PRAYING THE PSALMS

Praying the Psalms



You wouldn't imagine that prayers and songs written 2,000 years ago could have relevance today. They were written by men (literally) living in a pre-industrial, agriculturally based, authoritarian monarchy (often militaristic and vengeful) and, naturally, who had no comprehension of life in a fast-paced, technological, egalitarian, democratic, and relativistic age. Yet people continue to discover as they have discovered in each century that the Psalms are by far the most meaningful and relevant prayer resource we have.

Jesus often quoted or referred to Psalms; for instance, at his temptation (Matthew 4:6), in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:7, 35, 7:23), and at the crucifixion (Luke 23:34; Matthew 27:46). It is likely that the first Christian congregations used selections from the book in their public services. Skip to the fifth century, and we hear the theologian Augustine calling the book the "language of devotion." Jump to the 1500s, and we find Martin Luther calling the Psalms "a Bible in miniature." In the 1990s, poet Kathleen Norris "fell in love" with the Psalms because it became clear to her "that the world they depict is not really so different from our own."

What Are These Things?

The Psalms are universal literature, which means, among other things, that you can simply open your Bible and begin reading and gain something quite a bit, actually. If you're like me, that's probably what you'll do at first. I've never been very patient when it comes to background and introductory stuff. If that's your tendency, you may want to spend some time reading, pondering, and praying the Psalms until you've run into enough questions to motivate you to discover more. That's what this chapter is about: getting a little deeper into the Psalms so that they can be read and prayed at even more meaningful levels.


First things first: What exactly are Psalms? Psalms are simply songs, and "The Psalms" is a collection of 150 songs, many of which were used in public worship in ancient Israel. In Hebrew they are called Tehillim, meaning "praises" or "songs of praise." This gives some indication of the main theme of the Psalms.

Though many people think of them as all coming from the hand of King David, only about half claim to be written by him. Others were written by temple musicians (with names such as Asaph and Ethan), and a few by David's son (the famous King Solomon); one is attributed to Moses (Psalm 90). In spite of the fact that they were written mostly by the elite, these Psalms speak to people of all stations of life.


They also speak to people in all situations. Some were written during the most glorious era of Israel's history (the reigns of David and Solomon, 1003 B.C.930 B.C.). But many were written after Israel had been conquered first by the Assyrians (722 B.C.) and then by the Babylonians (587 B.C.)deported, and scattered over the Middle East. This event, called the exile, devastated the faith of Israel. Yet, the people continued to pray, and one way they did so was by writing the Psalms.

Getting Around

You'll notice as you begin reading the Psalms that they are divided into five books, and each book ends with a Psalm of praise (also called a "doxology"). As far as we can tell, here is how the books came together:

· Book 1: Psalms 141; Compiled during the reign of King David

· Book 2: Psalms 4272; Compiled and added during the reign of King Solomon

· Book 3: Psalms 7389; Compiled and added during the exile

· Book 4: Psalms 90106; Compiled and added during the exile

· Book 5: Psalms 107150 Compiled and added after the return from exile

This doesn't mean that the themes of the Psalms arise out of the period when they were added. For example, one of the most eloquent expressions of exiled Israel (Psalm 137) is in the after-the-exile section. Likewise, prayers by David (including Psalm 86) are found in the part compiled during the exile.

Yet, knowing when a Psalm was added sometimes can help us see new layers of meaning. For example, after realizing the devastating effects of exile, we can appreciate the sentiments of Psalm 126:

"When the Lord restored his exiles to Jerusalem,it was like a dream!We were filled with laughter,and we sang for joy."

A Psalm like this, then, can be used in prayer to express thanks today to God for delivering us from a crisis, or it can be used as a prayer of hope as we remember that God is a God who rescues.

Psalms can also be organized thematically:

· History: These Psalms (such as 14, 44, and 4648) rehearse the key moments in Israel's history and recount God's intervention.

· Appeals: These Psalms (including 54, 55, 58, and 59) usually ask for vindication against one's own or God's enemies.

