Original Meaning

The Heading (63:0)

THE PSALM IS simply attributed to David and contains the brief and general statement of historical context: “when he [David] was in the Desert of Judah.” The phrase most likely pictures the (considerable) period of time in David’s early career when he was fleeing Saul and found refuge in the rugged terrain of the Negev region south of Hebron. No specific event is detailed here, but the general setting is provided by 1 Samuel 21–31.

Bridging Contexts

THIRSTING FOR GOD. On tours to Israel, one of the first pieces of information a tour guide shares is a warning about the dangers and symptoms of dehydration. Almost everyone carries bottled water with them wherever they go since public drinking water is not commonly available. One quickly learns to distinguish the earliest sign of dehydration not as a desire for water but as a dull headache that sets in behind the eyes.

The idea of thirst is a common figure in biblical literature. The land of the Bible is arid, the sources of water limited, and the consequences of dehydration severe or deadly. Thirst played a prominent role in the travels of the Exodus Israelites,14 and the memory of this thirst and God’s quenching of it continued as an important memory of the community.15 In the Prophets, thirst is often mentioned as a sign of divine punishment,16 while abundant water indicates his blessing.17

As an image of spiritual longing for God, thirst appears in Psalm 42:2 (“my soul thirsts for God, for the living God”) and in 143:6 (“my soul thirsts for you like a parched land”), as well as the beginning of Psalm 63. Those who thirst after God will find satisfaction with him. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. . . . Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. . . . Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isa. 55:1–2; cf. Ps. 63:5a).

This image is picked up in the New Testament, where the appropriate attitude of desire for God will be satisfied: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5:6). “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13–14). “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). “ ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).

The name of God. Reference to the “name” (šem) of God in 63:4 opens an important thematic link with the group of psalms extending at least from Psalms 61–72.18 The significance of the divine name “Yahweh” has been discussed before (cf. esp. Ps. 8), and references to his “name” (Heb. šem) are common throughout the Psalter. Such an emphasis on the “name” of God in the Elohistic Psalter is interesting, for this section of the Psalter is characterized by a reduction (or even elimination) of the number of times the Tetragrammaton yhwh (Yahweh) appears.19

Just by looking at the occurrences of šem in Book 2 a sort of ideology of that name can be developed. In Psalm 44, we learn that “the name” provides power to “trample our foes” (44:5) and that to “forget the name” (44:20) is synonymous to worshiping other gods. God’s “name” is praiseworthy (44:8; 54:6; 61:8; 63:4; 66:4; 68:4; 69:30), and by his “name” knowledge of God is extended throughout the earth (48:10). The name of God is “good” (52:9; 54:6) and the source of Israel’s hope (52:9). “Fear” of God’s name is the equivalent of “fear of the LORD” and is the source of divine relationship and benefit (61:5). God’s name ensures commitment and honesty as the basis of swearing (63:11). God’s name, like his deeds, is glorious (66:2–3), and love of his name is the foundation of dwelling in the land (69:36).

The gift of the divine name to Israel bespeaks a special relationship in which Yahweh’s people define themselves in relationship to the character the name signifies. The classic priestly benediction on Israel in Numbers 6:24–26 contains a threefold repetition of the divine name Yahweh and concludes with the explanatory gloss from God: “So they [the priests] will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them” (Num. 6:27). To “put” Yahweh’s name on Israel is to claim them as his special possession under his sovereign authority and care, and it defines their character henceforth in relation to him alone.

To “praise” or “bless” the name of Yahweh means more than to verbally pronounce blessing or praise. There is a real sense in which for Israel to live in ways that are consistent with the character of Yahweh is to live up to his name and thus to bless and praise it. On the contrary, however, Israel blasphemes God’s name, not when she uses the name in crude profanity, but when she takes his name as her defining characteristic and then lives in such ways that violate the very nature of God. Thus, to take Yahweh’s name and then to worship other gods is to thumb one’s nose at his “jealous,” monotheistic character. To rely on the “temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD” (Jer. 7:4) to protect Yahweh’s people and to exploit others in the community through deceit, injustice, abusive power, and so on, is to reject the character of Yahweh, the judge. To rely exclusively on the power of king, military, politics, or economics is to deny the kingship and power of Yahweh and thus to blaspheme his name.

