Ps. 63.6-8 (night as now life)

As I remember you / upon my bead
in the night-watches / I meditate on you
For you / have been my help
and in the shadow / of your wings / I have shouted for joy.
My soul / clings fast to you
your right hand / upholds me. 

We saw in the opening verse that the longing and thirst for God found their impetus in the psalmist’s experience of God in Temple (of his beholding his ‘loving-kindness’ and his being fed). The longing was, in other words, the words of a lover seeking to be reunited   with his beloved. It was the memory of God that created the pain of longing. The psalm then immediately shifted to the memory of seeing God in the Temple and of engaging in a celebratory feast in his presence. This memory reached its height when the psalmist proclaimed that “my soul is satisfied”. The lover and the beloved were reunited. Here, in the wake of this satiation, God again is found in the psalmist’s memory but without the painful deprivation of verse 1. Now, rather than longing and experiencing something of near-death, the psalmist “remembers you upon my bed” and “in the night-watches, I meditate upon you.” His memory is filled with God as “my help” and rejoicing “in the shadow of your wings.” The soul, rather than “thirsting for you”, now experiences the double movement of “clinging fast to you” (psalmist-toward-God) and of God’s “right hand upholding me” (God-toward-psalmist). This term of “clinging fast” is important to note in this regard as it signifies a profound attachment and devotion, an almost diamond hard commitment. This ‘clinging’ is twinned by God’s “right hand upholding me”, a term denoting (usually) an almost military empowerment. The point is that the psalmist’s relation to God has been reversed—completely. Whereas before the distance between him and God was that of exile, death and weakness, it is now one of abiding devotion, commitment, life and an abiding, empowering presence. And, all of this flows from his meeting/seeing/beholding God in the Temple and his feast in his presence. We see the Temple appear here again in the rejoicing “beneath your wings”.. As we emphasized before, the experience of God in the Temple was multi-faceted: he saw/beheld God and his “glory and strength” (his power and authority were physically manifested in a profound way similar to that on Sinai); he knew God’s “loyal-love” to be “better than life itself” (his power and authority for the psalmist in covenantal fidelity); and he celebrated a feast in his presence. In short, it is in and through this very rich experience of God in the Temple that the anxiety of God’s absence is healed and the memory of God becomes life-giving rather than death-dealing. Need we point out that Christ is now the priest of the heavenly Temple, and sits upon the throne of the Most High (which will become important in the following verses…)? That he likely recites this poem now from his Temple and throne of power? And that this could have easily been recited by Christ while living?