Teks -- Psalms 63:1-11 (NET)

Psalm 63

63:1 A psalm of David, written when he was in the Judean wilderness. O God, you are my God! I long for you! My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. 63:2 Yes, in the sanctuary I have seen you, and witnessed your power and splendor. 63:3 Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself, my lips will praise you. 63:4 For this reason I will praise you while I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. 63:5 As if with choice meat you satisfy my soul. My mouth joyfully praises you, 63:6 whenever I remember you on my bed, and think about you during the nighttime hours. 63:7 For you are my deliverer; under your wings I rejoice. 63:8 My soul pursues you; your right hand upholds me. 63:9 Enemies seek to destroy my life, but they will descend into the depths of the earth. 63:10 Each one will be handed over to the sword; their corpses will be eaten by jackals. 63:11 But the king will rejoice in God; everyone who takes oaths in his name will boast, for the mouths of those who speak lies will be shut up.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

Wesley: Psa 63:1 - Early

Heb. in the morning, Which implies the doing it with diligence and speed.

Wesley: Psa 63:1 - Thirsteth

For the enjoyment of thee in thy house and ordinances.

Wesley: Psa 63:1 - Flesh

The desire of my soul, is so vehement, that my very body feels the effects of it.

Wesley: Psa 63:1 - No water

In a land where I want the refreshing waters of the sanctuary.

Wesley: Psa 63:2 - To see

To enjoy.

Wesley: Psa 63:2 - Power

The powerful and glorious effects of thy gracious presence.

Wesley: Psa 63:5 - Satisfied

When thou shalt fulfil my earnest desire of enjoying thee in the sanctuary.

Wesley: Psa 63:9 - Shall go

Into the grave.

Wesley: Psa 63:10 - Foxes

Their carcases shall become a prey to wild and ravenous creatures.

Wesley: Psa 63:11 - The king

I who am already anointed king.

Wesley: Psa 63:11 - Every one

That sweareth by the name of God, in truth, and judgment, and righteousness. Every sincere servant and worshipper of God.

Wesley: Psa 63:11 - Shall glory

Shall rejoice in my deliverance.

JFB: Psa 63:1

The historical occasion referred to by the title was probably during Absalom's rebellion (compare 2Sa 15:23, 2Sa 15:28; 2Sa 16:2). David expresses an earnest desire for God's favor, and a confident expectation of realizing it in his deliverance and the ruin of his enemies. (Psa 63:1-11)

JFB: Psa 63:1 - early . . . seek thee

Earnestly (Isa 26:9). The figurative terms--

JFB: Psa 63:1 - dry and thirsty

Literally, "weary," denoting moral destitution, suited his outward circumstances.

JFB: Psa 63:1 - soul

And--flesh--the whole man (Psa 16:9-10).

JFB: Psa 63:2

The special object of desire was God's perfections as displayed in his worship (Psa 27:4).

JFB: Psa 63:3

Experiencing God's mercy, which exceeds all the blessings of life, his lips will be opened for his praise (Psa 51:15).

JFB: Psa 63:4 - Thus

Literally, "Truly."

JFB: Psa 63:4 - will I bless

Praise Thee (Psa 34:1).

JFB: Psa 63:4 - lift up my hands

In worship (compare Psa 28:2).

JFB: Psa 63:4 - in thy name

In praise of Thy perfections.

JFB: Psa 63:5-8

Full spiritual blessings satisfy his desires, and acts of praise fill his thoughts and time.

JFB: Psa 63:6 - night

As well as day. Past favors assure him of future, and hence he presses earnestly near to God, whose power sustains him (Psa 17:8; Psa 60:5).

JFB: Psa 63:9-10 - those . . . to destroy it

Or literally, "to ruin," or, "for ruin"; that is, such as seek to injure me (are) for ruin, appointed to it (compare Psa 35:8).

JFB: Psa 63:9-10 - shall go . . . earth

Into the grave, or, to death; as their bodies are represented as a portion for--

JFB: Psa 63:10 - foxes

Literally, "jackals."

JFB: Psa 63:11 - the king

That is, David himself, and all who reverence God, "shall share a glorious part," while treacherous foes shall be for ever silenced (Psa 62:4).

Clarke: Psa 63:1 - O God, thou art my God

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

Clarke: Psa 63:1 - Early will I seek thee

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

Clarke: Psa 63:1 - In a dry and thirsty land

In a dry and thirsty land - בארץ beerets , In a land: but several MSS. have כארץ keerets , As a dry and thirsty land, etc.

Clarke: Psa 63:2 - To see thy power and thy glory - in the sanctuary

To see thy power and thy glory - in the sanctuary - In his public ordinances God had often showed his power in the judgments he executed, in the terror he impressed, and in awakening the sinful; and his glory in delivering the tempted, succouring the distressed, and diffusing peace and pardon through the hearts of his followers. God shows his power and glory in his ordinances; therefore public worship should never be neglected. We must see God, says the old Psalter, that he may see us. In his temple he dispenses his choicest blessings.

Clarke: Psa 63:3 - Thy loving-kindness is better than life

Thy loving-kindness is better than life - This is the language of every regenerate soul. But O how few prefer the approbation of God to the blessings of life, or even to life itself in any circumstances! But the psalmist says, Thy loving-kindness, חסדך chasdecha , thy effusive mercy, is better מחיים mechaiyim , than Lives: it is better than, or good beyond, countless ages of human existence

Clarke: Psa 63:3 - My lips shall praise thee

My lips shall praise thee - Men praise, or speak well, of power, glory, honor, riches, worldly prospects and pleasures; but the truly religious speak well of God, in whom they find infinitely more satisfaction and happiness than worldly men can find in the possession of all earthly good.

Clarke: Psa 63:4 - I will lift up my hands in thy name

I will lift up my hands in thy name - I will take God for my portion. I will dedicate myself to him, and will take him to witness that I am upright in what I profess and do. Pious Jews, in every place of their dispersion, in all their prayers, praises, contracts, etc., stretched out their hands towards Jerusalem, where the true God had his temple, and where he manifested his presence.

Clarke: Psa 63:5 - My soul shall be satisfied

My soul shall be satisfied - I shall have, in the true worshipping of thee, as complete a sensation of spiritual sufficiency and happiness, so that no desire shall be left unsatisfied, as any man can have who enjoys health of body, and a fullness of all the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of life.

Clarke: Psa 63:6 - When I remember thee upon my bed

When I remember thee upon my bed - I will lie down in thy fear and love; that I may sleep soundly under thy protection, and awake with a sense of thy presence and approbation; and when I awake in the night watches, or be awakened by them, I will spend the waking moments in meditation upon thee.

Clarke: Psa 63:7 - Therefore in the shadow of thy wings

Therefore in the shadow of thy wings - I will get into the very secret of thy presence, into the holy of holies, to the mercy-seat, over which the cherubs extend their wings. If the psalmist does not allude to the overshadowing of the mercy-seat by the extended wings of the cherubim, he may have in view, as a metaphor, the young of fowls, seeking shelter, protection, and warmth under the wings of their mothers. See the same metaphor, Psa 61:4 (note). When a bird of prey appears, the chickens will, by natural instinct, run under the wings of their mothers for protection

The old Psalter translates, And in hiling of thi wenges I sall joy. The paraphrase is curious. "Thou art my helper, in perels; and I can joy in gode dedes in thi hiling, (covering), for I am thi bride, (bird), and if thou hil (cover) me noght, the glede (kite) will rawis me, (carry me away.")

Clarke: Psa 63:8 - My soul followeth hard after thee

My soul followeth hard after thee - דבקה נפשי אחריך dabekah naphshi achareycha , "My soul cleaves (or) is glued after thee."This phrase not only shows the diligence of the pursuit, and the nearness of the attainment, but also the fast hold he had got of the mercy of his God.

Clarke: Psa 63:9 - Lower parts of the earth

Lower parts of the earth - They are appointed, in the just judgment of God, to destruction; they shall be slain and buried in the earth, and shall be seen no more. Some understand the passage as referring to the punishment of hell; which many supposed to be in the center of the earth

Clarke: Psa 63:9 - So the old Psalter,

So the old Psalter, - Thai sall entir in till lagher pine of hell. Lahher or laigher, lower, undermost.

Clarke: Psa 63:10 - They shall fall by the sword

They shall fall by the sword - They shall be poured out by the hand of the sword, Hebrews That is, their life’ s blood shall be shed either in war, or by the hand of justice

Clarke: Psa 63:10 - They shall be a portion for foxes

They shall be a portion for foxes - They shall be left unburied, and the jackals shall feed upon their dead bodies. Or, being all cut off by utter destruction, their Inheritance shall be left for the wild beasts. That which was their portion shall shortly be the portion of the wild beasts of the forest. If he here refers to the destruction of the Babylonians, the prediction has been literally fulfilled. Where ancient Babylon stood, as far as it can be ascertained, is now the hold of dangerous reptiles and ferocious beasts. The jackal, or chokal, is a very ravenous beast, and fond of human flesh. It devours dead bodies, steals infants out of the lap of their mothers, devours alive the sick who are left by the side of the Ganges, and even in the streets of Calcutta has been known to eat persons who were in a state of intoxication. Ward’ s Customs.

Clarke: Psa 63:11 - But the king shall rejoice

But the king shall rejoice - David shall come to the kingdom according to the promise of God. Or, if it refer to the captivity, the blood royal shall be preserved in and by Zerubbabel till the Messiah come, who shall be David’ s spiritual successor in the kingdom for ever

Clarke: Psa 63:11 - That sweareth by him

That sweareth by him - It was customary to swear by the life of the king. The Egyptians swore by the life of Pharaoh; and Joseph conforms to this custom, as may be seen in the book of Genesis, Gen 42:15, Gen 42:16. See also 1Sa 1:26 : 1Sa 17:55, and Judith 11:7. But here it may refer to God. He is The King, and swearing by his name signifies binding themselves by his authority, acknowledging his supremacy, and devoting themselves to his glory and service alone

The Chaldee has: "And the King shall rejoice במימר אלהא bemeymar Eloha , in the Word of God;"or, in the Word God; Meymar, Word, being taken here substantially, as in many other places, by the Targumist

Clarke: Psa 63:11 - The mouth of them that speak lies

The mouth of them that speak lies - The mouth of those who acknowledge lying vanities, that worship false gods, shall be stopped. All false religions shall be destroyed by the prevalence of the truth. For he, Christ, shall reign till all his enemies are put under his feet. "Thy kingdom come, and hell’ s o’ erpower: and to thy scepter all subdue."Amen and Amen

Calvin: Psa 63:1 - O God! thou art my God

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.

Calvin: Psa 63:2 - NO PHRASE

2.=== Thus in the sanctuary, === etc. It is apparent, as already hinted, that God was ever in his thoughts, though wandering in the wilderness under such circumstances of destitution. The particle thus is emphatic. Even when so situated, in a wild and hideous solitude, where the very horrors of the place were enough to have distracted his meditations, he exercised himself in beholding the power and glory of God, just as if he had been in the sanctuary. Formerly, when it was in his power to wait upon the tabernacle, he was far from neglecting that part of the instituted worship of God. He was well aware that he needed such helps to devotion. But now, when shut out, in the providence of God, from any such privilege, he shows, by the delight which he took in spiritual views of God, that his was not a mind engrossed with the symbols, or mere outward ceremonial of religion. He gives evidence how much he had profited by the devotional exercises enjoined under that dispensation. It is noticeable of ignorant and superstitious persons, that they seem full of zeal and fervor so long as they come in contact with the ceremonies of religion, while their seriousness evaporates immediately upon these being withdrawn. David, on the contrary, when these were removed, continued to retain them in his recollection, and rise, through their assistance, to fervent aspirations after God. We may learn by this, when deprived at any time of the outward means of grace, to direct the eye of our faith to God in the worst circumstances, and not to forget him whenever the symbols of holy things are taken out of our sight. The great truth, for example, of our spiritual regeneration, though but once represented to us in baptism, should remain fixed in our minds through our whole life, ⁴²⁷ (Tit 3:5; Eph 5:26.) The mystical union subsisting between Christ and his members should be matter of reflection, not only when we sit at the Lord’s table, but at all other times. Or suppose that the Lord’s Supper, and other means of advancing our spiritual welfare, were taken from us by an exercise of tyrannical power, it does not follow that our minds should ever cease to be occupied with the contemplation of God. The expression, So have I beheld thee to see, etc., indicates the earnestness with which he was intent upon the object, directing his whole meditation to this, that he might see the power and glory of God, of which there was a reflection in the sanctuary.

Calvin: Psa 63:3 - Because thy mercy is better than life, etc

3.Because thy mercy is better than life, etc I have no objections to read the verse in this connected form, though I think that the first clause would be better separated, and taken in with the verse preceding. David would appear to be giving the reason of his earnestness in desiring God. By life is to be understood, in general, everything which men use for their own maintenance and defense. When we think ourselves well provided otherwise, we feel no disposition to have recourse to the mercy of God. That being (to speak so) which we have of our own, prevents us from seeing that we live through the mere grace of God. ⁴²⁸ As we are too much disposed to trust in aids of a carnal kind, and to forget God, the Psalmist here affirms that we should have more reliance upon the divine mercy in the midst of death, than upon what we are disposed to call, or what may appear to be, life. Another interpretation has been given of the words of this verse, but a very meagre and feeble one, — That the mercy of God is better than life itself; or, in other words, that the divine favor is preferable to every other possession. But the opposition is evidently between that state of secure prosperity, in which men are so apt to rest with complacency, and the mercy of God, which is the stay of such as are ready to sink and perish, and which is the one effectual remedy for supplying (if one might use that expression) all defects.

The word which I have rendered life, being in the plural number in the Hebrew, has led Augustine to assign a meaning to the sentence which is philosophical and ingenious, but without foundation, as the plural of the word is quite commonly used in the singular signification. He considered that the term lives was here used in reference to the truth, That different men affect different modes of life, some seeking riches, and others pleasure; some desiring the luxuries, and some the honors of this world, while others are given to their sensual appetites. He conceived that there was an opposition stated in the verse between these various kinds of life and eternal life, here by a common figure of speech called mercy, because it is of grace, and not of merit. But it is much more natural to understand the Psalmist as meaning, that it was of no consequence how large a share men possess of prosperity, and of the means which are generally thought to make life secure, the divine mercy being a better foundation of trust than any life fashioned out to ourselves, and than all other supports taken together. ⁴²⁹ On this account the Lord’s people, however severely they may suffer from poverty, or the violence of human wrongs, or the languor of desire, or hunger and thirst, or the many troubles and anxieties of life, may be happy notwithstanding; for it is well with them, in the best sense of the term, when God is their friend. Unbelievers, on the other hand, must be miserable, even when all the world smiles upon them; for God is their enemy, and a curse necessarily attaches to their lot.

Calvin: Psa 63:4 - NO PHRASE

In the words which follow, David expresses his consequent resolution to praise God. When we experience his goodness, we are led to open our lips in thanksgiving. His intention is intimated still more clearly in the succeeding verse, where he says that he will bless God in his life There is some difficulty, however, in ascertaining the exact sense of the words. When it is said, So will I bless thee, etc., the so may refer to the good reason which he had, as just stated, to praise God, from having felt how much better it is to live by life communicated from God, than to live of and from ourselves. ⁴³⁰ Or the sense may be, so, that is, even in this calamitous and afflicted condition: for he had already intimated that, amidst the solitude of the wilderness, where he wandered, he would still direct his eye to God. The word life, again, may refer to his life as having been preserved by divine interposition; or the sense of the passage may be, that he would bless God through the course of his life. The former meaning conveys the fullest matter of instruction, and agrees with the context; he would bless God, because, by his goodness, he had been kept alive and in safety. The sentiment is similar to that which we find elsewhere,

“I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord;” — (Psa 118:17)

and again; —

“The dead shall not praise the Lord, neither any that go down into silence, but we who live will bless the Lord,”
(Psa 115:17.)

In the lifting up of hands, ⁴³¹ in the second clause of the verse, allusion is made to praying and vowing; and he intimates, that besides giving thanks to God, he would acquire additional confidence in supplication, and be diligent in the exercise of it. Any experience we may have of the divine goodness, while it stirs us up to gratitude, should, at the same time, strengthen our hopes of the future, and lead us confidently to expect that God will perfect the grace which he has begun. Some understand by the lifting up of his hands, that he refers to praising the Lord. Others, that he speaks of encouraging himself from the divine assistance, and boldly encountering his enemies. But I prefer the interpretation which has been already given.

Calvin: Psa 63:5 - My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow, etc

5.My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow, etc In accordance with what was said in the foregoing verse, David expresses his assured persuasion of obtaining a rich and abundant measure of every blessing that could call for thanksgiving and praise. At the period of composing this psalm, he may have been already in the enjoyment of ease and plenty; but there is reason to believe that he cherished the persuasion referred to, even when wandering in the wilderness in a state of poverty and destitution. If we would evidence a strong faith, we must anticipate the divine favor before it has been actually manifested, and when there is no present appearance of its forthcoming. From the instance here set before us, we must learn to be on our guard against despondency, in circumstances when we may see the wicked wallowing and rioting in the abundance of the things of this world, while we ourselves are left to pine under the want of them. David, in the present pressure to which he was exposed, might have given way to despair, but he knew that God was able to fill the hungry soul, and that he could want for nothing so long as he possessed an interest in his favor. It is God’s will to try our patience in this life, by afflictions of various kinds. Let us bear the wrongs which may be done us with meekness, till the time come when all our desires shall be abundantly satisfied. It may be proper to observe, that David, when he speaks in figurative language of being filled with marrow and fatness, does not contemplate that intemperate and excessive indulgence to which ungodly men surrender themselves, and by which they brutify their minds. He looks forward to that moderate measure of enjoyment which would only quicken him to more alacrity in the praises of God.

