Psalm 71 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 71 (1928 BCP) is the prayer In te, Domine, speravi in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Psalter. Appointed for Morning Prayer on the Fourteenth Day of the month, it joins a lifelong confession of trust to petitions offered amid frailty, hostility, and old age. Its movement is not from trouble to private escape, but from dependence on God to praise and testimony before the generation still to come.
Prayer Book Text
IN thee, O LORD, have I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion, * but rid me and deliver me in thy righteousness; incline thine ear unto me, and save me. 2 Be thou my stronghold, whereunto I may alway resort: * thou hast promised to help me, for thou art my house of defence, and my castle. 3 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the ungodly, * out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. 4 For thou, O Lord GOD, art the thing that I long for: * thou art my hope, even from my youth. 5 Through thee have I been holden up ever since I was born: * thou art he that took me out of my mother's womb: my praise shall be alway of thee. 6 I am become as it were a monster unto many, * but my sure trust is in thee. 7 O let my mouth be filled with thy praise, * that I may sing of thy glory and honour all the day long. 8 Cast me not away in the time of age; * forsake me not when my strength faileth me.
The psalm begins with God's righteousness, not the speaker's resources. The recurring images—stronghold, house of defence, castle, hope from youth—make trust concrete. Verses 5–8 also refuse to divide dependence in old age from dependence at birth: praise is the fitting answer to a life sustained by God.
For mine enemies speak against me; * and they that lay wait for my soul take their counsel together, saying, 10 God hath forsaken him; * persecute him, and take him, for there is none to deliver him. 11 Go not far from me, O God; * my God, haste thee to help me. 12 Let them be confounded and perish that are against my soul; * let them be covered with shame and dishonour that seek to do me evil. 13 As for me, I will patiently abide alway, * and will praise thee more and more. 14 My mouth shall daily speak of thy righteousness and salvation; * for I know no end thereof. 15 I will go forth in the strength of the Lord GOD, * and will make mention of thy righteousness only. 16 Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now; * therefore will I tell of thy wondrous works. 17 Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am gray-headed, * until I have showed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to all them that are yet for to come.
The enemies' claim in verse 10, “God hath forsaken him,” is answered neither by denial of distress nor by self-assertion. The answer is prayer—“Go not far from me”—and patient praise. The request for preservation in old age is explicitly missionary: the speaker asks to remain in order to show God's strength to another generation. This coheres with the New Testament's promise that God's power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9) and with the calling to declare God's mighty acts (1 Peter 2:9).
Thy righteousness, O God, is very high, * and great things are they that thou hast done: O God, who is like unto thee! 19 O what great troubles and adversities hast thou showed me! and yet didst thou turn and refresh me; * yea, and broughtest me from the deep of the earth again. 20 Thou hast brought me to great honour, * and comforted me on every side: 21 Therefore will I praise thee, and thy faithfulness, O God, playing upon an instrument of music: * unto thee will I sing upon the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. 22 My lips will be glad when I sing unto thee; * and so will my soul whom thou hast delivered. 23 My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long; * for they are confounded and brought unto shame that seek to do me evil.
The final stanza does not call adversity good; it confesses that God has turned and refreshed the afflicted speaker. Its vocabulary of being brought up from the deep and of a soul delivered gives the Church language for hope without minimizing suffering. The answer to deliverance is musical, embodied, and public praise: lips, tongue, soul, psaltery, and harp are all summoned to tell God's righteousness.
Prayer at the beginning of the day
The Prayer Book appoints the whole psalm at Morning Prayer on the Fourteenth Day. That placement lets the day's worship begin with a confession that God has sustained the worshipper “ever since I was born,” and with a resolve to speak of God's righteousness. A wider western Office tradition makes a similar theological point at the beginning of each Hour.
First of all, this verse should be said with the doxology: O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me. (Ps 70:2) Then comes the hymn for each hour.
Benedict's direction concerns Psalm 70 rather than Psalm 71, and it should not be confused with the 1928 appointment. Yet it illustrates why the Psalter so naturally gives the Office its vocabulary: worship begins by receiving aid from God. Psalm 71 develops the same posture over a lifetime, from the womb and youth to gray hair and the witness owed to those who follow.
Grace, weakness, and the Church's witness
Augustine's exposition follows the ancient Greek numbering, in which the psalm discussed as Psalm 70 corresponds to Psalm 71 in the Hebrew numbering used by the 1928 Psalter. His reading of the plea in old age places weakness under the strength of the crucified and risen Christ.
Here God makes this answer to you, yea indeed let your strength fail, in order that in you mine may abide: in order that you may say with the Apostle, “When I am made weak, then I am mighty.” ... Why do you fear lest He should forsake you, lest He cast you away for the time of old age, when your strength shall have failed? Yea at that time in you will be the strength of Him, when your strength shall have failed.
This interpretation is theological rather than a promise that age or affliction disappears. It reads the Prayer Book's “forsake me not” through Christ's faithful presence and therefore gives the petition a Christological as well as pastoral depth. The psalm's “righteousness only” also guards its praise from self-congratulation: the speaker testifies to what God has done.
Even one man would say this, you, he, I; but because this voice is that of a certain great Man, that is, of the Unity itself, for it is the voice of the Church; let us investigate the youth of the Church. ... even in advancing age I myself, that is, Your Unity, Your members, Your Body, will tell forth Your marvellous works.
Augustine's ecclesial reading does not cancel the individual praying voice; it enlarges it. The aged worshipper's request to show God's strength “unto this generation” is prayed in the congregation, where personal memory of deliverance becomes the Church's continuing testimony. Thus the monthly use of Psalm 71 joins the frailty of particular worshippers to the durable praise of Christ's Body.
Use in the 1928 Prayer Book
Psalm 71 is appointed on the Fourteenth Day at Morning Prayer in the 1928 monthly Psalter. It may be said or sung with the Gloria Patri according to the Office's customary use. In pastoral prayer it is especially apt where a person or congregation must name vulnerability without surrendering hope: it moves from a plea for refuge to the promise of praise, from remembered preservation to witness for those yet to come.
See Also
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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), Psalter, “Psalm 71. In te, Domine, speravi,” appointed for the Fourteenth Day, Morning Prayer; Justus Anglican, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, “Psalms 51–100”. Wording, verse order, and appointment were compared with the local transcription at
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ 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), Psalter, “Psalm 71. In te, Domine, speravi,” Fourteenth Day, Morning Prayer; Justus Anglican, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, “Psalms 51–100”. Wording and verse order were compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ 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), Psalter, “Psalm 71. In te, Domine, speravi,” Fourteenth Day, Morning Prayer; Justus Anglican, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, “Psalms 51–100”. Wording and verse order were compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of Benedict, ch. 18, “The Order for Reciting the Psalms,” trans. Harry Hagan, OSB, and Hilary De Jean, OSB (Saint Meinrad, IN: Saint Meinrad Archabbey; PALNI Press, 2023), §18.1; Saint Meinrad Archabbey, “18. The Order for Reciting the Psalms”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, “Exposition on Psalm 71” [on Psalm 70 in the Septuagint/Vulgate numbering], §10, trans. J. E. Tweed, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 8, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 71”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, “Exposition on Psalm 71” [on Psalm 70 in the Septuagint/Vulgate numbering], §21, trans. J. E. Tweed, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 8, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 71”.