The psalms in this section of the Psalter, especially those mentioning the “name” (šem), stress the need to rely on God alone as strength, refuge, and fortress. Thus they affirm, praise, and commit themselves to the power and character of the “name” and the God who bears it.

Contemporary Significance

YOUR LOVE IS better than life. When is God’s love better than life? Jewish and Christian martyrs had to make this decision when confronted with the choice of recanting their faith in God or facing torturous forms of death. Such choices were known during the exilic period. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resolved to die in the flames of the fiery furnace set up by Nebuchadnezzar rather than to worship the Babylonian gods (Dan. 3). Daniel himself faced the lions’ den when he chose to continue to pray to Yahweh after the worship of non-Babylonian deities had been outlawed. (Dan. 6). The narratives in 2 Maccabees 6–7 describes the savage suppression of Judaism under Antiochus IV and the willingness of faithful Jews to accept death rather than forsake their beliefs. The New Testament also speaks of martyrs (including Stephen) who were more willing to hold on to God’s love than their lives (cf. Heb. 11:35–40).

The teaching of both Old and New Testaments agrees that knowing God and his love is more satisfying than life itself. Job refuses to end his suffering by cursing God and declares his enduring faith in the classic profession: “Though he [God] slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15).20 Jesus teaches that only those willing to lose their lives will truly experience the nature of Christian life dependent on God’s power and love (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24).

What would we be willing to die for today? Not too much in our comfortable society. Perhaps we would give up our lives for family—that is, our spouse or children. But our psalm tells us that God’s love, his ḥesed, is “better than life itself.” Kraus puts it well: “Even life, which in the OT is the ‘highest good,’ pales in the brilliance of ḥsd, which alone provides the gifts of satisfaction and fulfillment.”21 Is there some way here and now that the love of God—his fierce loyalty to his covenant relationship—makes that kind of difference in your life? Does it make such a difference that it wouldn’t be worth living without it? Is your connection with God so important to you that you would sacrifice all your future hopes and dreams to keep connected with God?

That is what Abraham did in Genesis 22. He had finally won his way through a long process of growing understanding that God intended to carry out the restoration of his whole creation through his descendants. God clarified that regardless of Abraham’s advanced age and his wife’s infertility, his descendants were to come through his own physical child, not through an adopted slave or the child of a handmaiden. Having seen the miracle of Isaac’s impossible birth accomplished beyond all hope, we might wonder how Abraham could possibly then take that special son on a three-day journey to Mount Moriah, specifically for the purpose of sacrificing him there at the command of God (Gen. 22). He did it because his relationship with God was more important than theology, or logic, or human emotion. It was better than life!

Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross. He asked God if he could pass—if there wasn’t some other way (Matt. 26:39). But he went to the cross willingly because God’s love (for Jesus, and through Jesus for you and for me) was better than life. This is no “pie in the sky by and by” Christianity. It is a realistic, hard, true, here-and-now faith that endures faithfully because God lives and loves faithfully and enduringly in our lives now and here. May God’s committed covenant love so fill you that you will come to know the abundant life that does not depend on our ability to stay alive.

Original Meaning

Thirst for God (63:1)

THE PSALMIST BEGINS with an expression of commitment to God. “O God [ʾelohim],4 you are my God, earnestly I seek you.” Despite the sense of isolation from God that follows, the psalmist remains committed in relationship with God, and it is this commitment that lays the foundation for his confidence of deliverance.

The narrative continues with the effective imagery of a parched traveler searching for life like looking for water in a “dry and weary land.”5 For the psalmist, God is just such a rare and life-giving commodity for which he longs. The verb “seek” has the edge of an “earnest, intent, focused” search. The one who has crossed the desert on foot knows the life-and-death importance of water sources and keeps an intent lookout for any evidences of moisture. In the same way, the psalmist is keeping an intent lookout for any evidence of God’s saving presence.

It seems obvious, then, that the psalmist regards his circumstances as life-threatening and senses a distance—even isolation—from God. The distinction between his “soul” (nepeš) and “body” (baśar) is not the tension between an enduring “spirit” and the transient “body” characteristic of Greek thought. Instead, the nepeš emphasizes the divinely animated being that is capable of self-awareness and reflection, while baśar encapsulates the psalmist’s physical wants and needs. His entire being is intently focused on experiencing the liberating presence of God.

