Psalm 63

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

David’s feelings toward God were amplified by his surroundings. In the wilderness of Judah, likely on the run from Saul of later when he is fleeing from Absalom, David is being slandered and hunted to the death. All around him sees the absence of life and life-giving water, and the thirst and exhaustion he feels is a reflection of his desire for God. He begins by addressing him, “O God, my God”, highlighting the personal nature of this relationship. “Earnestly I seek you.” Older translations say, “early I seek you”, and the Hebrew word allows for the idea of morning, in that one wakes with a single-minded task and might even begin pursuing this task before the sun rises. This is something so important that you can’t sleep. You must get out of bed and get going on it. This single mindedness is motivated as if by hunger and thirst. Just as one wakes in the morning with these two sensations (hunger and thirst), David is awakened with a dry mouth and a stomach aching for sustenance. When he looks around him, he sees nothing on this earth that will satisfy the longing within. The land itself is dry and weary, and absent of water. With nowhere else to go, David looks to God for ultimate satisfaction. It seems that foundational to a hungering and seeking after God is the realization that what this world is offering will never satisfy. Until we see the world’s smorgasbord of entertainment, pleasure and distraction for what it really is -- empty calories and ultimately disappointing experiences -- we will never really hunger for God. We will come to him with full stomachs and have no room for the real nutrition that he provides. Thus, at some level, hungering and thirsting for God requires a level of fasting from other sources so that there is desire and space for God. For David it was his circumstance that drove him to being famished, and at times this is true for us as well -- when so much is taken away from us, we realize our need for God. But sometimes, we need to reject the sub-par offerings that are before us and seek the One that truly satisfies. We need to exercise spiritual discipline to push back from the world’s table and feed on the reality of God through prayer and ingesting his word. 

2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

After declaring his intent to seek God, David describes his technique for doing so. It is to look for God in his sanctuary, to behold his power and his glory. This is very similar to Psalm 27:4 -- “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” In David’s day there was a literal sanctuary, a “house of the LORD.” It was an ancient tent that was originally built in the days of Moses and carefully maintained (mostly) ever since. It was serviced by priests, and presumably David gained some level of access by virtue of his position as king, although it’s unclear whether that included access into the tent itself as that was only allowed for male priests. David had led the procession bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, although this was after Saul was dead and he was installed as king. So whether this is literal or figurative is unclear. This important thing is that it was a real experience. Things do not have to be literal to be real. David maintained a vision for God that animated him, even though he may never have entered the tent of God himself. Likewise, we do not literally enter the throne room of God today, but we have a vision of it. It is partly inspired by the vision of John in Revelation 4 and 5, and partly by our own imaginations. This sanctuary experience was also formative for Isaiah (Isaiah 6) and for Asaph (Psalm 73:17). Beholding God in his sanctuary may take many forms but it was always transformative. Seeing God can’t help but transform how we see everything. Of course the clearest vision of God is that of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. So today, beholding God in his sanctuary means reflecting on Jesus -- his life, his words, his passion and his resurrection. This is why John could say in John 1:14. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his power and his glory.”  We can see God more clearly than anyone in David’s day because Jesus has walked among us and the eyewitnesses have relayed this to us. What a privilege to see God in his sanctuary when we reflect up on the risen Christ! This changes everything.  

3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

Having gained a renewed vision of God in his sanctuary, David is compelled to worship. Because God’s steadfast love is the best thing in life, he will praise God as long as he is living. This will be demonstrated in public and private acts of worship -- speaking words of praise and the lifting up of hands in prayer. Our worship is animated by an experience of God’s goodness. David hasn’t necessarily experienced that yet, but he is anticipating it, having been reminded of God’s nature while in the sanctuary. This is a vow to praise in the future tense that is rooted in the unchanging character of God. It’s easy to see God’s steadfast love when all is well, but what about when we are in the desert of Judah as David was? In those seasons we must see God in his holy place and recall his acts of kindness and his certain promises. Everyone goes through deserts, but the issue is whether or not we’ll go through those deserts alone or with God. David chooses to continue worshiping and praying, even when the specific answer to his prayers is not clear. These verses compel me to reflect on the steadfast love of God in my life -- both his general and specific blessings that have piled up in my life. They compel me to express my praise in words -- in public worship, in my private worship, and in my conversations with others. They compel me to be faithful as long as I live, that my love for him and for others may reflect his steadfast love. They compel me to lift up my hands in prayer to the One who alone is perfect in steadfast love that he may bestow his good grace on others, to intercede with new passion and fervor that others may know the goodness of God. 

5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,

6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

If the first verse of this psalm focused on lack, this fifth verse reflects the opposite reality -- abundance. God’s power, glory, and steadfast love offer a feast for the soul. The fat and marrow, the richest, sweetest and most satisfying of things to eat -- these are the metaphors for the pleasure and fullness that comes from knowing God. The response to this smorgasbord of God’s goodness is unbridled worship, a mouth that praises God with words of joy. The soul satisfaction of verse 5 seems to be connected to the activities in verse 6 -- remembering and meditating. The psalmist remembers all that God has done in the past for him -- the victories, the blessings, the grace upon grace he has received. And then he murmurs on God throughout the night, the call of the watchman interrupting his thoughts every few hours as he keeps time. Typically the object of the verb meditate is the Torah, the revelation of God, the words of the book. The psalmist quietly speaks aloud these words of God, turns them over in his mind, deepens his understanding of them, and embeds them solidly in his muscle memory through repetition and the act of moving his lips. But here, the psalmist seems to be free-styling as he mutters and mumbles to himself about God. It is a conversation of sorts without the audible voice of God involved. To an outsider, one might think that he is crazy, talking to himself as if there were someone there, but for David, it is a very real encounter with the living God, a relationship upon which all else finds its support. Do I find my soul (and sole/primary) satisfaction in God? Do I worship him with unleashed passion? Do I bring to mind what he has done while I lay in bed at night? Do I have personal conversations with him 24/7? Do I even notice his presence in all I see around me? David’s example here is completely convicting. In the opening verse of this psalm he describes abject spiritual poverty and in verses 5-6, complete spiritual abundance. What changed? Not his circumstances. Just his choice to see God, to behold him in his sanctuary. Worship. This is what moves him from famine to feast. 