· Hope: Psalms such as 2, 8, 110, and 132 express hope for a coming deliverer or messiah.

· Confession: These Psalms (such as 32 and 51) express sorrow for sin and wish for reconciliation.

· Praise: Psalms such as 33, 103, and 139 extol God's goodness.

How to Read a Psalm

If we can understand the nature of Hebrew poetry, we'll get more out of reading and praying the Psalms. The Psalms do not rhyme, and they do not employ the intense metaphors of modern poetry. Instead, they rely on parallelism to express ideas.

Parallelism is merely repeating or furthering the same idea in new form. For example, Psalm 95 begins like this:


"Come, let us sing to the Lord!Let us give a joyous shout to the rock of our salvation!"

"Sing" is parallel with "give a joyous shout," and "the Lord" is parallel (that is, similar in thought) with "the rock of our salvation." The Psalmist here is merely repeating an idea.

Sometimes the parallelism is a matter of contrast. Again in Psalm 95 we read:

"He [God] owns the depths of the earth,and even the mightiest mountains are his."

Here "He owns" and "are his" are parallel, but "depths of the sea" and "the mightiest mountains" are in contrast. The larger point, however, is the same: There ain't nothin' that isn't God's.

Sometimes the parallelism furthers the original thought. In Psalm 103, we read this:

"The Lord is merciful and gracious;He is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love."

"He is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love" fills out the meaning of "The Lord is merciful and gracious."

Then there are larger patterns, where entire sections can be parallel or the structure of the Psalm itself might follow an A-B-A-B pattern or an A-B-B-A pattern.

The point here is not to become a literary critic of the Psalms. If you understand parallelism as a poetic tool, though, you won't be tempted to try to find profound meaning in each phrase. Instead, we should let the parallels roll over us like ocean waves, each powerful in its own way; each washing over us the grace of God, but each fundamentally the same.


Devotional Themes

One way to pray the Psalms is to pick and choose, depending on your mood, needs, and desires. Many topical guides to the Psalms exist, including this one, which I modified from the Revell Bible Dictionary:

· Anger: 4, 17, 28, 36, 109

· Anxiety/fear: 3, 11, 27, 46, 49, 91, 121, 139, 146

· Direction: 13, 25, 37, 89, 119, 146

· Disappointment: 16, 92, 102, 130

· Discouragement: 12, 42, 55, 86, 107, 142

· Injustice: 7, 9, 10, 17, 35, 52, 56, 94, 109

· Insignificance: 8, 23, 86, 121, 139

· Joy: 33, 47, 63, 84, 96, 97, 98, 100, 148

· Knowing God: 8, 19, 29, 65, 89, 103, 111, 136, 145, 147

· Loneliness: 3, 13, 17, 25, 27, 69, 91

· Patience: 4, 5, 37, 89, 123

· Reassurance: 1, 15, 18, 23, 26, 112, 121, 128

· Safety, security: 34, 84, 91

· Sickness: 22, 23, 41, 116

· Sorrows, grief: 6, 31, 71, 77, 94, 123

· Thankfulness: 30, 33, 34, 40, 66, 89, 96, 113, 136

· Trouble: 10, 86, 90, 94, 126, 138, 142

· Weakness: 4, 23, 62, 70, 102, 138

The advantage of a topical approach is obvious: We can go directly to a Psalm that can speak to our situation, or one that helps us express to God more closely what we're feeling. On the other hand, we limit the ability of the Psalms to transform us if we pick at them as we would a box of chocolates. The Psalms are a full-course meal, and some of them we have to develop a taste for and that takes practice.

Week by Week

That brings us to another way to pray the Psalms: reading them through in some orderly fashion, day by day. Many monastic orders do this sort of thing and have for centuries reading through all 150 every few weeks or months.

Some people simply read the Psalms all the way through in order, reading maybe five per day (which will get you through the Psalms in a month). Others read by a plan that sorts the Psalms according to the day of the week or season of the church year (see Chapter 33, ''Prayer in the Liturgical Tradition"). The Book of Common Prayer (which we'll look at in the next chapter) has suggested Psalm readings that move through the Psalms in seven weeks.

