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.