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The Righteous Cry Out, and the Lord Hears: Reading the Psalms

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The Righteous Cry Out, and the Lord Hears: Reading the Psalms The Righteous Cry Out, and the Lord Hears: Reading the Psalms Privately and Corporately Michael G. Lilienthal Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Divinity Degree Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary Mankato, MN 26 March 2014 Adolph L. Harstad, M.A., Advisor Gaylin R. Schmeling, S.T.M. Mark E. DeGarmeaux, S.T.M. Lilienthal 3 Table of Contents Introduction: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs ................................................................ 5 Part One: Reading the Psalms .................................................................................................... 9 Sweeter than Honey: A Primer on Poetry ................................................................................ 15 In Our Own Tongues: A Note on Translation ........................................................................ 23 Praises, Shouts, and New Songs: Reading the Different Types of Psalms ............................... 27 1. Psalms of Thanksgiving ..................................................................................................... 28 2. Psalms of Praise ................................................................................................................. 30 3. Psalms of Petition .............................................................................................................. 33 a. Petitions for Comfort ............................................................................................ 34 b. Petitions of Complaint .......................................................................................... 36 c. Imprecatory Psalms .............................................................................................. 42 Part Two: Using the Psalms ...................................................................................................... 55 Psalms in Private Prayer .......................................................................................................... 55 Psalms in Family Devotion ...................................................................................................... 59 Psalms in Corporate Worship ................................................................................................... 62 Gleaning Church Doctrine from the Psalms ............................................................................ 66 Conclusion: I Cried to the Lord with My Voice, and He Heard Me .................................. 70 Appendix I: Select Psalms ......................................................................................................... 73 Psalm 6 ..................................................................................................................................... 73 Psalm 16 ................................................................................................................................... 77 Psalm 109 ................................................................................................................................. 82 Psalm 136 ................................................................................................................................. 88 Psalm 148 ................................................................................................................................. 95 Appendix II: Psalm Categories .............................................................................................. 100 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 101 Lilienthal 5 Introduction: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul encourages his readers to “be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,”1 and in his letter to the Colossians he says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”2 Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are all poetic compositions designed specifically to be sung, and yet Paul suggests a different use for them here. The Christians in Ephesus and Colosse were to “speak to one another” and to “teach and admonish one another” in this musical poetry. One may almost picture a utopian sort of culture in which people sing to one another and play divine music, lifting up each other’s spirits and encouraging a blissful, happy life. If understood in this way, Ephesus and Colosse might become pictures of heaven. There is another understanding of the pronoun here in these two verses translated “one another,” that it would be better translated “yourselves.” In this case, rather than a community in which people sing to one another in heavenly delight, the songs are sung more privately, to one’s own soul to encourage oneself. This provides the image of the individual, who, in the trials and troubles, the joys and pleasures of life, finds a blessed expression in private conversation with God. Consider the two-way communication found in the Psalms: if prayer is man speaking to God, then that is in 1 Eph. 5:18-19 (NKJV). 2 Col. 3:16 (NKJV). 6 Lilienthal the Psalms; if Scripture is God speaking to man, then that is found in the Psalms. Nowhere else but in the Lord’s Prayer are both directions of such communication encompassed in one.3 And the individual speaking and singing to God is unified with the Church at large, for, “When we sing our psalms and our hymns in our Christian worship, all of us sing together, and we by no means chant the instructive and the admonitory words only to our fellow singers, nor do they chant them to us, we all say them first and foremost to our own selves.”4 This singing, speaking, teaching, and admonishing with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is therefore designed as both a corporate and a private affair. We as Christians, as members of Christ’s body, will partake in the worship of Christ’s body, receiving the Word God gives to all his people, and responding with all God’s people to him in prayer. We will also, in the quiet hours when we sit alone, when we walk alone, when we work alone, find in the Psalms a way in which we may privately speak to God, whether it be with sorrow, rage, or joy. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you,”5 says Paul. Elsewhere he says: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your 3 One also could include psalms found in Scripture outside the book of Psalms, such as the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29-32), the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), and others. 4 R. C. H. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament: Colossians (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 177-178. Cf. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 619-620. 5 1 Thess. 5:16-18 (NKJV). Lilienthal 7 requests be made known to God.”6 Luther, too, saw the value of calling upon God thus, because of man’s inescapable sinfulness, “Therefore nothing is so needful as to call upon God constantly and to din our plea into God’s ear that He would give, preserve, and increase in us faith, and thus obedience to the Ten Commandments, and that He would clear away everything that stands in the way and is a hindrance to our obedience.”7 Indeed, prayer and petition and worship must have a place of extreme importance in Christian churches, otherwise there would not be any Christian churches. Examining, then, the purpose of the psalms in Old Testament worship, and their importance in modern worship, the point must be raised that there is a wide gap of 3,000 years or more between modern Christian churches and Israel’s temple in Jerusalem. C. S. Lewis found some difficulty in the distance between himself and those who inhabited the Psalms, who were “almost shockingly alien; creatures of unrestrained emotion, wallowing in self-pity, sobbing, cursing, screaming in exultation, clashing uncouth weapons or dancing to the din of strange musical instruments.”8 William L. Holladay stresses “that whatever the original author or setting of the psalm, we must visualize its context in the culture of early Israel, a culture in some ways very distant from our own.”9 He would like modern readers to understand that they must build bridges to cross from the early A.D. 2000s back into the 1000s B.C. While such 6 Phil. 4:6 (NKJV). 7 Martin Luther, Large Catechism, translated by F. Samuel Janzow (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1978), 78. 8 C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, in The Timeless Writings of C. S. Lewis (New York: Inspirational Press, 1981), 253. 9 William L. Holladay, The Psalms Through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 10. 8 Lilienthal historical contextualizing is helpful to any student of the psalms or other biblical writings, it should be emphasized that there are already bridges in place, and they need only be crossed. The psalms were not meant to be left within the context of the culture of early Israel, but transported down through the ages, through the mouths of God’s people for millennia, sung wherever his worshipers gathered to praise him, and also spoken whenever a brother needed encouragement, whispered whenever one of God’s children needed a taste of something sweeter than honey. God has placed a marvelous
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