From My Soul Waits Psalm 100 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the Earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. (vv. 1-2) Psalm 100 is the final in a series of psalms (95-100) that have been grouped together to celebrate the glorious reign of God over all Heaven and Earth.  Remember that the Psalter is actually a prayer book that editors carefully arranged in order to make it most useful for worship in the temple.  (Other groupings like this include Psalms 113–118, 120–134, and 146–150.)  In some ways, the whole of Psalm 100 has already appeared in the psalms that precede it: make a joyful noise (Psalm 98:4); be glad in the Lord (96:11-12); the invitation to come into God’s presence (95:6, 96:8); we are God’s sheep and are pastured [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 87 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. (v. 3) Every year, when we celebrate the feast of the dedication of our monastery church, the Church of the Transfiguration, we read these words from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “So when you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” (2:19-20).  The imagery of a physical building as the house of God is part of what has made this passage fitting for the dedication of a church for almost two millennia.  But if we limit ourselves to envisioning only the beauty of stone walls [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 91 My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust. (v. 2) Drawing upon an already familiar pattern in the sixth century, Saint Benedict directed in his rule for monastery life that Psalm 91 be sung at the hoursof Compline, the night service of prayer that closed every day of the week. Here, most certainly, is a prayer that “puts the church to bed,” with confident assurance in the all-encompassing protection of God. It is, above all, a song of trust. If there is a New Testament counterpart to its succinct message, it would be found in Paul’s rhetorical questions to the Romans: “If God is for us, who is against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:31, 35). The self-evident [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 46 Be still, and know that I am God. (v. 10) Sometime around 1529 the church reformer and former Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, paraphrased Psalm 46 into one of the most beloved hymns of Protestantism: Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott.  Later translated into English, the opening words are: A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our helper he, amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing. Psalm 46 is one of liturgical psalms in praise of Mount Zion, God’s “dwelling place,” (see also Psalms 48, 76, 84, 87, and 122).  The common theme running through these psalms is the incomparable beauty and unshakable security of the City of God.  The place where God makes his abode is the most glorious and [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 147 It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly. (v. 1) When the people of Israel drew near to the end of their journey in the wilderness, Moses prepared them for what lay ahead by reminding them of what had brought them to this point.  After generations of slavery in Egypt, they were not a free people, great in number and filled with promise.  They carried with them the wealth of their oppressors and stood on the verge of possessing the land promised to their fathers.  Lest they succumb to thinking that their own hand had accomplished their deliverance, Moses reminded them of the true reason for their good fortune: “It was not because you were more in number than [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 90 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (v. 12) There are five “books” in the collection that is the Psalter, and Psalm 90 is the first psalm of Book IV.  Both Jewish and Christian scholarship notes that the emphasis of the final two books (sixty-one psalms in all) is on God’s sovereignty and glory.  Three begin with the words, The Lord reigns (vv. 93, 97, 99), and the only ten psalms beginning with, Praise the Lord, are in these closing volumes.  Psalm 90 was chosen as a fitting introduction to these songs of praise, and its title tells us why: “God’s Eternity and Human Frailty.” For creatures of dust we are remarkably blind to matters of our own mortality.  We spend a [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 113 He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap. (v. 7) Psalm 113 presents us with the juxtaposition of two seemingly contrasting wonders about the nature of God – his incomparable majesty and his tender mercy.  To describe them, the psalmist draws upon a very familiar social concept: status.  The Lord rules in glory from on high, yet lives among the poorest of the poor. The psalm opens with a call to praise the Lord, perhaps directed by one of the temple priests to the choir of cantors, (v. 1).  Their response builds rapidly into a crescendo of sound, glorifying God for his rule over all time and space, (vv. 2-4).  Their repeated use of “the name of the Lord” shows the [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 19 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. (v. 14) How are you to know and bring your life into harmony with the ways of God?  In some of the most poetically descriptive language of the psalmody, Psalm 19 unfolds a three-part answer to this question.  The varying structures and vocabularies of the psalm reveal distinct styles that have been merged to create a single voice of prayer, an eloquent triptych that moves the reader from a general acknowledgment of God’s ways to a personal commitment to live by them. In part one, verses 1–6, the psalmist describes the splendor of the heavens as a vehicle for displaying the glory of God.  Interestingly, in these verses, [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. (v. 1) There is probably no other psalm that has been copied, recited in worship, prayed in private, and set to music more than Psalm 23.  The tones of rest and trust that permeate its six short verses strike a resonant chord in every human heart, for they describe that world of contentment and serenity for which we all long.  It is not a world that exists out there somewhere, however.  It is a world that exists because of someone.  It is the world created for his sheep by the Good Shepherd.  The Lord is the maker of this world, and only because of his guiding hand and provision – his loving-kindness and mercy – do the sheep dwell within its blessed gates. The [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 86 In the day of my trouble I call on thee, for thou dost answer me. (v. 7) At the start of Psalm 86, we are inclined to think we are reading an ordinary cry of lament.  The psalmist is in some kind of trouble and turns to the Lord for assistance.  But as we read further, we encounter a mixture of petition and praise that goes on through the entire psalm.  The psalmist’s situation may be dire, but good things have happened as well.  I am poor and needy; thou art good and forgiving, (vv. 1, 5).  I call on thee; thou dost answer me, (v. 7).  Teach me thy way; thou, Lord, hast helped and comforted me, (vv. 11, 17).  The psalm goes back and forth between calling out to God in need, and thanking God for needs [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 31 Into thy hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. (v. 5) “Into thy hands I commit my spirit” is the most well-known verse of this psalm.  His own hands helplessly nailed to a cross, Jesus quoted it – with the all-important addition, “Father” – as he “breathed his last” upon the cross, (Luke 23:46).  Stephen prayed much the same as he was being stoned to death, the first martyr of the fledgling church: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” (Acts 7:59).  With these words of trusting relinquishment at its center, and read in the light of Jesus’s passion and death – really, the consummation of his incarnation – the whole of Psalm 31 takes on a depth of meaning [...]

From My Soul Waits Psalm 150 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (v. 6) The Psalter is actually a collection of five books of psalms, each of which ends with a brief doxology, (see Psalms 41:13, 72:18-19, 89:52, 106:48).  Considering all that has been said about the Lord God in the previous 149 psalms, what else can be said?  Here, at the conclusion of the entire Psalter, what can possibly bear the weight of being the last word?  Psalm 150 – it is as if all of the previous doxologies have multiplied and expanded into one final and glorious eruption of jubilant praise. The genius of this psalm is how much it says with so very few words.  First, it answers all the basic questions about praising God: where [...]