7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

David continues his remembering and murmuring on God in these two verses beginning with a recollection of how God has been his help. Not just that God has helped him, but that God has been his help. The Hebrew word for “help” is “ezer”, as in “ebenezer” (stone of help), and every time I read it I think of the story of God’s deliverance of the Hebrew army from the Philistines. David can recall the many times that God strengthened him in battle (Psalm 18 is his lengthy testimony of this), and as he rests in the shade and protection of God’s wings, he lets a cry ring out (that’s the literal translation of “sing for joy”). I can imagine him in the desert in that breakthrough moment, singing at the top of lungs with no one to hear but God and the lizards. He declares that his soul clings to God, using the same word that is used for the first time in the Bible in describing the union of Adam and Eve, of husband and wife. It is variously translated as clinging, cleaving, sticking, and following close, but the central idea of close connection is there. David and God are joined together as lifetime partners. Finally, David acknowledges that God’s right hand upholds him. The right hand was the strong and favored hand, and it is another frequent metaphor in Hebrew poetry. In Psalm 139:10 David declares that God’s right hand will hold him fast in a similar fashion. The word “uphold” can also be translated as support or grasp, as if God were both holding us up and supporting us when we are tottering, as well as holding tight to us, never letting us go. Even when we might feel that he is far from us, and we are alone in our struggle, the reality is that we will never leave his hand. The word for grasp is used of Aaron and Hur holding up Moses’ hands the entire day while the battle raged (Exodus 17:12). As long as they held up his hands, the army would be victorious. God is holding me in his grasp, supporting and strengthening me in the desert. I can rest in the shade of his wings and spontaneously sing out songs of joy because he is my help. 

9 But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth;

10 they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals.

David draws a sharp contrast between the protection from God that he experiences and the utter destruction and humiliation that his enemies will experience. Those who seek to destroy his life will in fact be destroyed. This is an example of God’s retributive justice, a thread that runs throughout the Psalms. Those who seek to harm God’s people will find their weapons turned back upon themselves. Specifically, these enemies of David will go down to the depths of the earth, most likely a reference to the grave. In other words, they will die suddenly. They will surrender to the power of the sword and even worse, they will be left out in the open for wild animals to devour. Humans have typically revered the human body and they show respect to it even in death. This is not always true in war, but generally speaking we will attempt to bury or burn a body, rather than leave it to decay and be devoured by animals. In the case of David’s enemies, even this courtesy will not be afforded. As the saying goes, “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” We may not be facing literal enemies as David did, bloodthirsty men who are trying to kill us with a sword, but there is an evil person and his minions who are after us, body and soul. The devil seeks to steal from us, and then kill and destroy us. Through Jesus we can be confident that he will go down to the depths of the earth, suddenly destroyed by the resurrected Jesus. However, in the face of his literal enemies, David maintains this conviction that there is a moral law in the universe and a moral lawgiver who executes justice. When we see injustice in our world, we need to address it on these two levels. First, do what we can to right what is wrong. Speak for the voiceless, lift up the marginalized, show mercy and compassion to all. Work through all the means at our disposal to do the work of redemptive justice on the earth. Second, trust that God is also very much at work in the affairs of men. Know that God’s justice is perfect and every wrong is known by him and will be punished appropriately. We do not understand the ways of God, and from our perspective, there is a lot of wrong in the world that seems to go unchecked. But God knows the heart, and there are punishments that sin brings upon oneself that only the heart knows. In the end, justice will be done. Leave it the very capable hands of God. 

11 But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

David speaks of himself in the third person, saying, “the king shall rejoice in God”. He is the anointed king (and even if King Saul is still alive, David is certainly not speaking about him here). While his enemies are falling in the wilderness, their bodies eaten by wild animals, David will be celebrating God. Note that it is not the things that God has done that are the primary cause for celebration, rather David is rejoicing in God himself. This is the central theme of the psalm -- find your ultimate satisfaction in God alone. This is a beautiful follow-up to the previous psalm where David found rest in God alone. What is true of David’s delight in God is  true of the entire community of faith. The phrase “all who swear by him” is not an invocation to curse using God’s name, rather it was a way of affirming the trustworthiness of God. One swears by something or someone that is unchangeable and greater than themselves, backing up the claim that is made. The writer of Hebrews says that since there was no one greater to swear by, God swore by himself (Hebrews 6). In Psalm 24:4 David refuses to lift his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. Swearing by God is a way of saying that God is ultimate and those that do so, like David, will be filled with joy. The specific pleasure that David envisions from the victory of God is that the mouths of liars will be stopped. As a political figure David was subjected to political attacks his entire life. It is a frequent lament in the psalms, and David is looking forward to the day when he is completely vindicated and no falsehood about him will stand. If we again remember that the first and greatest liar in the Bible was the devil, this verse has messianic implications as well. The victory of Jesus resulted in the silencing of our enemy. No longer must we believe the lie that we are not loved -- Jesus proved this to be false when he took our place on the cross.