the limitation and level of the creature must have an element of evil in it. We may take it as an axiom that, Whatever tends to exalt our notions of His perfections and glory, whatever tends to fill us with deep and humble reverence and awe, with adoration and lowly worship, that is leading us on the right road to a knowledge of God; and whatever limits, circumscribes, defines our image of Him, reduces Him within the narrow outlines of our delineations, that falsifies and corrupts our knowledge. False devotion pretends to know. It has come face to face with God, it says, and loves. Vain dream! It has rather created an image, out of its sanctified fancy, and for that burns with passionate desire. And yet, we must be just. There is a truth in this imaging of God in the mind. It is not altogether a false representation of Him which the mind creates for itself. The elements Out of which the representation is made are true, so far as they go. Have you ever seen the canvas intended for a great picture, after the artist has worked two or three days only upon it? That is like our sanctified imagings of God. All the right colours laid on, all the lines in the right direction, but what resemblance, nevertheless, is there to the perfected work? The sun is imaged in a clew-drop; but who could learn by looking in the dew-drop what are the majesty and glory of the sun? They are, then, divine properties which the soul loves in its image of God, but divine properties limited and reduced to created patterns. Those who know God and think of Him as the omnipresent Spirit, the all-efficient power whose operations extend through, and whose nature is manifested in, all creation, cannot but adore and love as they contemplate His nature in these created manifestations. To them He necessarily is the one, all-sufficing, all-efficient God, the one joy and blessedness of all creatures. And, knowing Him thus, they cannot but desire to know Him more fully, to share more largely in the communications of His nature, to come into closer union with Him. For, to put it in another form, this is nothing more than desiring to share in, and partake more and more of, whatever is true, beautiful, and good in the world, to enter more and more into the blessedness of all true, beautiful, and good thoughts and feelings, For, not in His inmost being is God known or can He be enjoyed; but in these manifestations of Him,--in all His glorious and beautiful works, in all the glorious and beautiful thoughts He creates within us. And it is in keeping with this that the psalmist tells us in the text that his soul and flesh long for God, to see His power and glory so as he had seen them in the sanctuary. He did not dream that he, the finite, could appropriate to himself all the glory and power of the Infinite One. There is, therefore, no extravagance of language, transferring the passionate feelings awakened by human love to the Creator; but, what he prays for, longs, thirsts for, is to see more of God in His manifestations--more of that power and glory which he had already discerned as he heard the Levites chant His holy praise, and had joined in the sacrifices, the prayers, the worship of the temple. Whatever brought to him truer and more beautiful thoughts, purer and more ennobling feelings, that would fulfil the desire and satisfy the longing of his soul. (J. Cranbrook.)
Soul-thirst
I need not remind you how true it is that a man is but a bundle of appetites, desires, often tyrannous, often painful, always active. But the misery of it--the reason why mans misery is great upon him--is mainly, I suppose, that he does not know what it is that he wants; that he thirsts, but does not understand what the thirst means, nor what it is that will slake it, His animal appetites make no mistakes; he and the beasts know that when they are thirsty they have to drink, and when they are hungry they have to eat, and when they are drowsy they have to sleep. But the poor instinct of the animal that teaches it what to choose and what to avoid fails us in the higher reaches; and we are conscious of a craving, and do not find that the craving reveals to us the source from whence its satisfaction can be derived. Therefore, broken cisterns that can hold no water are at a premium, and the fountain of living waters is turned away from, though it could slake so many thirsts. Like ignorant explorers in an enemys country, we see a stream, and we do not stop to ask whether there is poison in it or not before we glue our thirsty lips to it. There is a great old promise in one of the prophets which puts this notion of the misinterpretation of our thirsts, and the mistakes as to the sources from which they can be slaked, into one beautiful metaphor which is obscured in our English version. The prophet Isaiah says, the mirage shall become a pool, the romance shall turn into a reality, and the mistakes shall be rectified, and men shall know what it is that they want, and shall get it when they know. Brethren, unless we have listened to the teaching from above, unless we have consulted far more wisely and far more profoundly than many of us have ever done the meaning of our own hearts when they cry out, we, too, shall only be able to take for ours the plaintive cry of the half of this first utterance of the psalmist, and say, despairingly, My soul thirsteth. Blessed are they who know where the fountain is, who know the meaning of the highest unrests in their own souls, and can go on with clear and true self-revelation, My soul thirsteth for God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.--
A wilderness cry
Chrysostom tells us that amongst the primitive Christians it was ordained that this psalm should be sung every day. If we do not follow that Custom, it is not because it is unsuitable. The psalm may be said or sung all the year round. In all the seasons of the soul, its spring, summer, autumn and winter. By day and by night. But the psalm especially belongs to those who, through any cause, feel themselves to dwell in a desert land, The stages of Israel in all their history, in Egypt and out of it, and onwards, are gone over in our spiritual history. And even when we are in Canaan, we may, like David, be driven, out of our home, and find ourselves in the wilderness again.
I. True saints are sometimes in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. For--
1. All things are changeable, and living things most of all. A man of stone changes not, but the living man must sorrow and suffer as well as laugh and rejoice.
2. And in some senses, to a Christian, this world must always be a dry and thirsty land, We are not carrion crows, or else might we float and feed upon the carcases which abound in the waters around our ark. We are doves, and when we leave the hand of our Noah we find nought to rest upon. Even when the world is at its best, it is but a dry land for saints.
3. And we carry an evil within us which would cause a drought in Paradise itself if it could come there (Rom_7:1-25.), We may have been so unwatchful as to have brought ourselves into this condition by actual faults of life and conduct.
5. Sometimes it is brought about by our being banished from the means of grace. Poor as our ministry may be, there are some Christians who would miss it more than their daily food if it were taken from them. It is a sore trial to such to be kept sway from sanctuary privileges. 6, And by denial of the sweets of Christian intercourse. David had poor company when he was in the wilderness, in the days of Saul; his friends were not much better than freebooters and runaways. And sometimes Gods people are shut up to similar company.
6. Sometimes a man may be treated with gross injustice, and endure much hardship as the result. David did; so may we.
7. Domestic conditions, and health, and physical conditions, may grievously depress the soul. Thus, there are many reasons why the best of saints are sometimes in a dry and thirsty land.
II. But God is their God still. O God, Thou art my God. Yes, he is as much our God in the dry land as if we sat by Siloas softly flowing brook. God is the God of the wilderness. Was He not with His people there?
III. When we are in a dry and thirsty land, our wisest course is to cry to Him at once. When you feel least like praying, then pray to Him the more, for you need it the more. Do not, any of you, practise the sinners folly: he declares that he will tarry till he is better, and then he never comes at all. Seek the Lord at once, Practise the Gospel principle of Just as I am. Say, I must have a sense of His love, and I must have it now. Make a dash for it, and you shall have it. Therefore, do not be afraid to cry out to God. Our heavenly Father loves to hear His children cry all the day long. Rutherford says, The bairn in Christs house that is most troublesome is the most welcome. He that makes the most din for his meat is the best bairn that Christ has. You may not quite agree with that as to your own children, but it is certainly so with our Lord. Desire, then, and let those desires be vehement. Jesus will joyfully hear you. Only be thou careful that thou be not content to be in a dry and thirsty land, away from God. Do not get into such a state, and certainly do not stay there. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Psalms 63
Psalms 63
IF the psalmist is allowed to speak, he gives many details of his circumstances in his song. He is in a waterless and weary land, excluded from the sanctuary, followed by enemies seeking his life. He expects a fight, in which they are to fall by the sword, and apparently their defeat is to lead to his restoration to his kingdom.
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These characteristics converge on David. Cheyne has endeavoured to show that they fit the faithful Jews in the Maccabean period, and that the "king" in Psa_63:2 is "Jonathan or [better] Simon" ("Orig. of Psalt.," 99, and "Aids to Dev. Study of Crit.," 308 seqq.). But unless we are prepared to accept the dictum that "Pre-Jeremian such highly spiritual hymns obviously cannot be" (u.s.), the balance of probability will be heavily in favour of the Davidic origin.
The recurrence of the expression "My soul" in Psa_63:1, Psa_63:5, Psa_63:8, suggests the divisions into which the psalm falls. Following that clue, we recognise three parts, in each of which a separate phase of the experience of the soul in its communion with God is presented as realised in sequence by the psalmist. The soul longs and thirsts for God (Psa_63:1-4). The longing soul is satisfied in God (Psa_63:5-7). The satisfied soul cleaves to and presses after God (Psa_63:8-11). These stages melt into each other in the psalm as in experience, but are still discernible.
In the first strophe the psalmist gives expression in immortal words to his longing after God. Like many a sad singer before and after him, he finds in the dreary scene around an image of yet drearier experiences within. He sees his own mood reflected in the grey monotony of the sterile desert, stretching waterless on every side, and seamed with cracks, like mouths gaping for the rain that does not come. He is weary and thirsty; but a more agonising craving is in his spirit, and wastes his flesh. As in the kindred Psalms 42 and Psalms 43, his separation from the sanctuary has dimmed his sight of God. He longs for the return of that vision in its former clearness. But even while he thirsts, he in some measure possesses, since his resolve to "seek earnestly" is based on the assurance that God is his God. In the region of the devout life the paradox is true that we long precisely because we have. Every soul is athirst for God; but unless a man can say, "Thou art my God," he knows not how to interpret nor where to slake his thirst, and seeks, not after the living Fountain of waters, but after muddy pools and broken cisterns.
