Psalm 28 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 28 (1928 BCP) is Psalm 28, Ad te, Domine, in the Psalter of the American Book of Common Prayer (1928). In the 1928 monthly Psalter it belongs to the Fifth Day at Evening Prayer. Its prayer moves from the dread of an unanswered cry, through protest against deceit and evil, to thanksgiving and intercession for the whole people of God.
Text in the 1928 Psalter
The following is the complete Prayer Book text, compared word for word with the local 1928 Psalter source and preserving such characteristic readings as “think no scorn,” “mercyseat,” and “wholesome defence.”
1 UNTO thee will I cry, O LORD, my strength: * think no scorn of me; lest, if thou make as though thou hearest not, I become like them that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my humble petitions, when I cry unto thee; * when I hold up my hands towards the mercyseat of thy holy temple.
3 O pluck me not away, neither destroy me with the ungodly and wicked doers, * which speak friendly to their neighbours, but imagine mischief in their hearts.
4 Reward them according to their deeds, * and according to the wickedness of their own inventions.
5 Recompense them after the work of their hands; * pay them that they have deserved.
6 For they regard not in their mind the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands; * therefore shall he break them down, and not build them up.
7 Praised be the LORD; * for he hath heard the voice of my humble petitions.
8 The LORD is my strength, and my shield; my heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped; * therefore my heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise him.
9 The LORD is my strength, * and he is the wholesome defence of his anointed.
10 O save thy people, and give thy blessing unto thine inheritance: * feed them, and set them up for ever.
An urgent prayer before the holy temple
The first two verses do not suppose that God is actually contemptuous or deaf. They put into prayer the believer's extremity: without God's hearing, the petitioner has no strength and is like one descending to the pit. The raised hands are directed toward the “mercyseat of thy holy temple,” so that this is an appeal to the God who has made a way for mercy rather than an assertion of spiritual self-sufficiency.
The course of thought is as familiar as the structure. Invocation is followed by petition, and that by exultant anticipation of the answer as already given; and all closes with wider petitions for the whole people.
Maclaren's interpretation follows the psalm's actual movement. The thanksgiving in verses 7–8 is not unrelated optimism: it is the response of a heart that has trusted and been helped. Hebrews 4:16 similarly joins bold approach with the purpose of receiving mercy and finding grace for timely help.
He beseeches God to hear, and blends the two figures of deafness and silence as both meaning the withholding of help. Jehovah seems deaf when prayer is unanswered, and is silent when He does not speak in deliverance.
Judgment, deceit, and Christian prayer
Verses 3–6 name a moral danger as well as an external enemy. The wicked “speak friendly” while concealing mischief; their characteristic fault is failure to regard God's works. The psalm asks not to be swept away with such a way of life. Its language of recompense must therefore be read with its plea for personal preservation and with the Church's confession that judgment belongs to God.
The sin of sins, from which all specific acts of evil flow, is blindness to God's “deeds” and to “the work of His hands,” His acts both of mercy and of judgment.
The stern tone of this prayer marks it as belonging to the older type of religion, and its dissimilarity to the New Testament teaching is not to be slurred over. No doubt the element of personal enmity is all but absent, but it is not the prayer which those who have heard “Father, forgive them,” are to copy.
This is not an excuse to omit the psalm from Christian worship. Maclaren immediately preserves its “wholesome abhorrence of evil,” its certainty that sin is destructive, and the humble request not to be entangled in it, while locating Christian prayer under the light of Calvary. That discipline agrees with Romans 12:19-21: believers leave vengeance to God and are commanded to overcome evil with good.
The anointed one and the people
Augustine reads the psalm christologically, hearing in it the voice of the Mediator and then the prayer of the people strengthened through Christ. This is an interpretive reception, not a replacement for the 1928 text or for Israel's own prayer.
It is the Voice of the Mediator Himself, strong of hand in the conflict of the Passion. Now what He seems to wish for against His enemies, is not the wish of malevolence, but the declaration of their punishment.
Augustine's distinction helps Christian readers distinguish the psalm's confidence in God's righteous judgment from private vengeance. It also makes sense of the turn from individual danger to the “anointed” and finally to “thy people” and “thine inheritance.” The prayer is enlarged rather than enclosed within the speaker's own peril.
The Lord helping Me in so great sufferings, and protecting Me with immortality in My resurrection. In Him has My Heart trusted, and I have been helped. And My Flesh has flourished again: that is, and My Flesh has risen again.
Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance. I intercede therefore, after My Flesh has flourished again, because You have said, Desire of Me, and I will give You the heathen for Your inheritance; Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance: for all Mine are Yours.
The final petition has a corporate and pastoral shape. “Feed them, and set them up for ever” asks God to shepherd and sustain the inheritance. It naturally accompanies John 17:9-15, where Christ prays for those given to him and asks that they be kept from evil.
Prayer Book use
The local 1928 Psalter prints Psalm 28 immediately in the Fifth Day's Evening Prayer sequence, after Psalms 27 and before 29. Its place at the close of the day holds together candour about danger, thanksgiving for heard prayer, and intercession for the Church.
The Fifth Day. Evening Prayer. Psalm 27. Dominus illuminatio. … Psalm 28. Ad te, Domine.
Its final words prevent devotion from becoming merely private. The person who cries “my strength” is led to pray “save thy people”; the God who is a shield to the individual is asked to feed, bless, and uphold the whole inheritance.
See also
References
- ↑ The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 28, Ad te, Domine, Fifth Day, Evening Prayer. Justus Anglican: 1928 BCP Psalms 1.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. 1, Psalms I–XXXVIII (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), p. 269, exposition of Psalm XXVIII. Project Gutenberg, eBook 42445.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. 1, Psalms I–XXXVIII (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), pp. 269–270, exposition of Psalm XXVIII. Project Gutenberg, eBook 42445.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. 1, Psalms I–XXXVIII (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), p. 270, exposition of Psalm XXVIII. Project Gutenberg, eBook 42445.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. 1, Psalms I–XXXVIII (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), p. 271, exposition of Psalm XXVIII. Project Gutenberg, eBook 42445.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 28, §1 (Psalm 27 in the Vulgate numbering), anonymous translation in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. New Advent: Exposition on Psalm 28.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 28, §7 (Psalm 27 in the Vulgate numbering), anonymous translation in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. New Advent: Exposition on Psalm 28.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 28, §9 (Psalm 27 in the Vulgate numbering), anonymous translation in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. New Advent: Exposition on Psalm 28.
- ↑ The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1928), The Psalter, Fifth Day, Evening Prayer, sequence of Psalms 27–28. Justus Anglican: 1928 BCP Psalms 1.