Bridging Contexts

THIRSTING FOR GOD. On tours to Israel, one of the first pieces of information a tour guide shares is a warning about the dangers and symptoms of dehydration. Almost everyone carries bottled water with them wherever they go since public drinking water is not commonly available. One quickly learns to distinguish the earliest sign of dehydration not as a desire for water but as a dull headache that sets in behind the eyes.

The idea of thirst is a common figure in biblical literature. The land of the Bible is arid, the sources of water limited, and the consequences of dehydration severe or deadly. Thirst played a prominent role in the travels of the Exodus Israelites,14 and the memory of this thirst and God’s quenching of it continued as an important memory of the community.15 In the Prophets, thirst is often mentioned as a sign of divine punishment,16 while abundant water indicates his blessing.17

As an image of spiritual longing for God, thirst appears in Psalm 42:2 (“my soul thirsts for God, for the living God”) and in 143:6 (“my soul thirsts for you like a parched land”), as well as the beginning of Psalm 63. Those who thirst after God will find satisfaction with him. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. . . . Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. . . . Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isa. 55:1–2; cf. Ps. 63:5a).

This image is picked up in the New Testament, where the appropriate attitude of desire for God will be satisfied: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5:6). “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13–14). “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). “ ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).

The name of God. Reference to the “name” (šem) of God in 63:4 opens an important thematic link with the group of psalms extending at least from Psalms 61–72.18 The significance of the divine name “Yahweh” has been discussed before (cf. esp. Ps. 8), and references to his “name” (Heb. šem) are common throughout the Psalter. Such an emphasis on the “name” of God in the Elohistic Psalter is interesting, for this section of the Psalter is characterized by a reduction (or even elimination) of the number of times the Tetragrammaton yhwh (Yahweh) appears.19

Just by looking at the occurrences of šem in Book 2 a sort of ideology of that name can be developed. In Psalm 44, we learn that “the name” provides power to “trample our foes” (44:5) and that to “forget the name” (44:20) is synonymous to worshiping other gods. God’s “name” is praiseworthy (44:8; 54:6; 61:8; 63:4; 66:4; 68:4; 69:30), and by his “name” knowledge of God is extended throughout the earth (48:10). The name of God is “good” (52:9; 54:6) and the source of Israel’s hope (52:9). “Fear” of God’s name is the equivalent of “fear of the LORD” and is the source of divine relationship and benefit (61:5). God’s name ensures commitment and honesty as the basis of swearing (63:11). God’s name, like his deeds, is glorious (66:2–3), and love of his name is the foundation of dwelling in the land (69:36).

The gift of the divine name to Israel bespeaks a special relationship in which Yahweh’s people define themselves in relationship to the character the name signifies. The classic priestly benediction on Israel in Numbers 6:24–26 contains a threefold repetition of the divine name Yahweh and concludes with the explanatory gloss from God: “So they [the priests] will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them” (Num. 6:27). To “put” Yahweh’s name on Israel is to claim them as his special possession under his sovereign authority and care, and it defines their character henceforth in relation to him alone.

To “praise” or “bless” the name of Yahweh means more than to verbally pronounce blessing or praise. There is a real sense in which for Israel to live in ways that are consistent with the character of Yahweh is to live up to his name and thus to bless and praise it. On the contrary, however, Israel blasphemes God’s name, not when she uses the name in crude profanity, but when she takes his name as her defining characteristic and then lives in such ways that violate the very nature of God. Thus, to take Yahweh’s name and then to worship other gods is to thumb one’s nose at his “jealous,” monotheistic character. To rely on the “temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD” (Jer. 7:4) to protect Yahweh’s people and to exploit others in the community through deceit, injustice, abusive power, and so on, is to reject the character of Yahweh, the judge. To rely exclusively on the power of king, military, politics, or economics is to deny the kingship and power of Yahweh and thus to blaspheme his name.

The psalms in this section of the Psalter, especially those mentioning the “name” (šem), stress the need to rely on God alone as strength, refuge, and fortress. Thus they affirm, praise, and commit themselves to the power and character of the “name” and the God who bears it.