Calvin: Psa 63:6 - I shall surely remember thee, etc

6.I shall surely remember thee, etc It may be read also, when, or, as often as I remember thee, I will pray in the night watches. But as the Hebrew particle here used is occasionally taken for an adverb of affirmation, as well as of time, I have adhered to the commonly received translation, In this case, his remembering God is to be understood as the same thing with his meditating upon him; and the one clause contains just a repetition of the sentiment expressed in the other. If the particle be taken in the different sense formerly mentioned, the words intimate, that as often as the name of God recurred to his mind, he would dwell upon it with pleasure, and speak of his goodness. He particularly mentions the night watches, as, when retired from the sight of our fellow-creatures, we not only revert to what may have given us anxiety, but feel our thoughts drawn out more freely to different subjects. We have next the reason assigned for the engagement or declaration he has just made, which is, that he owed to God his preservation. The experience of the divine goodness should dispose us to prayer as well as praise. “I will come into thy house,” says the Psalmist in another place, “in the multitude of thy mercy,” (Psa 5:7.) The second part of the seventh verse is expressive of the lively hope with which he was animated. He was resolved to rejoice and triumph under the shadow of God’s wings, as feeling the same peace and satisfaction in reliance upon his protection as he could have done had no danger existed.

Calvin: Psa 63:8 - My soul has cleaved hard after thee

8.My soul has cleaved hard after thee The Hebrew verb means also to apprehend, or follow, especially when in construction with the preposition which is here joined to it, and therefore we might very properly render the words, — My soul shall press or follow after thee. ⁴³⁴ But even should the other translation be retained, the sense is, that David’s heart was devoted to God with steadfast perseverance. The phrase, after thee, is emphatical, and denotes that he would follow with unwearied constancy, long as the way might be, and full of hardships, and beset with obstacles, and however sovereignly God might himself seem to withdraw his presence. The latter clause of the verse may be taken as referring simply to the deliverance which he had previously mentioned as having been received. He had good reason to persevere, without fainting, in following after God, when he considered that he had been preserved in safety, up to this time, by the divine hand. But I would understand the words as having a more extensive application, and consider that David here speaks of the grace of perseverance, which would be bestowed upon him by the Spirit. To say that he would cleave to God, with an unwavering purpose, at all hazards, might have sounded like the language of vain boasting, had he not qualified the assertion by adding, that he would do this in so far as he was sustained by the hand of God.

Calvin: Psa 63:9 - And they, whilst they seek, etc

9.And they, whilst they seek, etc Here we find David rising to a more assured confidence, and triumphing as if he had already obtained the victory. And there is every reason to believe, that though he had escaped his difficulties, and was in circumstances of peace and prosperity when he wrote this psalm, yet he only expresses what he actually felt at the critical period when his life was in such imminent danger. He declares his conviction that the enemies who eagerly sought his life would be cut off; that God would cast them headlong into destruction; and that their very bodies should be left without burial. To be the portion of foxes, ⁴³⁷ is the same thing with being left to be torn and devoured by the beasts of the field. It is often denounced as one judgment which should befall the wicked, that they would perish by the sword, and become the prey of wolves and of dogs, without privilege of sepulture. This is a fate which the best of men have met with in the world, — for good as well as bad are exposed to the stroke of temporal evil; — but there is this distinction, that God watches over the scattered dust of his own children, gathers it again, and will suffer nothing of them to perish, whereas, when the wicked are slain, and their bones spread on the field, this is only preparatory to their everlasting destruction.

Calvin: Psa 63:11 - But the king will rejoice in God

11.But the king will rejoice in God The deliverance which David received had not been extended to him as a private person, but the welfare of the whole Church was concerned in it, as that of the body in the safety of the head, and there is therefore a propriety in his representing all the people of God as rejoicing with him. Nor can we fail to admire his holy magnanimity in not scrupling to call himself king, overwhelming as the dangers were by which he was surrounded, because he laid claim to that honor by faith, though yet denied him in actual possession. In saying that he would rejoice in God, he refers to the gratitude which he would feel; at the same time, in extolling the divine goodness shown to him, he views it as it affected the common body of the faithful. ⁴³⁸ As was already remarked, the safety of God’s chosen people, at that time, was inseparably connected with the reign of David and its prosperity — a figure by which it was the divine intention to teach us, that our happiness and glory depend entirely upon Christ. By those who swear in the name of the Lord, he means in general all his genuine servants. The act of solemnly calling upon God to witness and judge what we say, is one part of divine worship: hence an oath, by the figure of speech called synecdoche, is made to signify the profession of religion in general. We are not to imagine from this that God reckons all those to be his servants who make mention of his name. Many take it into their lips only to profane it by the grossest perjury; others outrage or slight it by entering into trifling and unnecessary oaths; and hypocrites are chargeable with wickedly abusing it. But those whom David refers to are such as swear by the Lord, considerately and with reverence, and whose hearts respond to what they declare. This appears more clearly from the contrast which follows in the verse, where he opposes those who swear by the name of God to those who speak lies, understanding by that term, not only treacherous and deceitful men, but men who profane the name of God by falsehoods of a sacrilegious kind.

TSK: Psa 63:1 - thou // early // soul // flesh // dry and thirsty land, where no water is

thou : Psa 31:14, Psa 42:11, Psa 91:2, Psa 118:28, Psa 143:10; Exo 15:2; Jer 31:1, Jer 31:33; Zec 13:9; Joh 20:17

early : Psa 5:3, Psa 78:34; Job 8:5; Pro 1:27, Pro 1:28, Pro 8:17; Son 3:1-3; Hos 5:15; Mat 6:33

soul : Psa 42:1, Psa 42:2, Psa 84:2, Psa 119:81, Psa 143:6; Joh 7:37; Rev 7:16, Rev 7:17

flesh : Psa 102:3-5; Son 5:8

dry and thirsty land, where no water is : Heb. weary land without water, Exo 17:3; Isa 32:2, Isa 35:7, Isa 41:18; Mat 12:43

TSK: Psa 63:2 - To see // in the

To see : Psa 27:4, Psa 78:61, Psa 105:4, Psa 145:11; Exo 33:18, Exo 33:19; 1Sa 4:21, 1Sa 4:22; 1Ch 16:11; 2Co 4:4-6

in the : Psa 68:24, Psa 73:17, Psa 73:18, Psa 77:13, Psa 77:14, Psa 84:2-11, Psa 96:6, Psa 134:2; Isa 60:13

TSK: Psa 63:3 - Because // lips

Because : Psa 4:6, Psa 21:6, Psa 30:5; Phi 1:23; 1Jo 3:2

lips : Psa 30:12, Psa 51:15, Psa 66:17; Hos 14:2; Rom 6:19, Rom 12:1; 1Co 6:20; Heb 13:15; Jam 3:5-10

TSK: Psa 63:4 - Thus // I will lift

Thus : Psa 104:33, Psa 145:1-3, Psa 146:1, Psa 146:2

I will lift : Psa 134:2; 1Kings 8:22-66; Hab 3:10

TSK: Psa 63:5 - my soul // marrow // with joyful

my soul : Psa 17:15, Psa 36:7-9, Psa 65:4, Psa 104:34; Son 1:4; Isa 25:6; Jer 31:4

marrow : Heb. fatness

with joyful : Psa 43:4, Psa 71:23, Psa 118:14, Psa 118:15, Psa 135:3, Psa 149:1-3; Ezr 3:11-13; Rev 19:5-7

TSK: Psa 63:6

Psa 42:8, Psa 77:4-6, Psa 119:55, Psa 119:147, Psa 119:148, Psa 139:17, Psa 139:18, Psa 149:5; Son 3:1, Son 3:2, Son 5:2; Lam 2:19

TSK: Psa 63:7 - Because // therefore

Because : Psa 54:3, Psa 54:4

therefore : Psa 5:11, Psa 21:1, Psa 57:1, Psa 61:4; 1Sa 17:37; 2Co 1:10

TSK: Psa 63:8 - My soul // followeth // thy

My soul : etc. ""My soul cleaveth davekah after Thee;""which not only shews the diligence of the pursuit, and the nearness of the attainment, but the fast hold he had of the mercy of God.

followeth : Psa 73:25, Psa 143:6, Psa 143:7; Gen 32:26-28; 2Ch 31:21; Son 3:2; Isa 26:9; Mat 11:12; Luk 13:24, Luk 18:5-7

thy : Psa 18:35, Psa 37:24, Psa 73:23, Psa 94:18; Son 2:6; Isa 41:10, Isa 42:1; Phi 2:12, Phi 2:13; Col 1:29

TSK: Psa 63:9 - seek // go

seek : Psa 35:4, Psa 35:26, Psa 38:12, Psa 40:14, Psa 70:2; 1Sa 25:29

go : Psa 9:17, Psa 55:15, Psa 55:23, Psa 86:13; Num 16:30-33; 1Sa 28:19; Job 40:13; Isa 14:9, Isa 14:15, Isa 14:19, Isa 14:19; Eze 32:18-32; Act 1:25

TSK: Psa 63:10 - They shall fall // a portion

They shall fall : etc. Heb. They shall make him run out, like water, by the hands of the sword, 1Sa 26:10, 1Sa 31:1-6; Jer 18:21; Eze 35:5

a portion : Son 2:15; Eze 39:4, Eze 39:17-20; Rev 19:17, Rev 19:18

TSK: Psa 63:11 - But // the king // sweareth // the mouth

But : etc. David shall come to the kingdom according to the promise of God.

the king : Psa 2:6, Psa 21:1; 1Sa 23:17, 1Sa 24:20

sweareth : Deu 6:13; Isa 19:18, Isa 45:23, Isa 65:16; Zep 1:5; Heb 6:13

the mouth : Psa 31:18; Rom 3:19; Tit 1:10, Tit 1:11

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Psa 63:1 - My God // Early // in the morning // Thirsteth for thee // Longeth // A dry and thirsty land, where no water is

Where he hid himself from Saul, 1Sa 22:5 23:14,15 26:1,2

David in the wilderness, complaining bitterly of his banishment from God’ s house, thirsteth and longeth for it, Psa 63:1-3 . His manner of blessing God. His experience, hope, and delight in God, Psa 63:4-8 . Comforteth himself that his enemies shall be destroyed, and that he shall be in safety, Psa 63:9-11 .

My God in covenant with me.

Early Heb.

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.

Poole: Psa 63:2 - To see // Thy power and thy glory // So as I have seen thee

To see i.e. to enjoy, as seeing is oft taken.

Thy power and thy glory either,

1. The ark, which is called God’ s strength and glory, 1Sa 4:21 1Ch 16:11 Psa 78:61 . Or rather,

2. The powerful and glorious effects and evidences of thy gracious presence there.

So as I have seen thee whereof I have formerly had great and comfortable experience; which makes me more sensible of my present loss, and more thirsty after these enjoyments.

Poole: Psa 63:3 - Thy loving-kindness // Is better than life // My lips shall praise thee

This is the reason of the foregoing thirst after God.

Thy loving-kindness i.e. the discoveries and influences of thy grace and favour, which thou usually impartest to thy people in the sanctuary.

Is better than life is more durable, and comfortable, and satisfactory than the present life, with all imaginable advantages belonging to it.

My lips shall praise thee both for my former taste and experiences of this truth, and for the assurance of my restitution to the same blessed enjoyments.

Poole: Psa 63:4 - Thus // I will lift up my hands // In thy name

Thus i.e. so as I have done and now do. Or, upon that occasion, when I shall be restored. Or, for this reason, being so sensible of the sweetness of thy favour. Or, certainly ; for this particle is sometimes used as a note of asseveration, as it is Psa 127:2 Isa 16:6 .

I will lift up my hands towards thee in heaven, in prayers and praises.

In thy name according to thy command. Or, with confidence in thy name.

Poole: Psa 63:5

When thou shalt fulfil my earnest desire of enjoying thee in the sanctuary; though now in my exile I groan and pine away for want of that mercy.

Poole: Psa 63:7 - Remember thee // I will rejoice

Remember thee: in the mean time, whilst I cannot enjoy thee, I will quiet and comfort myself with the thoughts and remembrance of thy kindness to me. Upon my bed , Heb. upon my beds , implying that he was frequently forced to change his bed and lodging, being driven from place to place. In the night watches ; in the several seasons of the night, which was divided into three or four watches; of which see Exo 14:24 Jud 7:19 Mar 13:35 . When others sleep securely, my sleep is interrupted by my perplexity and grief for my absence from thy house, and when I awake my thoughts are fixed upon thee, &c.

I will rejoice I will rest securely and joyfully in thy protection.

Poole: Psa 63:8 - Followeth hard after thee // Upholdeth me

Followeth hard after thee i.e. pursueth thee eagerly, diligently, and resolvedly, and as it were step by step, when thou seemest to run away from me; which is the emphasis of this Hebrew word. My soul and spirit cleaveth to thee, as this verb signifies, Gen 2:24 Jer 13:11 , when my body is absent from thy sanctuary.

Upholdeth me: I do not lose my labour in following hard after thee; for though I am not, yet restored to the enjoyment of thy presence in thy house, yet I have present supports from thee, whereby my spirit is kept from fainting under my manifold pressures, and is enabled with faith and patience to wait upon thee, till thou seest fit to deliver me.

Poole: Psa 63:9 - To destroy it // Into the lower parts of the earth

To destroy it i.e. to take away my life.

Into the lower parts of the earth either,

1. Into hell. Or rather,

2. Into their grave, as this phrase is used, Eze 31:14,18 . But how is this true, when they are supposed to be devoured by foxes, Psa 63:10 ? Answ . This may be understood, either,

1. Of divers persons. Some of their slain might be buried, and others lie unburied. Or,

2. Of the same persons; they did go into the earth, but not immediately, but were first devoured of foxes, and the remainders of them were buried, as is frequently done in such cases. Or this phrase may note not so much the place as the state of the dead; this being universally said of those that die, whether they are buried or unburied, that they return to the earth or dust , Job 1:21 Ecc 12:7 .

Poole: Psa 63:10 - They shall fall by the sword // They shall be a portion for foxes

They shall fall by the sword i.e. die in battle, as David foretold, 1Sa 26:10 , and as was accomplished in Saul and his followers, who were David’ s greatest enemies, 1Sa 31 .

They shall be a portion for foxes their carcasses shall be unburied upon the earth, and thereby become a prey to wild and ravenous creatures, and especially to foxes, which were in those parts in great abundance and which did and do feed not only upon fruits, Son 2:15 , but also upon flesh, as experience showeth. Besides, some very learned men think that the word rendered foxes is more general, and comprehends, besides foxes, another sort of creatures, like unto them called thoes , which were very numerous in this country; of which See Poole "Jud 15:4" .

Poole: Psa 63:11 - The king // That speak lies // Shall be stopped

The king I, who am already anointed king, and who shall be actually king, when these mine enemies are fallen by the sword. He speaks of himself in the third person, either out of modesty or out of prudence, because it was ambiguous, and might be understood either of himself or of Saul, whereby, he might avoid the envy of the expression, if this Psalm was composed before he was king. That sweareth by him ; either,

1. By the king; by whom they sometimes did swear, as Gen 42:15 2Sa 15:21. But they did also swear by some other persons, of eminent place and authority, though under the king, as 1Sa 1:26 20:3 . Nor is it likely that the psalmist would justify those kinds of oaths; this practice of swearing by one’ s name being accounted a part of that worship which is proper to God, both in the Old and New Testament. If this were meant of the king, it might better be rendered, that sweareth it , (for so the particle beth is sometimes used) him , as subjects used to swear homage to their prince. So the sense is, all those that shall own me for their king. Or,

2. By God, who was last mentioned, that sweareth by the name of God, to wit, in truth, and judgment, and righteousness , as it is expressed, Jer 4:2 , i.e. every sincere servant and worshipper of God; swearing being oft put for the whole worship of God, whereof it is a considerable part, and swearers by God for worshippers of him, as Isa 19:18 45:23 , compared with Rom 14:11 Isa 65:16 . Shall glory ; shall rejoice in my deliverance and exaltation, both for their respect to the honour and service of God, which I shall advance, and for the benefits which all good men and the whole kingdom shall feel by my government; whereas in Saul’ s time the vilest men were exalted, and good men oppressed and persecuted, and the whole kingdom groaned under his tyranny.

That speak lies that now make it their business to invent or spread lying and slanderous reports concerning me and others of God’ s people.

Shall be stopped I shall severely restrain and punish such wicked practices.

Haydock: Psa 63:1

A prayer in affliction, with confidence in God that he will bring to nought the machinations of persecutors.

