Deus Misereatur (1928 BCP)
Deus Misereatur (1928 BCP) is Psalm 67, appointed as an alternative to the Nunc Dimittis after the New Testament Lesson in Daily Evening Prayer in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. Its Latin title means “May God be merciful.” The psalm asks for God's blessing upon his people so that his way and “saving health” may be known among all nations. It then summons those nations to praise the righteous divine Governor and closes with the earth's increase and the worldwide fear of God.
The canticle is therefore both prayer and proclamation. Israel's priestly blessing is sought for the sake of the world; divine judgment is welcomed because it is righteous; material fruitfulness becomes a sign of God's generosity; and the repeated “Let the peoples praise thee” makes received blessing issue in common worship. In Evening Prayer, the congregation answers the apostolic Lesson with an Old Testament psalm whose horizon is the universal knowledge of God's salvation.
Text in the 1928 Prayer Book
The complete canticle in the 1928 Standard Book is:
GOD be merciful unto us, and bless us, * and show us the light of his countenance, and be merciful unto us;
That thy way may be known upon earth, * thy saving health among all nations.
Let the peoples praise thee, O God; * yea, let all the peoples praise thee.
O let the nations rejoice and be glad; * for thou shalt judge the folk righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise thee, O God; * yea, let all the peoples praise thee.
Then shall the earth bring forth her increase; * and God, even our own God, shall give us his blessing.
God shall bless us; * and all the ends of the world shall fear him.
The asterisks mark the internal divisions used in responsive recitation or chant; they do not indicate omitted words. The Prayer Book permits the Gloria Patri after Deus misereatur, as it does after the other Evening Canticles.[2] The doxology gives the psalm an expressly Trinitarian liturgical conclusion without replacing its Old Testament words.
Place after the New Testament Lesson
The Prayer Book places the psalm immediately after the Song of Simeon as its first alternative:
And after that shall be sung or said the Hymn called the Nunc dimittis, as followeth.
[...]
Or else this Psalm.
Deus misereatur. Psalm lxvii.
The word “alternative” needs precision. The rubric does not append Psalm 67 to the Nunc Dimittis; “Or else” authorizes it in the Nunc Dimittis's place. Benedic, anima mea follows as a second alternative. Whichever canticle is used, it responds to the New Testament Lesson and precedes the Apostles' Creed. The 1928 book also permits one Evening Prayer Lesson to be omitted at the minister's discretion, but requires the Lesson read to be followed by one of the Evening Canticles.[4]
Psalm 67 differs from the Nunc Dimittis in voice and scope. Simeon speaks in the first person about seeing God's salvation in Christ; the psalm speaks corporately and asks that God's saving way be known among all nations. Used after an apostolic Lesson, its universal hope becomes a prayer that the Gospel just heard may be known throughout the earth.
Mercy, blessing, and the light of God's countenance
The opening verse adapts the priestly blessing in Numbers:
The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
“Show us the light of his countenance” is not a request for private illumination detached from covenant worship. It asks that God turn graciously toward his people, preserve them, and give peace. Yet Psalm 67 immediately supplies a missionary purpose: “That thy way may be known upon earth.” Blessing is received so that God's character and saving action may be made known.
The repeated request for mercy also prevents national or ecclesial privilege from becoming self-congratulation. The worshippers do not claim that their own righteousness has earned divine favour. They ask for mercy, name God as “our own God,” and desire that all peoples praise him. Particular covenant belonging and universal mission are held together.
Blessed in order to bless the nations
The movement from “us” to “all nations” recalls God's promise to Abraham:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Psalm 67 does not ask that the nations merely admire Israel's prosperity. It asks that they know God's “way” and “saving health,” rejoice under his righteous rule, praise him, and fear him. The blessing promised to Abraham reaches its intended breadth when the nations themselves become worshippers.
This also explains the psalm's fitness after a New Testament Lesson. The apostolic writings announce that the Abrahamic promise is fulfilled in Christ and carried to the nations through the Gospel. The canticle turns that announcement into congregational intercession: God blesses his Church not for spiritual possession without responsibility, but for witness, service, and praise among all peoples.
