So I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and glory.
David fled into Judah's wilderness to escape Saul's murderous pursuit, and this psalm gathers his pious meditations and vows made under such severe trials. Some place it during Absalom's rebellion, but the desert setting and David's peril fit the Saul years best, even though he calls himself king, expressing his confident faith that God would fulfill His promise to raise him to the throne.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 63:1-11
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. He longed not so much to see the sanctuary as to see his God; he looked through the veil of ceremonies to the invisible One.
The title tells us when the psalm was penned, when David was in the wilderness of Judah; that is, in the forest of Hareth (Sa1 22:5) or in the wilderness of Ziph, Sa1 23:15. 1. Even in Canaan, though a fruitful land and the people numerous, yet there were wildernesses, places less fruitful and less inhabited than other places.
Commenting on Psalm 63:1-2