Haydock: Psa 63:1 - David

David, in distress. (Eusebius, &c.) ---

It has no relation to any historical fact. But it expresses the sentiments of any just man, surrounded with danger. (St. Hilary) ---

Yet many apply it to Daniel, in the lion's den, (Muis) to the captives, (Calmet) or to Jesus Christ and his Church. (St. Augustine, &c.) (Haydock)

Haydock: Psa 63:3 - Malignant

Malignant. I am encouraged to hope by past experience. (Worthington)

Haydock: Psa 63:4 - Thing

Thing, or discourse. This describes the poisonous insinuations of heretics, (Eusebius) or the calumnies of the Jews against Christ. (Berthier)

Haydock: Psa 63:6 - Them

Them. The snares. (Haydock) ---

Houbigant prefers "us," with reason, (Berthier) after the Syriac, Arabic, Cassiodorus, &c. Yet the Hebrew, &c., retain them, which is very easily explained. (Haydock) ---

The most wicked desire to preserve the reputation of honesty, (Calmet) and flatter themselves that no mortal is conscious of their deceit, and that even Providence does not regard things below, Psalm x. (Haydock)

Haydock: Psa 63:7 - Search // Heart

Search. Or, they have made the most diligent investigation, (Berthier) to no purpose. (Haydock) ---

Thus David and our Saviour were treated. ---

Heart. That is, crafty, subtle, deep projects and designs; which nevertheless shall not succeed; for God shall be exalted in bringing them to nought, by his wisdom and power. (Challoner) ---

Hebrew, "both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart is deep." (Protestants) (Haydock) ---

But, without the points, the Septuagint is accurate. (Berthier) ---

The Jews, with all their deep machinations to prevent the belief of Christ's resurrection, bringing even sleeping witnesses, only made themselves ridiculous. (St. Augustine) (Haydock) ---

Achitophel was forced to give way, (2 Kings xvii.; Worthington) though he had been considered as an oracle. (Haydock)

Haydock: Psa 63:8 - The arrows of children are their wounds // Wounds

The arrows of children are their wounds. That is, the wounds, stripes, or blows, they seek to inflict upon the just, are but like weak efforts of children's arrows, which can do no execution; and their tongues, that is, their speeches against them, come to nothing. (Challoner) ---

Or, children themselves have wounded these crafty politicians, and exposed their folly. (Haydock) ---

Hebrew is "very perplexed in the last three verses. Let us adhere to the Vulgate and Septuagint, who generally read more correctly than the present Hebrew." (Calmet) (Berthier) ---

Yet St. Jerome gives a very good sense. (Haydock) ---

Wounds. God hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the strong, (Worthington) and he hath taken the wise in their craftiness. (Menochius)

Haydock: Psa 63:10 - Afraid

Afraid, at the sight of God's judgments on the Babylonians, &c. (Calmet)

Haydock: Psa 63:11 - Praised

Praised. All will begin to esteem the chosen race. (Calmet) ---

Hebrew, "shall glory." The Jews and Christians (Haydock) shall esteem themselves honoured by the title of God's people. (Calmet) ---

They shall be praised for rightly serving God, (Worthington) and shall be rewarded by Him (Haydock) with universal applause. (Menochius)

Gill: Psa 63:1 - O God, thou art my God // my soul thirsteth for thee // in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is

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;''

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 שחר, "the morning", but from סחר, "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.

Gill: Psa 63:2 - To see thy power and thy glory // so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary

To see thy power and thy glory,.... Either the ark, as the Jewish writers generally interpret it; the symbol of God's presence and glory, and which is called his strength and his glory; see Psa 78:61; or rather the Lord Christ, who is the power of God, as well as the wisdom of God; by whom he made the world, and upholds it; by whom he has redeemed his people, and keeps and preserves them; and whose power is seen in the efficacy of the word and ordinances: and who is also the glory of God; he is the brightness of his Father's glory; his glory is the glory as of the only begotten of the Father; he has the same glorious nature, perfections, names, homage, and worship; and the glory of all the divine attributes is displayed in the work of salvation and redemption he has wrought out; and this glory is to be seen, through the glass of the word and ordinances, in the house of God. Hence it follows;

so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary; where he comes and blesses his people, and manifests himself unto them, as he does not unto the world; where his goings are seen, and his footsteps traced, Psa 68:24. The psalmist calls to mind former experiences in the sanctuary; and these stimulate him to an eager desire of fresh tastes of the grace of God, and clearer views of his power and glory. Or, as in a dry and thirsty land my soul longed and thirsted for time, so have I desired to see thee in the sanctuary; or so I see thee there as if in the sanctuary.

Gill: Psa 63:3 - Because thy lovingkindness is better than life // my lips shall praise thee

Because thy lovingkindness is better than life,.... For life without the love of God is nothing else than death: a man that has no share in the love of God is dead while he lives; all the enjoyments of life, health, riches, honour, friends, &c. are nothing without the love of God; the meanest temporal blessings with it are preferable to the greatest without it, Pro 15:17; it lasts longer than life, and therefore must be better than that; death cannot separate from it; it continues to all eternity. And that the saints prefer it to this natural life appears by their readiness to lay it down for the sake of Christ and his Gospel, in which the lovingkindness of God is so richly manifested unto them; to which may be added, that it is the love of God which gives to his people spiritual life, and which issues in eternal life, and therefore must be better than a temporal one. The Targum is,

"for better is thy kindness, which thou wilt do for the righteous in the world to come, than the life which thou givest the wicked in this world;''

my lips shall praise thee; that is, for thy lovingkindness, and because it is better than life, and any enjoyment of it.

Gill: Psa 63:4 - Thus will I bless thee while I live // I will lift up my hands in thy name

Thus will I bless thee while I live,.... With his whole heart and soul, as he had sought after him, and as under a sense of his lovingkindness; and as he now praised him with his lips, so he determined to do as long as he had life and being; by proclaiming his blessedness, by ascribing blessing and honour to him, and by giving him the glory of all mercies temporal and spiritual;

I will lift up my hands in thy name; not against his enemies, against those that fought against him, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it, but unto God in heaven; and that not as a gesture used in swearing, but either in blessing, as Aben Ezra observes; so the high priest lifted up his hands when he blessed the people; or in prayer, or in both, so Jarchi's note is, to pray and to praise; See Gill on Psa 28:2. The Targum is,

"in the name of thy Word I will spread out my hands in prayer for the world to come;''

that is, in the name of the Messiah, the essential Word, in whose name prayer is to be made, and whereby it becomes prevalent and successful; see Joh 14:13. This is a prayer gesture; See Gill on Psa 28:2.

Gill: Psa 63:5 - My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness // and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,.... When he should return to the house of the Lord, and partake of the provisions of it, called the fatness of his house; see Gill on Psa 36:8. The phrase denotes the abundance of spiritual refreshment and delight in the word and ordinances, and the great satisfaction had in them; and may have some regard to benefits arising from prayer, as well as other ordinances. Fat was not to be eaten under the legal dispensation, and therefore not to be literally taken; but in the typical and spiritual sense which David understood, and therefore respects that, or otherwise he would speak contrary to the law of God: he refers to those spiritual good things which they typified, and give spiritual pleasure and satisfaction;

and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; such a full meal, such a rich entertainment, calls for abundant thankfulness; which is here signified by the mouth praising the Lord, and doing this with lips of shouting, expressions of joy, songs of praise, jubilee songs. The allusion is to the use of music and singing at festivals; see Isa 5:12.

Gill: Psa 63:6 - When I remember thee upon my bed // and meditate on thee in the night watches

When I remember thee upon my bed,.... Or "beds" ^q; seeing he lay in many, as Kimchi observes, being obliged to flee from place to place. The sense is, that when he was on his bed in the night season, when alone, and free from worldly cares and fatigues, and called to mind the love of God to him, the past experience of his kindness, his promises to hits, and the fulfilment of them: that he should then be delightfully entertained, abundantly satisfied, slid his mouth be filled with songs of praise;

and meditate on thee in the night watches; which the Jewish writers on the text say were three, as they were with the Jews, but with the Romans four; See Gill on Mat 14:25; and the night, in the times of Homer ^r, was divided into three parts: the night season is a very proper one for meditation on the perfections, providences, promises, word and works of God; and which is very delightful and profitable, when attended with the presence, Spirit, and grace of God. The Targum is,

"in the watches I will meditate on thy word.''

Gill: Psa 63:7 - Because thou hast been my help // therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice

Because thou hast been my help,.... Or, "that thou hast been my help" ^s; and so the words may be considered as the subject of his meditation in the night watches, at least as a part of it; and as what gave him a great deal of pleasure to reflect upon, how the Lord had been in times past a present help to him in time of trouble;

therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice; meaning under the protecting power of God, where he knew he was safe, and therefore had reason to rejoice. The allusion is to the chirping of chickens under the wing of the hen; see Psa 57:1. The Targum is,

"in the shadow of thy Shechinah will I rejoice;''

referring it may be to the Shechinah, or presence of God, between the cherubim, whose wings overshadowed the mercy seat.

Gill: Psa 63:8 - My soul followeth hard after thee // thy right hand upholdeth me

My soul followeth hard after thee,.... In a way of duty, and in the use of means; as prayer, meditation, &c. though at a distance from the house of God, and worship of it; that he might not lose sight of him; that he might know more of him, and have more communion with him; being drawn after him with the cords of love, and strongly affected to him. Or, "my soul cleaveth after thee", or "to thee" ^t; not to the world, and the things of it; not to that which is evil, but to that which is good, even the "summum bonum"; not to the creature, but to the Lord; which is expressive of union to him, even such an one as is between man and wife, who cleave to each other, and are one flesh, Gen 2:24; and as is between head and members, vine and branches; see 1Co 6:17; and of communion in the exercise of grace, and discharge of duty. To cleave to the Lord into hold to him, the head; to exercise the graces of faith, hope, and love upon him; and to follow him in his ways and worship; to abide by his truths; to attend his ordinances; to keep close to his people, and to adhere firmly to his cause and interest; see Act 11:23. The Targum is,

"my soul cleaveth after thy law;''

thy right hand upholdeth me; that he fell not through the snares laid for him, and the stumbling blocks thrown in his way; that he stood and bore up under all his afflictions, temptations, and difficulties; that he was enabled to follow hard after the Lord, and cleave unto him; this supported, supplied, and protected him, even the mighty power and grace of God. In what a happy, comfortable, and safe condition must the psalmist be! his soul following hard after the Lord; and the Lord holding and sustaining him with his right hand! and how vain must be the attempts of his enemies against him! whose destruction is next predicted.

Gill: Psa 63:9 - But those that seek my soul to destroy it // shall go into the lower parts of the earth

But those that seek my soul to destroy it,.... Meaning his life; for as for his soul, that was immaterial and immortal, and could never be destroyed by man: but as for his natural life, his enemies laid snares for that, and sought to take it away, and nothing less would satisfy them;

shall go into the lower parts of the earth; not the grave, whither the righteous go as well as the wicked; besides, by their being the portion of foxes, as follows, it seems that they should have no burial; but hell is meant, the bottomless pit. Some take it to be a prayer, as Kimchi and Ben Melech; "may they go", or "let them go", &c. see Psa 55:15. The allusion may be thought to be to the death of Korah and his company.

Gill: Psa 63:10 - They shall fall by the sword // they shall be a portion for foxes

They shall fall by the sword,.... As Saul, his sons, and mighty men, did, 1Sa 31:4; or, "they shall make him pour out" ^u; that is, his blood, "by the hands" or " means of the sword"; meaning either some principal enemy, as Saul in particular, or everyone of his enemies; who should be thrust with the sword, their blood let out, and they slain: so antichrist, the enemy of David's son, will be put to death in this manner, Rev 13:10;

they shall be a portion for foxes; falling in desolate places where foxes run, and so become the food of them, and have no other burial. The foxes hunt after dead carcasses, and will find them out where they are, in holes and ditches; as appears from the case of Aristomenes, related by Pausanias ^w: so the followers of antichrist, their flesh will be eaten by the fowls of heaven, Rev 19:17.

Gill: Psa 63:11 - But the king shall rejoice in God // everyone that sweareth by him shall glory // but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped

But the king shall rejoice in God,.... Not Saul, as R. Obadiah; as if David wished him well, and that he might have reason to rejoice in God, though he sought his hurt; which sense is rejected by Abea Ezra: but either David, who speaks of himself as king, being anointed by Samuel, and who, upon the death of Saul, was so in fact; and who rejoiced, not merely at the destruction of his enemies, for he lamented the death of Saul, 2Sa 1:17; but in God, in his grace and goodness to him, and in his power and justice shown in the vengeance taken on them. Or rather, the King Messiah, who rejoiced in God because of the good of his people, their conversion and salvation, and their deliverance from their enemies, Psa 21:1;

everyone that sweareth by him shall glory; not by David, though such a form of swearing was used; see 2Sa 15:21; or, "to him": and so describes his faithful subjects swearing allegiance to him: but rather by the Lord, in whom the king should rejoice; and designs the worshippers of him; swearing by him being sometimes put for the whole worship and service of God, Deu 6:13. The Heathens used to swear by their deities, and their chief was called Jupiter Horcius, because he presided over oaths ^x. Or else that the King Christ should rejoice in God; and intends such as believe in him and confess him; see Isa 45:23, compared with Rom 14:11. And every such an one will glory, not in themselves, nor in anything of theirs, but in Christ, in his grace and righteousness, and in what he is unto them;

but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped; such as Saul's courtiers, who invented and spread lies of David; but now upon the death of Saul, and David's advancement to the throne, would be silent; their mouths being stopped either by death, or through fear: and so all the followers of antichrist, that make and believe a lie, will have their mouths stopped, when cast into the lake of fire, Rev 21:8.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Ayat / Catatan Kaki

NET Notes: Psa 63:1

¹ sn Psalm 63. The psalmist expresses his intense desire to be in God’s presence and confidently affirms that God will judge his enemies.

² sn According to the psalm superscription David wrote the psalm while in the “wilderness of Judah.” Perhaps this refers to the period described in 1 Sam 23-24 or to the incident mentioned in 2 Sam 15:23.

³ tn Or “I will seek you.”

⁴ tn Or “I thirst.”

⁵ tn Heb “faint” or “weary.” This may picture the land as “faint” or “weary,” or it may allude to the effect this dry desert has on those who are forced to live in it.

NET Notes: Psa 63:2

¹ tn The Hebrew particle כֵּן (ken) is used here to stress the following affirmation (see Josh 2:4).

² tn The perfect verbal form is understood here as referring to a past experience which the psalmist desires to be repeated. Another option is to take the perfect as indicating the psalmist’s certitude that he will again stand in God’s presence in the sanctuary. In this case one can translate, “I will see you.”

³ tn Heb “seeing.” The preposition with the infinitive construct here indicates an accompanying circumstance.

NET Notes: Psa 63:3

¹ tn This line is understood as giving the basis for the praise promised in the following line. Another option is to take the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) as asseverative/emphasizing, “Indeed, your loyal love is better” (cf. NEB, which leaves the particle untranslated).

² tn The word “experiencing” is supplied in the translation for clarification. The psalmist does not speak here of divine loyal love in some abstract sense, but of loyal love revealed and experienced.

NET Notes: Psa 63:4

¹ tn Or perhaps “then.”

² sn I will lift up my hands. Lifting up one’s hands toward God was a gesture of prayer (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19) or respect (Ps 119:48).

NET Notes: Psa 63:5

¹ tn Heb “like fat and fatness.”

² tn Or “me.”

³ tn Heb “and [with] lips of joy my mouth praises.”

NET Notes: Psa 63:6

¹ tn The Hebrew term אִם (’im) is used here in the sense of “when; whenever,” as in Ps 78:34.

NET Notes: Psa 63:7

¹ tn Or “[source of] help.”

² tn Heb “in the shadow of your wings.”

NET Notes: Psa 63:8

¹ tn Or “I.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

² tn Heb “clings after.” The expression means “to pursue with determination” (see Judg 20:45; 1 Sam 14:22; 1 Chr 10:2; Jer 42:16).

NET Notes: Psa 63:9

¹ tn Heb “but they for destruction seek my life.” The pronoun “they” must refer here to the psalmist’s enemies, referred to at this point for the first time in the psalm.

² sn The depths of the earth refers here to the underworld dwelling place of the dead (see Ezek 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24). See L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 167.

NET Notes: Psa 63:10

¹ tn Heb “they will deliver him over to the sword.” The third masculine plural subject must be indefinite (see GKC 460 §144.f) and the singular pronominal suffix either representative or distributive (emphasizing that each one will be so treated). Active verbs with indefinite subjects may be translated as passives with the object (in the Hebrew text) as subject (in the translation).

² tn Heb “they will be [the] portion of jackals”; traditionally, “of foxes.”

NET Notes: Psa 63:11

¹ sn The psalmist probably refers to himself in the third person here.

² tn Heb “who swears [an oath] by him.”

³ tn The Niphal of this verb occurs only here and in Gen 8:2, where it is used of God “stopping” or “damming up” the great deep as he brought the flood to an end.

Geneva Bible: Psa 63:1

"A Psalm of David, when he was in the ^{( a )} wilderness of Judah." O God, thou [art] my God; early will I seek thee: my soul ^{( b )} thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

^{( a )} That is, of Ziph (1Sa 23:14).

^{( b )} Though he was both hungry and in great distress, yet he made God above all meat and drink.

Geneva Bible: Psa 63:2

To see thy power and thy glory, so [as] ^{( c )} I have seen thee in the sanctuary.

