Psalm 56 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 56 (1928 BCP) (Miserere mei, Deus) is appointed for Morning Prayer on the eleventh day of the month in the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer (1928). It brings fear into speech before God and answers fear not by denying danger, but by trusting God's word, care, and deliverance.
Prayer Book text and use
Psalm 56. Miserere mei, Deus.
BE merciful unto me, O God, for man goeth about to devour me; * he is daily fighting, and troubling me.
2 Mine enemies are daily at hand to swallow me up; * for they be many that fight against me, O thou Most Highest.
3 Nevertheless, though I am sometime afraid, * yet put I my trust in thee.
4 I will praise God, because of his word: * I have put my trust in God, and will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
5 They daily mistake my words; * all that they imagine is to do me evil.
6 They hold all together, and keep themselves close, * and mark my steps, when they lay wait for my soul.
7 Shall they escape for their wickedness? * thou, O God, in thy displeasure shalt cast them down.
8 Thou tellest my wanderings; put my tears into thy bottle: * are not these things noted in thy book?
9 Whensoever I call upon thee, then shall mine enemies be put to flight: * this I know; for God is on my side.
10 In God's word will I rejoice; * in the LORD'S word will I comfort me.
11 Yea, in God have I put my trust; * I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
12 Unto thee, O God, will I pay my vows; * unto thee will I give thanks.
13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling, * that I may walk before God in the light of the living.
The Prayer Book gives the whole movement of the psalm to the Church: violent pressure, acknowledged fear, trust in the word of God, remembered tears, vows of thanksgiving, and a purpose of walking before God. Its monthly placement makes this a recurrent discipline in truthful prayer rather than an invitation to manufacture an enemy for oneself.
Fear that becomes trust
The psalm's “though I am sometime afraid” is spiritually important: its trust is not bravado. Alexander Maclaren calls attention to the deliberately brief turning point of verse 3:
One brief verse, the brevity of which gives it emphasis, tells of the singer's fears, and of how he silences them by the dead lift of effort by which he constrains himself to trust.... If there is no fear, there is little trust. The two do co-exist.
Maclaren's observation guards against two opposite errors: treating fear as faithlessness in itself, or treating fear as the final authority. The Psalm names what human hostility can do, then fixes attention upon God. Its repeated refrain moves from God's word to trust and finally to the question, “what flesh can do unto me.”
The one antagonist of fear is faith. Trust is a voluntary action for which we are responsible.
The apostolic exhortation gives a closely related shape to this movement: humility before God turns anxiety into a matter of prayer because God's care, rather than the believer's self-mastery, is decisive.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
The God who counts wanderings and tears
Psalm 56 does not imagine divine care as vague consolation. “Thou tellest my wanderings” and “put my tears into thy bottle” make a personal claim: the fugitive's steps and grief are known to God. Maclaren explains both the image and its place in the psalm's argument:
What a lovely figure is that of God's treasuring up His servants' tears in His “bottle,” the skin in which liquids were kept! What does He keep them for? To show how precious they are in His sight, and perhaps to suggest that they are preserved for a future use.
This is interpretation, not a promise that every affliction is immediately removed. The psalmist still calls upon God; yet verse 9 can already say, “this I know; for God is on my side.” Such confidence gives the Daily Office a grammar for suffering that neither belittles tears nor makes them the whole truth.
Augustine, reading the psalm Christologically and ecclesially, warns against converting its enemies into an excuse for private enmity:
Private enmities therefore let no one think of, when about to hear the words of this Psalm.... man let us love, of the devil beware; for man pray, against the devil pray.
His reading is a theological application, not a claim that the historical voice of Israel disappears. It nevertheless helps Christian worshippers pray the psalm's judgment language with the New Testament's command to love persons and resist evil.
Word, thanksgiving, and walking before God
The phrase “because of his word” is the ground of the first refrain. Maclaren understands it as confidence in God's promises, and sees in the closing vows a faith that thanks God before deliverance is visible:
So sure is he of deliverance, that, as often in similar psalms, his thoughts are busied in preparing his sacrifice of thanks before the actual advent of the mercy for which it is to be offered. Such swift-footed Gratitude is the daughter of very vivid Faith.
The final line gives the end of rescue: not bare survival, but “that I may walk before God in the light of the living.” Augustine makes a related pastoral point about the psalm's confidence, “my God are You”:
For yours He is, when you He succours: yours He is, when thou to Him art not an alien.... How great a thing has God given to us, that His own we should be, and He should be ours!
In the Daily Office, then, Psalm 56 trains a congregation to bring fear into the presence of God, receive God's word as the ground of trust, entrust both tears and judgment to him, and answer anticipated mercy with vows and thanksgiving. Its appointed Morning Prayer setting makes this formation part of the Church's ordinary beginning of the day.
See also
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 56 and “The Eleventh Day. Morning Prayer,” pp. 407–408; 1928 Common Prayer, “The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book”. This complete text was compared line by line with the local 1928 transcription, sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm, including “sometime afraid,” “mistake my words,” and “light of the living.”
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), “Psalm LVI,” pp. 181–182; Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm LVI”.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), “Psalm LVI,” p. 182; Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm LVI”.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated out of the Original Tongues (London: Robert Barker, 1611), 1 Peter 5:6–7, Authorized Version; Bible Gateway, “1 Peter 5:6–7 KJV”.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), “Psalm LVI,” pp. 184–185; Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm LVI”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 56, §4, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 56”. Augustine cites the Septuagint/Vulgate numbering, where his Psalm 55 corresponds to Hebrew and Prayer Book Psalm 56.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893), “Psalm LVI,” pp. 186–187; Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm LVI”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 56, §15, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 56”.