Angry Psalms

In the month since the Russo-Ukrainian War began, many of us are learning again what it means to pray the imprecatory Psalms, namely, those psalms that call down God's wrath against his enemies. I recently had a conversation with Trevor Laurence, for whose Cateclesia Forum I sometimes write, and he told me of his interest in these particular Psalms, which puzzle many Christians. Laurence offers us this reflection in the online journal, The Biblical Mind: How the ‘Angry Psalms’ Fit within the Story of God and His People. An excerpt:

Psalm 2: Why do the nations madly rage?

This was just posted yesterday by Ref-Grass Moments: Psalm 2: Why do the restless nations madly rage? The tune is the proper Genevan meloday for Psalm 2. The text is from the Canadian Reformed collection. The footage is from Port Dalhousie in St. Catharines, Ontario.

A prayer for Russia and Ukraine

Almighty God and Father, you have created us in your image to live in peace with our fellow human beings. But we confess that we have so often failed to live in obedience to your will, to the detriment of our neighbours, both near and far. And now the world is seeing a brutal war of aggression launched by one state against another, with attacks made on civilians who are suffering greatly as a result. Thousands of refugees are fleeing their cities and pouring over the borders of neighbouring countries. We feel helpless to relieve their plight, but we are angry and thirst for justice.

We acknowledge, O Lord, that the people of Russia and Ukraine do not want this war, which has been foisted on them by a corrupt and tyrannical leader in Moscow. Many of your servants are making their voices heard at great risk to their lives and livelihoods. We pray, Lord, that you would encircle them with your protection: that you would cover them with your pinions, that under your wings they would find refuge (Psalm 91).

Chanting Psalms in the Dark

The Plough posted today an inspiring article, Chanting Psalms in the Dark, that you should take time to read in the midst of the turmoil of the past days. Susannah Black interviews Brittany Petruzzi about her project to chant through the Psalter and post it on her YouTube channel. An excerpt:

At the beginning of Covid, I just started thinking that I should do daily psalm-chanting.

Then in December 2020, I found out that I had a brain tumor; less than a week later I was in the hospital getting it removed. It was a seven-centimeter tumor right behind my forehead, squishing my brain back. Enormous amounts of pain. But it was on the meninges, on the outside of my brain. As my neurosurgeon described it, this is the kind of brain tumor you want, if you’re going to have a brain tumor.

A Psalm for Putin

In light of the horrific events of recent days, I am revisiting something I wrote last year: God as Judge: Praying the Imprecatory Psalms. If we can still pray these today, then I have the perfect prayer for Russian President Vladimir Putin taken from Psalm 109:8:

May his days be few; may another take his office!

Let all the people say: Amen! (Psalm 106:48)

And while we're at it, let's remember to pray for the people of Ukraine who are valiantly fighting for their freedom and for ordinary Russians who mostly oppose this war.

May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace! (Psalm 29:11)

Psalm 8 "bachified"

Here is Johann Sebastian Bach's arrangement of Genevan Psalm 8. Note that it is a typical Bach arrangement in that it flattens the rhythm of the original, relies heavily on a raised seventh note, and ends on a picardy third. As such, it alters the dorian modal flavour of the melody.

The Psalms in wartime

This evening after dinner we read Psalm 27, which I thought appropriate in light of the events of the past hours. Here is something I wrote for the Center for Public Justice eight years ago, which I thought relevant to the current crisis: One Hundred Years Later: The Psalms and the First World War. An excerpt:

Nearly four decades ago, I visited Prague, the capital of what was still communist-ruled Czechoslovakia and, before the First World War, part of Austria-Hungary. During my time there, I purchased in an antiquarian bookshop a Czech-language New Testament and Psalms published in 1845 for “Evangelical Christians of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions,” that is, for Lutheran and Reformed Christians. The print was in the old German black letter font, and even some of the spelling was obsolete.

Meeter Center lecture coming up

In May I will be lecturing on the Genevan Psalter at Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, as guest of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies. This year marks the 460th anniversary of the Genevan Psalter's completion. More information forthcoming.

Psalm 82: the consensus of the metrical psalters?

As a follow-up to my previous posts on the identity of the "gods" in Psalm 82, I have consulted a few more metrical psalters. Here are stanzas 1, 7, and 8 of the version in the Sternhold & Hopkins Psalter of 1562:

Among the princes, men of might,
the Lord himself doth stand,
To plead the cause of truth and right
with judges of the land.

But notwithstanding ye shall die
as men, and so decay;
O tyrants, you destroy will I,
and pluck you quite away.

Up, Lord, and let thy strength be known,
and judge the world with might:
For why? all nations are thy own,
to take them as thy right.

