Psalm 76 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 76 (1928 BCP) is appointed at Morning Prayer on the fifteenth day of the month in the American Book of Common Prayer. The Psalm praises the God known in Judah and enthroned at Salem/Sion, whose rebuke disarms violent power, judges in order to save the meek, turns human fury to praise, and receives the vowed worship of those around him. Its daily use gives the Church words for confidence without triumphalism: God, rather than the congregation, is judge and defender.
Text in the 1928 Psalter
The 1928 Psalter calls Psalm 76 Notus in Judæa. Its opening locates praise in God's self-disclosure and in his dwelling among his people:
IN Judah is God known; * his Name is great in Israel.
2 At Salem is his tabernacle, * and his dwelling in Sion.
3 There brake he the arrows of the bow, * the shield, the sword, and the battle.
The movement is from name and place to action. “Salem” and “Sion” identify the Psalm's worshipping horizon; the destruction of bow, shield, sword, and battle attributes deliverance to God, not to Israel's military resource. The text does not invite Christians to make a private claim to invulnerability. It directs praise to the God whose presence and saving action make his Name great.
The following verses make the reversal of military power explicit:
4 Thou art glorious in might, * when thou comest from the hills of the robbers.
5 The proud are robbed, they have slept their sleep; * and all the men whose hands were mighty have found nothing.
6 At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, * both the chariot and horse are fallen.
The “proud” and the men “whose hands were mighty” are not met by a superior human weapon. They “have found nothing” because God's rebuke ends the boast of chariot and horse. In public prayer this teaches a community to distinguish gratitude for deliverance from confidence in its own strength.
The Psalm then holds together fear, judgment, and the rescue of the meek:
7 Thou, even thou art to be feared; * and who may stand in thy sight when thou art angry?
8 Thou didst cause thy judgment to be heard from heaven; * the earth trembled, and was still,
9 When God arose to judgment, * and to help all the meek upon earth.
Here God's judgment is not arbitrary force. The one before whom no proud power can stand is the one who rises “to help all the meek.” The pairing prevents a sentimental reading of peace, but also prevents the Psalm from licensing vengeance by the worshipper. The community asks and waits for God's just action.
Its final verses return judgment to worship and obligation:
10 The fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise; * and the fierceness of them shalt thou refrain.
11 Promise unto the LORD your God, and keep it, all ye that are round about him; * bring presents unto him that ought to be feared.
12 He shall refrain the spirit of princes, * and is wonderful among the kings of the earth.
The Psalm does not say that human fury is good. God both turns it to praise and restrains what remains. Its practical imperative is consequently not retaliation but faithful worship: “Promise unto the LORD your God, and keep it.” Even princes are under the God who can curb their spirit.
Prayer Book use
The Fifteenth Day.
Morning Prayer.
Psalm 75. Confitebimur tibi.
Psalm 76. Notus in Judæa.
The monthly sequence joins Psalm 76 to Psalm 75, whose theme is thanksgiving and God's righteous judgment. In Morning Prayer, Psalm 76 gives this confession a concrete shape: the day begins by naming God—not human dominance—as the source of security and by putting vows before the worshipper's own plans.
Christian interpretation
Augustine's Exposition on Psalm 76 is a patristic Christian reading of this Psalm (numbered Psalm 75 in the Latin/Vulgate sequence used in that work). He reads the breaking of weapons as the peace God makes when believers cease to defend their sin:
Where has He broken? In that eternal peace, in that perfect peace. And now, my brethren, they that have rightly believed see that they ought not to rely on themselves: and all the might of their own menaces, and whatsoever is in them whetted for mischief, this they break in pieces.
Augustine does not settle the Psalm's original historical setting by this spiritual interpretation. Rather, his reading helps a Christian congregation hear its disarmament language as a summons to repentance and peace, while retaining the Psalm's own confession that God judges proud violence and helps the meek.
He also treats verse 10's “thought” and its “remnants” as confession that becomes grateful memory:
The first thought has confession, and departure from the old life. But if you shall have forgotten from what sins you have been delivered, you do not render thanks to the Deliverer, and do not celebrate solemnities to your God.
This connects the Psalm's praise to conversion rather than to national or personal self-congratulation. The ordinary recurrence of the Psalm in the Office can therefore preserve memory of God's deliverance as the ground of thanksgiving.
On verse 11, Augustine gives the imperative to vow a deliberately practical turn:
Let each man vow what he is able, and pay it. Do not vow and not pay: but let every man vow, and pay what he can. Be not slow to vow: for you will accomplish the vows by powers not your own.
This is interpretation, not an additional Prayer Book rubric. It does, however, appropriately expose the Psalm's moral direction: worship of the God who restrains princes requires truthful promises and dependence on divine help to keep them.
Historical and theological reading
John Calvin opens his commentary by reading the Psalm as praise for God's protection of Jerusalem, while acknowledging a proposed historical setting rather than making it certain:
There is here celebrated the grace and truth of God in having, according to his promise that he would be the protector of the city of Jerusalem, defended it by his wonderful power against enemies, who were renowned for their warlike valor, and well equipped with everything requisite for war.
Calvin's historical proposal should not be mistaken for a certainty supplied by the Psalm itself. Its value here is theological and literary: he notices that the Psalm names real, formidable enemies only to attribute their defeat to God's protection, a reading that fits its repeated contrast between armed power and divine rebuke.
He accordingly states the pastoral purpose of the Psalm's celebration of divine protection:
The continual care of God in defending the Church, which he has chosen, is here celebrated to encourage the faithful without any doubt or hesitation to glory in his protection.
Read alongside the 1928 Psalter, this guards two truths at once: the Church may praise God's protection with confidence, and it must do so as a people “round about him” who make and keep their vows—not as one that possesses God or presumes to pronounce the final judgment on its enemies.
See Also
- The Psalter (1928 BCP)
- Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
- Daily Office (1928 BCP)
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 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 76, Notus in Judæa, verses 1–3, “The Fifteenth Day: Morning Prayer”; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The wording was compared word for word with
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 76, verses 4–6; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 76, verses 7–9; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 76, verses 10–12; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, 1928), The Psalter, “The Fifteenth Day: Morning Prayer,” Psalms 75–76; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The heading immediately precedes Psalm 75 and Psalm 76 follows without another office heading.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 76, §4 (numbered Psalm 75 in the source's Vulgate sequence), trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 76”. The quotation was checked against the named transcription.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 76, §9 (numbered Psalm 75:10 in the source's Vulgate sequence), trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 76”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 76, §11 (numbered Psalm 75:11 in the source's Vulgate sequence), trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 76”.
- ↑ John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. III, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), introduction to Psalm 76; Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalms 61–78,” Psalm 76. The wording was checked against the named transcription.
- ↑ John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. III, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), introduction to Psalm 76; Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalms 61–78,” Psalm 76.