Studying, meditating on—praying—the Psalms could be a irritating religious endeavor. The Psalmist connects with the total vary of human expertise and feeling, however the truth that the breadth of this vary might be coated in a single Psalm, and not using a probability for the reader to return up for air earlier than the moods shifts, is unnerving. It throws one off stability.
The primary eight of Psalm 63’s eleven verses are elegant, even mystical, using powerfully evocative poetic imagery. All of us have been thirsty occasionally, and doubtless even suffered from gentle dehydration. However it’s probably that almost all of us have by no means been in a scenario the place our well being was instantly imperiled by lack of water. Maybe this was extra widespread within the Psalmist’s milieu, and it turns into a metaphor for the human soul’s craving for God: “My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a barren and dry land the place there isn’t any water.”
Solely as soon as have I ever ordered bone marrow from a restaurant menu, however marrow appears to have been a extra common a part of the Psalmist’s culinary expertise, and seems to signify satiety—deep satisfaction. “My soul is content material, as with marrow and fatness. Divine help is likened to being below the shadow of [God’s] wings,” an arresting picture of which the web is filled with lovely examples. Verse 8 sums all of it up: “My soul clings to you; your proper hand holds me quick.”
If solely we might simply cease proper there! However the identical human coronary heart that seeks God with such purity, eagerly, additionally petitions God for the settling of scores of a way more mundane nature: “Allow them to fall on the sting of the sword, and allow them to be meals for jackals.” Such impulses circulation from the brokenness that pervades our expertise on this world. We’re works in progress as we permit God to evolve us to his personal perfection.
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Martins is retired Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield within the Episcopal Church.