^{( c )} In this misery I exercise myself in the contemplation of your power and glory, as if I were in the sanctuary.

Geneva Bible: Psa 63:5

My soul shall be satisfied as [with] ^{( d )} marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise [thee] with joyful lips:

^{( d )} The remembrance of your favour is more sweet to me than all the pleasures and dainties of the world.

Geneva Bible: Psa 63:8

My soul ^{( e )} followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

^{( e )} He assures himself by the Spirit of God to have the gift of constancy.

Geneva Bible: Psa 63:10

^{( f )} They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.

^{( f )} He prophecies of the destruction of Saul and they who take his part, whose bodies will not be buried but be devoured with wild beasts.

Geneva Bible: Psa 63:11

But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that ^{( g )} sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.

^{( g )} All who swear by God correctly or profess him will rejoice in this worthy king.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Rentang Ayat

Maclaren: Psa 63:1 - A Libation To Jehovah

Thirst And Satisfaction

My soul thirsteth for Thee … 5. My soul shall be satisfied … 8 My soul followeth hard after Thee.'--Psalm 63:1, 5, 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 con: stunt attitude of longing for more of that good which alone will slake your appetite.

The thirst that from the soul doth riseDoth 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 cab 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 (if 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,' He! 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 no-where 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.'

MHCC: Psa 63:1-2

Early will I seek thee. The true Christian devotes to God the morning hour. He opens the eyes of his understanding with those of his body, and awakes each morning to righteousness. He arises with a thirst after those comforts which the world cannot give, and has immediate recourse by prayer to the Fountain of the water of life. The true believer is convinced, that nothing in this sinful world can satisfy the wants and desires of his immortal soul; he expects his happiness from God, as his portion. When faith and hope are most in exercise, the world appears a weary desert, and the believer longs for the joys of heaven, of which he has some foretastes in the ordinances of God upon earth.

MHCC: Psa 63:3-6

Even in affliction we need not want matter for praise. When this is the regular frame of a believer's mind, he values the loving-kindness of God more than life. God's loving-kindness is our spiritual life, and that is better than temporal life. We must praise God with joyful lips; we must address ourselves to the duties of religion with cheerfulness, and speak forth the praises of God from a principle of holy joy. Praising lips must be joyful lips. David was in continual danger; care and fear held his eyes waking, and gave him wearisome nights; but he comforted himself with thoughts of God. The mercies of God, when called to mind in the night watches, support the soul, making darkness cheerful. How happy will be that last morning, when the believer, awaking up after the Divine likeness, shall be satisfied with all the fulness of God, and praise him with joyful lips, where there is no night, and where sorrow and sighing flee away!

MHCC: Psa 63:7-11

True Christians can, in some measure, and at some times, make use of the strong language of David, but too commonly our souls cleave to the dust. Having committed ourselves to God, we must be easy and pleased, and quiet from the fear of evil. Those that follow hard after God, would soon fail, if God's right hand did not uphold them. It is he that strengthens us and comforts us. The psalmist doubts not but that though now sowing in tears, he should reap in joy. Messiah the Prince shall rejoice in God; he is already entered into the joy set before him, and his glory will be completed at his second coming. Blessed Lord, let our desire towards thee increase every hour; let our love be always upon thee; let all our enjoyment be in thee, and all our satisfaction from thee. Be thou all in all to us while we remain in the present wilderness state, and bring us home to the everlasting enjoyment of thee for ever.

Matthew Henry: Psa 63:1-2

The title tells us when the psalm was penned, when David was in the wilderness of Judah; that is, in the forest of Hareth (1Sa 22:5) or in the wilderness of Ziph, 1Sa 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,

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, 2Co 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: Psa 63:3-6

How soon are David's complaints and prayers turned into praises and thanksgivings! After two verses that express his desire in seeking God, here are some that express his joy and satisfaction in having found him. Faithful prayers may quickly be turned into joyful praises, if it be not our own fault. Let the hearts of those rejoice that seek the Lord (Psa 105:3), and let them praise him for working those desires in them, and giving them assurance that he will satisfy them. David was now in a wilderness, and yet had his heart much enlarged in blessing God. Even in affliction we need not want matter for praise, if we have but a heart to it. Observe,

I. What David will praise God for (Psa 63:3): Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, than lives, life and all the comforts of life, life in its best estate, long life and prosperity. God's lovingkindness is in itself, and in the account of all the saints, better than life. It is our spiritual life, and that is better than temporal life, Psa 30:5. It is better, a thousand times, to die in God's favour than to live under his wrath. David in the wilderness finds, by comfortable experience, that God's lovingkindness is better than life; and therefore (says he) my lips shall praise thee. Note, Those that have their hearts refreshed with the tokens of God's favour ought to have them enlarged in his praises. A great deal of reason we have to bless God that we have better provisions and better possessions than the wealth of this world can afford us, and that in the service of God, and in communion with him, we have better employments and better enjoyments than we can have in the business and converse of this world.

II. How he will praise God, and how long, Psa 63:4. He resolves to live a life of thankfulness to God and dependence on him. Observe, 1. His manner of blessing God: " Thus will I bless thee, thus as I have now begun; the present devout affections shall not pass away, like the morning cloud, but shine more and more, like the morning sun."Or, "I will bless thee with the same earnestness and fervency with which I have prayed to thee."2. His continuance and perseverance therein: I will bless thee while I live. Note, Praising God must be the work of our whole lives; we must always retain a grateful sense of his former favours and repeat our thanksgivings for them. We must every day give thanks to him for the benefits with which we are daily loaded. We must in every thing give thanks, and not be put out of frame for this duty by any of the afflictions of this present time. Whatever days we live to see, how dark and cloudy soever, though the days come of which we say, We have no pleasure in them, yet still every day must be a thanksgiving-day, even to our dying-day. In this work we must spend our time because in this work we hope to spend a blessed eternity. 3. His constant regard to God upon all occasions, which should accompany his praises of him: I will lift up my hands in thy name. We must have an eye to God's name (to all that by which he has made himself known) in all our prayers and praises, which we are taught to begin with, - Hallowed be thy name, and to conclude with, - Thine is the glory. This we must have an eye to in our work and warfare; we must lift up our hands to our duty and against our special enemies in God's name, that is, in the strength of his Spirit and grace, Psa 71:16; Zec 10:12. We must make all our vows in God's name; to him we must engage ourselves and in a dependence upon his grace. And when we lift up the hands that hang down, in comfort and joy, it must be in God's name; from him our comforts must be fetched, and to him they must be devoted. In thee do we boast all the day long.

III. With what pleasure and delight he would praise God, Psa 63:5. 1. With inward complacency: My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, not only as with bread, which is nourishing, but as with marrow, which is pleasant and delicious, Isa 25:6. David hopes he shall return again to the enjoyment of God's ordinances, and then he shall thus be satisfied, and the more for his having been for a time under restraint. Or, if not, yet in God's loving kindness, and in conversing with him in solitude, he shall be thus satisfied. Note, There is that in a gracious God, and in communion with him, which gives abundant satisfaction to a gracious soul, Psa 36:8; Psa 65:4. And there is that in a gracious soul which takes abundant satisfaction in God and communion with him. The saints have a contentment with God; they desire no more than his favour to make them happy: and they have a transcendent complacency in God, in comparison with which all the delights of sense are sapless and without relish, as puddle-water in comparison with the wine of this consolation. 2. With outward expressions of this satisfaction; he will praise God with joyful lips. He will praise him, (1.) Openly. His mouth and lips shall praise God. When with the heart man believes and is thankful, with the mouth confession must be made of both, to the glory of God; not that the performances of the mouth are accepted without the heart (Mat 15:8), but out of the abundance of the heart the mouth must speak (Psa 45:1), both for the exciting of our own devout affections and for the edification of others. (2.) Cheerfully. We must praise God with joyful lips; we must address ourselves to that and other duties of religion with great cheerfulness, and speak forth the praises of God from a principle of holy joy. Praising lips must be joyful lips.

IV. How he would entertain himself with thoughts of God when he was most retired (Psa 63:6): I will praise thee when I remember thee upon my bed. We must praise God upon every remembrance of him. Now that David was shut out from public ordinances he abounded the more in secret communion with God, and so did something towards making up his loss. Observe here, 1. How David employed himself in thinking of God. God was in all his thoughts, which is the reverse of the wicked man's character, Psa 10:4. The thoughts of God were ready to him: " I remember thee; that is, when I go to think, I find thee at my right hand, present to my mind."This subject should first offer itself, as that which we cannot forget or overlook. And they were fixed in him: " I meditate on thee. "Thoughts of God must not be transient thoughts, passing through the mind, but abiding thoughts, dwelling in the mind. 2. When David employed himself thus - upon his bed and in the night-watches. David was now wandering and unsettled, but, wherever he came, he brought his religion along with him. Upon my beds (so some); being hunted by Saul, he seldom lay two nights together in the same bed; but wherever he lay, if, as Jacob, upon the cold ground and with a stone for his pillow, good thoughts of God lay down with him. David was so full of business all day, shifting for his own safety, that he had scarcely leisure to apply himself solemnly to religious exercises, and therefore, rather than want time for them, he denied himself his necessary sleep. He was now in continual peril of his life, so that we may suppose care and fear many a time held his eyes waking and gave him wearisome nights; but then he entertained and comforted himself with thoughts of God. Sometimes we find David in tears upon his bed (Psa 6:6), but thus he wiped away his tears. When sleep departs from our eyes (through pain, or sickness of body, or any disturbance in the mind) our souls, by remembering God, may be at ease, and repose themselves. Perhaps an hour's pious meditation will do us more good than an hour's sleep would have done. See Psa 16:7; Psa 17:3; Psa 4:4; Psa 119:62. There were night-watches kept in the tabernacle for praising God (Psa 134:1), in which, probably, David, when he had liberty, joined with the Levites; and now that he could not keep place with them he kept time with them, and wished himself among them.

Matthew Henry: Psa 63:7-11

David, having expressed his desires towards God and his praises of him, here expresses his confidence in him and his joyful expectations from him (Psa 63:7): In the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice, alluding either to the wings of the cherubim stretched out over the ark of the covenant, between which God is said to dwell ("I will rejoice in thy oracles, and in covenant and communion with thee"), or to the wings of a fowl, under which the helpless young ones have shelter, as the eagle's young ones (Exo 19:4, Deu 32:11), which speaks the divine power, and the young ones of the common hen (Mat 23:37), which speaks more of divine tenderness. It is a phrase often used in the psalms (Psa 17:8; Psa 36:7; Psa 57:1; Psa 61:4; Psa 91:4), and no where else in this sense, except Rth 2:12, where Ruth, when she became a proselyte, is said to trust under the wings of the God of Israel. It is our duty to rejoice in the shadow of God's wings, which denotes our recourse to him by faith and prayer, as naturally as the chickens, when they are cold or frightened, run by instinct under the wings of the hen. It intimates also our reliance upon him as able and ready to help us and our refreshment and satisfaction in his care and protection. Having committed ourselves to God, we must be easy and pleased, and quiet from the fear of evil. Now let us see further,

I. What were the supports and encouragements of David's confidence in God. Two things were as props to that hope which the word of God was the only foundation of: -

1. His former experiences of God's power in relieving him: " Because thou hast been my help when other helps and helpers failed me, therefore I will still rejoice in thy salvation, will trust in thee for the future, and will do it with delight and holy joy. Thou hast been not only my helper, but my help;"for we could never have helped ourselves, nor could any creature have been helpful to us, but by him. Here we may set up our Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto the Lord has helped us, and must therefore resolve that we will never desert him, never distrust him, nor ever droop in our walking with him.

2. The present sense he had of God's grace carrying him on in these pursuits (Psa 63:8): My soul follows hard after thee, which speaks a very earnest desire and a serious vigorous endeavour to keep up communion with God; if we cannot always have God in our embraces, yet we must always have him in our eye, reaching forth towards him as our prize, Phi 3:14. To press hard after God is to follow him closely, as those that are afraid of losing the sight of him, and to follow him swiftly, as those that long to be with him. This David did, and he owns, to the glory of God, Thy right hand upholds me. God upheld him, (1.) Under his afflictions, that he might not sink under them. Underneath are the everlasting arms. (2.) In his devotions. God upheld him in his holy desires and pursuits, that he might not grow weary in well-doing. Those that follow hard after God would soon fail and faint if God's right hand did not uphold them. It is he that strengthens us in the pursuit of him, quickens our good affections, and comforts us while we have not yet attained what we are in the pursuit of. It is by the power of God (that is his right hand) that we are kept from falling. Now this was a great encouragement to the psalmist to hope that he would, in due time, give him that which he so earnestly desired, because he had by his grace wrought in him those desires and kept them up.

II. What it was that David triumphed in the hopes of.

1. That his enemies should be ruined, Psa 63:9, Psa 63:10. There were those that sought his soul to destroy it, not only his life (which they struck at, both to prevent his coming to the crown and because they envied and hated him for his wisdom, piety, and usefulness), but his soul, which they sought to destroy by banishing him from God's ordinances, which are the nourishment and support of the soul (so doing what they could to starve it), and by sending him to serve other gods, so doing what they could to poison it, 1Sa 26:19. But he foresees and foretels, (1.) That they shall go into the lower parts of the earth, to the grave, to hell; their enmity to David would be their death and their damnation, their ruin, their eternal ruin. (2.) That they shall fall by the sword, by the sword of God's wrath and his justice, by the sword of man, Job 19:28, Job 19:29. They shall die a violent death, Rev 13:10. This was fulfilled in Saul, who fell by the sword, his own sword; David foretold this, yet he would not execute it when it was in the power of his hand, once and again; for precepts, not prophecies, are our rule. (3.) That they shall be a portion for foxes; either their dead bodies shall be a prey to ravenous beasts (Saul lay a good while unburied) or their houses and estates shall be a habitation for wild beasts, Isa 34:14. Such as this will be the doom of Christ's enemies, that oppose his kingdom and interest in the world; Bring them forth and slay them before me, Luk 19:27.

2. That he himself should gain his point at last (Psa 63:11), that he should be advanced to the throne to which he had been anointed: The king shall rejoice in God. (1.) He calls himself the king, because he knew himself to be so in the divine purpose and designation; thus Paul, while yet in the conflict, writes himself more than a conqueror, Rom 8:37. Believers are made kings, though they are not to have the dominion till the morning of the resurrection. (2.) He doubts not but that though he was now sowing in tears he should reap in joy. The king shall rejoice. (3.) He resolves to make God the Alpha and Omega of all his joys. He shall rejoice in God. Now this is applicable to the glories and joys of the exalted Redeemer. Messiah the Prince shall rejoice in God; he has already entered into the joy set before him, and his glory will be completed at his second coming. Two things would be the good effect of David's advancement: - [1.] It would be the consolation of his friends. Every one that swears to him (that is, to David), that comes into his interest and takes an oath of allegiance to him, shall glory in his success; or every one that swears by him (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; they shall glory in God; they shall glory in David's advancement. Those that fear thee will be glad when they see me. Those that heartily espouse the cause of Christ shall glory in its victory at last. If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him. [2.] It would be the confutation of his enemies: The mouth of those that speak lies, of Saul, and Doeg, and others that misrepresented David and insulted over him, as if his cause was desperate, shall be quite stopped; they shall not have one word more to say against him, but will be for ever silenced and shamed. Apply this to Christ's enemies, to those that speak lies to him, as all hypocrites do, that tell him they love him while their hearts are not with him; their mouth shall be stopped with that word, I know you not whence you are; they shall be for ever speechless, Mat 22:12. The mouths of those also that speak lies against him, that pervert the right ways of the Lord and speak ill of his holy religion, will be stopped in that day when the Lord shall come to reckon for all the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Christ's second coming will be the everlasting triumph of all his faithful friends and followers, who may therefore now triumph in the believing hopes of it.

Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 63:1-3

If the words in Psa 63:2 were אלהים אתּה אשׁחרך , then we would render it, with Böttcher, after Gen 49:8 : Elohim, Thee do I seek, even Thee! But אלי forbids this construction; and the assertion that otherwise it ought to be, "Jahve, my God art Thou" (Psa 140:7), rests upon a non-recognition of the Elohimic style. Elohim alone by itself is a vocative, and accordingly has Mehupach legarme . The verb שׁחר signifies earnest, importunate seeking and inquiring (e.g., Psa 78:34), and in itself has nothing to do with שׁחר , the dawn; but since Psa 63:7 looks back upon the night, it appears to be chosen with reference to the dawning morning, just as in Isa 26:9 also, שׁחר stands by the side of אוּה בלּילה . The lxx is therefore not incorrect when it renders it: πρὸς δὲ ὀρθρίζω (cf. ὁ λαὸς ὤρθριζεν πρὸς αὐτὸν , Luk 21:38); and Apollinaris strikes the right note when he begins his paraphrase,

Νύκτα μετ ̓ ἀμφιλύκην σὲ μάκαρ μάκαρ

ἀμφιχορεύσω -

At night when the morning dawns will I exult around Thee,

most blessed One.

