1 O God, my God art Thou, I seek Thee earnestly,
My soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh pines for Thee,
In a dry and weary land, without water.
2 So in the sanctuary have I gazed on Thee,
To see Thy power and Thy glory.
3 For Thy loving-kindness is better than life,
[Therefore] my lips shall praise Thee.
4 So will I bless Thee while I live,
In Thy name will I lift my hands.
5 As [with] fat and marrow shall my soul be satisfied,
And with lips that joyfully shout shall my mouth praise Thee,
6 When I remember Thee on my bed,
Through the watches [of the night] do I meditate on Thee.
7 For Thou hast been a help for me,
And in the shadow of Thy wings will I shout for joy.
8 My soul cleaves [to and presses] after Thee,
Me does Thy right hand uphold.
9 But these--for its destruction they seek my soul;
They shall go into the undermost parts of the earth.
10 They shall be given over to the power of the sword,
The portion of jackals shall they be.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God,
Every one that swears by Him shall glory,
For the mouth of them that speak a lie shall be stopped.
If the psalmist is allowed to speak, he gives many details of his
circumstances in his song. He is in a waterless and weary land,
excluded from the sanctuary, followed by enemies seeking his life.
He expects a fight, in which they are to fall by the sword, and
apparently their defeat is to lead to his restoration to his kingdom.
These characteristics converge on David. Cheyne has endeavoured to
show that they fit the faithful Jews in the Maccabean period, and
that the "king" in ver. 2 is "Jonathan or [better] Simon" ("Orig. of
Psalt.," 99, and "Aids to Dev. Study of Crit.," 308 _seqq._). But
unless we are prepared to accept the dictum that "Pre-Jeremian such
highly spiritual hymns obviously cannot be" (_u.s._), the balance of
probability will be heavily in favour of the Davidic origin.
The recurrence of the expression "My soul" in vv. 1, 5, 8, suggests the
divisions into which the psalm falls. Following that clue, we recognise
three parts, in each of which a separate phase of the experience of the
soul in its communion with God is presented as realised in sequence by
the psalmist. The soul longs and thirsts for God (vv. 1-4). The longing
soul is satisfied in God (vv. 5-7). The satisfied soul cleaves to and
presses after God (vv. 8-11). These stages melt into each other in the
psalm as in experience, but are still discernible.
In the first strophe the psalmist gives expression in immortal words
to his longing after God. Like many a sad singer before and after
him, he finds in the dreary scene around an image of yet drearier
experiences within. He sees his own mood reflected in the grey
monotony of the sterile desert, stretching waterless on every side,
and seamed with cracks, like mouths gaping for the rain that does not
come. He is weary and thirsty; but a more agonising craving is in his
spirit, and wastes his flesh. As in the kindred Psalms xlii., xliii.,
his separation from the sanctuary has dimmed his sight of God. He
longs for the return of that vision in its former clearness. But even
while he thirsts, he in some measure possesses, since his resolve to
"seek earnestly" is based on the assurance that God is his God. In the
region of the devout life the paradox is true that we long precisely
because we have. Every soul is athirst for God; but unless a man can
say, "Thou art my God," he knows not how to interpret nor where to
slake his thirst, and seeks, not after the living Fountain of waters,
but after muddy pools and broken cisterns.
Ver. 2 is difficult principally because the reference of the initial
"So" is doubtful. By some it is connected with the first clause of
ver. 1: "So"--_i.e._, as my God--"have I seen Thee." Others suppose a
comparison to be made between the longing just expressed and former
ones, and the sense to be, "With the same eager desire as now I feel
in the desert have I gazed in the sanctuary." This seems the better
view. Hupfeld proposes to transpose the two clauses, as the A.V. has
done in its rendering, and thus gets a smoother run of thought. The
immediate object of the psalmist's desire is thus declared to be "to
behold Thy power and glory," and the "So" is substantially equivalent
to "According as." If we retain the textual order of the clauses, and
understand the first as paralleling the psalmist's desert longing with
that which he felt in the sanctuary, the second clause will state
the aim of the ardent gaze--namely, to "behold Thy power and Thy
glory." These attributes were peculiarly manifested amid the imposing
sanctities where the light of the Shechinah, which was especially
designated as "the Glory," shone above the ark.