Contemporary Significance

YOUR LOVE IS better than life. When is God’s love better than life? Jewish and Christian martyrs had to make this decision when confronted with the choice of recanting their faith in God or facing torturous forms of death. Such choices were known during the exilic period. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resolved to die in the flames of the fiery furnace set up by Nebuchadnezzar rather than to worship the Babylonian gods (Dan. 3). Daniel himself faced the lions’ den when he chose to continue to pray to Yahweh after the worship of non-Babylonian deities had been outlawed. (Dan. 6). The narratives in 2 Maccabees 6–7 describes the savage suppression of Judaism under Antiochus IV and the willingness of faithful Jews to accept death rather than forsake their beliefs. The New Testament also speaks of martyrs (including Stephen) who were more willing to hold on to God’s love than their lives (cf. Heb. 11:35–40).

The teaching of both Old and New Testaments agrees that knowing God and his love is more satisfying than life itself. Job refuses to end his suffering by cursing God and declares his enduring faith in the classic profession: “Though he [God] slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15).20 Jesus teaches that only those willing to lose their lives will truly experience the nature of Christian life dependent on God’s power and love (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24).

What would we be willing to die for today? Not too much in our comfortable society. Perhaps we would give up our lives for family—that is, our spouse or children. But our psalm tells us that God’s love, his ḥesed, is “better than life itself.” Kraus puts it well: “Even life, which in the OT is the ‘highest good,’ pales in the brilliance of ḥsd, which alone provides the gifts of satisfaction and fulfillment.”21 Is there some way here and now that the love of God—his fierce loyalty to his covenant relationship—makes that kind of difference in your life? Does it make such a difference that it wouldn’t be worth living without it? Is your connection with God so important to you that you would sacrifice all your future hopes and dreams to keep connected with God?

That is what Abraham did in Genesis 22. He had finally won his way through a long process of growing understanding that God intended to carry out the restoration of his whole creation through his descendants. God clarified that regardless of Abraham’s advanced age and his wife’s infertility, his descendants were to come through his own physical child, not through an adopted slave or the child of a handmaiden. Having seen the miracle of Isaac’s impossible birth accomplished beyond all hope, we might wonder how Abraham could possibly then take that special son on a three-day journey to Mount Moriah, specifically for the purpose of sacrificing him there at the command of God (Gen. 22). He did it because his relationship with God was more important than theology, or logic, or human emotion. It was better than life!

Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross. He asked God if he could pass—if there wasn’t some other way (Matt. 26:39). But he went to the cross willingly because God’s love (for Jesus, and through Jesus for you and for me) was better than life. This is no “pie in the sky by and by” Christianity. It is a realistic, hard, true, here-and-now faith that endures faithfully because God lives and loves faithfully and enduringly in our lives now and here. May God’s committed covenant love so fill you that you will come to know the abundant life that does not depend on our ability to stay alive.

Original Meaning

Satisfying Vision of God (63:2–8)

I HAVE SEEN you in the sanctuary. In the midst of the psalmist’s isolation and an earnest search for God, he experiences a vision of God that sustains him. The verb translated “have seen” is not the usual verb for seeing (rʾh) but its more uncommon counterpart, ḥzh. This latter verb frequently describes a vision from God. Often a prophetic message is conveyed in such a vision.6

The psalmist’s vision is of God “in the sanctuary.” This is reminiscent of Isaiah’s vision of Yahweh in the Jerusalem temple (Isa. 6:1–9) and has the similar effect of reminding the psalmist in an almost overwhelming way of God’s “power and . . . glory” (63:2). This experience provides him with two sustaining insights: (1) God remains powerful despite the psalmist’s sense of distance and abandonment, and (2) God’s love (ḥesed) is even more satisfying than life itself. The former provides the psalmist with hope that God may yet act in deliverance; the latter offers the courage to remain faithfully committed in the face of the possibility of death.7 The remainder of this section of the psalm follows this division as the psalmist first praises God for his power (63:3b–5) and then commits faithfully to cling to God’s sustaining love (63:6–8).