Psa_63:2 is difficult principally because the reference of the initial "So" is doubtful. By some it is connected with the first clause of Psa_63:1 : "So"-i.e., as my God-"have I seen Thee." Others suppose a comparison to be made between the longing just expressed and former ones, and the sense to be, "With the same eager desire as now I feel in the desert have I gazed in the sanctuary." This seems the better view. Hupfeld proposes to transpose the two clauses, as the A.V. has done in its rendering, and thus gets a smoother run of thought. The immediate object of the psalmists desire is thus declared to be "to behold Thy power and glory," and the "So" is substantially equivalent to "According as." If we retain the textual order of the clauses, and understand the first as paralleling the psalmists desert longing with that which he felt in the sanctuary, the second clause will state the aim of the ardent gaze-namely, to "behold Thy power and Thy glory." These attributes were peculiarly manifested amid the imposing sanctities where the light of the Shechinah, which was especially designated as "the Glory," shone above the ark. The first clause of Psa_63:3 is closely connected with the preceding, and gives the reason for some part of the emotion there expressed, as the introductory "For" shows. But it is a question to which part of the foregoing verses it refers. It is probably best taken as assigning the reason for their main subject-namely, the psalmists thirst after God. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Our desires are shaped by our judgments of what is good. The conviction of Gods transcendent excellence and absolute sufficiency for all our cravings must precede the direction of these to Him. Unless all enjoyments and possessions, which become ours through our corporeal life, and that life itself, are steadfastly discerned to be but a feathers weight in comparison with the pure gold of Gods lovingkindness, we shall not long for it more than for them.
The deep desires of this psalmist were occasioned by his seclusion from outward forms of worship, which were to him so intimately related to the inward reality, that he felt farther away from God in the wilderness than when he caught glimpses of His face, through the power and glory which he saw visibly manifested in the sanctuary. But in his isolation he learns to equate his desert yearnings with his sanctuary contemplations, and thus glides from longing to fruition. His devotion, nourished by forms, is seen in the psalm in the very act of passing on to independence of form; and so springs break out for him in the desert. His passion of yearning after God rebukes and shames our faint desires. This mans soul was all on the stretch to grasp and hold God. His very physical frame was affected by his intense longing. If he did not long too much, most men, even those who thirst after God most, long terribly too little. Strong desire has a joy in its very aching; feeble desire only makes men restless and uncomfortable. Nothing can be more preposterous than tepid aspirations after the greatest and only good. To hold as creed that Gods lovingkindness is better than life, and to wish a little to possess it, is surely irrational, if anything is so.
The remaining clauses of Psa_63:3 and Psa_63:4 form a transition to the full consciousness of satisfaction which animates the psalmist in the second part. The resolve to praise, and the assurance that he will have occasion to praise, succeed his longing with startling swiftness. The "So" of Psa_63:4 seems to be equivalent to "Accordingly"-i.e., since Thy lovingkindness is such supreme good, and is mine because I have desired it. Continual praise and as continual invocation are the fitting employments of those who receive it, and by these alone can their possession of the lovingkindness bestowed be made permanent. If empty palms are not ever lifted towards God, His gifts will not descend. When these are received, they will fall like morning sunbeams on stony and dumb lips, which before were only parted to let out sighs, and will draw forth music of praise. There are longings which never are satisfied: but God lets no soul that thirsts for Him perish for lack of the water of life. Wisdom bids us fix our desires on that Sovereign Good, to long for which is ennobling and blessed, and to possess which is rest and the beginning of heaven.
Thus the psalmist passes imperceptibly to the second strophe, in which the longing soul becomes the satisfied soul. The emblem of a feast is naturally suggested by the previous metaphor of thirst. The same conviction, which urged the psalmist forward in his search after God, now assures him of absolute satisfaction in finding Him. Since Gods lovingkindness is better than life, the soul that possesses Him can have no unappeased cravings, nor any yet hungry affections or wishes. In the region of communion with God, fruition is contemporaneous with and proportioned to desire. When the rain comes in the desert, what was baked earth is soon rich pasture, and the dry torrent beds, where the white stones glittered ghastly in the sunshine, are musical with rushing streams and fringed with budding oleanders. On that telegraph a message is flashed upwards and an answer speeds downwards, in a moment of time. Many of Gods gifts are delayed by Love; but the soul that truly desires Him has never long to wait for a gift that equals its desire.
When God is possessed, the soul is satisfied. So entire is the correspondence between wants and gift, that every concavity in us finds, as it were, a convexity to match it in Him. The influx of the great ocean of God fills every curve of the shore to the brim, and the flashing glory of that sunlit sea covers the sands, and brings life where stagnation reigned and rotted. So the satisfied soul lives to praise, as the psalm goes on to vow. Lips that drink such draughts of Lovingkindness will not be slow to tell its sweetness. If we have nothing to say about Gods goodness, the probable cause is our want of experience of it.
That feast leaves no bitter taste. The remembrance of it is all but as sweet as its enjoyment was. Thus, in Psa_63:6, the psalmist recounts how, in the silent hours of night, when many joys are seen to be hollow, and conscience wakes to condemn coarse delights, he recalled his blessednesses in God, and, like a ruminant animal, tasted their sweetness a second time. The verse is best regarded as an independent sentence. So blessed was the thought of God, that, if once it rose in his wakeful mind as he lay on his bed, he "meditated" on it all the night. Hasty glances show little of anything great. Nature does not unveil her beauty to a cursory look; much less does God disclose His. If we would feel the majesty of the heavens, we must gaze long and steadfastly into their violet depths. The mention of the "night watches" is appropriate, if this psalm is Davids. He and his band of fugitives had to keep vigilant guard as they lay down shelterless in the desert; but even when thus ringed by possible perils, and listening for the shout of nocturnal assailants, the psalmist could recreate and calm his soul by meditation on God. Nor did his experience of Gods sufficiency bring only remembrances; it kindled hopes. "For Thou hast been a help for me; and in the shadow of Thy wings will I shout for joy." Past deliverances minister to present trust and assure of future joy. The prerogative of the soul, blessed in the sense of possessing God, is to discern in all that has been the manifestations of His help, and to anticipate in all that is to come the continuance of the same. Thus the second strophe gathers up the experiences of the satisfied soul as being fruition, praise, sweet lingering memories that fill the night of darkness and fear, and settled trust in the coming of a future which will be of a piece with such a present and past.
The third strophe (Psa_63:8-11) presents a stage in the devout souls experience which naturally follows the two preceding. Psa_63:8 has a beautifully pregnant expression for the attitude of the satisfied soul. Literally rendered, the words run, "cleaves after Thee," thus uniting the ideas of close contact and eager pursuit. Such union, however impossible in the region of lower aims, is the very characteristic of communion with God, in which fruition subsists along with longing, since God is infinite, and the closest approach to and fullest possession of Him are capable of increase. Satisfaction tends to become satiety when that which produces it is a creature whose limits are soon reached; but the cup which God gives to a thirsty soul has no cloying in its sweetness. On the other hand, to seek after Him has no pain nor unrest along with it, since the desire for fuller possession comes from the felt joy of present attainment. Thus, in constant interchange satisfaction and desire beget each other, and each carries with it some trace of the others blessedness.
Another beautiful reciprocity is suggested by the very order of the words in the two clauses of Psa_63:8. The first ends with "Thee"; the second begins with "Me." The mutual relation of God and the soul is here set forth. He who "cleaves after God" is upheld in his pursuit by Gods hand. And not in his pursuit only, but in all his life; for the condition of receiving sustaining help is desire for it, directed to God and verified by conduct. Whoever thus follows hard after God will feel his outstretched, seeking hand inclosed in a strong and loving palm, which will steady him against assaults and protect him in dangers. "No man is able to pluck them out of the Fathers hand," if only they do not let it go. It may slip from slack fingers.
We descend from the heights of mystic communion in the remainder of the psalm. But in the singers mind his enemies were Gods enemies, and, as Psa_63:11 shows, were regarded as apostates from God in being traitors to "the king." They did not "swear by Him"-i.e., they did not acknowledge God as God. Therefore, such being their character, the psalmists confidence that Gods right hand upheld him necessarily passes into assurance of their defeat. This is not vindictiveness, but confidence in the sufficiency of Gods protection, and is perfectly accordant with the lofty strains of the former part of the psalm. The picture of the fate of the beaten foe is partly drawn from that of Korah and his company. These rebels against Gods king shall go where those rebels against His priest long ago descended. "They shall be poured out upon the hands of the sword," or, more literally still, "They shall pour him out," is a vigorous metaphor, incapable of transference into English, describing how each single enemy is given over helplessly, as water is poured out, to the sword, which is energetically and to our taste violently, conceived of as a person with hands. The meaning is plain-a battle is impending, and the psalmist is sure that his enemies will be slain, and their corpses torn by beasts of prey.