The first clause of ver. 3 is closely connected with the preceding,
and gives the reason for some part of the emotion there expressed,
as the introductory "For" shows. But it is a question to which part
of the foregoing verses it refers. It is probably best taken as
assigning the reason for their main subject--namely, the psalmist's
thirst after God. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also." Our desires are shaped by our judgments of what is good. The
conviction of God's transcendent excellence and absolute sufficiency
for all our cravings must precede the direction of these to Him.
Unless all enjoyments and possessions, which become ours through our
corporeal life, and that life itself, are steadfastly discerned to
be but a feather's weight in comparison with the pure gold of God's
loving-kindness, we shall not long for it more than for them.
The deep desires of this psalmist were occasioned by his seclusion
from outward forms of worship, which were to him so intimately related
to the inward reality, that he felt farther away from God in the
wilderness than when he caught glimpses of His face, through the power
and glory which he saw visibly manifested in the sanctuary. But in his
isolation he learns to equate his desert yearnings with his sanctuary
contemplations, and thus glides from longing to fruition. His
devotion, nourished by forms, is seen in the psalm in the very act of
passing on to independence of form; and so springs break out for him
in the desert. His passion of yearning after God rebukes and shames
our faint desires. This man's soul was all on the stretch to grasp and
hold God. His very physical frame was affected by his intense longing.
If he did not long too much, most men, even those who thirst after
God most, long terribly too little. Strong desire has a joy in its
very aching; feeble desire only makes men restless and uncomfortable.
Nothing can be more preposterous than tepid aspirations after the
greatest and only good. To hold as creed that God's loving-kindness
is better than life, and to wish a little to possess it, is surely
irrational, if anything is so.
The remaining clauses of ver. 3 and ver. 4 form a transition to the
full consciousness of satisfaction which animates the psalmist in the
second part. The resolve to praise, and the assurance that he will
have occasion to praise, succeed his longing with startling swiftness.
The "So" of ver. 4 seems to be equivalent to "Accordingly"--_i.e._,
since Thy loving-kindness is such supreme good, and is mine because I
have desired it. Continual praise and as continual invocation are the
fitting employments of those who receive it, and by these alone can
their possession of the loving-kindness bestowed be made permanent.
If empty palms are not ever lifted towards God, His gifts will not
descend. When these are received, they will fall like morning sunbeams
on stony and dumb lips, which before were only parted to let out
sighs, and will draw forth music of praise. There are longings which
never are satisfied; but God lets no soul that thirsts for Him perish
for lack of the water of life. Wisdom bids us fix our desires on that
Sovereign Good, to long for which is ennobling and blessed, and to
possess which is rest and the beginning of heaven.
Thus the psalmist passes imperceptibly to the second strophe, in which
the longing soul becomes the satisfied soul. The emblem of a feast
is naturally suggested by the previous metaphor of thirst. The same
conviction, which urged the psalmist forward in his search after God,
now assures him of absolute satisfaction in finding Him. Since God's
loving-kindness is better than life, the soul that possesses Him can
have no unappeased cravings, nor any yet hungry affections or wishes.
In the region of communion with God, fruition is contemporaneous with
and proportioned to desire. When the rain comes in the desert, what was
baked earth is soon rich pasture, and the dry torrent beds, where the
white stones glittered ghastly in the sunshine, are musical with rushing
streams and fringed with budding oleanders. On that telegraph a message
is flashed upwards and an answer speeds downwards, in a moment of time.
Many of God's gifts are delayed by Love; but the soul that truly desires
Him has never long to wait for a gift that equals its desire.
When God is possessed, the soul is satisfied. So entire is the
correspondence between wants and gift, that every concavity in us
finds, as it were, a convexity to match it in Him. The influx of the
great ocean of God fills every curve of the shore to the brim, and the
flashing glory of that sunlit sea covers the sands, and brings life
where stagnation reigned and rotted. So the satisfied soul lives to
praise, as the psalm goes on to vow. Lips that drink such draughts of
Loving-kindness will not be slow to tell its sweetness. If we have
nothing to say about God's goodness, the probable cause is our want of
experience of it.