My lips will glorify you. The vision catapults the psalmist into a paean of hopeful praise. Verbs of praise dominate these verses as he promises: “My lips will glorify [šbḥ] you”; “I will bless [brk; NIV praise] you”;8 “I will lift up [nśʾ ] my hands”;9 and “my mouth will praise [hll] you.” The psalmist’s praise is no hidden or silent prayer but a public display that involves spoken testimony, physical gestures (“lift the hands”), and joyous singing (“my singing lips”). The promise to praise God “as long as I live” is reminiscent of the similar promise in 61:8: “Then will I ever sing praise to your name.”

My soul will be satisfied. The vision of God’s glorious power and committed love provides the thirsting psalmist with life-sustaining satisfaction. Again, it is not some disembodied spiritual part of the psalmist that is being fed but his whole animated being—the self-aware nepeš, which includes mind and body together. The earnest search in the opening verses finds its object in the vision of God’s sustaining power and love.

On my bed I remember you. Remembering God while “on my bed” or “through the watches of the night” means the psalmist is not calmly sleeping but wakefully worrying! In the midst of this nocturnal tension, however, he recalls the vision of God’s enduring, committed love (ḥesed) and is sustained by that memory. Because of God’s help he is able to “sing in the shadow of [God’s] wings” (63:7),10 and the “self” (nepeš) that was satisfied in 63:5 now “clings” to the protective care of God (63:8).

Bridging Contexts

THIRSTING FOR GOD. On tours to Israel, one of the first pieces of information a tour guide shares is a warning about the dangers and symptoms of dehydration. Almost everyone carries bottled water with them wherever they go since public drinking water is not commonly available. One quickly learns to distinguish the earliest sign of dehydration not as a desire for water but as a dull headache that sets in behind the eyes.

The idea of thirst is a common figure in biblical literature. The land of the Bible is arid, the sources of water limited, and the consequences of dehydration severe or deadly. Thirst played a prominent role in the travels of the Exodus Israelites,14 and the memory of this thirst and God’s quenching of it continued as an important memory of the community.15 In the Prophets, thirst is often mentioned as a sign of divine punishment,16 while abundant water indicates his blessing.17

As an image of spiritual longing for God, thirst appears in Psalm 42:2 (“my soul thirsts for God, for the living God”) and in 143:6 (“my soul thirsts for you like a parched land”), as well as the beginning of Psalm 63. Those who thirst after God will find satisfaction with him. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. . . . Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. . . . Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isa. 55:1–2; cf. Ps. 63:5a).

This image is picked up in the New Testament, where the appropriate attitude of desire for God will be satisfied: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5:6). “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13–14). “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). “ ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).

The name of God. Reference to the “name” (šem) of God in 63:4 opens an important thematic link with the group of psalms extending at least from Psalms 61–72.18 The significance of the divine name “Yahweh” has been discussed before (cf. esp. Ps. 8), and references to his “name” (Heb. šem) are common throughout the Psalter. Such an emphasis on the “name” of God in the Elohistic Psalter is interesting, for this section of the Psalter is characterized by a reduction (or even elimination) of the number of times the Tetragrammaton yhwh (Yahweh) appears.19

Just by looking at the occurrences of šem in Book 2 a sort of ideology of that name can be developed. In Psalm 44, we learn that “the name” provides power to “trample our foes” (44:5) and that to “forget the name” (44:20) is synonymous to worshiping other gods. God’s “name” is praiseworthy (44:8; 54:6; 61:8; 63:4; 66:4; 68:4; 69:30), and by his “name” knowledge of God is extended throughout the earth (48:10). The name of God is “good” (52:9; 54:6) and the source of Israel’s hope (52:9). “Fear” of God’s name is the equivalent of “fear of the LORD” and is the source of divine relationship and benefit (61:5). God’s name ensures commitment and honesty as the basis of swearing (63:11). God’s name, like his deeds, is glorious (66:2–3), and love of his name is the foundation of dwelling in the land (69:36).

The gift of the divine name to Israel bespeaks a special relationship in which Yahweh’s people define themselves in relationship to the character the name signifies. The classic priestly benediction on Israel in Numbers 6:24–26 contains a threefold repetition of the divine name Yahweh and concludes with the explanatory gloss from God: “So they [the priests] will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them” (Num. 6:27). To “put” Yahweh’s name on Israel is to claim them as his special possession under his sovereign authority and care, and it defines their character henceforth in relation to him alone.