“Saving health” and apostolic mission
“Saving health” is older English for salvation or saving deliverance, not merely bodily wellness. The phrase names God's effective rescue. Acts records Paul and Barnabas applying Isaiah's light-to-the-Gentiles commission to apostolic preaching:
For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord.
The verbal sequence closely matches Psalm 67's theology: salvation reaches the earth's ends, Gentiles are glad, and praise follows the word of the Lord. Anglican use of this psalm after the New Testament Lesson should therefore not be treated as a merely picturesque alternative to the Gospel canticle. It is a scriptural prayer for the apostolic mission of the Church.
The psalm also disciplines that mission. God's way, not the Church's cultural preferences, is to be known; God's salvation, not institutional expansion for its own sake, is the good announced; and the desired end is that peoples praise God. Mission begins in received mercy and ends in the worship of the giver.
Righteous judgment and glad nations
The nations are summoned to rejoice because God judges “righteously” and governs them upon earth. In Scripture, judgment is not only condemnation; it is the setting right of wrong, the defence of the oppressed, and the establishment of just rule. The final biblical vision preserves the same union of worldwide worship, righteous ways, fear, and manifest judgment:
Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.
The Prayer Book congregation thus does not pray for a vague international harmony without truth or justice. It rejoices that divine government is equitable and asks that every people come to praise the holy God. Because this judgment belongs to God, the canticle also rebukes national pride and ecclesiastical coercion. No nation singing the psalm may identify its own policy without remainder with God's righteous rule.
The repeated refrain, “Let the peoples praise thee,” surrounds the central verse about righteous government. Praise is not ornamental to justice. The nations rejoice because God's governance is right, and their glad worship acknowledges the true ruler of the earth.
The earth's increase
The final movement turns from the peoples to the fruitful earth. The 1928 wording, “Then shall the earth bring forth her increase,” presents fruitfulness as a promised consequence of divine blessing and worldwide praise. The verse can be heard at harvest, but the canticle does not reduce God's blessing to agricultural abundance. The harvest is one visible sign of providence within a psalm whose governing concern is universal salvation and worship.
Alexander Maclaren read the whole composition through that missionary purpose:
This psalm is a truly missionary psalm, in its clear anticipation of the universal spread of the knowledge of God.
Maclaren's description fits the psalm's order. The worshippers ask for blessing, but the request opens outward toward knowledge, salvation, praise, righteous government, and fear of God throughout the world. Even “our own God” does not close the circle around the congregation: the next petition is that God bless “us,” and the purpose is that “all the ends of the world shall fear him.”
Christian interpretation can also see the agricultural image as analogous to the fruit of Gospel mission, provided the literal thanksgiving for providential increase is not erased. God gives natural fruitfulness, spiritual growth, and the final harvest; the Church receives each as gift and may claim none as self-produced.
Liturgical history
Psalm 67 was already an alternative to the Nunc Dimittis in the 1662 English Evening Prayer and remains so in the 1928 American office.[10] The alternative reflects a broader ancient pattern of placing a psalm after a lesson. William Palmer explained the liturgical category:
When this psalm is used in the place of Nunc dimittis, it is as a responsory psalm, according to the practice of many churches.
“Responsory” here means that the psalm answers the Lesson; it does not mean that every verse must be divided between officiant and people in one fixed musical arrangement. Palmer's history clarifies why a psalm may occupy the same structural place as a canticle. Scripture is read, and Scripture answers Scripture in praise.
The American history gives the alternative additional significance. The 1789 American book did not contain the Nunc Dimittis in its familiar place, while the 1892 revision restored the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis; the 1928 book retained the Gospel canticles together with the psalm alternatives. E. Clowes Chorley described the 1892 change:
The ancient chants, “The Magnificat” and the “Nunc Dimittis” were added to evening prayer.
