Psalm 64 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 64 (1928 BCP) is the psalm Exaudi, Deus in the Psalter of the American Book of Common Prayer (1928). In the monthly order printed with the Psalter it is appointed at Evening Prayer on the twelfth day of the month. It is a prayer for deliverance from fear and from concealed, destructive speech; it ends not in private vengeance but in public recognition of God's work and in the glad trust of the righteous.
Prayer Book text
The Prayer Book begins with a petition about fear. The enemy is real, but the first thing asked is preservation of life in the midst of fear, not power to retaliate.
HEAR my voice, O God, in my prayer; * preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the gathering together of the froward, * and from the insurrection of wicked doers;
The danger is described as a conspiracy of words. The images of sword, arrow, secrecy, and snare make speech morally serious: words can be prepared and discharged to wound a neighbour before that person can answer.
3 Who have whet their tongue like a sword, * and shoot out their arrows, even bitter words;
4 That they may privily shoot at him that is perfect: * suddenly do they hit him, and fear not.
The middle of the psalm refuses the illusion that hidden planning is self-protecting. The wicked imagine that no one will see, but the prayer names the deep heart as a place already open to God.
5 They encourage themselves in mischief, * and commune among themselves, how they may lay snares; and say, that no man shall see them.
6 They imagine wickedness, and practise it; * that they keep secret among themselves, every man in the deep of his heart.
The final movement places judgment with God and gives it a didactic end: people see, say what God has done, and perceive his work. The righteous response is trust and gladness, not the taking of judgment into their own hands.
7 But God shall suddenly shoot at them with a swift arrow, * that they shall be wounded.
8 Yea, their own tongues shall make them fall; * insomuch that whoso seeth them shall laugh them to scorn.
9 And all men that see it shall say, This hath God done; * for they shall perceive that it is his work.
10 The righteous shall rejoice in the LORD, and put his trust in him; * and all they that are true of heart shall be glad.
Fear, speech, and Christian prayer
Psalm 64 belongs in Christian prayer alongside Christ's warning, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28, Authorized Version). This does not deny that slander, intimidation, or violence harm people. It directs the worshipper to ask that fear should not be allowed to rule conscience or faithfulness. The Prayer Book's recurring evening use is therefore not an invitation to rehearse grievances, but an act of placing them before the Judge who sees what human secrecy hides.
Augustine's sermon on this psalm, preached in connection with the martyrs, reads its first petition as deliverance from the mastery of fear. His reading is a historical Christian interpretation, not a replacement for the psalm's plain sense:
They were hearkened to therefore, and they were slain; and yet from enemies they were delivered. Others being afraid gave consent, and lived, and yet the same by enemies were swallowed up. The slain were delivered, the living were swallowed up.
Augustine immediately frames that claim with Christ's distinction between body and soul: the petition is not a demand that suffering never occur, but a request for courage and holy fear. That provides a fitting guardrail for use of the imprecatory images in the Psalter: Christians may name evil truthfully, pray for God's just action, and resist becoming imitators of the very malice they condemn.
His treatment of the psalm's bow and arrows also attends closely to the text's account of calculated speech:
The bow he calleth lyings in wait. For he that with sword fighteth hand to hand, openly fighteth: he that shooteth an arrow deceiveth, in order to strike. For the arrow smiteth, before it is foreseen to come to wound.
That observation makes the Psalm especially searching in the evening office. It calls the worshipper to bring fear to God, but also to examine the tongue and heart lest prayer against hidden injury become an excuse for hidden injury of one's own. The psalm's last word remains trust: the true of heart are made glad because God, rather than the injured party, is acknowledged as the one who judges and acts.
Liturgical use
The 1928 Psalter places Psalm 64 before Psalms 65 and 66 at the Twelfth-Day Evening Prayer. The sequence moves from a plea against hostile speech to praise in Zion and then to a summons for all the earth to rejoice. Read in that setting, Psalm 64 does not isolate threat from worship; it entrusts the threat to God so that praise may continue. Its appointed recurrence also gives clergy and lay readers words for seasons of controversy without blessing retaliation or treating fear as the final reality.
See Also
External Links
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer; and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church According to the Use of the Protestant Episcopal Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 64, Exaudi, Deus, verses 1–2; “The Twelfth Day: Evening Prayer,” The 1928 U. S. Book of Common Prayer: The Psalter.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 64, Exaudi, Deus, verses 3–4, The 1928 U. S. Book of Common Prayer: The Psalter.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 64, Exaudi, Deus, verses 5–6, The 1928 U. S. Book of Common Prayer: The Psalter.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 64, Exaudi, Deus, verses 7–10, The 1928 U. S. Book of Common Prayer: The Psalter.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, “Psalm LXIV,” §2, in Expositions on the Book of Psalms, trans. J. E. Tweed, ed. A. Cleveland Coxe, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1888), Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, “Psalm LXIV,” §6, in Expositions on the Book of Psalms, trans. J. E. Tweed, ed. A. Cleveland Coxe, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1888), Christian Classics Ethereal Library.