How can the "kings" rejoicing in God be the consequence of their slaughter, unless they are rebels? And what connection would the defeat of a rebellion have with the rest of the psalm unless the singer were himself the king? "This one line devoted to the king is strange," says Cheyne. The strangeness is unaccounted for, but on the supposition that David is the king and singer. If so, it is most natural that his song should end with a note of triumph, and should anticipate the joy of his own heart and the "glorying" of his faithful followers, who had been true to God in being loyal to His anointed.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Superscription.—“A Psalm of David, when he was in the…
INTRODUCTION
Superscription.—“A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.” Hengstenberg: “The wilderness of Judah is the whole wilderness towards the east of the tribe of Judah, bounded on the north by the tribe of Benjamin, stretching, southward to the south-west end of the Dead Sea, eastward to the Dead Sea and the Jordan, and westward to the mountains of Judah. This wilderness is not unfrequently designated simply The wilderness. In this wilderness David was often found when flying from Saul. In the same wilderness also he took refuge during the rebellion of Absalom. That he did so is self-evident, inasmuch as the road from Jerusalem to the Jordan leads through it: it is, moreover, expressly asserted in more than one passage in the Books of Samuel (2Sa_15:23; 2Sa_15:28; 2Sa_16:2; 2Sa_16:14; 2Sa_17:16). We cannot refer our psalm to the time of Saul, because mention is expressly made of a king in Psa_63:11. On the other hand, in favour of the time of Absalom; besides this reason we have a very marked reference in Psa_63:1, ‘in a dry land, and is weary (עָיֵף) without water,’ to 2Sa_16:14, ‘And the king and all the people that were with him came weary (עֲיֵפִים), and he rested there.’ Comp. Psa_16:2, according to which Ziba brought out, in the way, wine, ‘that such as were faint in the wilderness might drink,’ with the word יָנֵעַ in Psa_17:2.”
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M. Henry: “As the sweetest of Paul’, epistles were those that bore date out of a prison, so some of the sweetest of David’s Psalms were those that were penned, as this was, in a wilderness.” Donne: “The spirit and soul of the whole Book of Psalms is contracted into this psalm.” Perowne: “This is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and touching psalms is the whole Psalter.”
Homiletically, we see in this psalm, the thirst, the satisfaction, and the anticipation of the godly soul.
THE THIRST OF THE GODLY SOUL
(Psa_63:1-4.)
Consider—
I. The nature of this thirst.
1. It is a thirst for God. “I seek Thee; my soul thirsteth for Thee,” &c. In the second verse mention is made of God’s “power and glory” as things which the Psalmist desired to see. In the A. V. the clauses of this verse are needlessly transposed. The Hebrew is: “Thus have I beheld Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory.” The power and the glory are not the external pomp and splendour of public worship; but the communications of Divine grace, as manifested in the experience of the devout soul. The Psalmist longs for such communion with God as he had formerly enjoyed in the sanctuary. The thirst is not merely for the ordinances of religion, or for teaching concerning God, or even for His “power and glory;” but for God Himself. The thirst of the soul of man needs for its satisfaction that the soul shall be brought into vital and sympathetic relations with
(1) A Person. Creeds and ordinances cannot satisfy the soul.
(2) A living Person. Not one whose work and life and love are things of the past; but One who “is able to save, because He ever liveth,” &c.
(3) A Divine Person. One who is able satisfactorily to respond to its deepest yearnings, to help it to realise its loftiest aspirations, &c. One who ever liveth, who changeth not, &c. Only in God can the thirst of man’s soul find satisfaction. (See on Psa_42:1-2).
2. It is an intense thirst. “I seek Thee earnestly” (not “early,” as in the A. V. The verb שָׁחַד is not to be referred to the noun שַׁחַר = the dawn. It means to “seek zealously,” a “solicitous seeking”); “my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth” (Hengstenberg: “fainteth;” Moll: “languisheth”) “for Thee.” Each of the verbs indicates intense desire.
3. It is a thirst of the entire man “My soul thirsteth, my flesh pineth for Thee.” Soul and flesh are used to denote the whole man by his two principal parts. His whole being went out after God in fervent desire.
II. The occasion of this thirst. “In a dry and thirsty land where no water is.”
1. These words are true literally. The wilderness of Judah where David was at this time, even in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, was a desert country (2Sa_16:2; 2Sa_16:14).
2. These words are true figuratively. The desert was a picture of his condition. An exile from his throne and home, and from the sanctuary of the Lord. His own son and his most trusted counsellor, with a great host of his subjects, in armed rebellion against him. The circumstances in which he was placed led him to seek the Lord the more earnestly. Sorrow and trial often drive us the more closely to God. “When my blood flows like wine,” says Beecher, “when all is ease and prosperity, when the sky is blue, and birds sing, and flowers blossom, and my life is an anthem moving in time and tune, then this world’s joy and affection suffice. But when a change comes, when I am weary and disappointed, when the skies lower into a sombre night, when there is no song of bird, and the perfume of flowers is but their dying breath, when all is sun-setting and autumn, then I yearn for Him who sits with the summer of love in His soul, and feel that all earthly affection is but a glow-worm light, compared to that which blazes with such effulgence in the heart of God.”
“Trials make the promise sweet.
Trials give new life to prayer.”
III. The reason of this thirst. Why did David thus yearn for God? Two reasons are suggested—
1. Because of his personal relation to God. “Thou art my God.” Jehovah was the God of the Poet, not only by creation, but by covenant; not only by virtue of His claims, but also by the Poet’s choice and consecration. There was a recognised and sacred relation between them, because of which it was right and appropriate that the Psalmist should seek God. Blessed are we if, “when the woes of life o’ertake” us, we can address ourselves to Him, saying, “O God, Thou art my God.”
2. Because of his exalted estimation of God. David says that he longs for God, “Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life.” We regard “life” here as signifying more than mere existence; for the statement of the Psalmist implies that life is good; and that mere existence is not a boon is clear from Mat_26:24, and Rev_9:6. The Psalmist regarded the lovingkindness of God as better than a life of prosperity and pleasure. Having God’s lovingkindness in his troubled life in the wilderness of Judah, David would esteem himself more blessed than in a life of pleasure in his palace at Jerusalem without it.
“Better than life itself, Thy love,
Dearer than all beside to me;
For whom have I in heaven above,
Or what on earth compared with Thee?”
IV. The relation of this thirst to the praise of God. “My lips shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in Thy name.” The lifting up of the hands was the attitude of worship, and symbolised the lifting up of the heart.
1. In his sorrowful exile while thirsting for God, the Psalmist praises Him because of what He is in Himself, what He is to him, what He has done for him, and what He has promised to do for him. In the bitterest experiences of life the devout heart will find matter and motive for praising God.
2. In the delightful realisation of His presence, which he now seeks and anticipates, he will praise Him yet more. The prospects of the godly soul should inspire the most joyous songs.
3. In his whole life he will praise Him. “I will bless Thee while I live.” The entire life of the godly man should be grateful, reverent, and songful.
“My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life and thought and being last, Or immortality endures.”
CONCLUSION.—How are you endeavouring to quench the thirst of your soul? Avoid the delusive promises of satisfaction held out by the world. At no earthly stream can you find the refreshing draught which you seek (Jer_2:13). “Jesus cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto ME and drink,” &c.
SEEKING GOD
(Psa_63:1.)
I. How should we seek God?
1. Intelligently.
2. Earnestly.
3. Constantly.
4. Hopefully.
II. Where should we seek Him?
1. In the closet.
2. In His Word.
3. In the ordinances.
III. When should we seek Him?
1. Early in life.
2. In advance of temporal things.
IV. Why should we seek Him?
1. He is the soul’s life—“God.”
2. His nature is communicative—“MY God.”—W. W. Wythe.
GOD’S POWER AND GLORY MANIFESTED IN THE SANCTUARY
(Psa_63:2.)
In nothing is genuine piety more strikingly manifested than in the esteem for Divine ordinances. In the proper use of the public means of grace, communion with God is enjoyed, spirituality of mind is promoted, &c.
By the “glory” of God as displayed in the sanctuary we understand the glory of His character as developed in the principles of His moral government and in the method of redemption. The natural perfections of God are manifested in the works of nature; His moral attributes are made known in His Word.
By the “power” of God as manifested in the sanctuary, we understand the spiritual energy which renders His Word effectual. Consider—
I. How God has manifested His glory in the sanctuary.
1. In the sanctuary He has made known the moral excellences of His character—His holiness, mercy, wisdom, faithfulness.
2. In the sanctuary His people are favoured with communion with Him. This privilege is enjoyed in meditation, praise, and prayer.
II. How God has manifested His power in the sanctuary. The means designed for the conversion of sinners and the edification of saints are admirably adapted to the end for which they are designed; yet, through the depravity of mankind, they are inefficient unless accompanied with Divine influence. Thus the power of God is seen in the sanctuary—
1. When sinners are converted.
2. When believers are edified.
III. The pleasure which the Divine manifestations have afforded the people of God. In contemplating the Divine character, in communing with Him, and in witnessing displays of the Divine power, great has been the pleasure which they have enjoyed (Psa_26:8, and Psalms 84).
IV. The desirableness of being favoured with the constant manifestations of the Divine power and glory. “My soul thirsteth for Thee,” &c. If these things are so desirable, how may we attain them?
1. Esteem Divine ordinances, attend with delight upon them, and pray that the blessing of God may attend them.
2. Pray fervently for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. His agency is indispensable, &c.
CONCLUSION.—
1. How great is the criminality of those who neglect Divine ordinances.
2. Those who neglect them need not wonder if they are not converted.
3. How great is the privilege of having a place in the sanctuary of God.
4. What will it be to behold His power and glory in heaven!—(Abridged from an unpublished MS.)
THE LOVINGKINDNESS OF GOD BETTER THAN THE LIFE OF MAN
(Psa_63:3.)