That feast leaves no bitter taste. The remembrance of it is all but
as sweet as its enjoyment was. Thus, in ver. 6, the psalmist recounts
how, in the silent hours of night, when many joys are seen to be
hollow, and conscience wakes to condemn coarse delights, he recalled
his blessednesses in God, and, like a ruminant animal, tasted their
sweetness a second time. The verse is best regarded as an independent
sentence. So blessed was the thought of God, that, if once it rose
in his wakeful mind as he lay on his bed, he "meditated" on it
all the night. Hasty glances show little of anything great. Nature
does not unveil her beauty to a cursory look; much less does God
disclose His. If we would feel the majesty of the heavens, we must
gaze long and steadfastly into their violet depths. The mention of
the "night-watches" is appropriate, if this psalm is David's. He and
his band of fugitives had to keep vigilant guard as they lay down
shelterless in the desert; but even when thus ringed by possible
perils, and listening for the shout of nocturnal assailants, the
psalmist could recreate and calm his soul by meditation on God. Nor
did his experience of God's sufficiency bring only remembrances; it
kindled hopes. "For Thou hast been a help for me; and in the shadow
of Thy wings will I shout for joy." Past deliverances minister to
present trust and assure of future joy. The prerogative of the soul,
blessed in the sense of possessing God, is to discern in all that has
been the manifestations of His help, and to anticipate in all that is
to come the continuance of the same. Thus the second strophe gathers
up the experiences of the satisfied soul as being fruition, praise,
sweet lingering memories that fill the night of darkness and fear, and
settled trust in the coming of a future which will be of a piece with
such a present and past.
The third strophe (vv. 8-11) presents a stage in the devout soul's
experience which naturally follows the two preceding. Ver. 8 has a
beautifully pregnant expression for the attitude of the satisfied
soul. Literally rendered, the words run, "cleaves after Thee,"
thus uniting the ideas of close contact and eager pursuit. Such
union, however impossible in the region of lower aims, is the very
characteristic of communion with God, in which fruition subsists along
with longing, since God is infinite, and the closest approach to and
fullest possession of Him are capable of increase. Satisfaction tends
to become satiety when that which produces it is a creature whose
limits are soon reached; but the cup which God gives to a thirsty soul
has no cloying in its sweetness. On the other hand, to seek after Him
has no pain nor unrest along with it, since the desire for fuller
possession comes from the felt joy of present attainment. Thus, in
constant interchange satisfaction and desire beget each other, and
each carries with it some trace of the other's blessedness.
Another beautiful reciprocity is suggested by the very order of the
words in the two clauses of ver. 8. The first ends with "Thee"; the
second begins with "Me." The mutual relation of God and the soul is
here set forth. He who "cleaves after God" is upheld in his pursuit
by God's hand. And not in his pursuit only, but in all his life; for
the condition of receiving sustaining help is desire for it, directed
to God and verified by conduct. Whoever thus follows hard after God
will feel his outstretched, seeking hand inclosed in a strong and
loving palm, which will steady him against assaults and protect him in
dangers. "No man is able to pluck them out of the Father's hand," if
only they do not let it go. It may slip from slack fingers.
We descend from the heights of mystic communion in the remainder of
the psalm. But in the singer's mind his enemies were God's enemies,
and, as ver. 11 shows, were regarded as apostates from God in being
traitors to "the king." They did not "swear by Him"--_i.e._, they did
not acknowledge God as God. Therefore, such being their character, the
psalmist's confidence that God's right hand upheld him necessarily
passes into assurance of their defeat. This is not vindictiveness, but
confidence in the sufficiency of God's protection, and is perfectly
accordant with the lofty strains of the former part of the psalm.
The picture of the fate of the beaten foe is partly drawn from that
of Korah and his company. These rebels against God's king shall go,
where those rebels against His priest long ago descended. "They
shall be poured out upon the hands of the sword," or, more literally
still, "They shall pour him out," is a vigorous metaphor, incapable
of transference into English, describing how each single enemy is
given over helplessly, as water is poured out, to the sword, which is
energetically and to our taste violently, conceived of as a person
with hands. The meaning is plain--a battle is impending, and the
psalmist is sure that his enemies will be slain, and their corpses
torn by beasts of prey.
How can the "king's" rejoicing in God be the consequence of their
slaughter, unless they are rebels? And what connection would the
defeat of a rebellion have with the rest of the psalm, unless the
singer were himself the king? "This one line devoted to the king is
strange," says Cheyne. The strangeness is unaccounted for, but on
the supposition that David is the king and singer. If so, it is most
natural that his song should end with a note of triumph, and should
anticipate the joy of his own heart and the "glorying" of his faithful
followers, who had been true to God in being loyal to His anointed.