The supposition that בּארץ is equivalent to כּאשׁר בּארץ , or even that the Beth is Beth essentiae ("as a,"etc.), are views that have no ground whatever, except as setting the inscription at defiance. What is meant is the parched thirsty desert of sand in which David finds himself. We do not render it: in a dry and languishing land, for ציּה is not an adjective, but a substantive - the transition of the feminine adjective to the masculine primary form, which sometimes (as in 1Ki 19:11) occurs, therefore has no application here; nor: in the land of drought and of weariness, for who would express himself thus? ואיף , referring to the nearest subject בּשׂרי , continues the description of the condition (cf. Gen 25:8). In a region where he is surrounded by sun-burnt aridity and a nature that bears only one uniform ash-coloured tint, which casts its unrefreshing image into his inward part, which is itself in much the same parched condition, his soul thirsts, his flesh languishes, wearied and in want of water ( languidus deficiente aqua ), for God, the living One and the Fountain of life. כּמהּ (here with the tone drawn back, כּמהּ , like בּחר , 1Ch 28:10, עמד , Hab 3:11) of ardent longing which consumes the last energies of a man (root כם , whence כּמן and כּמס to conceal, and therefore like עטף , עלף , proceeding from the idea of enveloping; Arabic Arab. kamiha , to be blind, dark, pale, and disconcerted). The lxx and Theodotion erroneously read כּמּה (how frequently is this the case!); whereas Aquila renders it ἐπετάθη , and Symmachus still better, ἱμείρεται (the word used of the longing of love). It is not a small matter that David is able to predicate such languishing desire after God even of his felsh; it shows us that the spirit has the mastery within him, and not only forcibly keeps the flesh in subjection, but also, so far as possible, draws it into the realm of its own life - an experience confessedly more easily attained in trouble, which mortifies our carnal nature, than in the midst of the abundance of outward prosperity. The God for whom he is sick [ lit . love-sick] in soul and body is the God manifest upon Zion.

Now as to the כּן in Psa 63:3 - a particle which is just such a characteristic feature in the physiognomy of this Psalm as אך is in that of the preceding Psalm - there are two notional definitions to choose from: thus = so, as my God (Ewald), and: with such longing desire (as e.g., Oettinger). In the former case it refers back to the confession, "Elohim, my God art Thou,"which stands at the head of the Psalm; in the latter, to the desire that has just been announced, and that not in its present exceptional character, but in its more general and constant character. This reference to what has immediately gone before, and to the modality, not of the object, but of the disposition of mind, deserves the preference. "Thus"is accordingly equivalent to "longing thus after Thee."The two כן in Psa 63:3 and Psa 63:5 are parallel and of like import. The alternation of the perfect (Psa 63:3) and of the future (Psa 63:5) implies that what has been the Psalmist's favourite occupation heretofore, shall also be so in the future. Moreover, בארץ ציה and בּקּדשׁ form a direct antithesis. Just as he does not in a dry land, so formerly in the sanctuary he looked forth longingly towards God ( חזה with the conjoined idea of solemnity and devotion). We have now no need to take לראות as a gerundive ( videndo ), which is in itself improbable; for one looks, peers, gazes at anything just for the purpose of seeing what the nature of the object is (Psa 14:2; Isa 42:18). The purpose of his gazing upon God as to gain an insight into the nature of God, so far as it is disclosed to the creature; or, as it is expressed here, to see His power and glory, i.e., His majesty on its terrible and on its light and loving side, to see this, viz., in its sacrificial appointments and sacramental self-attestations. Such longing after God, which is now all the more intense in the desert far removed from the sanctuary, filled and impelled him; for God's loving-kindness is better than life, better than this natural life (vid., on Psa 17:14), which is also a blessing, and as the prerequisite of all earthly blessings a very great blessing. The loving-kindness of God, however, is a higher good, is in fact the highest good and the true life: his lips shall praise this God of mercy, his morning song shall be of Him; for that which makes him truly happy, and after which he even now, as formerly, only and solely longs, is the mercy or loving-kindness ( חסד ) of this God, the infinite wroth of which is measured by the greatness of His power ( עז ) and glory ( כבוד ). It might also be rendered, "Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee;"but if כּי is taken as demonstrative (for), it yields a train of thought that that is brought about not merely by what follows (as in the case of the relative because), but also by what precedes: "for Thy loving-kindness...my lips shall then praise Thee"( ישׁבּחוּנך with the suffix appended to the energetic plural form ûn , as in Isa 60:7, Isa 60:10; Jer 2:24).

Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 63:4-8

This strophe again takes up the כּן (Psa 63:3): thus ardently longing, for all time to come also, is he set towards God, with such fervent longing after God will he bless Him in his life, i.e., entirely filling up his life therewith ( בּחיּי as in Psa 104:33; Psa 146:2; cf. Baruch 4:20, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις μου ), and in His name, i.e., invoking it and appealing to it, will he lift up his hands in prayer. The being occupied with God makes him, even though as now in the desert he is obliged to suffer bodily hunger, satisfied and cheerful like the fattest and most marrowy food: velut adipe et pinguedine satiatur anima mea . From Lev 3:17; Lev 7:25, Grussetius and Frisch infer that spiritualies epulae are meant. And certainly the poet cannot have had the sacrificial feasts (Hupfeld) in his mind; for the חלב of the shelamim is put upon the altar, and is removed from the part to be eaten. Moreover, however, even the Tôra does not bind itself in its expression to the letter of that prohibition of the fat of animals, vid., Deu 32:14, cf. Jer 31:14. So here also the expression "with marrow and fat"is the designation of a feast prepared from well-fed, noble beasts. He feels himself satisfied in his inmost nature just as after a feast of the most nourishing and dainty meats, and with lips of jubilant songs ( accus. instrum . according to Ges. §138, rem. 3), i.e., with lips jubilant and attuned to song, shall his mouth sing praise. What now follows in Psa 63:7 we no longer, as formerly, take as a protasis subsequently introduced (like Isa 5:4.): "when I remembered...meditated upon Thee,"but so that Psa 63:7 is the protasis and Psa 63:7 the apodosis, cf. Psa 21:12; Job 9:16 (Hitzig): When I remember Thee ( meminerim , Ew. §355, b ) upon my bed ( stratis meis , as in Psa 132:3; Gen 49:4, cf. 1Ch 5:1) - says he now as the twilight watch is passing gradually into the morning - I meditate upon Thee in the night-watches (Symmachus, καθ ̓ ἑκάστην φυλακήν ), or during, throughout the night-watches (like בּחיּי in Psa 63:5); i.e., it is no passing remembrance, but it so holds me that I pass a great part of the night absorbed in meditation on Thee. He has no lack of matter for his meditation; for God has become a help ( auxilio , vid., on Psa 3:3) to him: He has rescued him in this wilderness, and, well concealed under the shadow of His wings (vid., on Psa 17:8; Psa 36:8; Psa 57:2), which affords him a cool retreat in the heat of conflict and protection against his persecutors, he is able to exult ( ארנּן , the potential). Between himself and God there subsists a reciprocal relationship of active love. According to the schema of the crosswise position of words ( Chiasmus ), אחריך and בּי intentionally jostle close against one another: he depends upon God, following close behind Him, i.e., following Him everywhere and not leaving Him when He wishes to avoid him; and on the other side God's right hand holds him fast, not letting him go, not abandoning him to his foes.

Keil-Delitzsch: Psa 63:9-11

The closing strophe turns towards these foes. By והמּה he contrasts with his own person, as in Psa 59:16., Psa 56:7., the party of the enemy, before which he has retreated into the desert. It is open to question whether לשׁואה is intended to be referred, according to Psa 35:17, to the persecuted one (to destroy my life), or, with Hupfeld, to the persecutors (to their own destruction, they themselves for destruction). If the former reference to the persecuted be adopted, we ought, in order to give prominence to the evidently designed antithesis to Psa 63:9, to translate: those, however, who..., shall go down into the depths of the earth (Böttcher, and others); a rendering which is hazardous as regards the syntax, after המּה and in connection with this position of the words. Therefore translate: On the other hand, those, to (their own) ruin do they seek my soul. It is true this ought properly to be expressed by לשׁואתם , but the absence of the suffix is less hazardous than the above relative rendering of יבּקּשׁוּ . What follows in Psa 63:10-11 is the expansion of לשׁואה . The futures from יבאוּ onwards are to be taken as predictive, not as imprecatory; the former accords better with the quiet, gentle character of the whole song. It shall be with them as with the company of Korah. תּחתּיּות הארץ is the interior of the earth down into its deepest bottom; this signification also holds good in Psa 139:15; Isa 44:23.

(Note: In this passage in Isaiah are meant the depths of the earth (lxx θεμέλια τῆς γῆς ), the earth down to its inmost part, with its caverns, abysses, and subterranean passages. The apostle, however, in Eph 4:9 by τὰ κατώτερα τῆς γῆς means exactly the same as what in our passage is called in the lxx τὰ κατώτατα τῆς γῆς : the interior of the earth = the under world, just as it is understood by all the Greek fathers (so far as my knowledge extends); the comparative κατώτερος is used just like ἐνέρτερος .)

The phrase הגּיר על־ידי חרב here and in Jer 18:21; Eze 35:5 ( Hiph ., not of גּרר , to drag, tear away, but נגר , to draw towards, flow), signifies properly to pour upon = into the hands (Job 16:11), i.e., to give over ( הסגּיר ) into the power of the sword; effundent eum is (much the same as in Job 4:19; Job 18:18, and frequently) equivalent to effundetur . The enallage is like Psa 5:10; Psa 7:2., and frequently: the singular refers to each individual of the homogeneous multitude, or to this multitude itself as a concrete persona moralis . The king, however, who is now banished from Jerusalem to the habitation of jackals, will, whilst they become a portion ( מנת = מנות ), i.e., prey, of the jackals (vid., the fulfilment in 2Sa 18:7.), rejoice in Elohim. Every one who sweareth by Him shall boast himself. Theodoret understands this of swearing κατὰ τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως σωτηρίαν . Hengstenberg compares the oath חי פרעה , Gen 42:15. Ewald also (§217, f) assumes this explanation to be unquestionable. But the Israelite is to swear by the name of Jahve and by no other, Deu 6:13; Isa 65:16, cf. Amo 8:14. If the king were meant, why was it not rather expressed by הנשׁבּע לו , he who swears allegiance to him? The syntax does not help us to decide to what the בּו refers. Neinrich Moeller (1573) says of the בו as referred to the king: peregrinum est et coactum ; and A. H. Franke in his Introductio in Psalterium says of it as referred to Elohim: coactum est . So far as the language is concerned, both references are admissible; but as regards the subject-matter, only the latter. The meaning, as everywhere else, is a searing by God. He who, without allowing himself to turn from it, swore by Elohim, the God of Israel, the God of David His anointed, and therefore acknowledged Him as the Being exalted above all things, shall boast himself or "glory,"inasmuch as it shall be practically seen how well-founded and wise was this recognition. He shall glory, for the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped, forcibly closed, viz., those who, together with confidence in the Christ of God, have by falsehood also undermined the reverence which is due to God Himself. Psa 64:1-10 closes very similarly, and hence is placed next in order.

Constable: Psa 42:1--72:20

II. Book 2: chs. 42--72

In Book 1 we saw that all the psalms except 1, 2, 10, and 33 claimed David as their writer. It is likely that he wrote these four as well even though they do not bear his name. In Book 2 the titles identify David as the writer of 18 psalms (Pss. 51-65, 68-70). He may have written those bearing the notation, "of the sons of Korah" (Pss. 42, 44-49). The sons of Korah (cf. Num. 26:10-11) were musicians (1 Chron. 6:31-48). Some scholars believe David wrote these psalms for them to perform. Others believe the sons of Korah composed them. I think this is a less likely possibility because of the similarity between the content of these psalms and the ones David wrote. Asaph wrote Psalm 50, and Solomon composed Psalm 72. Psalms 43, 66, 67, and 71 are anonymous.

Constable: Psa 63:1-11

Psalm 63

King David wrote this psalm when he was in the wilderness of Judah away from the ark and the place of formal worship (2 Sam. 15:25).

The theme of trust that Psalms 61 and 62 stress reaches a climax in Psalm 63. Even though David was miles away from the ark he still worshipped God.

"There may be other psalms that equal this outpouring of devotion; few if any that surpass it."¹²⁰

Constable: Psa 63:1

1. David's thirst for God 63:1-2

63:1 Evidently David's thirst for water in the wilderness led him to express his soul's thirst for God. "Earnestly" is literally "early." As soon as David arose in the morning he became aware of his need for God just as he needed water shortly after waking up. He was speaking of his sense of dependence on God.

63:2 The king had come to realize his need for God earlier as a result of what he had learned about God in the tabernacle. There he had become sure of God's great power and glory.

Constable: Psa 63:2-7

2. David's satisfaction with God 63:3-8

63:3-4 David's thirst for God found relief as he praised Him. He considered the Lord's loyal love even better than life itself. God's love nourished and refreshed David more than the water he needed.

63:5-6 Thinking about God's ability to satisfy his every need brought a sense of fullness into David's life. He compared this to the feeling of a stomach filled with the richest food. David's meditation on God overflowed in praise.

63:7-8 God's support and provision of safety were the immediate causes of David's meditation and praise. Again David pictured himself as a bird under the wing of its parent and as a dependent infant held by its parent.

Constable: Psa 63:8-10

3. David's confidence in God 63:9-11

63:9-10 Reflecting on his God bolstered the king's confidence that the Lord would preserve him in his present situation. David knew God would deliver him because God had elected him and had blessed him for his submission to the Lord's will.

"Foxes" (v. 10) should probably be "jackals" here since jackals are the ultimate scavengers that eat the remains of a kill that the larger beasts reject.¹²¹ The same Hebrew word describes both animals.

63:11 Instead of anticipating destruction as the Lord's enemies could, David confidently rejoiced. Everyone who sides with God as David did can do the same. Glorying is the equivalent of rejoicing.

Meditation on the person and works of God can bring refreshment and invigoration to any believer. Meditation on God fills a basic need in the heart of every person, as basic a need as food and drink. It not only satisfies the believer but overflows in praise making him or her a blessing to others.

Pendahuluan / Garis Besar

JFB: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

The Hebrew title of this book is Tehilim ("praises" or "hymns"), for a leading feature in its contents is praise, though the word occurs in the title of only one Psalm (the hundred forty-fifth). The Greek title (in the Septuagint, a translation made two hundred years before Christ) is psalmoi, whence our word "Psalms." This corresponds to the Hebrew word mizmoi by which sixty-five Psalms are designated in their inscriptions, and which the Syriac, a language like the Hebrew, uses for the whole book. It means, as does also the Greek name, an ode, or song, whose singing is accompanied by an instrument, particularly the harp (compare 1Ch 16:4-8; 2Ch 5:12-13). To some Psalms, the Hebrew word (shir) "a song," is prefixed. Paul seems to allude to all these terms in Eph 5:19, "singing . . . in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs."

TITLES.--To more than a hundred Psalms are prefixed inscriptions, which give one or more (and in one case, [Psalm 60], all) of these particulars: the direction to the musician, the name of the author or the instrument, the style of the music or of the poetry, the subject or occasion. The authority of these inscriptions has been disputed by some writers. They say that the earliest translators, as the Greek and Syriac, evince a disregard for their authority, by variations from a proper translation of some, altering others, and, in several instances, supplying titles to Psalms which, in Hebrew, had none. It is also alleged that the subject of a Psalm, as given in the title, is often inconsistent with its contents. But those translators have also varied from a right translation of many passages in the Bible, which all agree to be of good authority; and the alleged inconsistency may be shown, on more accurate investigation, not to exist. The admitted antiquity of these inscriptions, on the other hand, and even their obscurity, raise a presumption in their favor, while such prefaces to a composition accord with the usages of that age and part of the world (compare Isa 38:9).

"The Chief Musician" was the superintendent of the music (compare "to oversee," 1Ch 15:21, Margin). "To" prefixed to this, means, "pertaining to" in his official character. This inscription is found in fifty-three Psalms and is attached to Habakkuk's prayer (Hab. 3:1-19). The same Hebrew preposition is prefixed to the name of the author and translated "of," as "a Psalm of David," "of Asaph," except that to "the sons of Korah," it is translated "for," which is evidently wrong, as the usual direction, "to the chief musician," is given, and no other authorship intimated. On the apparent exception to this last remark, see below, and see on Psa 88:1, title. The explanations of other particulars in the titles will be given as they occur.

AUTHORS.--This book is often called "The Psalms of David," he being the only author mentioned in the New Testament (Luk 20:42) and his name appearing in more titles than that of any other writer. Besides about one-half of the Psalms in which it thus appears, Psalms 2 and 95 are ascribed to him (Act 4:25 and Heb 4:7). He was probably the author of many others which appear without a name. He used great efforts to beautify the worship of the sanctuary. Among the two hundred eighty-eight Levites he appointed for singing and performing instrumental music, we find mentioned the "sons of Korah" (1Ch 9:19); including Heman (1Ch 6:33-38); and also Asaph (1Ch 6:39-44); and Ethan (1Ch 15:17-19). God was doubtless pleased to endow these men with the inspiration of His Spirit, so that they used those poetic talents which their connection with the kindred art of music had led them to cultivate, in the production of compositions like those of their king and patron. To Asaph are ascribed twelve Psalms; to the sons of Korah, eleven, including the eighty-eighth, which is also ascribed to Heman, that being the only instance in which the name of the "son" (or descendant) is mentioned; and to Ethan, one. Solomon's name appears before the seventy-second and hundred twenty-seventh; and that of Moses before the ninetieth. Special questions respecting authorship will be explained as they arise.

