The remaining clauses of ver. 3 and ver. 4 form a transition to the full consciousness of satisfaction which animates the psalmist in the second part. The resolve to praise, and the assurance that he will have occasion to praise, succeed his longing with startling swiftness. The "So" of ver. 4 seems to be equivalent to "Accordingly"--_i.e._, since Thy loving-kindness is such supreme good, and is mine because I have desired it. Continual praise and as continual invocation are the fitting employments of those who receive it, and by these alone can their possession of the loving-kindness bestowed be made permanent. If empty palms are not ever lifted towards God, His gifts will not descend. When these are received, they will fall like morning sunbeams on stony and dumb lips, which before were only parted to let out sighs, and will draw forth music of praise. There are longings which never are satisfied; but God lets no soul that thirsts for Him perish for lack of the water of life. Wisdom bids us fix our desires on that Sovereign Good, to long for which is ennobling and blessed, and to possess which is rest and the beginning of heaven. Thus the psalmist passes imperceptibly to the second strophe, in which the longing soul becomes the satisfied soul. The emblem of a feast is naturally suggested by the previous metaphor of thirst. The same conviction, which urged the psalmist forward in his search after God, now assures him of absolute satisfaction in finding Him. Since God's loving-kindness is better than life, the soul that possesses Him can have no unappeased cravings, nor any yet hungry affections or wishes. In the region of communion with God, fruition is contemporaneous with and proportioned to desire. When the rain comes in the desert, what was baked earth is soon rich pasture, and the dry torrent beds, where the white stones glittered ghastly in the sunshine, are musical with rushing streams and fringed with budding oleanders. On that telegraph a message is flashed upwards and an answer speeds downwards, in a moment of time. Many of God's gifts are delayed by Love; but the soul that truly desires Him has never long to wait for a gift that equals its desire. When God is possessed, the soul is satisfied. So entire is the correspondence between wants and gift, that every concavity in us finds, as it were, a convexity to match it in Him. The influx of the great ocean of God fills every curve of the shore to the brim, and the flashing glory of that sunlit sea covers the sands, and brings life where stagnation reigned and rotted. So the satisfied soul lives to praise, as the psalm goes on to vow. Lips that drink such draughts of Loving-kindness will not be slow to tell its sweetness. If we have nothing to say about God's goodness, the probable cause is our want of experience of it.