Psalms 63:1

Psalm 63 ¹ 

A psalm of David, written when he was in the Judean wilderness. ² 

63:1 O God, you are my God! I long for you! ³ 

My soul thirsts ⁴  for you,

my flesh yearns for you,

in a dry and parched ⁵  land where there is no water.

Isaiah 35:6-7

35:6 Then the lame will leap like a deer,

the mute tongue will shout for joy;

for water will flow ⁶  in the desert,

streams in the wilderness. ⁷ 

35:7 The dry soil will become a pool of water,

the parched ground springs of water.

Where jackals once lived and sprawled out,

grass, reeds, and papyrus will grow.

Isaiah 41:18

41:18 I will make streams flow down the slopes

and produce springs in the middle of the valleys.

I will turn the desert into a pool of water

and the arid land into springs.

Ezekiel 47:8-12

47:8 He said to me, “These waters go out toward the eastern region and flow down into the Arabah; when they enter the Dead Sea, ⁸  where the sea is stagnant, ⁹  the waters become fresh. ¹⁰  47:9 Every living creature which swarms where the river ¹¹  flows will live; there will be many fish, for these waters flow there. It will become fresh ¹²  and everything will live where the river flows. 47:10 Fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to En-eglaim they will spread nets. They will catch many kinds of fish, like the fish of the Great Sea. ¹³  47:11 But its swamps and its marshes will not become fresh; they will remain salty. 47:12 On both sides of the river’s banks, every kind of tree will grow for food. Their leaves will not wither nor will their fruit fail, but they will bear fruit every month, because their water source flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” ¹⁴ 

Amos 8:11-13

8:11 Be certain of this, ¹⁵  the time is ¹⁶  coming,” says the sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land –

not a shortage of food or water

but an end to divine revelation! ¹⁷ 

8:12 People ¹⁸  will stagger from sea to sea, ¹⁹ 

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from ²⁰  the Lord,

but they will not find any. ²¹ 

8:13 In that day your ²²  beautiful young women ²³  and your ²⁴  young men will faint from thirst. ²⁵ 

¹ sn Psalm 63. The psalmist expresses his intense desire to be in God’s presence and confidently affirms that God will judge his enemies.

² sn According to the psalm superscription David wrote the psalm while in the “wilderness of Judah.” Perhaps this refers to the period described in 1 Sam 23-24 or to the incident mentioned in 2 Sam 15:23.

³ tn Or “I will seek you.”

⁴ tn Or “I thirst.”

⁵ tn Heb “faint” or “weary.” This may picture the land as “faint” or “weary,” or it may allude to the effect this dry desert has on those who are forced to live in it.

⁶ tn Heb “burst forth” (so NAB); KJV “break out.”

⁷ tn Or “Arabah” (NASB); KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT “desert.”

⁸ tn Heb “the sea,” referring to the Dead Sea. This has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tn Heb “to the sea, those which are brought out.” The reading makes no sense. The text is best emended to read “filthy” (i.e., stagnant). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:273.

¹⁰ tn Heb “the waters become healed.”

¹¹ tn Heb “two rivers,” perhaps under the influence of Zech 14:8. The translation follows the LXX and other ancient versions in reading the singular, which is demanded by the context (see vv. 5-7, 9b, 12).

¹² tn Heb “will be healed.”

¹³ sn The Great Sea refers to the Mediterranean Sea (also in vv. 15, 19, 20).

¹⁴ sn See Rev 22:1-2.

¹⁵ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “the days are.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁹ tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

²⁰ tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

²¹ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

²² tn Heb “the.”

²³ tn Or “virgins.”

²⁴ tn Heb “the.”

²⁵ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.