CONTENTS.--As the book contains one hundred fifty independent compositions, it is not susceptible of any logical analysis. The Jews having divided it into five books, corresponding to the Five Books of Moses (First, Psalms 1-42; Second, Psalms 43-72; Third, Psalms 73-89; Fourth, Psalms 90-106; Fifth, Psalms 107-150), many attempts have been made to discover, in this division, some critical or practical value, but in vain. Sundry efforts have been made to classify the Psalms by subject. Angus' Bible Hand Book is perhaps the most useful, and is appended.

Still the Psalms have a form and character peculiar to themselves; and with individual diversities of style and subject, they all assimilate to that form, and together constitute a consistent system of moral truth. They are all poetical, and of that peculiar parallelism (see Introduction to the Poetical Books,) which distinguished Hebrew poetry. They are all lyrical, or songs adapted to musical instruments, and all religious lyrics, or such as were designed to be used in the sanctuary worship.

The distinguishing feature of the Psalms is their devotional character. Whether their matter be didactic, historical, prophetical, or practical, it is made the ground or subject of prayer, or praise, or both. The doctrines of theology and precepts of pure morality are here inculcated. God's nature, attributes, perfections, and works of creation, providence, and grace, are unfolded. In the sublimest conceptions of the most exalted verse, His glorious supremacy over the principalities of heaven, earth, and hell, and His holy, wise, and powerful control of all material and immaterial agencies, are celebrated. The great covenant of grace resting on the fundamental promise of a Redeemer, both alike the provisions of God's exhaustless mercy, is set forth in respect of the doctrines of regeneration by the Spirit, forgiveness of sins, repentance toward God, and faith toward Jesus Christ, while its glorious results, involving the salvation of men "from the ends of the earth" [Act 13:47], are proclaimed in believing, prophetic prayer and thankful praise. The personal history of the authors, and especially David's in its spiritual aspects, is that of God's people generally. Christian biography is edifying only as it is truth illustrated in experience, such as God's Word and Spirit produce. It may be factitious in origin and of doubtful authenticity. But here the experience of the truly pious is detailed, under divine influence, and "in words which the Holy Ghost" taught [1Co 2:13]. The whole inner life of the pious man is laid open, and Christians of all ages have here the temptations, conflicts, perplexities, doubts, fears, penitent moanings, and overwhelming griefs on the one hand, and the joy and hope of pardoning mercy, the victory over the seductions of false-hearted flatterers, and deliverance from the power of Satan on the other, with which to compare their own spiritual exercises. Here, too, are the fruits of that sovereign mercy, so often sought in earnest prayer, and when found, so often sung in rapturous joy, exhibited by patience in adversity, moderation in prosperity, zeal for God's glory, love for man, justice to the oppressed, holy contempt for the proud, magnanimity towards enemies, faithfulness towards friends, delight in the prosperity of Zion, and believing prayer for her enlargement and perpetuity.

The historical summaries of the Psalms are richly instructive. God's choice of the patriarchs, the sufferings of the Israelites in Egypt, their exodus, temptations of God, rebellions and calamities in the wilderness, settlement in Canaan, backslidings and reformations, furnish illustrations of God's providential government of His people, individually and collectively, tending to exalt His adorable grace and abase human pride. But the promises and prophecies connected with these summaries, and elsewhere presented in the Psalms, have a far wider reach, exhibiting the relations of the book to the great theme of promise and prophecy:

THE MESSIAH AND HIS KINGDOM.--David was God's chosen servant to rule His people, as the head at once of the State and the Church, the lineal ancestor, "according to the flesh" [Act 2:30; Rom 1:3], of His adorable Son, and His type, in His official relations, both in suffering and in triumph. Generally, David's trials by the ungodly depicted the trials of Christ, and his final success the success of Christ's kingdom. Typically, he uses language describing his feelings, which only finds its full meaning in the feelings of Christ. As such it is quoted and applied in the New Testament. And further, in view of the great promise (2Sa 7:12-16) to him and his seed, to which such frequent reference is made in the Psalms, David was inspired to know, that though his earthly kingdom should perish, his spiritual would ever endure, in the power, beneficence, and glory of Christ's. In repeating and amplifying that promise, he speaks not only as a type, but "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne," he "foretold the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. His incarnation, humiliating sorrows, persecution, and cruel death are disclosed in the plaintive cries of a despairing sufferer; and His resurrection and ascension, His eternal priesthood, His royal dignity, His prophetical office, the purchase and bestowal of the gifts of the Spirit, the conversion of the nations, the establishment, increase, and perpetuity of the Church, the end of time, and the blessedness of the righteous who acknowledge, and the ruin of the wicked who reject this King in Zion, are predicted in the language of assured confidence and joy." While these great themes have supplied the people of God with a popular theology and a guide in religious experience and Christian morality, clothed in the language of devotion, they have provided an inspired liturgy in which the pious, of all creeds and sects, have, for nearly three thousand years, poured out their prayers and praises. The pious Jew, before the coming of Christ, mourned over the adversity, or celebrated the future glories, of Zion, in the words of her ancient king. Our Saviour, with His disciples, sang one of these hymns on the night on which He was betrayed [Mat 26:30]; He took from one the words in which He uttered the dreadful sorrows of His soul [Mat 27:46], and died with those of another on His lips [Luk 23:46]. Paul and Silas in the dungeon [Act 16:25], primitive Christians in their covert places of worship, or the costly churches of a later day, and the scattered and feeble Christian flocks in the prevalence of darkness and error through the Middle Ages, fed their faith and warmed their love with these consoling songs. Now, throughout the Christian world, in untold forms of version, paraphrase, and imitation, by Papists and Protestants, Prelatists and Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists--men of all lands and all creeds, in public and private worship, God is still adored in the sentiments expressed in these venerable Psalms. From the tone of sorrow and suffering which pervade their earlier portions we are gradually borne on amid alternate conflicts and triumphs, mournful complaints and awakening confidence; as we approach the close the tones of sorrow grow feebler, and those of praise wax louder and stronger--till, in the exulting strains of the last Psalm, the chorus of earth mingles with the hallelujahs of the multitude, which no man can number, in the sanctuary above.

JFB: Psalms (Garis Besar)

• ALEPH. (Psa 119:1-8). This celebrated Psalm has several peculiarities. It is divided into twenty-two parts or stanzas, denoted by the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza contains eight verses, and the first letter of each verse is that which gives name to the stanza. Its contents are mainly praises of God's Word, exhortations to its perusal, and reverence for it, prayers for its proper influence, and complaints of the wicked for despising it. There are but two verses (Psa 119:122, Psa 119:132) which do not contain some term or description of God's Word. These terms are of various derivations, but here used, for the most part, synonymously, though the use of a variety of terms seems designed, in order to express better the several aspects in which our relations to the revealed word of God are presented. The Psalm does not appear to have any relation to any special occasion or interest of the Jewish Church or nation, but was evidently "intended as a manual of pious thoughts, especially for instructing the young, and its peculiar artificial structure was probably adopted to aid the memory in retaining the language." (Psa. 119:1-176)
• BETH. (Psa 119:9-16). The whole verse may be read as a question; for,
• GIMEL. (Psa 119:17-24). Life is desirable in order to serve God; that we may do so aright, we should seek to have our eyes opened to behold His truth, and earnestly desire fully to understand it.
• DALETH. (Psa 119:25-32). Submitting ourselves in depression to God, He will revive us by His promises, and lead us to declare His mercy to others.
• HE. (Psa 119:33-40). To encourage us in prayer for divine aid in adhering to His truth, we are permitted to believe that by His help we shall succeed.
• VAU. (Psa 119:41-48). The sentiment more fully carried out. God's mercies and salvation, as revealed in His Word, provide hope of forgiveness for the past and security in a righteous course for the future.
• ZAIN. (Psa 119:49-56). Resting on the promises consoles under affliction and the tauntings of the insolent.
• CHETH. (Psa 119:57-64). Sincere desires for God's favor, penitence, and activity in a new obedience, truly evince the sincerity of those who profess to find God a portion (Num 18:20; Psa 16:5; Lam 3:24).
• TETH. (Psa 119:65-72). The reliance on promises (Psa 119:49) is strengthened by experience of past dealings according with promises, and a prayer for guidance, encouraged by sanctified affliction.
• JOD. (Psa 119:73-80). As God made, so He can best control, us. So as to Israel, he owed to God his whole internal and external existence (Deu 32:6).
• CAPH. (Psa 119:81-88). In sorrow the pious heart yearns for the comforts of God's promises (Psa 73:26; Psa 84:2).
• LAMED. (Psa 119:89-96). In all changes God's Word remains firm (1Pe 1:25). Like the heavens, it continually attests God's unfailing power and unchanging care (Psa 89:2).
• MEM. (Psa 119:97-104). This characteristic love for God's law (compare Psa 1:2) ensures increase.
• NUN. (Psa 119:105-112). Not only does the Word of God inform us of His will, but, as a light on a path in darkness, it shows us how to follow the right and avoid the wrong way. The lamp of the Word is not the sun. He would blind our eyes in our present fallen state; but we may bless God for the light shining as in a dark place, to guide us until the Sun of Righteousness shall come, and we shall be made capable of seeing Him (2Pe 1:19; Rev 22:4). The lamp is fed with the oil of the Spirit. The allusion is to the lamps and torches carried at night before an Eastern caravan.
• SAMECH. (Psa 119:113-120).
• AIN. (Psa 119:121-128). On the grounds of his integrity, desire for God's word, and covenant relation to Him, the servant of God may plead for His protecting care against the wicked, gracious guidance to the knowledge of truth, and His effective vindication of the righteous and their cause, which is also His own.
• PE. (Psa 119:129-136).
• TZADDI. (Psa 119:137-144). God's justice and faithfulness in His government aggravate the neglect of the wicked, and more excite the lively zeal of His people.
• KOPH. (Psa 119:145-152). An intelligent devotion is led by divine promises and is directed to an increase of gracious affections, arising from a contemplation of revealed truth.
• RESH. (Psa 119:153-160). Though the remembering of God's law is not meritorious, yet it evinces a filial temper and provides the pious with promises to plead, while the wicked in neglecting His law, reject God and despise His promises (compare Psa 9:13; Psa 43:1; Psa 69:18).
• SCHIN. (Psa 119:161-168). (Compare Psa 119:46, Psa 119:86).
• TAU. (Psa 119:169-176). The prayer for understanding of the truth precedes that for deliverance. The fulfilment of the first is the basis of the fulfilment of the second (Psa 90:11-17). On the terms "cry" and "supplication" (compare Psa 6:9; Psa 17:1).
• LIVING VOICES SHALL TAKE UP THE FAILING SOUNDS OF DEAD INSTRUMENTS, AND AS THEY CEASE ON EARTH, THOSE OF INTELLIGENT RANSOMED SPIRITS AND HOLY ANGELS, AS WITH THE SOUND OF MIGHTY THUNDERS, WILL PROLONG ETERNALLY THE PRAISE, SAYING: "ALLELUIA! SALVATION, AND GLORY, AND HONOR, AND POWER, UNTO THE LORD OUR GOD;" "ALLELUIA! FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH." AMEN!.

TSK: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

The Psalms have been the general song of the universal Church; and in their praise, all the Fathers have been unanimously eloquent. Men of all nations find in these compositions a language at once suitable to their feelings, and expressive of their highest joys and deepest sorrows, as well as of all the endlessly varied wishes and desires of their hearts. Whether the pious believer is disposed to indulge the exalted sentiments of praise and thanksgiving towards the ALMIGHTY FATHER of his being; to pour out his soul in penitence or prayer; to bewail, with tears of contrition, past offences; to magnify the goodness and mercy of GOD; to dwell with ecstacy on the divine attributes of wisdom and omnipotence; or to rejoice in the coming of the MESSIAH, the Psalms afford him the most perfect models for expressing all his feelings.

TSK: Psalms 63 (Pendahuluan Pasal)

Overview

Psa 63:1, David’s thirst for God; Psa 63:4, His manner of blessing God; Psa 63:9, His confidence of his enemies’ destruction, and his own safety.

1Sa 22:5, 1Sa 23:14-16, 1Sa 23:23-25, 1Sa 26:1-3; 2Sa 15:28

Poole: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

OF PSALMS

THE ARGUMENT

The divine authority of this Book of PSALMS is so certain and evident, that it was never questioned in the church; which being fixed, it is of small moment that the penman of some of them is not now known; nor doth this any more lessen its authority, than it invalidates the decree of a prince, or an act of parliament, that it is not certain by whose pen it was drawn up. Most of them were composed by David, as is evident, both from the title of them, and from the express testimony of the New Testament concerning some of them; and that by the inspiration of God’ s Spirit, as appears both from the Divine matter and frame of them, and from 2Sa 23:1 Mat 22:43 Act 1:16 2:25 . But some of them were composed by other persons; by Moses, as Ps 90 , by Heman, and Ethan, and Asaph, as the title of the Psalms show; and by others after their times, whose names are not mentioned, as is manifest from Ps 126 Ps 127 . It is apparent that the Psalms were not written in the order in which they now lie; and they were put into this order either by Ezra, as the Hebrew doctors affirm, or by some other holy prophet or prophets. It is sufficient for us that the whole book is owned as canonical by our blessed Saviour, Luk 24:44 .

PSALM 1

MHCC: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

David was the penman of most of the psalms, but some evidently were composed by other writers, and the writers of some are doubtful. But all were written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and no part of the Old Testament is more frequently quoted or referred to in the New. Every psalm either points directly to Christ, in his person, his character, and offices; or may lead the believer's thoughts to Him. And the psalms are the language of the believer's heart, whether mourning for sin, thirsting after God, or rejoicing in Him. Whether burdened with affliction, struggling with temptation, or triumphing in the hope or enjoyment of deliverance; whether admiring the Divine perfections, thanking God for his mercies, mediating on his truths, or delighting in his service; they form a Divinely appointed standard of experience, by which we may judge ourselves. Their value, in this view, is very great, and the use of them will increase with the growth of the power of true religion in the heart. By the psalmist's expressions, the Spirit helps us to pray. If we make the psalms familiar to us, whatever we have to ask at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may be assisted from thence. Whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may here find words to clothe it; sound speech which cannot be condemned. In the language of this Divine book, the prayers and praises of the church have been offered up to the throne of grace from age to age.

MHCC: Psalms 63 (Pendahuluan Pasal)

(Psa 63:1, Psa 63:2) David's desire toward God.

(Psa 63:3-6) His satisfaction in God.

(Psa 63:7-11) His dependence upon God, and assurance of safety.

Matthew Henry: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of Psalms

We have now before us one of the choicest and most excellent parts of all the Old Testament; nay, so much is there in it of Christ and his gospel, as well as of God and his law, that it had been called the abstract, or summary, of both Testaments. The History of Israel, which we were long upon, let us to camps and council-boards, and there entertained and instructed us in the knowledge of God. The book of Job brought us into the schools, and treated us with profitable disputations concerning God and his providence. But this book brings us into the sanctuary, draws us off from converse with men, with the politicians, philosophers, or disputers of this world, and directs us into communion with God, by solacing and reposing our souls in him, lifting up and letting out our hearts towards him. Thus may we be in the mount with God; and we understand not our interests if we say not, It is good to be here. Let us consider,

I. The title of this book. It is called, 1. The Psalms; under that title it is referred to, Luk 24:44. The Hebrew calls it Tehillim , which properly signifies Psalms of praise, because many of them are such; but Psalms is a more general word, meaning all metrical compositions fitted to be sung, which may as well be historical, doctrinal, or supplicatory, as laudatory. Though singing be properly the voice of joy, yet the intention of songs is of a much greater latitude, to assist the memory, and both to express and to excite all the other affections as well as this of joy. The priests had a mournful muse as well as joyful ones; and the divine institution of singing psalms is thus largely intended; for we are directed not only to praise God, but to teach and admonish ourselves and one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, Col 3:16. 2. It is called the Book of Psalms; so it is quoted by St. Peter, Act 1:20. It is a collection of psalms, of all the psalms that were divinely inspired, which, though composed at several times and upon several occasions, are here put together without any reference to or dependence upon one another; thus they were preserved from being scattered and lost, and were in so much greater readiness for the service of the church. See what a good master we serve, and what pleasantness there is in wisdom's ways, when we are not only commanded to sing at our work, and have cause enough given us to do so, but have words also put in our mouths and songs prepared to our hands.

II. The author of this book. It is, no doubt, derived originally from the blessed Spirit. They are spiritual songs, words which the Holy Ghost taught. The penman of most of them was David the son of Jesse, who is therefore called the sweet psalmist of Israel, 2Sa 23:1. Some that have not his name in their titles yet are expressly ascribed to him elsewhere, as Psa 2:1-12 (Act 4:25) and Psa 96:1-13 and 105 (1 Chr. 16). One psalm is expressly said to be the prayer of Moses (Ps. 90); and that some of the psalms were penned by Asaph is intimated, 2Ch 29:30, where they are said to praise the Lord in the words of David and Asaph , who is there called a seer or prophet. Some of the psalms seem to have been penned long after, as Psa 137:1-9, at the time of the captivity in Babylon; but the far greater part of them were certainly penned by David himself, whose genius lay towards poetry and music, and who was raised up, qualified, and animated, for the establishing of the ordinance of singing psalms in the church of God, as Moses and Aaron were, in their day, for the settling of the ordinances of sacrifice; theirs is superseded, but his remains, and will to the end of time, when it shall be swallowed up in the songs of eternity. Herein David was a type of Christ, who descended from him, not from Moses, because he came to take away sacrifice (the family of Moses was soon lost and extinct), but to establish and perpetuate joy and praise; for of the family of David in Christ there shall be no end.