Chorley's statement concerns restoration of the Gospel canticles, not the first introduction of Psalm 67. Its importance for Deus misereatur is that the 1928 arrangement offers genuine liturgical choice: the Song of Simeon stands in its historic place, while Psalm 67 remains an authorized alternative rather than a substitute made necessary by the Gospel canticle's absence.
Anglican theological use
The canticle gathers several characteristic emphases of classical Prayer Book worship. It is wholly scriptural; it joins common prayer to the ordered reading of Scripture; it refuses to separate grace from mission; and it treats God's righteous government as good news for the nations. Its theology is catholic in scope because all peoples are summoned, evangelical in content because God's saving way must be known, and reformed in posture because blessing is asked as mercy rather than claimed as merit.
The psalm also gives practical direction for parish and household worship. A congregation may use it after a New Testament Lesson especially when the Lesson concerns mission, the nations, divine judgment, or the spread of the Gospel. Its repeated lines lend themselves to responsive speech or Anglican chant. The text should be allowed to retain both pronouns: “us” teaches corporate dependence, while “all” prevents corporate prayer from becoming inward-looking.
Used faithfully, Deus misereatur does not compete with the Nunc Dimittis. The two alternatives illuminate different biblical aspects of the same salvation. Simeon names Christ as light for the Gentiles and glory for Israel; Psalm 67 asks that God's saving way be known among all nations. Both lead the Church from received revelation to praise, mission, and peace under God's rule.
See Also
References
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, Standard Book accepted by the General Convention of October 1928 and printed for the Commission (1930), “The Order for Daily Evening Prayer,” “Deus misereatur. Psalm lxvii,” printed pp. 28–29. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Evening Prayer; 1928 Standard Book facsimile, PDF pp. 34–35. The text was compared word for word with
sources/justus1928/EP.htm, lines 396–415, and with the facsimile. Two defects in the local HTML transcription were corrected from the Standard Book: “tile light” to “the light,” and “the people” to “the peoples” in both occurrences. Small-cap divine names and line wrapping were normalized without changing the printed wording. - ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book (1930), “Daily Evening Prayer,” rubric governing the Gloria Patri, printed p. 25. 1928 Standard Book facsimile, PDF p. 31.
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book (1930), “Daily Evening Prayer,” rubrics after the New Testament Lesson and before Deus misereatur, printed p. 28. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Evening Prayer; 1928 Standard Book facsimile, PDF p. 34. The ellipsis omits only the intervening text of the Nunc Dimittis.
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book (1930), “Daily Evening Prayer,” note following the First Lesson rubric, printed p. 26. 1928 Standard Book facsimile, PDF p. 32.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), Numbers 6:24–26. Numbers 6:24–26, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), Genesis 12:2–3. Genesis 12:2–3, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), Acts 13:47–48; the quotation ends before the final clause of verse 48. Acts 13:46–48, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), Revelation 15:3–4. Revelation 15:3–4, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX, in The Expositor's Bible, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (London, New York, and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1892), “Psalm LXVII,” p. 276. The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Volume II, Project Gutenberg. The wording was checked against the digitized edition; the quotation is the opening clause of Maclaren's concluding interpretation.
- ↑ Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), “The Order for Evening Prayer,” rubric and Psalm 67 following the Nunc Dimittis. The Order for Evening Prayer, Church of England.
- ↑ William Palmer, Origines Liturgicæ; or, Antiquities of the English Ritual, and a Dissertation on Primitive Liturgies, vol. I, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1839), chapter I, part II, section VII, “Deus Misereatur. Psalm LXVII,” p. 258. Origines Liturgicæ, Evening Prayer, Project Canterbury. Palmer continues by relating the pattern especially to churches of Asia and Phrygia and to the Council of Laodicea.
- ↑ E. Clowes Chorley, The New American Prayer Book: Its History and Contents (New York: Macmillan Company, 1929), chapter VI, “The Prayer Book of 1892,” discussion of the principal changes ratified in 1892. The Prayer Book of 1892, Project Canterbury.