To “praise” or “bless” the name of Yahweh means more than to verbally pronounce blessing or praise. There is a real sense in which for Israel to live in ways that are consistent with the character of Yahweh is to live up to his name and thus to bless and praise it. On the contrary, however, Israel blasphemes God’s name, not when she uses the name in crude profanity, but when she takes his name as her defining characteristic and then lives in such ways that violate the very nature of God. Thus, to take Yahweh’s name and then to worship other gods is to thumb one’s nose at his “jealous,” monotheistic character. To rely on the “temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD” (Jer. 7:4) to protect Yahweh’s people and to exploit others in the community through deceit, injustice, abusive power, and so on, is to reject the character of Yahweh, the judge. To rely exclusively on the power of king, military, politics, or economics is to deny the kingship and power of Yahweh and thus to blaspheme his name.

The psalms in this section of the Psalter, especially those mentioning the “name” (šem), stress the need to rely on God alone as strength, refuge, and fortress. Thus they affirm, praise, and commit themselves to the power and character of the “name” and the God who bears it.

Contemporary Significance

YOUR LOVE IS better than life. When is God’s love better than life? Jewish and Christian martyrs had to make this decision when confronted with the choice of recanting their faith in God or facing torturous forms of death. Such choices were known during the exilic period. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resolved to die in the flames of the fiery furnace set up by Nebuchadnezzar rather than to worship the Babylonian gods (Dan. 3). Daniel himself faced the lions’ den when he chose to continue to pray to Yahweh after the worship of non-Babylonian deities had been outlawed. (Dan. 6). The narratives in 2 Maccabees 6–7 describes the savage suppression of Judaism under Antiochus IV and the willingness of faithful Jews to accept death rather than forsake their beliefs. The New Testament also speaks of martyrs (including Stephen) who were more willing to hold on to God’s love than their lives (cf. Heb. 11:35–40).

The teaching of both Old and New Testaments agrees that knowing God and his love is more satisfying than life itself. Job refuses to end his suffering by cursing God and declares his enduring faith in the classic profession: “Though he [God] slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15).20 Jesus teaches that only those willing to lose their lives will truly experience the nature of Christian life dependent on God’s power and love (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24).

What would we be willing to die for today? Not too much in our comfortable society. Perhaps we would give up our lives for family—that is, our spouse or children. But our psalm tells us that God’s love, his ḥesed, is “better than life itself.” Kraus puts it well: “Even life, which in the OT is the ‘highest good,’ pales in the brilliance of ḥsd, which alone provides the gifts of satisfaction and fulfillment.”21 Is there some way here and now that the love of God—his fierce loyalty to his covenant relationship—makes that kind of difference in your life? Does it make such a difference that it wouldn’t be worth living without it? Is your connection with God so important to you that you would sacrifice all your future hopes and dreams to keep connected with God?

That is what Abraham did in Genesis 22. He had finally won his way through a long process of growing understanding that God intended to carry out the restoration of his whole creation through his descendants. God clarified that regardless of Abraham’s advanced age and his wife’s infertility, his descendants were to come through his own physical child, not through an adopted slave or the child of a handmaiden. Having seen the miracle of Isaac’s impossible birth accomplished beyond all hope, we might wonder how Abraham could possibly then take that special son on a three-day journey to Mount Moriah, specifically for the purpose of sacrificing him there at the command of God (Gen. 22). He did it because his relationship with God was more important than theology, or logic, or human emotion. It was better than life!

Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross. He asked God if he could pass—if there wasn’t some other way (Matt. 26:39). But he went to the cross willingly because God’s love (for Jesus, and through Jesus for you and for me) was better than life. This is no “pie in the sky by and by” Christianity. It is a realistic, hard, true, here-and-now faith that endures faithfully because God lives and loves faithfully and enduringly in our lives now and here. May God’s committed covenant love so fill you that you will come to know the abundant life that does not depend on our ability to stay alive.

Original Meaning

Confidence of Deliverance (63:9–11)

FROM THE PLACE of confidence gained through the vision in the sanctuary of God’s glorious power and sustaining concern, the psalmist is also able to envision the destruction of the enemy. “They who seek [his] life” will themselves experience destruction11 and will descend into “the depths of the earth”—a euphemism for Sheol, the abode of the dead.

