The Marrow and the Fat Text: Psalm 63:1-5
Introduction: The Imperial Psalm
The book of Psalms is the Spirit-inspired songbook of the church, and it is given to us for every occasion of life. It is, as John Donne once said of this particular psalm, an imperial psalm. It is suitable for every circumstance. When you are on the mountaintop, you can sing this psalm. When you are in the valley, you can sing this psalm. When you are in the wilderness, as David was, you can sing this psalm. It is a psalm with universal application because it addresses the most fundamental reality of human existence: our desperate need for God.
We live in a parched and weary culture. Our world is a spiritual wilderness, a desert of distraction and unbelief. Men chase after cisterns they have dug for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. They seek satisfaction in their careers, their hobbies, their politics, their sensuality, and they find, invariably, that their mouths are full of sand. They are thirsty, and they do not know why. This psalm is the answer to that universal thirst.
David writes this psalm "in the wilderness of Judah." This is not an abstract, poetic wilderness. This is a real place, with rocks and scorpions and a relentless sun. He is likely fleeing from his own son, Absalom. He has been driven from his throne, from his home, and most importantly, from the sanctuary of God. He is a king in exile. And it is in this place of desolation, this place of loss and danger, that he pens one of the most intense and passionate declarations of love for God in all of Scripture. This teaches us a foundational lesson. True spiritual hunger is often sharpest not in times of plenty, but in times of want. God will often lead His people into the wilderness precisely to teach them that He is their only source of life.
But we must also see that this is not just David's song. The Psalms are the prayer book of Jesus Christ. When we read this, we must hear the voice of the greater David, our Lord, who was driven into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Christ, in His humanity, knew what it was to thirst, to be weary, to long for His Father. And He is the one who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, and it is through Him that our thirst is ultimately quenched. This psalm, then, is our song because it was first His song.
The Text
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land without water.
Thus I have beheld You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will laud You.
Thus I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul is satisfied as with fatness and richness,
And my mouth offers praises with lips of joyful songs.
(Psalm 63:1-5 LSB)
Earnest Thirst (v. 1)
We begin with David's desperate, personal cry:
"O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land without water." (Psalm 63:1)
The psalm opens with a declaration of possession. "O God, You are my God." This is not the generic, abstract deity of the philosophers. This is the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and David lays personal claim to Him. This is the foundation of all true worship. Before you can thirst for God, you must know that He is your God. This is the language of faith, the language of covenant relationship.
Because God is his God, David's response is to seek Him. And not casually. The Hebrew for "seek you earnestly" has the sense of seeking at dawn, of getting up early to pursue something with diligence. This is not a sleepy, half-hearted religion. This is a passionate pursuit.
And David uses the most powerful metaphor for desire that a human being can experience: thirst. "My soul thirsts for You." This is not a mild preference. This is a life-or-death craving. And it is not just a spiritual or emotional desire. He says, "my flesh yearns for You." His whole being, body and soul, is crying out for God. This is a holistic, all-encompassing longing. In our gnostic age, we are tempted to think of the spiritual life as something detached from our bodies. The Bible knows nothing of this. Our bodies are for the Lord, and our physical state often reflects our spiritual state. David's physical thirst in the Judean wilderness becomes a picture of his deeper, more profound spiritual thirst for the living God.
He is in "a dry and weary land without water." This is his circumstance, but it is also a description of life without God. To be apart from God is to be in a desert. All the world's pleasures are but a mirage in that desert. They promise satisfaction but deliver only more thirst. The man who does not thirst for God is a man who does not yet realize what desert he is in.
Sanctuary Memories (v. 2)
David's present thirst is fueled by a memory of past satisfaction. He knows what he is missing.
"Thus I have beheld You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory." (Psalm 63:2 LSB)
Notice the word "Thus." It means "in this way," or "so." He is saying, "This is how I am seeking you now, with this intensity, because I remember how I have seen you before." Where did he see God? "In the sanctuary." This refers to the tabernacle, the place of corporate worship, the place where God had promised to manifest His presence among His people.
This is a crucial point for our individualistic age. David's most profound personal experiences of God were located in the context of public, gathered worship. It was in the assembly of the saints, through the prescribed means of grace, that he beheld God's "power and glory." We are often tempted to think that we can have God without His people, that we can have a private spirituality that bypasses the messiness of the local church. David would find this idea utterly foreign. The ordinances and sacraments of God, the preaching of the Word, the singing of psalms, these are not optional extras. They are the sanctuary where we are appointed to meet with God and behold His glory.