“Thy lovingkindness is better than life.”
These words imply—
I. That life is good. This could not be said of mere existence. Existence may be an evil—
(1.) Because of its miserableness. In his great sufferings, Job felt his existence to be a curse (Job 3. Comp. Mat_26:24; Rev_9:6).
(2.) Because of its perniciousness. From the holy Word we learn that there are certain beings in the universe whose characters are utterly depraved, whose aim in life is utterly destructive, and whose influence is only and continually malignant (Joh_8:44; 1Pe_5:8). Their existence is good neither for themselves nor for others. It is a bane and blight in the universe. According to the tone and teaching of the Scriptures a life of misery or a life of sin is not to be accounted life at all, but only a form of death. David thought of a life of peace at home, in secure possession of the throne, and in the enjoyment of Divine ordinances; and he affirmed that the lovingkindness of God was better than such a life, and his statement clearly implies that life itself when it is not blighted by sin or sorrow is a good thing. It is so—
1. Because of its great faculties. How remarkable are the powers of recollection, reflection, anticipation, ratiocination, imagination, affection, with which human life is endowed! How great its power of usefulness!
2. Because of its great capacities. How immense is man’s capacity for enjoyment! The streams of delight from which he drinks are countless and inexhaustible. The whole endless future is before him for the satisfaction and development of his capacities. He was created in the image of the ever-blessed God, and, therefore, capable of participating in His peace, joy, &c.
3. Because of its conditions and circumstances. The world in which at present we spend our life is full of interest, instruction, utility, beauty; It is a great treasury, exhibition, school, temple. Heaven, to which we look forward as the scene of our life in the future, is of unspeakable glory, &c. Truly life is good. But the Psalmist states—
II. That the lovingkindness of God is better than life even at its best. “Thy lovingkindness is better than life.” It is so—
1. Because all that is good in life flows from the lovingkindness of God. The powers and capacities of human life, and all that is pleasing and precious in its circumstances and conditions, are streams from the fountain of the Divine lovingkindness. “All my springs are in Thee.” “With Thee is the fountain of life.” All that is true, useful, good, and beautiful in the universe springs from the infinite grace of God.
2. Because while much that is good and pleasant in life is transient and intermittent, the lovingkindness of God is constant and abiding. In life joyous hours are succeeded by sorrowful ones. Like David, we pass from peace and home and the sanctuary of God into the exile and weariness of “the wilderness of Judah.” Fairest prospects soon fade. But the lovingkindness of God is eternal, unchangeable, &c. It is “that good part which shall not be taken away from” the man who trusts in God.
3. The lovingkindness of God sanctifies even the pains and trials of life, so that by means of them life is enriched and blest (Rom_5:3-5; Rom_8:28; 2Co_4:17-18; Jas_1:2-3; Jas_1:12; 1Pe_1:6-9).
4. The lovingkindness of God is the crown and glory of life. The enjoyment of it makes life’s fairest scenes more divinely beautiful; its most precious experiences more precious. It ennobles the pleasures of life, it consecrates its friendships, it sanctifies its successes, &c. It is the heaven of the soul.
CONCLUSION.—
1. What is the character of your life?
2. What is your estimate of the Divine lovingkindness?
THE SATISFACTION OF THE GODLY SOUL
(Psa_63:5-8.)
The Psalmist passes from thirst to the assurance of satisfaction in God. And in these verses we see the nature of this satisfaction. He found satisfaction—
I. In the provisions of God. “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness.” The provisions of God for the spiritual needs of men are frequently represented in the Scriptures as a sumptuous feast. David looked forward confidently to the realisation of spiritual satisfaction and delight.
1. The Divine provisions are spiritual. “My soul shall be satisfied.” Satisfied with delightful experiences, exalted and blessed fellowship, ennobling occupations, enrapturing prospects, &c. Pardon, communion with God, work for God, hope of holiness and heaven, &c.
2. The Divine provisions are rich. “Marrow and fatness.” The provisions of the Gospel are like a “feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” Its blessings are not only useful but delightful; not only healthful, but pleasant.
3. The Divine provisions are abundant. The Psalmist was assured of satisfaction. “My soul shall be satisfied.” Whatever God gives He gives abundantly. Pardon (Psa_136:5; Psa_136:15; Psa_103:8; Isa_55:7); Redemption (Psa_130:7). Grace (2Co_9:8).
II. In meditation on God. “I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.”
1. The nature of this exercise. “Remember, … meditate.” Recollection presented the doings and sayings of God, and then the mind meditated upon them, and upon Him. Meditation is not mere reverie, but musing, or fixed and continuous thought One of the most important mental exercises, especially in relation to spiritual life and progress. And we fear that it is also a most neglected exercise.
2. The subject of this exercise. “Remember Thee, … meditate on Thee.” The grandest, most glorious subject that is possible. Meditation on God is
(1) humbling, inasmuch as it reveals our feebleness, insignificance, sinfulness.
(2) Spiritualising, inasmuch as it withdraws us from the material and worldly into association with the spiritual and Divine.
(3) Transforming, inasmuch as we become like unto those with whom in thought and feeling we dwell (2Co_3:18).
3. The season of this exercise. “On my bed, in the night watches.” Night is favourable to meditation on God and spiritual things,
(1) Because of its darkness. Material things are then hidden from our view and spiritual things appear with reality and vividness.
(2) Because of its stillness. The noise and tumult of the day ill accord with meditation on spiritual and Divine themes. The quiet of the night harmonises with and aids such meditation. Great are the advantages of meditation like this.
III. In the protection of God. “Because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.”
1. This protection is well assured. It is guaranteed both by God’s promise and by man’s experience. “Because Thou hast been my help, therefore,” &c.
2. This protection is perfect. “In the shadow of Thy wings.” (See the Hom. Com. on Psa_57:1.)
3. This protection is joy-inspiring. “Will I rejoice.” (See the outline below on this verse.)
IV. In the sustentation of God. “My soul followeth hard after Thee, Thy right hand upholdeth me.” In the support of the godly soul two important things are here brought into clear view:
1. Man’s trust. “My soul followeth hard after Thee.” More correctly: “ ‘My soul cleaveth to Thee.’ Hengstenberg: “ ‘My soul depends on Thee.’ In Psa_63:8, there are the mutual relations between the believing soul and the Lord: it depends on Him, and cleaves to Him, like a bur to a coat, and He takes hold of it, and holds it up with His powerful right hand, so that it does not sink into the abyss of destruction and despair.” Our business is to depend upon God, by faith to cleave to Him with the utmost tenacity.
2. God’s power. “Thy right hand upholdeth me.” The right hand is the instrument of skill and strength. With infinite wisdom and almighty power God sustains the souls that trust in Him. This “representation of the mutual affection and reciprocal relation of God and His servant” is both beautiful and encouraging.
V. In the celebration of the praise of God. “My mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips.” The satisfaction of his soul the godly man seeks to express in praise to God. David resolves to praise God—
1. Vocally. “My month shall praise.” By so doing he would express the praise of his own heart, and excite the hearts and voices of others to praise God.
2. Joyfully. “With joyful lips.” To David, praising God was pleasurable employment. He viewed it not as a duty, but as a delightful privilege.
CONCLUSION.—Here then is satisfaction for the thirsting soul. In the protection, provision, and support of God, and by our meditation and trust and praise of Him, our spiritual anxieties may be calmed, our wants supplied, our joy inspired, &c. Turn thee, thou thirsting soul, from the shallow and muddy streams of earth to the clear and deep river of heavenly grace; and drink, and be for ever blessed (Joh_4:13-14).
THE ARGUMENT OF EXPERIENCE
(Psa_63:7.)
These words speak alike of sorrow and joy. We need help. We can experience joy. Thus read, the text is true to life.
In commencing fresh eras in life the Christian feels that there will be nothing really new. The forms and dresses of things will alter; but the pensive features of sorrow and the open face of joy will be there too. The servant of God has an experience. God has been his “refuge and strength.” What words, then, can I select as the basis of an argument from experience more appropriate than these—“Because Thou hast been mine help,” &c.
I. The rejoicing is reasonable.—“Because.” It is not founded on promise alone (though if that be God’s, never will it be broken), but upon past experience. And upon this experience, as it divides itself into thousandfold circumstances. Oh, what seasons there have been! &c.
II. The rejoicing is personal.—“My help.” That does not exclude others. Every soldier in the army lifts up his answering Amen. Who can explain that strange mystery of individuality? At the heart of each of us there are unspoken mysteries of solitude. Even a child lives in a tiny world of its own.… “My help.” “I am not alone. God is my help.”
III. The rejoicing is real. There is joy. Something more than rest or quiescent peace. The soul was made for delight as well as for discipline and duty. Nay, rather shall I not say, for gladness in discipline and duty? In Christ there is a fountain of blessedness springing up unto everlasting life. For us all to-day there may be joy in the Saviour, the joy of forgiveness through the redeeming sacrifice of the cross, the joy of a new life which sanctifies suffering and sweetens toil, the joy of immortal life through the resurrection.
