Psalms 63:1-9

1 O God, you are my God; early will I make my search for you: my soul is dry for need of you, my flesh is wasted with desire for you, as a dry and burning land where no water is;

2 To see your power and your glory, as I have seen you in the holy place.

3 Because your mercy is better than life, my lips will give you praise.

4 So will I go on blessing you all my life, lifting up my hands in your name.

5 My soul will be comforted, as with good food; and my mouth will give you praise with songs of joy;

6 When the memory of you comes to me on my bed, and when I give thought to you in the night-time.

7 Because you have been my help, I will have joy in the shade of your wings.

8 My soul keeps ever near you: your right hand is my support.

9 But those whose desire is my soul's destruction will go down to the lower parts of the earth.

Psalms 63:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 63

\\<>\\. This psalm was composed by David, either when he was persecuted by Saul, and obliged to hide himself in desert places, as in the forest of Hareth, the wildernesses of Ziph, Maon, and Engedi, \1Sa 22:5 23:14,24,25 24:1\; all which were in the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:55,62; or when his son Absalom rebelled against him, which obliged him to flee from Jerusalem, and go the way of the wilderness, where Ziba and Barzillai sent him food, lest his young men that were with him should faint there, \2Sa 15:23 16:2 17:29\. The Septuagint version, and those that follow that, call it the wilderness of Idumea, or Edom, as the Arabic version; and so the Chaldee paraphrase, ``in the wilderness which was on the border of the tribe of Judah;'' as Edom was, Jos 15:21; so the Messiah, David's son, was in a wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil, and where he was hungry and thirsty in a literal sense, as David was here in a spiritual sense, as the psalm shows, Mt 4:1,2; and the church of God, whom David sometimes represents, is said to be in a wilderness, where she is fed for a time, and times, and half a time, even during the whole reign of the antichristian beast, Re 12:14; and, indeed, all the saints are, at one time or another, in a desert condition, and while they are here are in the wilderness of the people, Ho 2:14, Eze 20:35.