They will be given over to the sword. Two violent images follow the more general statements of confidence in the enemy’s defeat. In the first the life of the enemy (lit.) “pours out” upon the “handles” of a (violently thrusted) “sword.” In the second, the body of the slain enemy, left exposed on the battleground, becomes “food for jackals”—not a pleasant picture, but one common enough to those familiar with the carnage left in the aftermath of pitched battle. It is certainly no accident that God satisfies the hunger and thirst of the psalmist while the enemies themselves become “food” for jackals. He is confident that God will defeat the enemy decisively so that there is no doubt of his ability to exercise protective care over the faithful.

The king will rejoice in God. Up to here there has been no mention of the king, so his appearance here at the end is unexpected. Similarly, the king was mentioned toward the end of Psalm 61, where an individual plea for deliverance directed to God in the first person turned unexpectedly to a third-person supplication for the long life and eternal reign of the king, before returning to a final first-person promise to praise.12 Here at the end of Psalm 63, the king surfaces once again in a third-person reference. As in Psalm 61, this final section adds the voices of “all who swear by [God’s?] name” to the plea of the psalmist/king.13 The confidence of the gathered community is unmistakable. King and people will find cause for rejoicing and praise, while those who attack the king “will be silenced”—an indication that their primary offense is verbal assault rather than physical.

Bridging Contexts

THIRSTING FOR GOD. On tours to Israel, one of the first pieces of information a tour guide shares is a warning about the dangers and symptoms of dehydration. Almost everyone carries bottled water with them wherever they go since public drinking water is not commonly available. One quickly learns to distinguish the earliest sign of dehydration not as a desire for water but as a dull headache that sets in behind the eyes.

The idea of thirst is a common figure in biblical literature. The land of the Bible is arid, the sources of water limited, and the consequences of dehydration severe or deadly. Thirst played a prominent role in the travels of the Exodus Israelites,14 and the memory of this thirst and God’s quenching of it continued as an important memory of the community.15 In the Prophets, thirst is often mentioned as a sign of divine punishment,16 while abundant water indicates his blessing.17

As an image of spiritual longing for God, thirst appears in Psalm 42:2 (“my soul thirsts for God, for the living God”) and in 143:6 (“my soul thirsts for you like a parched land”), as well as the beginning of Psalm 63. Those who thirst after God will find satisfaction with him. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. . . . Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. . . . Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isa. 55:1–2; cf. Ps. 63:5a).

This image is picked up in the New Testament, where the appropriate attitude of desire for God will be satisfied: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5:6). “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13–14). “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). “ ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).

The name of God. Reference to the “name” (šem) of God in 63:4 opens an important thematic link with the group of psalms extending at least from Psalms 61–72.18 The significance of the divine name “Yahweh” has been discussed before (cf. esp. Ps. 8), and references to his “name” (Heb. šem) are common throughout the Psalter. Such an emphasis on the “name” of God in the Elohistic Psalter is interesting, for this section of the Psalter is characterized by a reduction (or even elimination) of the number of times the Tetragrammaton yhwh (Yahweh) appears.19

Just by looking at the occurrences of šem in Book 2 a sort of ideology of that name can be developed. In Psalm 44, we learn that “the name” provides power to “trample our foes” (44:5) and that to “forget the name” (44:20) is synonymous to worshiping other gods. God’s “name” is praiseworthy (44:8; 54:6; 61:8; 63:4; 66:4; 68:4; 69:30), and by his “name” knowledge of God is extended throughout the earth (48:10). The name of God is “good” (52:9; 54:6) and the source of Israel’s hope (52:9). “Fear” of God’s name is the equivalent of “fear of the LORD” and is the source of divine relationship and benefit (61:5). God’s name ensures commitment and honesty as the basis of swearing (63:11). God’s name, like his deeds, is glorious (66:2–3), and love of his name is the foundation of dwelling in the land (69:36).