IV. The rejoicing is restful. Therefore under the shadow of Thy wings. “This is beautiful. You and I can make no such protection by machine-made covering for our beds, as a bird makes for its young. No! Rain and snow cannot pierce those shadowing wings! How roof-like their setting! How softly the inner covering makes all complete; resistance in the feathers without, down in the wings within. Can anything better represent the idea of security than this? of rest than this? of comfort than this? for it is the bird’s beating heart that is the warm glow of the nest; and it is God’s great heart of love in Christ that is near to us—so very near, taking our manhood up into God, clothing Himself in our nature, that He might succour and help us in temptation as well as in grief.…
.… The Psalmist had been meditating. Quiet hours bring quiet memories. He reminds us of the still night, in which the memory is set free, and unfolding its wings in the silence, broods over the pilgrim way. Yes, there—and there—and there, the word of the Lord was tried, and the promise of the Lord was tested, and the deliverance of the Lord was vouchsafed, and lo, there are memorial stones all along the way! “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me,” &c. “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good,” &c.
V. The rejoicing is prophetic. “Will I rejoice.” So we anticipate life’s future with entire and holy confidence. What can that future bring with it that our gracious Saviour cannot prepare us for, and order for our good? (Rom_8:31-39).
This, then, is to be written on our banners, “In the shadow of Thy wings I will rejoice.” Change and trouble must come to us all. But God’s right hand will uphold us all. “Because Thou hast been mine help,” &c.—W.M. STATHAM (Abridged from The Christian World Pulpit.)
THE ANTICIPATION OF THE GODLY SOUL
(Psa_63:9-11.)
The Poet here looks forward confidently to the defeat and destruction of is enemies, and to his own exaltation because of his deliverance. The verses present to us a triple contrast.
I. A contrast of character.
1. The malignant and mendacious. The rebels were animated by a most cruel and malicious feeling against the king. They were as false as they were malicious. They spake lies. They delighted in lies. (See on Psa_62:3-4.)
2. The religious and truthful. “Every one that sweareth by Him.” M. Henry: “That is, by the blessed name of God, and not by any idol (Deu_6:13), and then it means all good people, that make a sincere and open profession of God’s name.” Swearing by Him indicates truthfulness also. They appeal to Him as the true God, the God who delights in truth.
This great contrast of character still exists amongst men in this world. The false and the true, the good and the evil are still here.
II. A contrast of pursuit.
1. The rebels sought the life of the king. “They seek my soul.” Though the words “to destroy it” must be applied to the rebels; still it is true that they sought to take the life of David. The objects for which they were striving were utterly cruel and base.
2. The king sought his own salvation and God’s glory. They thirsted for the life of another; he thirsted for God. They looked forward to seizing his throne and kingdom; he to grateful, joyful, lifelong worship of God.
Of what character are our pursuits? Will they bear the searching scrutiny of truth and honesty?
III. A contrast of destiny.
1. The mendacious shall be silenced, and the truthful exalted.—“Every one that sweareth by Him shall glory; but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.” Hypocrisies, shams, false-hoods, may live long, as life appears to us; but they must perish; and they who utter them will come to silence and shame. Truth cannot perish, but must grow and advance to splendid triumph. The truth-seeker and the truth-speaker will have abundant reason for exultation.
2. The malignant shall be utterly and ignominiously destroyed, and the religious shall have cause for rejoicing, “And they to (their) destruction will they seek my soul; they shall go into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword; a portion for jackals shall they be.” The jackals are the scavengers of the East. They prey on dead bodies; and assemble in troops on battle-fields to feast on the slain.
What a terrible fulfilment the words of the Poet had in the case of Absalom, Ahithophel, and twenty thousand of the rebels! In seeking the life of the king they brought upon themselves dread destruction. A fearful doom awaits all persistent workers of iniquity. “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” “The wicked shall be turned into hell.” “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness.” They “shall be punished with everlasting destruction,” &c.
“But the king shall rejoice in God.” The destruction of the rebels was the salvation of the king. And his rejoicing by reason thereof was religious—“in God.” Those who truly trust in God shall come forth from the trials and conflicts of life “more than conquerors” through Him.
CONCLUSION.—How unspeakably important is individual character! Our character expresses itself in our pursuits, and determines our destiny. “As righteousness tendeth to life; so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.” Only through Christ can man attain righteousness of character. What is your character?
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain In this text there is a prostration, an appropriation,…
Psa 63:1
In this text there is a prostration, an appropriation, an obedience, and a now.
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I. It is a great thing to have grand views of God, to get some approach to an idea of the exceeding greatness of God. We go to God too much for what we want to get. We ought to go to God, and meditate upon Him, and worship Him for what He is in Himself—His attributes, His glory.
II. Important as this is, it is of infinitely more importance to be able to say, "Thou art my God." This is faith. Nature can say, "O God;" but only the believer can say, "My God."
III. To those who can say that, the last part of David’s words and his firm resolve will come as a very easy and a necessary thing; they cannot help saying it: "Early will I seek Thee." For it is attraction that does it. The secret of all true religion is attraction. As soon as God is "my God," there is a force which compels me to it; I cannot help coming nearer and nearer to Him; it is my necessity; it is my life.
IV. True religion is essentially an early thing. "They that seek Me early shall find Me." It is the spring seeds that make the richest harvests, and a God sought early will be a God found ever.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 189.
I. The Psalmist stood alone, we will suppose, at the tent-door watching the night. The light of moon and stars fell on a wide, grassless, unwatered country, spread far and wide before him; and the low, indefinite sounds of the desert crept up to his feet, bringing with them the sense of mystery and awe, and sent their quiet with a touch of trouble to his heart. The mystery of night and solitude created a vague longing, the impression of the thirsty land deepened the longing through association with the appetite of thirst, and both became, wrought upon in that receptive moment by the excited spirit, the longing of the soul for union with the mystery and love of God.
II. Brought through nature to prayer, he remembers old days when God was near to him. The soul of the man is now alone with God, and communes with Him by memory. Doubt and hardness of heart depart. Sorrow is round the Psalmist, but he forgets it; difficulty before him, but it seems nothing. He loses self, and bursts in the midst of sadness into joy. "Thy loving-kindness is better than life; my lips shall praise Thee," etc.
III. The rush of joy ceases at the end of the sixth verse, and the meditative part of the song begins with the seventh. The experience is over: the trouble, the prayer, the recollection, the joy. The result is twofold: the sense of God’s righteousness as his own, the sense of joy in trust in God. And both brought peace into his heart. "My soul trusted in Thee. Thy righteousness clings close to me."
IV. The sense of being God’s own care, of being at one with Him, leads the Psalmist beyond, outside himself. He loses himself in prayer for others. The Psalm that began in self-consciousness ends in self-forgetfulness.
S. A. Brooke, The Spirit of the Christian Life, p. 80.
What thirst means in a tropical wilderness none but those who have passed through it can tell. It is an overpowering and a paralysing need. All this the Psalmist had felt. He had wandered in his shepherd days through those vast and gorgeous wildernesses; he had felt what thirst was; and when, in later days, he lay upon his bed, the contrast between the grandeur of that scenery and his unconquerable thirst became to him a parable of life. As in the long marches through the desert sands, in the awful blaze of an Eastern noon, he had sighed for the pasture land and the springs, so life seemed but a dry and weary waste until his soul was satisfied with the sight of God. It is a parable of the life, not of the Psalmist only, but of the world; it is a picture of God’s education of our race. He does not all at once satisfy our mouth with good things. He teaches us through the discipline of thirst and want. He lets each age tread its own path, work out its own problems, cope with its own difficulties, and be brought to Him at last by the constraining force of an unsatisfied desire.
I. If we look at the first ages of our faith, we see that it did not all at once convince men of its truth, as the sun that rose this morning told all who had eyes to see that a light was shining. Men came by it by many paths, and the greatest of all these paths led them through the splendid scenery of philosophy. To the better sort of men philosophy was a passion; it absorbed all the other interests of life. Side by side with philosophy was superstition. It was not until all other waters had been found to be bitter that the mass of educated men came to drink of the living water which the Christian faith supplied—the water of the knowledge of God in Christ.
II. The parable is being fulfilled again before our eyes in our own time. Alike from the mountain-tops, and the ravines, and the far-off stars, and from the depths of the deep seas, there shine out splendours upon splendours of new knowledge and new possibilities of knowledge, which seem to lift us into a higher sphere of living than that which to our forefathers was possible. It is splendid scenery, the world has never seen its like, but splendid as it is, there are needs, the deepest needs of the soul, which it does not, which it cannot, satisfy. Consciously or unconsciously, in a thousand different ways, men in our time are thirsting for God.
III. And that thirst is satisfied. To the simple-minded Psalmist the satisfaction was to appear before the visible symbol of God’s presence at Jerusalem. The soul’s satisfaction is to realise the presence of God. The other name for it is faith. It is the seeing of Him who is invisible.
E. Hatch, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 40.
I. Consider the prayer of the Psalm. For what does David pray? Not for what we might have prayed had we been in his circumstances. Put yourself in his place—a fugitive in the wilderness on the edge of what seems ruin. Most of us would have had only one prayer, viz., to be lifted out of the mire. But no prayer for material advantage rises from David’s lips. What he wants is God. His prayer is for God to come nigh; he longs for God as in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.
