Daily Reading: Psalm 17, 35, 54, 63
A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1)
The good folks at Blue Letter Bible place Psalm 63 here assuming it recounts David’s flight from Saul.
That’s certainly plausible, but don’t forget David “was in the wilderness” running from a king not once, but twice in his lifetime, and you could argue that Psalm 63 is about the other one.
When David was fleeing Saul, it was after he had been anointed king, but before he ascended to the throne. That didn’t happen until after Saul died.
About thirty years later, David found himself in the desert again, on the run from his son Absalom (see 2 Samuel 15-18). So scholars are divided on which time David is reflecting on. The one clue that it could be referring to the second one is verse 11:
But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by him shall exult,
for the mouths of liars will be stopped.
David refers to himself as the king who will rejoice in God. But he wouldn’t have done that as long as Saul was alive. Consider all the times he refused to lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed (see 1 Sam. 26:9-11). But David was the anointed king when he was on the run from Absalom, so he wouldn’t have hesitated to refer to himself as king.
We can’t say for sure either way, but in my opinion the Psalm is richer and more meaningful for where I am in my life if it goes with the later period.
As I look back on my life, I think about those desert seasons where I’ve felt spiritually dry. Sometimes, it seems like I’m there through no fault of my own, at least from my limited perspective.
More often, though, I know exactly why I’m in the desert. I know the sin that dried up my soul. I’ve known it was my refusal to repent that delayed the restoration.
During those times, I have two choices. I can beat myself up for making the same dumb mistakes over and over, or I can remember God’s faithfulness to me in the past.
I won’t give any spoilers in case this is your first trip through the Bible, but there comes a point in the story in which David has a disastrous moral failure. It sets in motion the chain of events that leads to Absalom’s coup and David’s escape to the wilderness.
While he was in the desert, David chose to remember God’s faithfulness.
- “I have seen You in Your sanctuary.” (v. 2)
- “You have been my help.” (v. 7)
This gives him hope for the future:
- “My soul will be satisfied.” (v. 5).
- “I will sing for joy” (v. 7)
I could be wrong, and it doesn’t change anything about the truth of the psalm to place it at the beginning of David’s career. But if Psalm 63 is about the second wilderness refuge, it’s all the richer because there was a first one. David’s been in the desert before, and that gives him confidence that God will be his help again.
For a deeper dive into this Psalm, check out a sermon I preached a couple of years ago on Psalm 63.
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