📊 Psalm 63:1 | The First Fruits of Your Day
A quick Hebrew lesson, we're all thirsty, first fruits and trivia 📊
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Happy Tuesday! If you missed yesterday’s email, you can read it here.
📧 In today’s email…
A brief ancient Hebrew lesson 🗣️
We’re all thirsty💧🌴
Reflect: The first fruits of your day ⏰
Tuesday Trivia about Psalm 63 📊
🧠 Memorize
see if you know what words go in the blanks
O God, you ___ __ ___; earnestly I ____ ___;
my soul thirsts for ___;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1
(Answer key below. You can also use our free web app to memorize in your favorite translation. Set up instructions are linked at the bottom of this email.)
🗣️ Hebrew Lesson: ‘Earnestly’ & ‘my soul’
Today, let’s dig into the first part of verse 1.
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
The Hebrew word for ‘earnestly’ is šāḥar, which literally means "to seek early" or "diligently pursue."
The picture here is that David is seeking the Lord:
first thing in the morning (early)
with the kind of eagerness and urgency (diligence) we give to things that are important to us
David is seeking the Lord as his first priority in the day, not his last resort.
“The word ‘early’ has not only the sense of early in the morning, but that of eagerness, immediateness. He who truly longs for God longs for him now.”
The word translated ‘my soul’ is nep̄eš.
Elsewhere in Scripture, the word nep̄eš is also translated as “heart”, “soul”, “life”, “living creature” and “mind.”
So when David writes, “my soul thirsts for you,” he’s talking about his whole person, his entire being.
As David composes this Psalm, his entire being is thirsty for the presence of God.
Thirst for the Garden 🌴
Saint Augustine famously said:
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
The restlessness Augustine is referring to is an infinite thirst that all humans have.
A thirst for meaning, belonging and a sense of worth.
Ultimately - whether people know it or not - our deepest desire and thirst is to be in union with God, for eternity.
In one sense, it's to return to a Garden-of-Eden-like state where we exist in a perfect, loving relationship with God.
And nothing less than union with God will satisfy that infinite thirst.
The problem is..
We (even followers of Jesus) often seek to quench this thirst with things other than God.
We subconsciously hope that the next big thing will quench our thirst:
a promotion, finding a spouse, getting a house, growing a following, the next vacation, making more money, etc.
But if you've ever gotten any of those things (or maybe all of them), you know that they are just like physical water -
They quench our thirst for a moment, but the satisfaction does not last.
Returning to the Garden 🌴
In Genesis, humans start out having perfect union with God. And that union quicikly gets severed by sin.
But Jesus offers us a path back to the Garden - back to union with God through faith in him.
"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."
Apply & respond: The first fruits of your day ⏰
In today’s world, many parties are competing for your attention:
news outlets
coworkers, family members
advertisers on tv and social media
But Psalm 63 is inviting us to give God our attention, especially first thing in the morning.
The biblical concept of tithing is about giving your first fruits to God.
It’s a way to declare with your actions (not just your mind) that your entire life belongs to God.
As you memorize Psalm 63:1 this week, start to notice what your mind is given to first thing in the morning.
Reflect
What is the first thing you think about when you wake up?
What finite thing do you most often expect to quench your infinite thirst?
💡 Throughout the rest of the week, we’ll dig deeper into the language of hunger and thirst used in Psalm 63:1.
Trivia 📊
Click one of the options below. Let’s see how you do..
Answer key ✅
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1
Have a blessed Tuesday 🌮
Best,
Kieran & Isaac
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