properly · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
bed
יְצוּעָ֑יye.tzu.'Ai
H3326
spread · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
meditate
אֶהְגֶּה'eh.geh-
H1897
to murmur (in pleasure or anger) · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
watches
בְּ֝אַשְׁמֻר֗וֹתbe.'ash.mu.Rot
H821
a night watch · preposition + noun, common feminine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 42:8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my li…
Psalms 119:147-148 I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy word.
Psalms 149:5 Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.
Psalms 119:55 I have remembered thy name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept thy law.
Psalms 77:4-6 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
Psalms 139:17-18 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
Lamentations 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands…
Song of Solomon 5:2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: fo…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 63:3-6
How soon are David's complaints and prayers turned into praises and thanksgivings! After two verses that express his desire in seeking God, here are some that express his joy and satisfaction in having found him. Faithful prayers may quickly be turned into joyful praises, if it be not our own fault. Let the hearts of those rejoice that seek the Lord (Psa 105:3), and let them praise him for working those desires in them, and giving them assurance that he will satisfy them. David was now in a wilderness, and yet had his heart much enlarged in blessing God. Even in affliction we need not want matter for praise, if we have but a heart to it. Observe,
I. What David will praise God for (Psa 63:3):…
night--as well as day. Past favors assure him of future, and hence he presses earnestly near to God, whose power sustains him (Psa 17:8; Psa 60:5).
John Gill on Psalms 63:6
When I remember thee upon my bed,.... Or "beds" (q); seeing he lay in many, as Kimchi observes, being obliged to flee from place to place. The sense is, that when he was on his bed in the night season, when alone, and free from worldly cares and fatigues, and called to mind the love of God to him, the past experience of his kindness, his promises to hits, and the fulfilment of them: that he should then be delightfully entertained, abundantly satisfied, slid his mouth be filled with songs of praise;
and meditate on thee in the night watches; which the Jewish writers on the text say were three, as they were with the Jews, but with the Romans four; See Gill on Matthew 14:25; and the night, in…
Psalm 63:5-8
5. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. 6. I shall surely [432] remember thee upon my couch: I will meditate upon thee in the night watches, [433] 7. Because thou hast been my help: and I will rejoice in the shadow of thy wings. 8. My soul has cleaved hard after thee: thy right hand will uphold me.
5. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow, etc. In accordance with what was said in the foregoing verse, David expresses his assured persuasion of obtaining a rich and abundant measure of every blessing that could call for thanksgiving and praise. At the period of composing this psalm, he may have been already in…
The Church Fathers
"If I have remembered You upon my bed, in the dawnings I did meditate on you [Psalm 63:6]." His "bed" he calls his rest. When any one is at rest, let him be mindful of God; when any one is at rest, let him not by rest be dissolved, and forget God: if mindful he is of God when he is at rest, in his actions on God he does meditate. For the dawn he has called actions, because every man at dawn begins to do something. What therefore has he said? If therefore I was not mindful on my bed, in the dawn also I did not meditate on You. Can he that thinks not of God when he is at leisure, in his actions think of God? But he that is mindful of Him when he is at rest, on the Same does meditate when he is doing, lest in action he should come short.
Why do we forget about wickedness? It is due to our remembrance of good things, due to our remembrance of God. If we continually remember God, we cannot remember those things also. For [he says], "When I remembered you on my bed, I thought on you in the morning dawn." We ought then to have God always in remembrance, but then especially, when thought is undisturbed, when by means of that remembrance [one] is able to condemn himself, when he can retain [things] in memory. For in the daytime indeed, if we do remember, other cares and troubles entering in, drive the thought out again; but in the night it is possible to remember continually, when the soul is calm and at rest; when it is in the heaven, and under a serene sky. "The things that you say in your hearts you should grieve over on your beds," he says. For it was indeed right to remember this throughout the day also. But inasmuch as you are always full of cares and distracted amid the things of this life, at least then remember God on your bed; at the morning dawn meditate on him.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Day — The Jews reckoned the day from sunset to sunset (Lev. 23:32). It was originally divided into three parts (Ps. 55:17). “The heat of the day” (1 Sam. 11:11; Neh. 7:3) was at our nine o’clock, and “the…
Communion With God · Saints: Have, in meditation — Saints: Have, in meditation
Love · OF MAN FOR GO — OF MAN FOR GO
Meditation · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Night · Divi — Divi
Salvation · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
This strophe again takes up the כּן (Psa 63:3): thus ardently longing, for all time to come also, is he set towards God, with such fervent longing after God will he bless Him in his life, i.e., entirely filling up his life therewith (בּחיּי as in Psa 104:33; Psa 146:2; cf. Baruch 4:20, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις μου), and in His name, i.e., invoking it and appealing to it, will he lift up his hands in prayer. The being occupied with God makes him, even though as now in the desert he is obliged to suffer bodily hunger, satisfied and cheerful like the fattest and most marrowy food: velut adipe et pinguedine satiatur anima mea. From Lev 3:17; Lev 7:25, Grussetius and Frisch infer that spiritualies epu…
The psalmist reflects and meditates on God’s presence through the night. In the absence of light, God is the light. The quietness of the night and the longing for dawn provide time to focus on the true significance of life with the Lord.
63:6 Meditating on God requires focused awareness, concentration, thought, and reflection (see 1:2).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 63:6
When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.
When I remember thee upon my bed. Lying awake, the good man betook himself to meditation, and then began to sing. He had a feast in the night, and a song in the night. He turned his bedchamber into an oratory, he consecrated his pillow, his praise anticipated the place of which it is written, "There is no night there." Perhaps the wilderness helped to keep him awake, and if so, all the ages are debtors to it for this delightful hymn. If day's cares tempt us to forget God, it is well that night's quiet should lead us to remember him. We see best in the dark if we there see God best. And meditate on thee in the night…