Psalms 145150 are sometimes called the laudate ("praise") Psalms, and thus it is appropriate to pray one of them each morning of the week.

Mechanics

There are a number of ways to "pray" the Psalms. Here are three suggestions:

1. Read and meditate. You simply read a Psalm a time or two (or three) and reflect on its meaning. For example, I might read Psalm 27, which begins like this:

"The Lord is my light and salvationso why should I be afraid? The Lord protects me from dangerso why should I tremble?"

I would reflect on the areas of my life in which I am afraid and then ask God to help me trust in his protection.

2. Adopt the Psalm as your own prayer. Try to say it as if you are the one praising God, seeking help, or arguing with God.

This is pretty easy when you happen to be in the mood that the Psalm expresses. When I'm in despair, Psalm 88 is the ticket: "O Lord, why do you reject me? Why do you turn your face away from me?" Or, when I'm especially thankful for a return of good health, Psalm 30 expresses my feelings well: "O Lord my God, I cried out to you for help, and you restored my health."

And sometimes when I pray the Psalm as if it were my prayer, it can help me feel something I'd like to feel. This is especially true of praise. A lot of days, I simply don't feel all that thankful to God, and yet the logical part of me knows that I'm basking in too many blessings to count. Sometimes praying a Psalm of praise can help me feel the way I'm thinking:

"Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, I tell myself.I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God even with my dying breath."Psalm 146:12

3. Bask in the poetry of the Psalm. Here the idea is not to understand or use the Psalm for our own ends, but to let it do some work on us. At a minimum, the Psalms are sublime poetry; at their highest, they are the word of God. As such, they have a power to evoke in us thoughts and feelings we were not aware of.

So sometimes I just try to read the Psalm and let its words wash over me. I simply read it aloud over and over, trying to put the analytical part of my mind to rest, trying simply to experience the beauty of the poetry and the wonder of the words.


Whatever method we use, we are wise not to force ourselves into some sublime state of mind, or to beat ourselves up when praying the Psalms "just doesn't work." Some days it will "work" and other days it won't. There will be days when no matter how you prepare yourself, the Psalms will just sit on the page and remain abstract and meaningless. Let it be for that day. The Psalm is still doing its work on you, just as a meal you don't particularly enjoy is still sustaining your body. To be sure, there will be other days when you pray the Psalms and you feel you are in the very presence of heaven.

The Difficult Psalms

This is all well and good when reading the glorious Psalms of praise or the Psalms of deep insight. But what do you do when you run across verses like this?

"Let my enemies be destroyedby the very evil they have planned for me.Let burning coals fall down on their heads,
or throw them into the fire,or into deep pits from which they cannot escape."Psalm 140:910

Or, worse:

"O Babylon, you will be destroyed.Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us.Happy is the one who takes your babiesand smashes them against the rocks."Psalm 137:89

These are hardly moods we want aroused in us and yet it is not difficult to find such angry and vengeful passages in the Psalms. How are we to pray these?

We pray them as honest expressions of the human heart. I may pretend that I never feel such hatred or ever wish violence on others, but the fact is, there are times when I do. If I'm angry at a coworker, I may not want burning coals to fall upon him, but I have imagined him getting humiliated in front of our publisher or losing his job. And, I have to admit, when I'm really angry, there are moments when flashes of violence pop into my head.

If I'm seriously angry, I may use such a Psalm as a personal expression of how I'm really feeling. If the anger is but a distant memory, I'll use the Psalm as a way of recalling that, yes, sometimes I am like this.


Passages such as these keep the Psalms from becoming one more bit of pious literature. Instead, they are honest prayers of real people experiencing the myriad of emotions life arouses in us. If you're interested in merely becoming religious, avoid the Psalms. If you're interested in becoming more deeply human as well as more honestly and vitally connected to God, praying the Psalms will help.