III. The scope of it. It is manifestly intended, 1. To assist the exercises of natural religion, and to kindle in the souls of men those devout affections which we owe to God as our Creator, owner, ruler, and benefactor. The book of Job helps to prove our first principles of the divine perfections and providence; but this helps to improve them in prayers and praises, and professions of desire towards him, dependence on him, and an entire devotedness and resignation to him. Other parts of scripture show that God is infinitely above man, and his sovereign Lord; but this shows us that he may, notwithstanding, be conversed with by us sinful worms of the earth; and there are ways in which, if it be not our own fault, we may keep up communion with him in all the various conditions of human life. 2. To advance the excellencies of revealed religion, and in the most pleasing powerful manner to recommend it to the world. There is indeed little or nothing of the ceremonial law in all the book of Psalms. Though sacrifice and offering were yet to continue many ages, yet they are here represented as things which God did not desire (Psa 40:6, Psa 51:16), as things comparatively little, and which in time were to vanish away. But the word and law of God, those parts of it which are moral and of perpetual obligation are here all along magnified and made honourable, nowhere more. And Christ, the crown and centre of revealed religion, the foundation, corner, and top-stone, of that blessed building, is here clearly spoken of in type and prophecy, his sufferings and the glory that should follow, and the kingdom that he should set up in the world, in which God's covenant with David, concerning his kingdom, was to have its accomplishment. What a high value does this book put upon the word of God, his statutes and judgments, his covenant and the great and precious promises of it; and how does it recommend them to us as our guide and stay, and our heritage for ever!

IV. The use of it. All scripture, being given by inspiration of God, is profitable to convey divine light into our understandings; but this book is of singular use with that to convey divine life and power, and a holy warmth, into our affections. There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church, ever since it was written and the several parts of it were delivered to the chief musician for the service of the church. 1. It is of use to be sung. Further than David's psalms we may go, but we need not, for hymns and spiritual songs. What the rules of the Hebrew metre were even the learned are not certain. But these psalms ought to be rendered according to the metre of every language, at least so as that they may be sung for the edification of the church. And methinks it is a great comfort to us, when we are singing David's psalms, that we are offering the very same praises to God that were offered to him in the days of David and the other godly kings of Judah. So rich, so well made, are these divine poems, that they can never be exhausted, can never be worn thread-bare. 2. It is of use to be read and opened by the ministers of Christ, as containing great and excellent truths, and rules concerning good and evil. Our Lord Jesus expounded the psalms to his disciples, the gospel psalms, and opened their understandings (for he had the key of David) to understand them, Luk 24:44. 3. It is of use to be read and meditated upon by all good people. It is a full fountain, out of which we may all be drawing water with joy. (1.) The Psalmist's experiences are of great use for our direction, caution, and encouragement. In telling us, as he often does, what passed between God and his soul, he lets us know what we may expect from God, and what he will expect, and require, and graciously accept, from us. David was a man after God's own heart, and therefore those who find themselves in some measure according to his heart have reason to hope that they are renewed by the grace of God, after the image of God, and many have much comfort in the testimony of their consciences for them that they can heartily say Amen to David's prayers and praises. (2.) Even the Psalmist's expressions too are of great use; and by them the Spirit helps our praying infirmities, because we know not what to pray for as we ought. In all our approaches to God, as well as in our first returns to God, we are directed to take with us words (Hos 14:2), these word, words which the Holy Ghost teaches. If we make David's psalms familiar to us, as we ought to do, whatever errand we have at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may thence be assisted in the delivery of it; whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may there find apt words wherewith to clothe it, sound speech which cannot be condemned. It will be good to collect the most proper and lively expressions of devotion which we find here, and to methodize them, and reduce them to the several heads of prayer, that they may be the more ready to us. Or we may take sometimes one choice psalm and sometimes another, and pray it over, that is, enlarge upon each verse in our own thoughts, and offer up our meditations to God as they arise from the expressions we find there. The learned Dr. Hammond, in his preface to his paraphrase on the Psalms (sect. 29), says, " That going over a few psalms with these interpunctions of mental devotion, suggested, animated, and maintained, by the native life and vigour which is in the psalms, is much to be preferred before the saying over the whole Psalter, since nothing is more fit to be averted in religious offices than their degenerating into heartless dispirited recitations." If, as St. Austin advises, we form our spirit by the affection of the psalm, we may then be sure of acceptance with God in using the language of it. Nor is it only our devotion, and the affections of our mind, that the book of Psalms assists, teaching us how to offer praise so as to glorify God, but, it is also a directory to the actions of our lives, and teaches us how to order our conversation aright, so as that, in the end, we may see the salvation of God, Psa 50:23. The Psalms were thus serviceable to the Old Testament church, but to us Christians they may be of more use than they could be to those who lived before the coming of Christ; for, as Moses's sacrifices, so David's songs, are expounded and made more intelligible by the gospel of Christ, which lets us within the veil; so that if to David's prayers and praises we all St. Paul's prayers in his epistles, and the new songs in the Revelation, we shall be thoroughly furnished for this good work; for the scripture, perfected, makes the man of God perfect.

As to the division of this book, we need not be solicitous; there is no connexion (or very seldom) between one psalm and another, nor any reason discernable for the placing of them in the order wherein we here find them; but it seems to be ancient, for that which is now the second psalm was so in the apostles' time, Act 13:33. The vulgar Latin joins the 9th and 10th together; all popish authors quote by that, so that, thenceforward, throughout the book, their number is one short of ours; our 11 is their 10, our 119 is their 118. But they divide the 147th into two, and so make up the number of 150. Some have endeavoured to reduce the psalms to proper heads, according to the matter of them, but there is often such a variety of matter in one and the same psalm that this cannot be done with any certainty. But the seven penitential Psalms have been in a particular manner singled out by the devotions of many. They are reckoned to be Psa 6:1-10, Psa 32:1-11, 38, 51,102, Psa 130:1-8, and Psa 143:1-12. The Psalms were divided into five books, each concluding with Amen, Amen, or Hallelujah; the first ending with Psa 41:1-13, the second with Ps. 72, the third with Ps. 89, the fourth with Ps. 106, the fifth with Psa 150:1-6. Others divide them into three fifties; others into sixty parts, two for every day of the month, one for the morning, the other for the evening. Let good Christians divide them for themselves, so as may best increase their acquaintance with them, that they may have them at hand upon all occasions and may sing them in the spirit and with the understanding.

Matthew Henry: Psalms 63 (Pendahuluan Pasal)

This psalm has in it as much of warmth and lively devotion as any of David's psalms in so little a compass. As the sweetest of Paul's 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. That which grieved him most in his banishment was the want of public ordinances; these he here longs to be restored to the enjoyment of; and the present want did but whet his appetite. Yet it is not the ordinances, but the God of the ordinances, that his heart is upon. And here we have, I. His desire towards God (Psa 63:1, Psa 63:2). II. His esteem of God (Psa 63:3, Psa 63:4). III. His satisfaction in God (Psa 63:5). IV. His secret communion with God (Psa 63:6). V. His joyful dependence upon God (Psa 63:7, Psa 63:8). IV. His holy triumph in God over his enemies and in the assurance of his own safety (Psa 63:9-11). A devout and pious soul has little need of direction how to sing this psalm, so naturally does it speak its own genuine language; and an unsanctified soul, that is unacquainted and unaffected with divine things, is scarcely capable of singing it with understanding.

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

Constable: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

Introduction

Title

The title of this book in the Hebrew Bible is Tehillim, which means "praise songs." The title adopted by the Septuagint translators for their Greek version was Psalmoi meaning "songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument." This Greek word comes from the Hebrew word mizmor that occurs in the titles of 57 of the psalms. In time the Greek word psalmoi came to mean "songs of praise" without reference to stringed accompaniment. The English translators transliterated the Greek title resulting in the title "Psalms" in English Bibles.

Date and Writers

The texts of the individual psalms do not usually indicate who wrote them.¹ However some of the titles of the individual psalms do contain information about the writers.² This is the only really reliable information we have as to who composed these psalms, though the commentators have their theories.

Not all the titles contain information about authorship.³ The ones that do refer to the following writers. Moses wrote Psalm 90.⁴ David composed 73 psalms, mostly in the first two books of the Psalter (i.e., Pss. 1-72). Asaph wrote 12 (Pss. 50, 73-83). Korah's descendents were responsible for 10 (Pss. 42, 44-49, 84, 87-88). Solomon wrote one or two (127 and perhaps 72). Heman the Ezrahite wrote one (Ps. 88). Ethan the Ezrahite composed one (Ps. 89).

Of these the earliest would have been the one Moses wrote (Ps. 90) and it probably dates from about 1405 B.C. Those David composed would have originated between about 1020 and 975 B.C. Asaph was a contemporary of David so we can date his in approximately the same period. Solomon's psalm(s) seem to have been produced about 950 B.C. Korah's descendents as well as Heman and Ethan probably lived after Solomon, but exactly when we cannot identify. Since Heman and Ethan are connected with Ezra as Ezrahites it is probable that they lived and wrote after the Babylonian exile as he did.

We can date some of the psalms that do not contain information about their writers in the title, if they have a title, by their subject matter. For example, David seems to have written Psalms 2 and 33 even though his name does not occur in the superscriptions (cf. Acts 4:25). Likewise Psalms 126 and 137 must have been late compositions dating from the time the Jews returned from Babylonian exile or shortly after that.

Most of the Psalms, then, were written between 1000 and 450 B.C. The one by Moses was composed considerably earlier and a few may have been written later, but probably not much later, than 450 B.C.

There is some internal evidence in the Book of Psalms that the Jews collected the individual psalms and compiled them into groups in various stages and that this process took some time.⁵ We would expect this because some psalms date hundreds of years after others. Psalm 72:20, for example, seems to mark the end of a collection of David's psalms that antedated the Psalter we now have, but which editors incorporated into the larger work. Psalm 1 appears intended to introduce this collection and, probably later, the entire Psalter. The writer of most of the first 72 psalms (Books 1 and 2 of our modern editions) was David.⁶ Solomon (2 Chron. 5:11-14; 7:6; 9:11; Eccles. 2:8), Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:21-22), and Jehoiada (2 Chron. 23:18) all organized temple singing and may have had a hand in compiling some of the psalms. Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.; 2 Kings 18-20; 2 Chron. 29-32), one of Judah's best kings and one who led his people in returning to Scripture, may have added to and organized part of the Psalter (cf. 2 Chron. 29:25-28, 30; 30:21; 31:2; Prov. 25:1). So may Josiah, another reforming king of Judah (640-609 B.C.; 2 Kings 22:1-23:30; 2 Chron. 34-35; cf. 2 Chron. 35:15, 25). The last two books (sections) of Psalms (chs. 90-106 and 107-150) contain more miscellaneous psalms dating from Moses to the return from exile. It seems likely that Ezra, the great renovator of postexilic Judaism, may have been responsible for adding these and perhaps putting the whole collection in its final form.

"The picture that emerges is a mixture of order and informality of arrangement, which invites but also defeats the attempt to account for every detail of its final form. There is some chronological progression, with David most in evidence in the first half, and a clear allusion to the captivity towards the close of Book V (Ps. 137). But David reappears in the next psalm (138), and by contrast, the fall of Jerusalem had been lamented as far back as Psalm 74."⁷

Each of the five books or major sections of the Psalter ends with a doxology, and Psalm 150 is a grand doxology for the whole collection. The earliest evidence of the five-fold division of the Book of Psalms comes from the Qumran scrolls, which scribes copied early in the first century A.D. Undoubtedly the Psalter was in its final form by the close of the Old Testament canon, namely by 400 B.C.

Scope

Historically the psalms cover a period of about 1000 years, from the time of Moses (c. 1400 B.C.) to the Isrealites' return from exile (c. 450 B.C.).

In terms of subject matter they deal with selected events of that millennium. They provide us with the thoughts and feelings of those who went through the experiences recorded, especially their God-directed thoughts and feelings.

"Of all the books in the Old Testament the Book of Psalms most vividly represents the faith of individuals in the Lord. The Psalms are the inspired responses of human hearts to God's revelation of Himself in law, history, and prophecy. Saints of all ages have appropriated this collection of prayers and praises in their public worship and private meditations."⁸

Genre

"One should think of this aspect of interpretation as being like the Olympics, a grand occasion made up of a variety of sports. Though it is all sport, each game is played by its own rules and has its own expectations about how to play the game. The variety of literature is the same way. It all has a message, but it conveys that message in a variety of ways and with a variety of expectations. To try to play basketball with soccer's rules will never work, though both use a ball and require foot speed. Or think of musical instruments, they all make music, but in different ways with different sounds. One cannot play the violin like a piano or drums; nor should one expect a violin to sound like either a piano or the kettledrum! In the same way, to read the poetry of the Psalms like a historical book is to miss the emotional and pictorial impact of the message, though both genres convey reality about people's experience with God. To transform the imagery and setting of the Psalter into mere theological proposition is also to take the passion and lifeblood out of its veins."⁹

Types

The messianic psalms are perhaps the most commonly known type. They predict the coming of a messiah. Franz Delitzsch broke these psalms down into five kinds. The first is the purely prophetic, which predicts that a future Davidic king would be the Lord (Ps. 110). Second, the eschatological psalms predict the coming of Messiah and the consummation of His kingdom (Pss. 96-99, et al.). Third, we have the typological-prophetic in which the writer describes his own experience but goes beyond that to describe what became true of the Messiah (e.g., Ps. 22). Fourth, there are the indirectly messianic psalms composed for a contemporary king but having ultimate fulfillment in Messiah (Pss. 2: 45; 72). Fifth, we have the typically messianic in which the writer was in some way typical of Messiah, but all he wrote in the psalm did not describe Him (e.g., Ps. 34:20; 109:8 as used in Acts 1:20).¹⁰ The following seem to be messianic psalms in whole or in part: 2 (cf. Matt. 3:17; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:5; 7:28; 2 Pet. 1:17); 8 (Matt. 21:15-16; Heb. 2:6-9); 16 (Acts 2:25-28; 13:55); 22 (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34); 34; 40; 41; 45 (Heb. 1:8-9); 68; 69 (John 2:17; 15:25); 72; 96-99; 102; 109; 110; and 118 (Matt. 21:42).¹¹

The imprecatory psalms are thought of as a distinct type by some interpreters on the basis of their subject matter.¹² These psalms contain imprecations, or curses, on God's enemies. They have created a problem for some Christians since Jesus Christ taught His disciples to bless their enemies and not to curse them (Matt. 5:43-44; Luke 6:27-28; cf. Rom. 12:14). In the progress of revelation it was not easy for the writers of the psalms to see the details of the future distinctly. They could not feel the peace about God's ultimate establishment of justice that modern believers who know their Bibles do. Consequently when they witnessed injustice and oppression they did not usually know how God would deal with it so they called on Him to vindicate Himself immediately. With the coming of Jesus Christ and the added revelation He provided believers now have a fuller picture of how God will balance the scales of justice. It is therefore inappropriate for us to pray imprecations of the sort we find in the Old Testament. God has recorded them for our benefit, not as examples to follow in their wording but in their spirit of zeal for God's glory.¹³

What is now the most common way of classifying the psalms originated with the German scholar Hermann Gunkel at the beginning of the twentieth century.¹⁴ He was one of the founders of the form critical school of scholarship that sought to understand a given portion of Scripture by analyzing the form in which the writer composed it. Scholars then compared that form with other biblical and contemporary literature from the ancient Near Eastern countries that were Israel's neighbors, particularly Egypt and Mesopotamia. Gunkel classified the psalms into various categories or types (Germ. gattungen) by trying to identify the general situation in life (Germ. sitz im leben) that brought them into existence rather than by their content. He concluded that most of the psalms were postexilic. Many scholars have followed this form critical approach in their study of the Psalms as well as in other portions of the Old Testament.¹⁵

Most form critical scholars speculated about the origins of the various psalms and concluded that priests wrote most of them late in Israel's history. This has led many conservatives to reject form criticism completely. Nonetheless this school of interpreters has given us some helpful information, namely the various literary types of psalms that appear in the book.

Some of the more important types of psalms by literary form are the following. Individual laments are psalms by individuals calling on God for help from distress. National laments are similar but voice a corporate cry for help in view of some national situation.

"Laments outnumber every other kind of psalm in the Psalter; almost a third of the psalms belong to this category."¹⁶

Thanksgiving psalms--also called psalms of declarative praise--center on some act of deliverance God granted His people. Descriptive praise psalms offer praise to God for Himself or for His general working rather than for a specific instance of His working. The poets wrote the pilgrim psalms, also called songs of ascent, for singing by the Israelites as they made their thrice-yearly pilgrimages up to Jerusalem for the required festival observances there. Royal psalms are those in which the king of Israel is the chief character. Some event in his reign is being described such as his coronation, wedding, or going out to battle. The enthronement psalms speak of the Lord as the great king fulfilling His role in some way such as reigning or coming to judge.

