John Calvin Commentary Psalms 63:1

"O God, thou art my God; earnestly will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, In a dry and weary land, where no water is." — Psalms 63:1 (ASV)

O God! thou art my God. The wilderness of Judah, spoken of in the title, can be no other than that of Ziph, where David wandered so long in a state of concealment. We may rely upon the truth of the record he gives us of his experience when under his trials; and it is apparent that he never allowed himself to be so far overcome by them as to stop lifting up his prayers to heaven, and even resting, with a firm and constant faith, upon the divine promises.

Since we are so prone, when assaulted by the slightest trials, to lose the comfort of any knowledge of God we may have previously possessed, it is necessary that we notice this. We must learn by his example to struggle to maintain our confidence under the worst troubles that can happen to us.

He does more than simply pray; he sets the Lord before him as his God, so that he might unhesitatingly throw all his cares upon Him, deserted by others as he was, and a poor outcast in the desolate and howling wilderness. His faith, shown in this conviction of God's favor and help, stirred him to constant and fervent prayer for the grace he expected.

In saying that his soul thirsted, and his flesh longed, he alludes to the destitution and poverty he endured in the wilderness, and intimates that even though deprived of the ordinary means of subsistence, he looked to God as his food and drink, directing all his desires toward Him.

When he represents his soul as thirsting, and his flesh as hungering, we are not to seek for any precise or subtle meaning in the distinction. He simply means that he desired God with both soul and body. For although the body, strictly speaking, is not in itself influenced by desire, we know that the feelings of the soul intimately and extensively affect it.