Where Alter's Psalter falters

Christian Courier has just posted my January column, titled, Where Alter's Psalter falters, with the following subtitle: "What's really going on in Psalm 82?" Here is an excerpt:

Although I generally appreciate Alter’s work, I question one element of his interpretive framework. This is relevant especially to Psalm 82 but to others as well. Throughout the Psalms he sees vestiges of Canaanite polytheistic religion, with many of the traditional attributes ascribed to Baal being reassigned to YHWH, including the often-used metaphors of riding on the clouds and defeating the waters of chaos.

Of course, there is little doubt that the early Hebrews were influenced by the surrounding peoples’ religions, as the Bible itself testifies. But I think it’s possible to exaggerate these mythological remnants in such a way as to miss something more concrete and obvious, which Alter is otherwise at pains to emphasize.

Read the entire article here. And read my full review of the Alter Psalter here.

Article in The Outlook

Not long ago I received a copy of the January/February issue of The Outlook carrying an article of mine, "The Genevan Psalter: Introduction." It is not posted online, so you will need to obtain a paper copy of the periodical to read it. A follow-up article on my own Genevan Psalter project will appear in a future issue.

Jamie Soles: Psalm 91

Here is Jamie Soles singing Psalm 91. Although the lyrics are from the Canadian Reformed Book of Praise and were meant to be sung to the proper Genevan melody, Soles has come up with his own tune:

Psalms in the night

The BBC carries a fascinating article about a phenomenon that is little remembered today but was thoroughly familiar with our not so distant ancestors: The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps', something about which I wrote nearly a decade ago: Rising at Midnight: Sleep Patterns and Daily Prayer. Prior to the invention of artificial lighting, human beings around the world slept in two shifts, once in the late evening, followed by a period of wakefulness, and then in the early morning. In the absence of the indoor lighting ubiquitous in our dwellings and late-night television, people generally retired early, woke up again around midnight for another period of activity, and then retired for another few hours, to wake again for the day. Not only is this testified to in the literature to which author Zaria Gorvett alludes, but it is found in the Bible as well:

Make no mistake

Must be a Portuguese or Brazilian monk . . . 

Ele deve ser um monge português ou brasileiro . . .

Genfi Zsoltár for guitar

 Psalm 65/72 performed on guitar:

'Gods' as judges: Jesus

After I posted 'Gods' as judges: Calvin and Zylstra, someone alerted me to this passage in the gospel of John:

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? (John 10:31-36)

Jesus here quotes from Psalm 82:6: "I say, 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince.'" John's account here appears to suggest that Jesus interpreted the "gods" in this text to refer not to mythological members of a divine council or to demonic spirits, but to human creatures. Thus Calvin and Zylstra draw on Jesus' own interpretation of the text.

'Gods' as judges: Calvin and Zylstra

At the beginning of the month, I reviewed Robert Alter's Psalter and noted one area of disagreement, namely, his interpretation of Psalm 82, which he sees as a mythological vestige of Canaanite polytheism. By contrast, I've always seen it as God addressing earthly rulers claiming divinity who are remiss in their practical responsibilities to do justice within their jurisdictions. This is reflected in my own versification (© David T. Koyzis) as set to the proper Genevan tune:

Judging among divine pretenders,
in council God his verdict renders:
"How long," says he, "shall wickedness
be favoured over righteousness?
Give justice to the poor and needy,
rescue the helpless from the greedy.
Treat widows as is right and fair,
defend all orphans in your care.

Salmos 12 e 110

The Comissão Brasileira de Salmodia has posted Psalm 12 on its YouTube channel:

The group has posted several Psalms in recent days, including Psalm 110:

Obsessed with the Psalms

Some of us bring our passion for sung psalmody into the unlikeliest places.

The Alter Psalter: a review

For many years now I have followed the Book of Common Prayer's thirty-day schedule for praying through the Psalms, and during November I used Robert Alter's translation in The Book of Psalms for morning and evening prayers. During this time I read his commentaries for each Psalm as well, and I learned quite a lot in the process. As promised, here is my review of the collection.

To begin, I must admit that I have little grasp of the Hebrew language other than the ability to recite the alphabet. This, of course, would put me at a disadvantage with respect to a substantive review, which I shall not attempt here. Thus I limit myself to describing what Alter does in his translation and commentary and to alerting my readers to some interesting peculiarities unique to his work. What I can tell you is that Alter's scholarship is highly respected, with some exceptions, by his colleagues, and his translation of the entire Hebrew Bible, of which this is a part, represents a significant milestone in disseminating knowledge of the Scriptures and could well be seen as the culmination of his life's work.