Psalm 6 (1928 BCP)

Psalm 6 (1928 BCP) is a plea for mercy and healing that moves from bodily and inward distress to confidence that God hears. In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, it begins the first day's evening portion of the Psalter. Its traditional place among the penitential psalms has given its language a special role in Christian prayer, while its vivid lament also gives voice to weakness, tears, and fear.

Text of the Psalm

The Prayer Book gives the Latin opening as Domine, ne in furore. Asterisks mark the division of verses for reading or chanting:

O LORD, rebuke me not in thine indignation, * neither chasten me in thy displeasure.
2 Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am weak; * O LORD, heal me, for my bones are vexed.
3 My soul also is sore troubled: * but, LORD, how long wilt thou punish me?
4 Turn thee, O LORD, and deliver my soul; * O save me, for thy mercy's sake.
5 For in death no man remembereth thee; * and who will give thee thanks in the pit?
6 I am weary of my groaning; * every night wash I my bed, and water my couch with my tears.
7 My beauty is gone for very trouble, * and worn away because of all mine enemies.
8 Away from me, all ye that work iniquity; * for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.
9 The LORD hath heard my petition; * the LORD will receive my prayer.
10 All mine enemies shall be confounded, and sore vexed; * they shall be turned back, and put to shame suddenly.

Mercy and the long wait

The opening asks not to be rebuked in indignation, then pleads for mercy precisely because the speaker is weak. Bones and soul are both troubled; “how long” refuses to conceal the duration of suffering. The petition to be saved “for thy mercy's sake” rests on God's character rather than on a claim to deserving relief. The fear of death and the pit intensifies the plea: the psalmist asks to live and give thanks, rather than offering a systematic account of the afterlife.

The Anglican priest John Mason Neale comments on the question “how long”:

Note: God hears, though He answers not. The verb is in the present, to show the readiness with which God gives: “Unto him that knocketh, it shall be opened.” Here it is in the future, to teach us that the visible effects of God's gifts do not always at once appear.

Neale distinguishes God's hearing from the visible arrival of an answer; his interpretation does not resolve the sufferer's question by denying its force. Augustine likewise reads the prayer for God to “turn” as part of the soul's difficult return to God:

And in such difficulty we say, “Turn, O Lord,” that is, help us, that that turning may be perfected in us, which finds You ready, and offering Yourself for the fruition of them that love You.

For Augustine, turning requires God's help as well as human repentance. This is an explicitly theological interpretation of the psalm's plea, not an explanation that every illness is caused by the sufferer's personal sin.

Tears, penitence, and pastoral care

The repeated washing of bed and couch with tears makes the lament concrete. Neale identifies Psalm 6 as the first of the seven penitential psalms; he interprets its night-long weeping in relation to a continuing practice of repentance. The psalm itself does not specify a particular offence; it gives a shared form to a plea for mercy without assigning a diagnosis to another person's suffering.

The 1928 office for the Visitation of the Sick permits the minister, at discretion, to use one of the penitential psalms after the antiphon “Remember not, Lord, our iniquities.” The rubric does not single out Psalm 6 by name. Read in pastoral care, the prayer's weakness and hope invite compassion, not an assumption that a particular sickness proves a particular sin. Jesus resists such a conclusion when asked about a man born blind:

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

From weeping to being heard

At verse 8 the speaker addresses those who work iniquity, announcing that the Lord has heard the voice of weeping. The repeated “hath heard” and “will receive” shift the psalm from urgent request to trust; the final verse envisages the enemies' shame. The text does not say what outward event produced this change, nor does it give the worshipper a license to punish enemies personally.

Jesus uses closely related words in a warning about judgment:

But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

In Luke the words are spoken by the master to those who claim familiarity with him. Hearing the echo alongside Psalm 6 turns the question toward the worshipper's own conduct, as well as toward the evil that threatens the psalmist.

Evening Prayer

The monthly arrangement places Psalm 6 at the beginning of the first day's Evening Prayer; the office rubric also allows a selection of psalms. Later in the same office the congregation prays:

LIGHTEN our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Both psalm and collect bring the night and an appeal to divine mercy into common prayer. The collect's plural “us” lets a congregation ask protection together even when the psalm's first-person lament is being prayed on behalf of one who suffers.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• The Psalter (1928 BCP)
• Daily Office (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 5 (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Psalter, Psalms 1–50, Society of Archbishop Justus
• Augustine's exposition of Psalm 6, New Advent