Psalm 61 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 61 (1928 BCP) is a prayer from distance and distress into the security of God's presence. In the 1928 Prayer Book Psalter it follows Psalm 60 at Morning Prayer on the eleventh day of the month. Its Latin incipit, Exaudi, Deus, begins with a plea to be heard and ends with a vow of daily praise.
Prayer Book Text: Cry, Rock, and Tower
HEAR my crying, O God, * give ear unto my prayer.
2 From the ends of the earth will I call upon thee, * when my heart is in heaviness.
3 O set me up upon the rock that is higher than I; * for thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower for me against the enemy.
[1] The sequence moves from prayer to remembered mercy: the speaker asks to be heard because God has already been “my hope” and “a strong tower.” “From the ends of the earth” names experienced estrangement, not merely geographical distance. That makes it apt in the Daily Office for people who pray amid grief, displacement, or a heart “in heaviness.”
Alexander Maclaren, writing as a nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister and biblical expositor, describes the first movement without reducing the rock to a merely vague symbol:
His imagination sees towering above him a great cliff, on which, if he could be planted, he might defy pursuit or assault. But he is distant from it, and the inaccessibility which, were he in its clefts, would be his safety, is now his despair. Therefore he turns to God and asks Him to bear him up in His hands, that he may set his foot on that rock.
[2] Maclaren's reading clarifies the grammar of the Prayer Book text: the psalmist does not manufacture a safe height, but asks God to set him upon it. Christians can therefore relate the image to Christ, while retaining the psalm's immediate confession that God is the refuge (compare 1 Corinthians 10:4).
Tabernacle and the Covering of God's Wings
4 I will dwell in thy tabernacle for ever, * and my trust shall be under the covering of thy wings.
5 For thou, O Lord, hast heard my desires, * and hast given an heritage unto those that fear thy Name.
[3] The tabernacle and wings gather sanctuary imagery into a personal prayer. Verse 5 supplies the reason for the petition: God has heard and has given an inheritance to those who fear his Name. The Prayer Book's “trust” makes clear that the goal is not magical proximity to a holy building, but faithful dependence on the God who receives his people.
Maclaren likewise distinguishes the sanctuary sign from the communion it signifies:
His longing was no superstitious wish to be near that sanctuary, as if external presence brought blessing, but a reasonable longing, grounded on the fact for his stage of revelation, that such presence was the condition of fullest realisation of spiritual communion, and of the safety and blessedness thence received.
[4] This is a helpful Anglican liturgical caution. Public worship, sacramental signs, and the appointed Psalms serve communion with God; they are not substitutes for it. The same imagery can be prayed alongside Jesus' lament over Jerusalem and his wish to gather its children “as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings” (Matthew 23:37).
The King, Mercy, and Faithfulness
6 Thou shalt grant the King a long life, * that his years may endure throughout all generations.
7 He shall dwell before God for ever: * O prepare thy loving mercy and faithfulness, that they may preserve him.
[5] The prayer for the king places royal life under God rather than treating political power as self-grounding. Its petition is strikingly moral and covenantal: loving mercy and faithfulness, not force, are to preserve him. In Christian use, the verses invite intercession for rulers and also point beyond every temporary throne to Christ's enduring reign; they do not promise indefinite life to a particular ruler.
Maclaren acknowledges both the immediate royal petition and its Christian horizon:
The psalm is in so far Messianic that the everlasting kingdom of the Christ alone fulfils its prayer.
[6] That qualified judgment is preferable to treating every detail as a direct prediction. It permits Christian readers to pray with Israel's royal hope while confessing, with the New Testament, the risen Christ as the king whose kingdom has no end (Luke 1:32–33).
Patristic Christian Reading
Augustine reads the voice “from the ends of the earth” ecclesially: the one voice is the unity of Christ's body across the world. His exposition is theological interpretation, not a denial of the psalm's own Israelite setting.
This therefore Christ's possession, this Christ's inheritance, this Christ's Body, this Christ's one Church, this the Unity which we are, is crying from the ends of the earth.
[7] In the Office this reading lets scattered Christians pray the singular “I” together, without claiming that the Church has displaced Israel. The prayer becomes corporate precisely because believers are joined to Christ, the one who hears and sustains his people.
Augustine also connects the rock and tower with Christ, using the image as pastoral counsel in temptation:
For Christ Himself is the tower, Himself for us has been made a tower from the face of the enemy, who is also the Rock whereon has been built the Church. Are you taking heed that you be not smitten of the devil? Flee to the Tower.
[8] The language is consistent with the Prayer Book's confidence: the prayer's answer is not human escape from every affliction but refuge in God. It also resonates with Hebrews 6:18–20, where hope is described as a sure anchor entering the heavenly sanctuary.
Praise and Daily Vows
8 So will I alway sing praise unto thy Name, * that I may daily perform my vows.
[9] The closing “So” makes praise the consequence of heard prayer and guarded life. To perform vows daily is neither a bargain with God nor an anxious attempt to earn safety; it is the grateful, repeated fidelity of someone who has received refuge. Read after Psalm 60 on the eleventh morning, Psalm 61 carries the Office from the confession that human help is vain into the faithful praise of the God who hears.
See Also
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References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Eleventh Day, Morning Prayer, Psalm 61, verses 1–3; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London, New York, and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1892), “Psalm 61,” exposition of verse 2; online transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Eleventh Day, Morning Prayer, Psalm 61, verses 4–5; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London, New York, and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1892), “Psalm 61,” exposition of verses 4–5; online transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Eleventh Day, Morning Prayer, Psalm 61, verses 6–7; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London, New York, and Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1892), “Psalm 61,” exposition of verses 6–7; online transcription.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 61, §2, translated by 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 transcription.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 61, §4, translated by 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 transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Eleventh Day, Morning Prayer, Psalm 61, verse 8; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.