Of course, it is possible to be in the sanctuary without God. The means of grace can become dry breasts and barren wombs if God's presence for blessing is not there. But David's longing is not for the building; it is for the God he met in the building. His memory of God's manifest presence in worship is what sustains him in the wilderness. It is the memory of the feast that makes him hungry.
The Supreme Good (v. 3)
In verse 3, David makes one of the most staggering value judgments in all of Scripture.
"Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will laud You." (Psalm 63:3 LSB)
Life is our most basic possession. We will give up almost anything to preserve our own lives. But David says there is something better. God's "lovingkindness." This is the great covenant word, hesed. It means loyal love, steadfast mercy, covenant faithfulness. It is God's unbreakable commitment to be for His people. And David says that this reality, this relationship, is better than life itself.
This is the heart of the Christian faith. This is the logic of the martyrs. Why would a man walk into a Roman coliseum and face the lions rather than burn a pinch of incense to Caesar? Because God's hesed is better than life. Why would a believer forsake all worldly comfort and security to follow Christ? Because His lovingkindness is better than life. If God's love is not better to you than your own life, then your god is too small, and your life is your idol.
The logical result of this valuation is praise. "My lips will laud You." Praise is the overflow of a heart that has correctly valued God. If you see His worth as supreme, you cannot help but speak of it. Silent adoration is a contradiction in terms. A faith that is not expressed in praise is a faith that has not yet seen that His lovingkindness is better than life.
A Life of Blessing (v. 4-5)
This commitment to praise is not a momentary emotional outburst. It is a lifelong posture.
"Thus I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name." (Psalm 63:4 LSB)
Again, "Thus." In this way. "Because your love is better than life, this is my fixed resolve." David commits his entire lifespan to the project of blessing God. To bless God is to speak well of Him, to praise His name. This is the chief end of man: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. David understands that the purpose of his life is to be a vessel of praise to his Creator.
He will also "lift up my hands in Your name." This is a posture of prayer, surrender, and open-armed reception. It is the physical expression of a soul that is dependent upon God and looking to Him for everything. It is the opposite of a clenched fist, which is the posture of rebellion and self-reliance. To lift up our hands is to acknowledge that we are beggars before the throne of grace, and that all we have is what we receive from Him.
And the result of this life of seeking and praise is profound satisfaction.
"My soul is satisfied as with fatness and richness, And my mouth offers praises with lips of joyful songs." (Psalm 63:5 LSB)
Here is the great paradox. The man who thirsts for God is the only man who is ever truly satisfied. David, sitting in a barren wilderness, likely hungry and thirsty in a literal sense, can speak of his soul being satisfied with the richest of foods. "Fatness and richness" or "marrow and fat" refer to the best part of the sacrifice, the most decadent part of the feast. He is saying that fellowship with God, even in the midst of hardship, is more deeply satisfying than the greatest physical banquet.
God does not demand that we thirst for Him and then leave us thirsty. He promises to satisfy the longing soul. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). He said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again" (John 4:14).
And notice how the psalm comes full circle. It begins with a thirsty mouth and ends with a praising mouth. "My mouth offers praises with lips of joyful songs." The soul that is satisfied in God cannot be silent. The joy is too great. It must come out in song. This is why our worship must be robust, joyful, and loud. We are feasting on the marrow and fat of God's lovingkindness, and our praise should reflect the quality of the meal.
Conclusion: Feasting in the Wilderness
This psalm is a roadmap for the Christian life. We all find ourselves in the wilderness at times. We experience seasons of dryness, of loss, of opposition. The temptation in those moments is to despair, or to look for water in the broken cisterns of the world. David teaches us another way.
The way to find satisfaction in the wilderness is to remember the sanctuary. We must fuel our present seeking with the memory of God's past faithfulness, particularly as we have experienced it in the corporate worship of His people. We must preach to ourselves, over and over, that His lovingkindness, His hesed demonstrated supremely at the cross, is better than life itself. When we get that right, our priorities fall into place.
And we must resolve to live a life of praise, blessing His name and lifting our hands to Him in dependent prayer, no matter our circumstances. When we do this, we find that the wilderness itself can become a banqueting hall. We find that the deepest satisfaction is not in a change of our circumstances, but in the presence of our God in the midst of our circumstances.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of this psalm. He was the one who thirsted in the wilderness of this world, and on the cross He cried out, "I thirst." He thirsted so that we might have our thirst quenched. He was driven out of the city so that we might be welcomed into the sanctuary of God's presence. He valued the Father's lovingkindness more than His own life, and so He went to the cross. And because He did, we can now come, and we can feast. Our souls can be satisfied with marrow and fat, and our mouths can be filled with joyful songs, all because of Him.