Psalm 97 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 97 (1928 BCP) is the nineteenth-day Morning Prayer psalm in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Psalter. Its acclamation of the Lord as King joins the gladness of the earth to the holy fear of judgment, repudiation of idols, and rejoicing of the righteous.
Text in the 1928 Psalter
THE LORD is King, the earth may be glad thereof; * yea, the multitude of the isles may be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him: * righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his seat.
The opening holds gladness and obscurity together. God is not a local deity: earth and islands are summoned to joy. Yet “clouds and darkness” refuse any claim to comprehend God at will. The ground of the throne is not arbitrary power but “righteousness and judgment.”
There shall go a fire before him, * and burn up his enemies on every side. His lightnings gave shine unto the world: * the earth saw it, and was afraid. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD; * at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
The imagery makes divine kingship morally serious. Fire, lightning, and melting hills portray creatures before their Maker; they are not a warrant for private vengeance. The psalm’s final verses specify the response expected of those who love the Lord: hatred of evil, trust in the Lord’s preserving care, joy, and thanksgiving.
The heavens have declared his righteousness, * and all the peoples have seen his glory. Confounded be all they that worship carved images, and that delight in vain gods: * worship him, all ye gods.
The contrast is between the Creator’s revealed righteousness and the manufactured objects in which people delight. In the Prayer Book’s public recitation this is not an excuse to demean neighbors; it is a confession that worship belongs to God rather than to any created power.
O ye that love the LORD, see that ye hate the thing which is evil: * the Lord preserveth the souls of his saints; he shall deliver them from the hand of the ungodly. There is sprung up a light for the righteous, * and joyful gladness for such as are true-hearted.
Love of the Lord is given an ethical shape: it rejects evil and entrusts preservation to God. The “light” and “gladness” are promised to the righteous and true-hearted, not presented as a technique for producing a cheerful mood.
Christian interpretation
The New Testament uses this psalm’s call to worship in its account of the Son’s supremacy: “And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him” (Hebrews 1:6). The allusion makes a Christian reading of Psalm 97 christological while leaving the psalm’s own proclamation of the Lord’s universal reign intact.
Augustine’s exposition is a historic Christian interpretation, not a replacement for the Psalm’s literal voice. On the “isles,” he writes:
Figuratively the isles may be taken for all the Churches. Why isles? Because the waves of all temptations roar around them. But as an isle may be beaten by the waves which on every side dash around it, yet cannot be broken, and rather itself does break the advancing waves, than by them is broken: so also the Churches of God, springing up throughout the world, have suffered the persecutions of the ungodly.
That image fits the psalm’s tension between worldwide gladness and the threatening imagery of sea, cloud, and fire. It should be read as Augustine’s pastoral application, not as a claim that every detail has only one hidden meaning.
On the final promise of light, Augustine distinguishes the passing light shared by righteous and wicked from the light for which the righteous hope:
What sort of light does He keep for the righteous, who gives this even to such as these? Deservedly the Martyrs beheld this light in faith; for they who despised this light of the sun, had some light in their eyes, which they longed for, who rejected this.
The comment helps explain why the psalm ends in thanksgiving rather than triumphalism. Its light is bound to faithful hope and to the God whose righteous judgment exposes evil.
Daily Office use
The 1928 Psalter places Psalm 97 in the Nineteenth Day at Morning Prayer, before Psalm 98 and the “Evening Prayer” heading. The placement makes its royal summons part of the monthly cycle of common prayer rather than an occasional isolated reading.[7]
The final verse gives the office’s practical doxology:
Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; * and give thanks for a remembrance of his holiness.
In worship, then, Psalm 97 forms a people who rejoice under God’s reign, reject rival allegiances, hate evil, and give thanks for divine holiness. Its appointed monthly use keeps those themes joined to the Church’s habitual praise.
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- The Psalter (1928 BCP)
- Daily Office (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 96 (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 98 (1928 BCP)
External Links
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 97, Dominus regnavit, verses 1–2; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. Text compared word for word with local source
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 97, Dominus regnavit, verses 3–5; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. Text compared word for word with local source
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 97, Dominus regnavit, verses 6–7; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. Text compared word for word with local source
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 97, Dominus regnavit, verses 10–11; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. Text compared word for word with local source
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 97, §3, trans. 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 97, §15, trans. 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 in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Nineteenth Day, Morning Prayer, Psalm 97 followed by Psalm 98; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. Local placement checked in
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Psalter,” Psalm 97, Dominus regnavit, verse 12; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription. Text compared word for word with local source
sources/justus1928/Psalms2.htm.