My Rock and my Salvation, 3: The New Coverdale Psalter

Coverdale

Generations of Anglicans are familiar with the cadences of Miles Coverdale's Psalms, about which I wrote last month: My Rock and my salvation, 2: Coverdale and the Vulgate. If you take a look at the online Book of Common Prayer (2019) for the Anglican Church in North America and go to the Psalter section, beginning on page 270, you will find something interesting relevant to the rock metaphors for God. In most cases where they occur, the rock metaphors have been returned to the Psalms, except for Psalms 62, 95, and 144:

Psalm 62: 2: "He is my strength and my salvation . . ."

Psalm 62:6: "He truly is my strength and my salvation . . ."

Psalm 95:1: ". . . let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation."

Psalm 144:1: "Blessed be the LORD my strength . . ."

Psalm 144:2: "My hope and my fortress . . ."

Why the revisers left these texts alone I cannot say, but I suspect that, in the case of Psalm 95 (Venite), the text is so familiar to worshippers that they decided to let it stand in the form they had come to love. The New Coverdale Psalter is available as a separate volume here.