II. Observe the elements of his prayer. (1) He wants the vision of God. Sight is the regal faculty, the clearest, surest, largest of the senses; and as you have seen some friend stand near you, so he has known God near to him: traced the features of the soul of God, seen Him in the sanctuary, as he was helped by the glow and tide of worship. (2) He wants the love of God. He had tasted it, and he says it is better than life. (3) He expects the help and the protection of God. With innumerable enemies, he wants an infinite defence, the shadow of a wing, soft, gentle, perfect protection. (4) There is the desire that God would vindicate his right. He expected and desired that God would plead the cause of his soul, and wherein he was right would take his part and give him his heart’s desire.
III. Notice the lessons of this prayer. (1) Do not lightly part with your belief in God. (2) Pray more fervently. (3) In order to be able to pray, do as David tells you he did: "Follow hard after God."
R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 228.
I. Take, first, the spiritual longings of the true believer, and it will be found, as a rule, that they have the following characteristics: (1) They are occasioned by some experience of trial; (2) they are founded on some past experience of God’s goodness; and (3) they are finally and fully satisfied in God.
II. Consider the case of awakened sinners. Their misery is a hopeful condition if only they will rightly interpret their heart-yearnings, and go to the only source where they can be satisfied. It is for God the soul of the awakened sinner is crying; therefore let him beware of attempting to satisfy his heart with anything short of God. Turn from God on Sinai to God in Christ. Listen to Him who says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink."
III. Consider the heart-yearnings of the yet unconvinced worldling. In every soul there are sighings after happiness which, if men only understood them aright, are really thirstings after God. Until the heart be cured, all will be to us as to the Preacher: vanity and vexation. And this cure of heart God in Christ performs for us by His Holy Spirit.
W. M. Taylor, The Christian at Work, Sept. 4th, 1879.
The text might form a motto for what is termed, in the modern phrase, "personal religion."
I. "My God." The word does not represent a human impression, or desire, or conceit, but an aspect, a truth, a necessity of the Divine nature. When God, the perfect Being, loves the creature of His hand, He cannot divide His love. He must perforce love with the whole directness, and strength, and intensity of His being; for He is God, and therefore incapable of partial and imperfect action. And on his side, man knows that this gift of Himself by God is thus entire; and in no narrow spirit of ambitious egotism, but as grasping and representing the literal fact, he cries, "My God."
II. There are two causes within the soul which might indispose us for looking more truly and closely at the truth before us. (1) Of these causes, the first is moral; it is the state of unrepented, wilful sin. (2) The other cause is intellectual. It may without offence be described as the subjective spirit, which is so characteristic and predominant an influence in the thought of our day. In plain English, this spirit is an intellectual selfishness, which makes man, and not God, the monarch and centre of the world of thought.
III. In the truth that God has created us, we see much of the meaning of the Psalmist’s words. But we see even more when we reflect that He has created us for Himself. That which would be selfishness in a creature is in the great Creator a necessary result of His solitary perfection. The knowledge and love of our Maker is not, like the indulgence of a sentiment or a taste, a matter of choice. For every man who looks God and life steadily in the face, it is a stern necessity. Not to serve God is. to be in the moral world that which a deformity or monster is in the world of animal existence. It is not only to defy the claims of God. It is to ignore the plain demands of our inner being, to do violence to the highest guidance of our mysterious and complex life.
H. P. Liddon, University Sermons, 1st series, p. 1.
References: Psa 63:1.—F. W. Farrar, In the Days of thy Youth, p. 285; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 125.
Psa 63:1-2
Notice:—
I. Some of the characteristics of public worship. (1) The text suggests the promise of special nearness to God. The expression of the Psalmist is not only that he desires to see the power and glory of God in the sanctuary, but that he may realise communion with God Himself. In the sanctuary David looked for special nearness to God, the nearness of friendship, and reconciliation, and protection, and love. (2) What is the cause of this realised nearness to God in the sanctuary, and by what stages do we arrive at it? These stages are progressive, beginning with the enlightened mind, proceeding with the subjugated will, and ending in the surrendered affections, Heaven drawing us with its cords of love. (3) There is indicated in this desire of the Psalmist a heartfelt love to God, a growing delight in sacredness, a pleasure in worship, because we love Him whom we serve. Obedience is not obedience if it be not a heart-offering, returning love for love, and finding in the happiest feelings of our nature both the incentive to duty and its reward.
II. Notice the delight which, as the text suggests, we ought to feel in contemplated public worship. (1) A part of the joy which David would look for in the sanctuary would be the joy of spiritual repose. (2) Another part of the delight which the Psalmist found in public worship would be in its giving greater vividness to his anticipations of the bliss of the life to come.
D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3166.
References: Psa 63:1, Psa 63:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv., No. 1427; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 119.
Psa 63:1-11
This Psalm, with its passion of love and mystic rapture, is a monument for us of how the writer’s sorrows had brought to him a closer union with God, as our sorrows may do for us, like some treasure washed to our feet by a stormy sea. The key to the arrangement of the Psalm will be found in the threefold recurrence of an emphatic word. In the first verse we read, "My soul thirsteth for Thee;" in the fifth verse, "My soul shall be satisfied;" in the eighth verse, "My soul followeth hard after Thee." These three points are the turning-points of the Psalm; and they show us the soul longing, the longing soul satisfied, and the satisfied soul still seeking.
I. We have the soul longing for God. (1) This longing is not that of a man who has no possession of God. Rather is it the desire of a heart which is already in union with Him for a closer union; rather is it the tightening of the grasp with which the man already holds his Father in heaven. All begins with the utterance of a personal, appropriating faith. (2) Upon that there are built earnest seeking, expressed in the words "Early"—that is to say, "Earnestly"—"will I seek Thee," and! the intensest longing, breathing in the pathetic utterance, "My soul thirsteth for Thee," etc. (3) Notice what it is, or rather whom it is, that the Psalmist longs for. "My soul thirsts for Thee." All souls do. Blessed are those who can say, "Thou art my God." (4) Notice when it was that this man thus longed. It was in the midst of his sorrow. (5) This longing, though it be struck out by sorrow, is not forced upon him for the first time by sorrow. The longing that springs in his heart is an old longing: "So have I gazed upon Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory." (6) This longing is animated by a profound consciousness that God is best: "Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life." (7) This longing is accompanied with a firm resolve of continuance: "Thus will I bless Thee while I live."
II. In the second portion of the Psalm, which is included in the next three verses, we have the longing soul satisfied. (1) The fruition of God is contemporaneous with the desire after God. (2) The soul that possesses God is fed full. (3) The satisfied soul breaks into the music of praise. (4) This satisfaction leads to a triumphant hope. The past of the seeking soul is the certain pledge of its future.
III. The final section of the Psalm gives us the satisfied soul still following after God. The word translated "followeth" here literally means to cleave or to cling. (1) "My soul cleaveth after God." Desire expands the heart; possession expands the heart. More of God comes when we can hold more of Him, and the end of all fruition is the renewed desire after further fruition. (2) There is also very beautifully here the co-operation and reciprocal action of the seeking soul and the sustaining God. We hold, and we are held. (3) The soul thus cleaving and following is gifted with a prophetic certainty. David’s certainty of the destruction of his foes is the same triumphant assurance, on a lower spiritual level, as Paul’s trumpet-blast of victory, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" etc.
A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, p. 243.
References: Psa 63:2.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 251. Psa 63:3.—J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Psalms, pp. 162, 170. Psa 63:7.—H. Allon, Congregationalist, vol. viii., pp. 305, 820; J. Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 76; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 559; W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 214. Psalm 63—A. Maclaren, Life of David, p. 250. Psa 65:1, Psa 65:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1023.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Breathing after the Sanctuary.
Breathing after the Sanctuary.
A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
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It is entirely natural that, after this displacing of every false confidence, that God might have His true place as the whole rightful confidence of men, a psalm of the sanctuary should follow, -the breathing of the soul after God as this. "David in the wilderness of Judah" might well be the writer of such a psalm; but his circumstances could be but the occasion, and there is evidently contemplated a much greater King.
1. The first section shows us God as thus sought, the only and eager desire of the soul. He seeks early for Him; his soul thirsting, his flesh pining, in a dry, thirsty, waterless land. The epithets increasing in emphasis show the intensity of the conviction, how thoroughly the truth in the last psalm has been apprehended by the soul. He recalls what he had once seen of the divine power and glory in the sanctuary: -think here of Him who had left the glory which He had with the Father before the world was! -and he longs for this again, praising Him for loving-kindness better than life itself, a joy that makes God supreme in the heart that holds it. And this cup has in it no excess, while it never fails. A joy found in the unchanging nature of God, it shall endure because He endures: so that the heart can say, Thus will I bless Thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in Thy Name."
2. The second section shows the double confirmation of this joyous confidence, in his own experience and in the end of his adversaries. For himself he can testify to perfect satisfaction of soul; which will bear reflection in those quiet hours when the shadows fall upon all other things, and one is apart from all influences that would hinder realization of the truth. Then in the consciousness of divine succor, the very darkness shall be like the shadow of sheltering wings: rest shall send forth with renewed energy in the track of the glory moving on before, and not without the support of the right hand of strength.
The same hand acts for him against all enemies. While seeking to destroy his life, they themselves go into the depths of the earth. We think of Korah and the great enemies of Christ, the beast and false prophet, gulfed in a living death; while their followers are slain with the sword as here, and left upon the battle-field to the jackals.
