Psalm

“ This psalm has for its burden a cry for deliverance; but the Psalmist begins where it is very hard for a struggling man to begin, but where we always should begin, with grateful remembrance of God's mercy. His wondrous dealings seem to the Psalmist's thankful heart as numberless as the blades of grass which carpet the fields, or as the wavelets which glance in the moonlight and break in silver upon the sand. They come pouring out continuously, like the innumerable undulations of the ether which make upon the eyeballs the single sensation of light. ”

“ The minister mounted his pulpit and I sat down a little below it. In a voice which rang melodiously through the silence he said: "Let us worship God by singing to His praise the 121st psalm." He read the psalm from beginning to end and then the congregation, still sitting, took up the refrain and sang slowly the confident words. It was a psalm which to these hill-folk must have been charged with many memories.
There was more of earnestness than of melody in the singing, but suddenly I was aware of one voice that sounded clear and bell-like among the jumble of raucous notes. ”

“ Unto the end, a canticle of a psalm of the resurrection. Shout with joy to God, all the earth,
65:2. Sing ye a psalm to his name; give glory to his praise.
65:3. Say unto God, How terrible are thy works, O Lord! in the multitude of thy strength thy enemies shall lie to thee.
65:4. Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee: let it sing a psalm to thy name.
65:5. Come and see the works of God; who is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men. ”

“ The sparkling stream of molten silver as, free from dross, it runs from the melting-pot to the mould on the ground, is a beautiful figure of the word of God, clear of all the impurities of men's words, which the psalm has been bewailing and raining down on the world. God's words are a silver shower, precious and bright.
[Pg 115]
The last turn of the psalm builds hope on the pure words just heard from heaven. When God speaks a promise, faith repeats it as a certitude and prophesies in the line of the revelation. "Thou shalt" is man's answer to God's "I will." ”

“ So the psalm ends, as it began, with adoring wonder, and proclaims this as the result of the twofold witness which it has so nobly set forth: that God's name shines glorious through all the earth, and every eye may see its lustre. ”

“ I guess I must take the advice of that psalm to myself."
He had in mind the close of the twenty-seventh psalm, read the night before: "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." ”

“ This psalm is a sermon, and an excellent useful sermon it is, calculated not (as most of the psalms) for our devotion, but for our conversation; there is nothing in it of prayer or praise, but it is all instruction; it is "Maschil—a teaching psalm;" it is an exposition of some of the hardest chapters in the book of Providence, the advancement of the wicked and the disgrace of the righteous, a solution of the difficulties that arise thereupon, and an exhortation to conduct ourselves as becomes us under such dark dispensations. ”

“ Then, too, besides this captivating music of the Catholic church, we should think of the plain church, the voices of the united multitude, in simple, solemn, sublime strains, presenting themselves as one before the Lord. Even our modern psalm, as monotonous and artificial as it often is, satisfying scarcely more than the grammatical conditions of a musical proposition, has oftentimes an unsurpassable grandeur. ”

“ Though it is the shortest psalm in the collection, it is most comprehensive. It is a psalm for Israel, yet it is universal and cosmopolitan, embracing in its scope " all nations and peoples," so that in the Epistle to the Romans it forms part of the Apostle's argument that Gentiles too are called upon to glorify God for His mercy. It is a thoroughly evangelical psalm, for it sings of grace and truth ; it is a beautiful psalm of praise, for it begins with a Hallelujah and ends with a Hallelujah, and there is a third fervent call to praise in between. ”

“ Besides the above use of the Psalter, one psalm, or the portion of a psalm, is appointed to be recited at the opening of every office, at the Baptismal, Eucharistic, Burial, and every other Church service.
The psalms are always chanted by two persons, sometimes by the officiating priests and deacons, and sometimes by laymen. The priests usually recite them from memory, but the laymen from the written Psalter. ”

“ This psalm is a most solemn and earnest call to all the creatures, according to their capacity, to praise their Creator, and to show forth his eternal power and Godhead, the invisible things of which are manifested in the things that are seen. ”

“ The order with which each school finds its own situation, and the union of so many voices, all raised at one moment to the praise of their great Creator, as they chant the hundredth psalm on the entrance of the clergyman, cause a most delightful and affecting sensation in the minds of the spectators. ”

“ And lastly, one night in the spring time—or say one morning rather, at the peep of day—late folk may hear the voices of many men singing a psalm in unison from a church on one side of the old High Street, and a little after or perhaps a little before, the sound of many men singing a psalm in unison from another church on the opposite side of the way. ”

“ Psalm 37 is composed in stanzas of four lines, the first letters of the first lines of the stanzas spelling out the alphabet. The author of the psalm is an old man who gives warning against fretting over the prosperity of the wicked, and who affirms on the basis of his long experience of life, that, while the prosperity of the wicked is short-lived, God never forsakes the righteous. ”

“ PSALM vi. Domine, ne in furore
Ash Wednesday, morning (Prayer Book)
The prayer of the human soul suffering the temporal punishments, bodily and mental, of sin. Christ Himself endured these sufferings to the utmost, not for Himself, but for His people, and in this sense it, with the other penitential Psalms, may be called a Psalm of the Incarnation.
PSALM vii. Domine, Deus meus
The declaration of the Innocency of Christ against the persecution and treachery of His enemies; His appeal to the Father's justice. ”

“ In their deeper sense, His words declare that the ears of God and of His Son, the Lord of the temple, are more gladly filled with the praises of the 'little ones,' who know their weakness, and hymn His goodness with simple tongue, than with heartless eloquence of words or pomp of worship. The psalm from which the words are taken declares man's superiority over the highest works of God's hands, and the perfecting of the divine praise from his lips. We are but as the little children of creation, but because we know sin and redemption, we lead the chorus of heaven. ”

“ Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them: that the Gentiles may know themselves to be but men.
Here the late Hebrew doctors divide this psalm into two, making ver. 22 the beginning of psalm 10. And again they join Psalms 146 and 147 into one, in order that the whole number of psalms should not exceed 150. ”

“ It has been suggested that in this passage the elegist is following the sixty-ninth psalm, and that perhaps that psalm is his own composition and the expression of the very prayer to which he is here referring. At all events, the psalm exactly fits the situation; and therefore it may be taken as a perfect illustration of the kind of prayer alluded to. The psalmist is "in deep mire, where there is no standing;" he has "come into deep waters, where the floods overthrow" him; he is persecuted by enemies who hate him "without a cause;" he has been weeping till his eyes have failed. ”

“ Willard, and then [Pg 127] given out by the ruling elder, line by line, to the congregation. The selection for the morning was the fifty-first psalm, and its penitential character was strikingly adapted to the time and circumstances of their worship. Many a charming voice united in the simple melody, and many a contrite heart mingled its confessions and prayers, in the true spirit of devotion, with those of the pious psalmist. ”

“ They are: psalms (including canticles) , antiphons, responsories, hymns, lessons, little chapters, versicles and collects.
The psalms have already been dealt with, but it may be noted again how the multiplication of saints’ festivals, with practically the same special psalms, tends in practice to constant repetition of about one-third of the Psalter, and correspondingly rare recital of the remaining two-thirds, whereas the Proprium de Tempore, could it be adhered to, would provide equal opportunities for every psalm. ”

“ The most casual reader is struck by the constancy with which an outlook of hope and joy succeeds to the sorrow and stress of the opening verses of Psalm after Psalm. Even the darkest have their gleams of promise. And so the Christian Church, having learned what the hope of Israel meant, found the Psalms come naturally to her lips. ”

“ But against this hope there set themselves those last words which had come from the mouth of Jesus on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Now these words are the first words, and as it were the prelude, of one of our psalms. So I began to repeat to myself the words of the psalm; which beginneth with sadness, yea even from the depths of sorrow, but these words follow afterwards: "I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted ”

“ Psalm 104.
The glory of God in creation and providence.
1 My soul, thy great Creator praise;
When cloth'd in his celestial rays
He in full Majesty appears,
And, like a robe, his glory wears.
Note, This psalm may be sung to the tune of the old 112th or 127th
Psalm, by adding the two following lines to every stanza, viz.
Great is the Lord; what tongue can frame
An equal honour to his Name?
Otherwise it must be sung as the 100th psalm.
2 The heavens are for his curtains spread,
Th' unfathom'd deep he makes his bed;
Clouds are his chariot, when he flies
On winged storms across the skies. ”

“ Until the fifth century vespers were the last prayers of the day, and included the psalms, which were said separately in the following century, as a last service, termed Compline, and which at first only contained three psalms—it was not till the ninth century that the thirtieth psalm was added. ”

“ Scottish Psalter, 1650
Psalm 145:1-7. A Festal Anthem.
A praise song celebrating the greatness and goodness of God as manifested in all creation. The praise of God and of His marvelous works shall go on forever. The psalm has been called the Te Deum of the Old Testament and this version is worthy of its original.
MUSIC. DUKE STREET. For comments on this tune see Hymn 341. ”

“ If a man had any word of exhortation for the people, he might say on. “Every one of you hath a psalm, a doctrine.” If a man had some fragment of an old psalm, or some [332] strain that had come fresh from the Christian heart, he might sing it, and his brethren would listen. ”

“ If I could read to you the best poems written in other lands by men of other days, by men of other faiths, if I could compare the thoughts of this psalm with other thoughts of God's plan and of man's position, you would understand what I mean when I say the psalm is grand, the psalm is a revelation of man and of God. ”

“ I have made psalms of praise in the holy assembly the chief delightful exercise of my religion and my life, and have helped to bear down all the objections which I have heard against church music and against the 149th and 150th Psalms. It was not the least comfort I had in the converse with my late dear wife, that our first in the morning and last at night was a psalm of praise, till the hearing of others interrupted it. Let those that savour not melody leave others to their different appetites, and be content to be so far strangers to their delights. ”

“ I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart; and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat, or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! Angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety." ”

“ And the sacred poet points all round to the illimitable, beyond the boundaries of time out into eternity, shows the relation of all things, created and uncreated, to the symbol of grace, and how all nations look up to Him in worship.
“The universe in its thousand-fold phenomena, with the chorus of all its myriad voices, becomes one sublime psalm to the praise of the Most Holy; heaven and earth lay their gifts at his feet ”

“ An instance of the anthem being so intimately interwoven with the psalm, as to render the insertion of the "Gloria," between the two, to say the least, forced and unnatural, occurs at the close of the 86th (87th) psalm. The vulgate translation of the last verse, differing entirely from the English, is this: "As the habitation of all who rejoice is in thee." This sentence of the Psalmist is thus taken up in the Roman Ritual: "As the habitation of all us who rejoice is in THEE, Holy Mother of God." ”

“ A Psalm of the Church's thanksgiving for the eternal mercy of Christ, as seen in creation, and in her own history and deliverances, and also in His abiding gift of the Eucharist (ver. 25) .
PSALM cxxxvii. Super flumina
A Psalm of the sorrows of the Church in her captivity in this world, where she is persecuted and misunderstood. She expresses her loyalty to her heavenly calling, her desire for "Jerusalem which is above," and her warfare with Babylon, for whose overthrow she confidently waits. ”