The gift of the divine name to Israel bespeaks a special relationship in which Yahweh’s people define themselves in relationship to the character the name signifies. The classic priestly benediction on Israel in Numbers 6:24–26 contains a threefold repetition of the divine name Yahweh and concludes with the explanatory gloss from God: “So they [the priests] will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them” (Num. 6:27). To “put” Yahweh’s name on Israel is to claim them as his special possession under his sovereign authority and care, and it defines their character henceforth in relation to him alone.

To “praise” or “bless” the name of Yahweh means more than to verbally pronounce blessing or praise. There is a real sense in which for Israel to live in ways that are consistent with the character of Yahweh is to live up to his name and thus to bless and praise it. On the contrary, however, Israel blasphemes God’s name, not when she uses the name in crude profanity, but when she takes his name as her defining characteristic and then lives in such ways that violate the very nature of God. Thus, to take Yahweh’s name and then to worship other gods is to thumb one’s nose at his “jealous,” monotheistic character. To rely on the “temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD” (Jer. 7:4) to protect Yahweh’s people and to exploit others in the community through deceit, injustice, abusive power, and so on, is to reject the character of Yahweh, the judge. To rely exclusively on the power of king, military, politics, or economics is to deny the kingship and power of Yahweh and thus to blaspheme his name.

The psalms in this section of the Psalter, especially those mentioning the “name” (šem), stress the need to rely on God alone as strength, refuge, and fortress. Thus they affirm, praise, and commit themselves to the power and character of the “name” and the God who bears it.

Contemporary Significance

YOUR LOVE IS better than life. When is God’s love better than life? Jewish and Christian martyrs had to make this decision when confronted with the choice of recanting their faith in God or facing torturous forms of death. Such choices were known during the exilic period. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resolved to die in the flames of the fiery furnace set up by Nebuchadnezzar rather than to worship the Babylonian gods (Dan. 3). Daniel himself faced the lions’ den when he chose to continue to pray to Yahweh after the worship of non-Babylonian deities had been outlawed. (Dan. 6). The narratives in 2 Maccabees 6–7 describes the savage suppression of Judaism under Antiochus IV and the willingness of faithful Jews to accept death rather than forsake their beliefs. The New Testament also speaks of martyrs (including Stephen) who were more willing to hold on to God’s love than their lives (cf. Heb. 11:35–40).

The teaching of both Old and New Testaments agrees that knowing God and his love is more satisfying than life itself. Job refuses to end his suffering by cursing God and declares his enduring faith in the classic profession: “Though he [God] slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15).20 Jesus teaches that only those willing to lose their lives will truly experience the nature of Christian life dependent on God’s power and love (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24).

What would we be willing to die for today? Not too much in our comfortable society. Perhaps we would give up our lives for family—that is, our spouse or children. But our psalm tells us that God’s love, his ḥesed, is “better than life itself.” Kraus puts it well: “Even life, which in the OT is the ‘highest good,’ pales in the brilliance of ḥsd, which alone provides the gifts of satisfaction and fulfillment.”21 Is there some way here and now that the love of God—his fierce loyalty to his covenant relationship—makes that kind of difference in your life? Does it make such a difference that it wouldn’t be worth living without it? Is your connection with God so important to you that you would sacrifice all your future hopes and dreams to keep connected with God?

That is what Abraham did in Genesis 22. He had finally won his way through a long process of growing understanding that God intended to carry out the restoration of his whole creation through his descendants. God clarified that regardless of Abraham’s advanced age and his wife’s infertility, his descendants were to come through his own physical child, not through an adopted slave or the child of a handmaiden. Having seen the miracle of Isaac’s impossible birth accomplished beyond all hope, we might wonder how Abraham could possibly then take that special son on a three-day journey to Mount Moriah, specifically for the purpose of sacrificing him there at the command of God (Gen. 22). He did it because his relationship with God was more important than theology, or logic, or human emotion. It was better than life!

Jesus didn’t want to die on the cross. He asked God if he could pass—if there wasn’t some other way (Matt. 26:39). But he went to the cross willingly because God’s love (for Jesus, and through Jesus for you and for me) was better than life. This is no “pie in the sky by and by” Christianity. It is a realistic, hard, true, here-and-now faith that endures faithfully because God lives and loves faithfully and enduringly in our lives now and here. May God’s committed covenant love so fill you that you will come to know the abundant life that does not depend on our ability to stay alive.