And then the King is seen in His victory. It is no mere triumph of strength, but of right and truth, the end of the unceasing warfare since the world began. It is the triumph of faith that has clung to and followed, amid suffering and apparent defeat, the bruised heel of the Captain of salvation. "They shall glory, every one that sweareth by Him" who is the living Truth: "for the mouth of those that speak falsehood shall be stopped."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Psa 63:1, Psa 63:5, Psa 63:8.
Psalms
THIRST AND SATISFACTION
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Psa 63:1, Psa 63:5, Psa 63:8.
It is a wise advice which bids us regard rather what is said than who says it, and there are few regions in which the counsel is more salutary than at present in the study of the Old Testament, and especially the Psalms. This authorship has become a burning question which is only too apt to shut out far more important things. Whoever poured out this sweet meditation in the psalm before us, his tender longings for, and his jubilant possession of, God remain the same. It is either the work of a king in exile, or is written by some one who tries to cast himself into the mental attitude of such a person, and to reproduce his longing and his trust. It may be a question of literary interest, but it is of no sort of spiritual or religious importance whether the author is David or a singer of later date endeavouring to reproduce his emotions under certain circumstances.
The three clauses which I have read, and which are so strikingly identical in form, constitute the three pivots on which the psalm revolves, the three bends in the stream of its thought and emotion. ‘My soul thirsts; my soul is satisfied; my soul follows hard after Thee.’ The three phases of emotion follow one another so swiftly that they are all wrapped up in the brief compass of this little song. Unless they in some degree express our experiences and emotions, there is little likelihood that our lives will be blessed or noble, and we have little right to call ourselves Christians. Let us follow the windings of the stream, and ask ourselves if we can see our own faces in its shining surface.
I. The soul that knows its own needs will thirst after God.
The Psalmist draws the picture of himself as a thirsty man in a waterless land. That may be a literally true reproduction of his condition, if indeed the old idea is correct, that this is a work of David’s; for there is no more appalling desert than that in which he wandered as an exile. It is a land of arid mountains without a blade of verdure, blazing in their ghastly whiteness under the fierce sunshine, and with gaunt ravines in which there are no pools or streams, and therefore no sweet sound of running waters, no shadow, no songs of birds, but all is hot, dusty, glaring, pitiless; and men and beasts faint, and loll out their tongues, and die for want of water. And, says the Psalmist, such is life, if due regard be had to the deepest wants of a soul, notwithstanding all the abundant supplies which are spread in such rich and loving luxuriance around us-we are thirsty men in a waterless land. I need not remind you how true it is that a man is but a bundle of appetites, desires, often tyrannous, often painful, always active. But the misery of it is-the reason why man’s misery is great upon him is-mainly, I suppose, that he does not know what it is that he wants; that he thirsts, but does not understand what the thirst means, nor what it is that will slake it. His animal appetites make no mistakes; he and the beasts know that when they are thirsty they have to drink, and when they are hungry they have to eat, and when they are drowsy they have to sleep. But the poor instinct of the animal that teaches it what to choose and what to avoid fails us in the higher reaches; and we are conscious of a craving, and do not find that the craving reveals to us the source from whence its satisfaction can be derived. Therefore ‘broken cisterns that can hold no water’ are at a premium, and ‘the fountain of living waters’ is turned away from, though it could slake so many thirsts. Like ignorant explorers in an enemy’s country, we see a stream, and we do not stop to ask whether there is poison in it or not before we glue our thirsty lips to it. There is a great old promise in one of the prophets which puts this notion of the misinterpretation of our thirsts, and the mistakes as to the sources from which they can be slaked, into one beautiful metaphor which is obscured in our English version. The prophet Isaiah says, according to our reading, ‘the parched land shall become a pool.’ The word which he uses is that almost technical one which describes the phenomenon known only in Eastern lands, or at least known in them only in its superlative degree; the mirage, where the dancing currents of ascending air simulate the likeness of a cool lake, with palm-trees around it. And, says he, ‘the mirage shall become a pool,’ the romance shall turn into a reality, the mistakes shall be rectified, and men shall know what it is that they want, and shall get it when they know. Brethren! unless we have listened to the teaching from above, unless we have consulted far more wisely and far more profoundly than many of us have ever done the meaning of our own hearts when they cry out, we too shall only be able to take for ours the plaintive cry of the half of this first utterance of the Psalmist, and say despairingly, ‘My soul thirsteth.’ Blessed are they who know where the fountain is, who know the meaning of the highest unrests in their own souls, and can go on to say with clear and true self-revelation, ‘My soul thirsteth for God!’ That is religion. There is a great deal more in Christianity than longing, but there is no Christianity worth the name without it. There is moral stimulus to activity, a pattern for conduct, and so on, in our religion, and if our religion is only this longing-well then, it is worth very little; and I fancy it is worth a good deal less if there is none of this felt need for God, and for more of God, in us.
And so I come to two classes of my hearers; and to the first of them I say, Dear friends! do not mistake what it is that you ‘need,’ and see to it that you turn the current of your longings from earth to God; and to the second of them I say, Dear friends! if you have found out that God is your supreme good, see to it that you live in the good, see to it that you live in the constant attitude of longing for more of that good which alone will slake your appetite.
‘The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine,’ and unless we know what it is to be drawn outwards and upwards, in strong aspirations after something-’afar from the sphere of our sorrow,’ I know not why we should call ourselves Christians at all.
But, dear friends! let us not forget that these higher aspirations after the uncreated and personal good which is God have to be cultivated very sedulously and with great persistence, throughout all our changing lives, or they will soon die out, and leave us. There has to be the clear recognition, habitual to us, of what is our good. There has to be a continual meditation, if I may so say, upon the all-sufficiency of that divine Lord and Lover of our souls, and there has to be a vigilant and a continual suppression, and often excision and ejection, of other desires after transient and partial satisfactions. A man who lets all his longings go unchecked and untamed after earthly good has none left towards heaven. If you break up a river into a multitude of channels, and lead off much of it to irrigate many little gardens, there will be no force in its current, its bed will become dry, and it will never reach the great ocean where it loses its individuality and becomes part of a mightier whole. So, if we fritter away and divide up our desires among all the clamant and partial blessings of earth, then we shall but feebly long, and feebly longing, shall but faintly enjoy, the cool, clear, exhaustless gush from the fountain of life-’My soul thirsteth for God!’-in the measure in which that is true of us, and not one hairsbreadth beyond it, in spite of orthodoxy, and professions, and activities, are we Christian people.
II. The soul that thirsts after God is satisfied.
The Psalmist, by the magic might of his desire, changes, as in a sudden transformation scene in a theatre, all the dreariness about him. One moment it is a ‘dry and barren land where no water is’; the next moment a flash of verdure has come over the yellow sand, and the ghastly silence is broken by the song of merry birds. The one moment he is hungering there in the desert; the next, he sees spread before him a table in the wilderness, and his soul is ‘satisfied as with marrow and with fatness,’ and his mouth praises God, whom he possesses, who has come unto him swift, immediate, in full response to his cry. Now, all that is but a picturesque way of putting a very plain truth, which we should all be the happier and better if we believed and lived by, that we can have as much of God as we desire, and that what we have of Him will be enough.
We can have as much of God as we desire. There is a quest which finds its object with absolute certainty, and which finds its object simultaneously with the quest. And these two things, the certainty and the immediateness with which the thirst of the soul after God passes into a satisfied fruition of the soul in God, are what are taught us here in our text; and what you and I, if we comply with the conditions, may have as our own blessed experience. There is one search about which it is true that it never fails to find. The certainty that the soul thirsting after God shall be satisfied with God results at once from His nearness to us, and His infinite willingness to give Himself, which He is only prevented from carrying into act by our obstinate refusal to open our hearts by desire. It takes all a man’s indifference to keep God out of his heart, ‘for in Him we live, and move, and have our being,’ and that divine love, which Christianity teaches us to see on the throne of the universe, is but infinite longing for self-communication. That is the definition of true love always, and they fearfully mistake its essence, and take the lower and spurious forms of it for the higher and nobler, who think of love as being what, alas! it often is, in our imperfect lives, a fierce desire to have for our very own the thing or person beloved. But that is a second-rate kind of love. God’s love is an infinite desire to give Himself. If only we open our hearts-and nothing opens them so wide as longing-He will pour in, as surely as the atmosphere streams in through every chink and cranny, as surely as if some great black rock that stands on the margin of the sea is blasted away, the waters will flood over the sands behind it. So unless we keep God out, by not wishing Him in, in He will come.
The certitude that we possess Him when we desire Him is as absolute. As swift as Marconi’s wireless message across the Atlantic and its answer; so immediate is the response from Heaven to the desire from earth. What a contrast that is to all our experiences! Is there anything else about which we can say ‘I am quite sure that if I want it I shall have it. I am quite sure that when I want it I have it’? Nothing! There may be wells to which a man has to go, as the Bedouin in the desert has to go, with empty water-skins, many a day’s journey, and it comes to be a fight between the physical endurance of the man and the weary distance between him and the spring. Many a man’s bones, and many a camel’s, lie on the track to the wells, who lay down gasping and black-lipped, and died before they reached them. We all know what it is to have longing desires which have cost us many an effort, and efforts and desires have both been in vain. Is it not blessed to be sure that there is One whom to long for is immediately to possess?
