Psalm 63

The wilderness of Judah is not sand. It is a belt of chalky, folded hills in the rain shadow east of the central ridge, dropping steeply to the lowest land on earth. There are a few springs and no rivers. Water travelled with you in skins, and running out was not an inconvenience but a countdown. When the psalm says a dry and thirsty land where no water is, it is describing the ground under the writer's feet.

Seeking God early points at the hour of the morning sacrifice, when the day's worship began at first light. Even away from the sanctuary, the worshipper keeps its clock.

Satisfied as with marrow and fatness is a picture of the richest food anyone in that world tasted. Fat portions were burned to God on the altar as the best of the animal, and marrow bones were a delicacy at a feast. A man in a waterless place says God fills him like the table at a festival.

Lifting up the hands was the ordinary posture of prayer — arms raised, palms open — shown on carvings and figurines from across the region. And the closing threat is the standard horror of ancient warfare: the fallen left in the open for jackals, unburied, which was the worst dishonour a body could suffer.