Another type of psalm, based on the form in which the writer set it rather than on the subject matter, is the acrostic. In these each verse, or group of verses in the case of Psalm 119, begins with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The psalmists adopted this style so the Israelites could memorize and remember the psalm easily. The acrostic psalms are these: 9, 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, and 145.¹⁷

Message¹⁸

The Book of Psalms is an inspired collection of Hebrew poems intended for use in worship. Spirit directed compilers put them in their present order for several reasons including authorship and affinity of ideas. The compilers did not organize them in the order in which the psalmist wrote them. Each psalm is the expression of one writer who responded to God in the light of his particular circumstances when he wrote. Consequently there is no argument or progression of thought as the reader makes his or her way through the book.

The subject of the Book of Psalms is worship. Worship is the act of offering to God what is due Him because of who He is. The Hebrew word translated "worship" (shachah) means to bow oneself down or to do obeisance. The psalmists used it to describe prostration before God or some angel or another human being. It pictures an attitude of submission to a superior person. This word occurs only 15 times in Psalms with God as the object, but the idea of worshipping God is present in every psalm.

In these 15 passages the psalmists referred to God as Yahweh, Elohim, or Adonai. Those worshipping Him are individuals, kings, nations, and all the earth. His temple (Israel's central sanctuary) and His holy hill (Mt. Zion) were the central places of worship. Fear, holiness, and joy are the primary attitudes prominent in this worship.

God's people throughout history have loved the Psalter. There are a number of reasons for its popularity. First, it is a collection of songs that arise out of experiences with which we can all identify. It is very difficult to find any circumstance in life that does not find expression in some psalm or another. Some arose out of prosperity, others out of adversity. Some psalms deal with holiness, and others with sinfulness. Some are laments that bewail the worst of situations whereas others are triumphant hymns of joy and thanksgiving. Some look back to the past while others look forward to the future.

The psalms are great because their writers composed them out of their most profound experiences. Great poetry arises out of great living. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). They are also great because the writers brought these profound experiences into God's presence. They show how people behave when they are conscious of God, the only truly realistic way to live. Therefore the permanent value of the psalms lies in their revelation of worship.

First, the Psalter reveals the person of God who is the object of worship. The primary revelation of God's character in the psalms is His names. The writers employed dozens of titles and figures of speech to describe God, but the three names of God that they used most are Yahweh, Elohim, and Adonai. When we understand these names alone we will want to worship God.

The name Yahweh captures the essential being of God. He is who He is (Exod. 3:14). This name occurs more often than any other in the psalms. Essentially it means that God is the eternally self-existent Person who becomes all that His people need. God's being is never the subject of debate in the psalms. The writers assumed His existence. As Yahweh God is always an adequate resource for whatever His people need whenever they have needs. That is because the Name Yahweh describes God in covenant relationship with His people. Translators normally render it LORD in English translations. Psalm 139 is perhaps the greatest exposition of the essential being of God, and Psalm 23 the chief revelation of His becoming all His people need.

The second great name of God in the Psalter is Elohim. Normally this Hebrew word translates as "God" in our English Bibles. It is a plural word in the Hebrew, which does not necessarily signify number but immensity. God as He reveals Himself is so infinite that no singular word can express Him adequately. "Elohim" suggests God's essential might and the fact that He is extremely powerful. God's strength is not just potential, but kinetic (i.e., in motion). It is latent, but also active. Such power elicited the awe of the psalmists. Psalm 68 is perhaps the greatest revelation of God's essential might in the Psalter, and Psalm 46 sets forth His great power at work most impressively.

The title "Adonai" (Lord in the sense of Master) does not occur frequently in the psalms, but the idea it expresses is present constantly. This title expresses the sovereignty of God, the fact that there is no one higher in authority than He. He is the King over the whole universe and the ultimate ruler over Israel. Perhaps Psalm 86 sets forth the sovereignty of God more magnificently than any other psalm.

Whenever a person, king, nation, or race conceives of God as Yahweh, Elohim, or Adonai the result is worship. We can do nothing else but prostrate ourselves before such an One. That is what the writers of these psalms did as they reflected on their experiences in the light of who God is.

The second great revelation of the Psalter is man's attitude in worship. Briefly we see man responding to the revelation of God joyfully, trustfully, and submissively. When we understand that God Himself is an adequate resource for us regardless of our needs, we worship by rejoicing. When we appreciate God's mighty power we worship Him by trusting Him. When we learn that God is sovereign we respond in worship by submitting to Him.

When we appreciate God's grace in providing all we need we rejoice. In the psalms we see joy manifesting itself in penitence and adoration. Penitence manifests joy in the following way. We have God's promises of forgiveness if we confess when we sin. Forgiveness for sin is one of God's greatest gifts to humankind. It is not something we can earn or deserve. It is a gift of God based ultimately on a work God has done for us through His Son. The penitential root attitude blossoms into adoration for God's grace. The sweetest music comes out of hearts broken by sin, hearts aware of their total bankruptcy before God. The most glorious praises spring from the lips of those who most sense the great gifts God has given them.

Trust in God's almighty power expresses itself in honesty and courage. Honesty is the internal fruit of trust and courage its external manifestation. The person who really trusts God's power will be open and honest because he believes God will exercise His power to defend him. He will be willing to take risks because he is relying on God's supernatural power to sustain and uphold him. The psalmists expressed themselves and behaved honestly before God and people because they believed in His sovereignty. They also faced danger courageously because they believed God could and would provide adequate help for His own.

Submission to the sovereignty of God expresses itself in reverence and obedience in the psalms. Reverence is the external evidence of submission to God, and obedience the core proof of it. The person who really believes God is the ultimate authority will respect Him. He will also yield to God's superior authority submissively. We see the psalmists expressing their reverence for God and bowing humbly to His will throughout the Psalter.

The third major revelation concerning worship in the psalms is the activities of worship. As we have seen, one's conception of God leads to worship, and one's attitudes shape worship. One's activities also demonstrate worship.

The psalms reveal that worship grows out of something God has done for man. Man does not worship because there is something intrinsic within him that must come out. Worship is always a response to something God has done. God elicits worship. Man does not initiate it on his own. Throughout the psalms the psalmists responded to God's dealings with them. God is always the initiator and man the responder. This fact helps us see that God is worthy of worship.

Human response in worship involves opening the soul to God. David's confession in Psalm 32 is a good example of this. He rejoiced in his open relationship with God when he acknowledged his sin. He also received God's gift of pardon. Then he offered praise to God. These are the essential human activities of worship: confession, reception, and praise.

After God initiates worship and man responds by worshipping, God becomes to the worshipper all he or she needs. God is true and faithful in His dealings with worshippers. He becomes for us all we need when we worship Him. Thus the activities of worship begin and end with God. They begin with His initiating situations in life. They end with His drawing us to Himself. In between we bare our souls, receive His gifts, and offer our praise.

The message of the Psalter then is, "Worship God!" Turn every situation into an occasion for worship. If we are sad we should worship. If we are glad we should worship. If we are in the dark we should worship. If we are in the light we should worship. The Apostle Paul expressed it this way in Philippians 4:4 and 7: "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice. . . . And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. You praise the Lord" (Ps. 150:6).

Constable: Psalms (Garis Besar)

Outline

I. Book 1: chs. 1-41

II. Book 2: chs. 42-72

III. Book 3: chs. 73-89

IV. Book 4: chs. 90-106

V. Book 5: chs. 107-150

Constable: Psalms

Psalms

Bibliography

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_____. Fortolkning til de Gemmeltestamentlige Salmer. Kobenhavn: G. E. C. Gad, 1939.

Bock, Darrell L. "Interpreting the Bible--How Texts Speak to Us." In Progressive Dispensationalism, pp. 76-105. By Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1993.

Bratcher, Robert G., ed. Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament. 3rd rev. ed. London: United Bible Societies, 1987.

Cansdale, G. S. Animals of Bible Lands. London: Paternoster Press, 1970.

Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Systematic Theology. 8 vols. Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948.

Childs, Brevard S. Memory and Tradition in Israel. Studies in Biblical Theology series, no. 37. London: SCM, 1962.

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_____. "Does God Deceive?" Bibliotheca Sacra 155:617 (January-March 1998):11-28.

_____. "A Theology of the Psalms." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 257-304. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

INTRODUCTION.

The Psalms are called by the Hebrew, Tehillim; that is, hymns of praise. The author, of a great part of them at least, was king David; but many are of opinion, that some of them were made by Asaph and others, whose names are prefixed in the titles. (Challoner) --- These, however, are not unquestionably of divine authority, though they deserve to be respected. (Calmet) --- St. Jerome (ad Cyprian) says: "Let us be convinced that those labour under a mistake, who suppose that David was the author of all the Psalms, and not those whose names appear in the titles." Paine is not, therefore, the first who has made this discovery. (Watson) (2 Paralipomenon xxix. 30.) --- Psalm lxxvi., compared with Psalms xxxviii., lxiv., lxx., cxi., cxxv., cxxxvi., and cxlv., seems favourable of this opinion, (Calmet; Tirinus; &c.) which is contrary to St. Ambrose, &c. The matter is not of great moment, as all confess that the 150 Psalms were dedicated by the Holy Ghost. (Du Hamel) --- St. Augustine (City of God xvii. 14.) attributes all the Psalms to David; and it seems best to adhere to this opinion, as it is most generally received. (Menochius) --- Our Saviour cites the cix. Psalm as belonging to David, (Matthew xxii. 44.) agreeably to the title; and the 2d Psalm is also attributed to him, by the apostles, (Acts iv. 25.) though it have no title at all, no more than the first. (Haydock) --- It has generally been asserted, that when a Psalm is in this position, it must be referred to the author who was mentioned last. But Bellarmine calls this in question: and the titles of themselves afford but a precarious argument, either to know the author or the real import of the Psalm. (Calmet) --- St. Jerome himself (ad Paulin.) seems to suppose that David was the writer of all the Psalms, (Worthington) and that he has left us compositions which may vie with those of the most celebrated pagan bards. In effect, nothing could excel the harmony of these divine hymns, to judge even from a translation. (Fleury.) --- What then would they be in the original? The difficulty of coming to a perfect knowledge of the author's meaning, arises chiefly from the variety of translations and commentaries, which have been more numerous on this work than any other. To examine all minutely, would require more volumes than our present limits will allow. The version which we have to explain, is not that which St. Jerome made from the Hebrew and which possesses the same intrinsic merit as the rest of his works: but the Church has declared authentic the holy doctor's corrected (Haydock) version from St. Lucian, (Bellarmine; Tirinus) or from the Septuagint as the people had been accustomed to sing the psalter in that manner; and it would have been difficult for them to learn another. (Calmet) --- A critical examination would show, that the Septuagint have not so often deviated from the original [Hebrew] as some would pretend. See Berthier, &c. Pellican extols the fidelity of our version on the Psalms, though he was a Protestant. (Ward. Err. p. 6.) --- When therefore we offer a different version, we would not insinuate that the Vulgate is therefore to be rejected. The copiousness of the Hebrew language, (Haydock) and on some occasions the uncertainty of its roots, or precise import, (Somon. Crit.) ought to make every one diffident in pronouncing peremptorily on such subjects. Let us rather adhere to the decision of the Church, when it is given on any particular text; and when she is silent, let us endeavour to draw the streams of life from our Saviour's fountains, and read for our improvement in virtue. (Haydock) --- No exhortations could be more cogent, than those which we may find in the Psalms. They contain the sum of all the other sacred books, as the Fathers agree. (St. Augustine; St. Basil; &c.) To understand them better, we must reflect upon what key or string they each play. Expositors discover ten such stings on this mysterious harp: 1. God; 2. his works; 3. Providence; 4. the peculiar people of the Jews; 5. Christ; 6. his Church; 7. true worship; 8. David; 9. the end of the world; 10. a future life. On some of these subjects the Psalm principally turns. The titles, composed by Esdras, or the Septuagint, (Worthington) or by some other, (Calmet) will often point out the subject; and if that be not the case, the context and other parts of Scripture will (Worthington) commonly (Haydock) do it. (Worthington) --- The greatest stress must be laid on these. (Calmet) --- An intimate acquaintance with the history of David, and with the Jewish and Christian religion, will also be of essential service to enable us to penetrate the hidden treasures contained in these most heavenly canticles. (Haydock) --- David excels all the pagans in point of antiquity, as he lived 100 years before Homer. His natural genius led him to follow the pursuits of poetry and music; (1 Kings xvi. 23.) and God inspired him to compose these poems, as works in metre are more easily remembered, and make a more pleasing impression upon the heart. Hence Moses and other prophets adopted the same plan, both in the Old and the New Testament. The pious king [David] not being permitted to build the temple, made nevertheless all necessary preparations for it; and among the rest, procured 288 masters of music to train up 4000 singers, 1 Paralipomenon xxiii. 25. He foresaw that these Psalms would be of service, not only on the Jewish festivals, but also in the Christian Church, (Psalm lvi., 10., &c.) gathered from all nations, (Worthington) among whom he sings by the mouths (Haydock) of the clergy, who are commanded daily to sing or recite some of these Psalms. (Worthington) --- The psalter takes its name from an instrument of ten strings, resembling the Greek [letter] Lamda, (Ven. Bede) and sounding from above, to insinuate that we may (Worthington) here learn to observe (Haydock) all the decalogue, and to aim at heaven. If difficulties present themselves in the perusal of these sacred writings, we must remember not to trust private interpretation, (2 Peter i.) but to the doctrine of the Church, (John xiv. 16., and 1 Corinthians xii.) which we may find in the works of the holy Fathers, (St. Augustine, Doct.[On Christian Doctrine?]) and exercise ourselves in humility, when any thing occurs above our comprehension. (St. Gregory xvii. in Ezechiel) (Worthington) --- We must pray with all earnestness to the Father of Lights, and surely no prayers can be more efficacious to obtain what we want, than those which he has here delivered. Whether just or sinners, whether in joy or sorrow, we may here find what may be suitable for us. (Haydock) --- In hoc libro spiritualis Bibliotheca instructa est. (Cassiodorus)

Gill: Psalms (Pendahuluan Kitab)

INTRODUCTION TO PSALMS

The title of this book may be rendered "the Book of Praises", or "Hymns"; the psalm which our Lord sung at the passover is called an "hymn", Mat 26:30; and the one hundred forty fifth Psalm is entitled תהלה, "an Hymn of David"; and the psalms in general are called "hymns" by Philo the Jew ^a, and songs and hymns by Josephus ^b; and to these several names of this book the apostle manifestly refers in Eph 5:19, Col 3:16. The Jews divided the writings of the Old Testament into three parts: the first division is the Law, or five books of Moses; the second is the Prophets, former and latter; and the third, the "Hagiographa", or holy writings; to which division Christ has a regard in Luk 24:44; and because the book of Psalms stand first in the last division, the whole goes by its name. This book by the Apostle Peter is entitled as here, Act 1:20; the title in the Syriac version is,

"the Book of the Psalms of David, King and Prophet,''

with which agrees the Arabic version. As to the divine authority of it, that it was written by inspiration of God, we have not only the testimony of David, who says, "the Spirit of God spake by me", 2Sa 23:2; but the testimonies of Christ and his apostles, Mat 22:43; and, as Aben Ezra ^c observes the whole of it was spoken ברוח הקודש, "by the Holy Ghost". Concerning the penman or amanuensis, employed by the Spirit of God in writing it, there are different opinions. The Jews make mention of ten, which are differently reckoned by them. According to Jarchi ^d, they were Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah. According to Kimchi ^e, they were Adam, the first, Melchizedek, Abraham, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, Moses, and the three sons of Korah; Asir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph. Some ascribe all the Psalms to David ^f, and think that those which are said to be a psalm of Asaph, or of Heman, &c. should be rendered "a psalm to Asaph", &c. and only signify that they were psalms delivered to them, to be sung in a public manner. But the truest opinion seems to be, that the greater part of them were written by David, and for the most part those that have no title; and the rest by those whose names they bear. Some were written at and after the Babylonish captivity, as Psa 126:1 and Psa 137:1. The manner or form in which they were written was metre ^g, though some deny it that the Jews had metre: as appears by the different accentuation of them from other writings, and from their being sung vocally and on musical instruments. Josephus ^h, the Jewish historian, says, that

"David being free from war, and enjoying a profound peace, composed songs and hymns to God, of various metre; some trimeter, and some pentameter;''

that is, some of three feet, and others of five feet: for the Psalms of David are thought to be of the "lyric" kind; and Gomarus, in his Lyra, has given many instances out of them, which are of the "iambic", "trochaic" kind, &c. though the Jews for many years have lost the knowledge of the sacred poetry. R. Benjamin ⁱ indeed says, that in his time there were at Bagdad R. Eleazar and his brethren, who knew how to sing the songs, as the singers did when the temple was standing. The subject matter of this book is exceeding great and excellent; many of the psalms respect the person, offices, and grace of Christ; his sufferings and death, resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God; and so are exceeding suitable to the Gospel dispensation. The whole book is a rich mine of grace and evangelical truths, and a large fund of spiritual experience; and is abundantly suited to every case, state, and condition, that the church of Christ, or particular believers, are in at any time.

Gill: Psalms 63 (Pendahuluan Pasal)

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 63

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. 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; all which were in the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:55; 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. 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, Mat 4:1; 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, Rev 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, Hos 2:14.