Then there is the other thought here, too, that when we have God we have enough. That is not true about anything else. God forbid that one should depreciate the wise adaptation of earthly goods to human needs which runs all through every life! but all that recognised, still we come back to this, that there is nothing here, nothing except God Himself, that will fill all the corners of a human heart. There is always something lacking in all other satisfactions. They address themselves to sides, and angles, and facets of our complex nature; they leave all the others unsatisfied. The table that is spread in the world, at which, if I might use so violent a figure, our various longings and capacities seat themselves as guests, always fails to provide for some of them, and whilst some, and those especially of the lower type, are feasting full, there sits by their side another guest, who finds nothing on the table to satisfy his hunger. But if my soul thirsts for God, my soul will be satisfied when I get Him. The prophet Isaiah modifies this figure in the great word of invitation which pealed out from him, where he says, ‘Ho! everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’ But that figure is not enough for him, that metaphor, blessed as it is, does not exhaust the facts; and so he goes on, ‘yea, come, buy wine’-and that is not enough for him, that does not exhaust the facts, therefore he adds, ‘and milk.’ Water, wine, and milk; all forms of the draughts that slake the thirsts of humanity, are found in God Himself, and he who has Him needs seek nowhere besides.
Lastly-
III. The soul that is satisfied with God immediately renews its quest.
‘My soul followeth hard after Thee.’ The two things come together, longing and fruition, as I have said. Fruition begets longing, and there is swift and blessed alternation, or rather co-existence of the two. Joyful consciousness of possession and eager anticipation of larger bestowments are blended still more closely, if we adhere to the original meaning of the words of this last clause, than they are in our translation, for the psalm really reads, ‘My soul cleaveth after Thee.’ In the one word ‘cleaveth,’ is expressed adhesion, like that of the limpet to the rock, conscious union, blessed possession; and in the other word ‘after Thee’ is expressed the pressing onwards for more and yet more. But now contrast that with the issue of all other methods of satisfying human appetites, be they lower or be they higher. They result either in satiety or in a tyrannical, diseased appetite which increases faster than the power of satisfying it increases. The man who follows after other good than God, has at the end to say, ‘I am sick, tired of it, and it has lost all power to draw me,’ or he has to say, ‘I ravenously long for more of it, and I cannot get any more.’ ‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase.’ You have to increase the dose of the narcotic, and as you increase the dose, it loses its power, and the less you can do without it the less it does for you. But to drink into the one God slakes all thirsts, and because He is infinite, and our capacity for receiving Him may be indefinitely expanded; therefore, ‘Age cannot wither, nor custom stale His infinite variety’; but the more we have of God, the more we long for Him, and the more we long for Him the more we possess Him.
Brethren! these are the possibilities of the Christian life; being its possibilities they are our obligations. The Psalmist’s words may well be turned by us into self-examining interrogations and we may-God grant that we do!-all ask ourselves; ‘Do I thus thirst after God?’ ‘Have I learned that, notwithstanding all supplies, this world without Him is a waterless desert? Have I experienced that whilst I call He answers, and that the water flows in as soon as I open my heart? And do I know the happy birth of fresh longings out of every fruition, and how to go further and further into the blessed land, and into my elastic heart receive more and more of the ever blessed God?’ These texts of mine not only set forth the ideal for the Christian life here, but they carry in themselves the foreshadowing of the life hereafter. For surely such a merely physical accident as death cannot be supposed to break this golden sequence which runs through life. Surely this partial and progressive possession of an infinite good, by a nature capable of indefinitely increasing appropriation of, and approximation to it is the prophecy of its own eternal continuance. So long as the fountain springs, the thirsty lips will drink. God’s servants will live till God dies. The Christian life will go on, here and hereafter, till it has reached the limits of its own capacity of expansion, and has exhausted God. ‘The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Title.—A Psalm of David, when he was in the…
Title.—A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
The writer of this Ps. is a king (Psa_63:11), who is at a distance from the sanctuary, and in danger from eager foes. If the title be correct it must refer, not to David's earlier experiences in the reign of Saul (1Sa_22:5), but to the time when his flight from Absalom led him through the wilderness of Judah, between Jerusalem and the Jordan (2Sa_15:23-28). His longing for God's presence (Psa_63:1-2) passes into joyful confidence (Psa_63:3-8) and certain expectation of his enemies' overthrow.
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1. O God, thou art my God] the 'Elohistic' equivalent of 'O Lord, thou art my God.' Early] RM 'earnestly.'
2. RV 'So (or 'thus') have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary, To see thy power and thy glory.' The sanctuary may be the temporary abode of the ark at Jerusalem. It is the memory of communion with God there which inspires the Psalmist's present longing.
4. Thus] better, 'therefore.' Lift up my hands] in prayer. In thy name] trusting in the revealed character of God.
5. Hunger is now substituted for thirst to describe the spiritual longing which God satisfies.
6. The night watches] were three hi number—the first, the middle, and the morning watches.
8. The clinging effort of the human soul and the upholding grasp of God are the two sides of the relationship of faith.
9. The lower parts of the earth] the under-world of Sheol.
10. Foxes] jackals.
11. By him] by God: see Isa_65:16.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Psalm 63
Psalm 63
Heart Longings
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1. To see Thy power and glory (Psa 63:1-4)
2. Satisfied longings (Psa 63:5-11)
A Psalm of David when he was an outcast in the wilderness of Judah. Thus it fits in well with the outcast remnant, thirsting after God, longing to see His power and His glory displayed. And these longings are created in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, as in our hearts also. These longings will be satisfied in the coming day of His manifestation, when His people shall praise and worship Him.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Morning Hymn of a Fugitive.
Morning Hymn of a Fugitive.
A psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah, very likely at the time when he left Jerusalem at the approach of Absalom, for it was then that he spent a few days in the wilderness on the west side of the Dead Sea, a prey of the troubled anxiety which sapped his strength, 2 Samuel 15-17.
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v. 1. O God, Thou art my God, the psalm opening with a mighty word of personal faith; early will I seek Thee, that is, earnestly, solicitously, at the rising of the dawn. My soul thirsteth for Thee, Psa 42:1, my flesh longeth for Thee, languishing with desire, in a dry and thirsty land, which made him weary, all his present circumstances filling him with a languid disgust, where no water is, for the desert aspect of the country increased his feeling of forsakenness,
v. 2. to see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the Sanctuary, literally, "Thus have I in the Sanctuary looked for Thee to see Thy power and Thy glory. " That had been the psalmist’s custom in the past; that is what he missed so greatly at the present time.
v. 3. Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life, that explained his longing, that the grace of God exceeded all this earthly life could offer, my lips shall praise Thee, extolling the grace which he had experienced in his whole life.
v. 4. Thus will I bless Thee while I live, with the true gratitude of a believing heart; I will lift up my hands in Thy name, in the gesture of earnest supplication.
v. 5. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, an image borrowed from a rich and splendid banquet, to show the possession of the most wonderful spiritual riches, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips,
v. 6. when I remember Thee upon my bed, considering all the manifold evidences of God’s favor as they showed in his whole life, and meditate on Thee in the night-watches, in earnest and prayerful meditation during the entire night.
v. 7. Because Thou hast been my Help, coming to his assistance and rescue time and again, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice, the remembrance of God’s mercy experienced in the past encouraging him to look with joy and confidence into the future.
v. 8. My soul followeth hard after Thee, cleaving to Him as the one Helper in all the wide world; Thy right hand Upholdeth me, lending just the right assistance to the psalmist to keep him from falling.
v. 9. But those that seek my soul to destroy it, rather, "they" (emphatically) "to their own destruction shall seek my soul," that is, in trying to bring misfortune to David, they would fall a prey to their own designs, shall go into the lower parts of the earth, into the abysses of the earth, that is, to death and the grave.
v. 10. They shall fall by the sword, whose hand or edge would dispose of them quickly; they shall be a portion for foxes, a prey of jackals, the wilderness scavengers of the Orient.
v. 11. But the king, who was now being persecuted, shall rejoice in God, in the certain deliverance effected by Him; every one that sweareth by Him, with firm trust in His willingness and ability to help, shall glory, finally having occasion to boast of His deliverance; but the mouth of them that speak lies, the foes guilty of base treachery, shall be stopped, put to silence in death. Thus the trust of the believers is bound to be rewarded, since the God of their salvation has promised them the mighty deliverance of His arm. No matter what the present may offer, the future is safe, because it is in God’s hands.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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A psalm of David
Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.
earnestly
sincerely
my soul thirsts for you, and my flesh longs for you
These two clauses have basically the same meaning and are used together to emphasize how greatly the writer desires to be with God. AT: "my whole being greatly desires to be with you" (See: Parallelism)
dry and weary land
"hot, dry desert"
translationWords
psalm
David
desert
Judah
God
soul
flesh
power
glory
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ps 63 The king longs for God’s presence so…
Ps 63 The king longs for God’s presence so vividly that he eats, drinks, and sees God’s goodness. Though worn out and harassed by the wicked, the king sees God, and this animates him with praise. God becomes his life (63:3), while the wicked perish (63:9).
63:1 Together, soul and whole body refer to a person’s entire being. • parched and weary land: When David was living in the desert, he also found himself in a spiritual wasteland, separated from God’s people and the sanctuary.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.