with brief introductory comments
Translation: The New Jerusalem Bible
The Spoken Word Set 10
Psalms for Every Day
Psalms 1 to 78
Volumes 25 to 27
The recording of the Psalms (Set 10)
read by David Guthrie
may be purchased and downloaded digitally from Naxos at
Classics Online
and streamed from the Naxos Spoken Word Library
Psalm 77
Meditation on Israel’s past
This is a psalm composed in exile when the days seemed darkest and there was no hope of restoration. It was during the exile that the story of Israel's 'past' took root, a story that was eventually to provide the hope and vision of a return and restoration. This psalm may reflect an early stage in the development of that story when its effect upon the mind of the people was to heighten the contrast between the envisaged past when Yahweh was with the Hebrews and delivered them victoriously, and the present sad reality. At this point in their experience, the story served to intensified despair.
I cry to God in distress,
I cry to God and he hears me.
In the day of my distress I sought the Lord;
all night I tirelessly stretched out my hands,
my heart refused to be consoled.
I sigh as I think of God,
my spirit faints away as I ponder on him.
You kept me from closing my eyes,
I was too distraught to speak;
I thought of former times,
years long past I recalled;
through the night I ponder in my heart,
as I reflect, my spirit asks this question:
Is the Lord's rejection final?
Will he never show favour again?
Is his faithful love gone for ever?
Has his Word come to an end for all time?
Does God forget to show mercy?
In anger does he shut off his tenderness?
And I said, “This is what wounds me,
the right hand of the Most High has lost its strength.”
Remembering Yahweh's great deeds,
remembering your wonders in the past,
I reflect on all that you did,
I ponder all your great deeds.
God, your ways are holy!
What god is as great as our God?
You are the God who does marvellous deeds,
brought nations to acknowledge your power,
with your own arm redeeming your people,
the children of Jacob and Joseph.
When the waters saw you, God,
when the waters saw you they writhed in anguish,
the very depths shook with fear.
The clouds pelted down water,
the sky thundered,
your arrows shot back and forth.
The rolling of your thunder was heard,
your lightning-flashes lit up the world,
the earth shuddered and shook.
Your way led over the sea,
your path over the countless waters,
and none could trace your footsteps.
You guided your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Psalm 78
The lessons of Israel’s history
As noted in the previous psalm, it was during the exile that the story of the past for the Hebrew people took root: that of an escape from Egypt through the desert to Sinai and the struggle with a rebellious spirit; to the emergence of the ideal king, David, and the establishment of Jerusalem as the cultic centre. The point of the story was to give the exiles the hope of return and restoration, so the psalm represents a stage further than Psalm 77 and perhaps a deliberate reaction to the initial response of intensified despair.
The fundamental vision being conveyed is that the Hebrew people were constituted as a 'mission' body charged with proclaiming God to the world.
My people, listen to my teaching,
pay attention to what I say.
I will speak to you in poetry,
unfold the mysteries of the past.
What we have heard and know,
what our ancestors have told us
we shall not conceal from their descendants,
but will tell to a generation still to come:
the praises of Yahweh, his power,
the wonderful deeds he has done.
He instituted a witness in Jacob,
he established a law in Israel,
he commanded our ancestors
to hand it down to their descendants,
that a generation still to come might know it,
children yet to be born.
They should be sure to tell their own children,
and should put their trust in God,
never forgetting God's great deeds,
always keeping his commands,
and not, like their ancestors,
be a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation weak of purpose,
their spirit fickle towards God.
The archer sons of Ephraim
turned tail when the time came for fighting;
they failed to keep God's covenant,
they refused to follow his Law;
they had forgotten his great deeds,
the marvels he had shown them;
he did marvels in the sight of their ancestors
in Egypt, in the plains of Tanis.
He split the sea and brought them through,
made the waters stand up like a dam;
he led them with a cloud by day,
and all the night with the light of a fire;
he split rocks in the desert,
let them drink as though from the limitless depths;
he brought forth streams from a rock,
made waters flow down in torrents.
But they only sinned against him more than ever,
defying the Most High in barren country;
they deliberately challenged God
by demanding food to their hearts' content.
They insulted God by saying,
“Can God make a banquet in the desert?
True, when he struck the rock,
waters gushed out and flowed in torrents;
but what of bread? Can he give that,
can he provide meat for his people?”
When he heard them Yahweh vented his anger,
fire blazed against Jacob,
his anger mounted against Israel,
because they had no faith in God,
no trust in his power to save.
Even so he gave orders to the skies above,
he opened the sluice-gates of heaven;
he rained down manna to feed them,
he gave them the wheat of heaven;
mere mortals ate the bread of the Mighty,
he sent them as much food as they could want.
He roused an east wind in the heavens,
despatched a south wind by his strength;
he rained down meat on them like dust,
birds thick as sand on the seashore,
tumbling into the middle of his camp,
all around his dwelling-place.
They ate as much food as they wanted,
he satisfied all their cravings;
but their cravings were still upon them,
the food was still in their mouths,
when the wrath of God attacked them,
slaughtering their strongest men,
laying low the flower of Israel.
Despite all this, they went on sinning,
they put no faith in his marvels.
He made their days vanish in mist,
their years in sudden ruin.
Whenever he slaughtered them, they began to seek him,
they turned back and looked eagerly for him,
recalling that God was their rock,
God the Most High, their redeemer.
They tried to hoodwink him with their mouths,
their tongues were deceitful towards him;
their hearts were not loyal to him,
they were not faithful to his covenant.
But in his compassion he forgave their guilt
instead of killing them,
time and again repressing his anger
instead of rousing his full wrath,
remembering they were creatures of flesh,
a breath of wind that passes, never to return.
How often they defied him in the desert!
How often they grieved him in the wastelands!
Repeatedly they challenged God,
provoking the Holy One of Israel,
not remembering his hand,
the time when he saved them from the oppressor,
he who did his signs in Egypt,
his miracles in the plains of Tanis,
turning their rivers to blood,
their streams so that they had nothing to drink.
He sent horseflies to eat them up,
and frogs to devastate them,
consigning their crops to the caterpillar,
the fruit of their hard work to the locust;
he killed their vines with hail,
their sycamore trees with frost,
delivering up their cattle to hail,
and their flocks to thunderbolts.
He loosed against them the full heat of his anger,
fury, rage and destruction,
a detachment of destroying angels;
he gave free course to his anger.
He did not exempt their own selves from death,
delivering up their lives to the plague.
He struck all the first-born in Egypt,
the flower of the youth in the tents of Ham.
He brought out his people like sheep,
guiding them like a flock in the desert,
leading them safe and unafraid,
while the sea engulfed their enemies.
He brought them to his holy land,
the hill-country won by his right hand;
he dispossessed nations before them,
measured out a heritage for each of them,
and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
But still they challenged the Most High God and defied him,
refusing to keep his decrees;
as perverse and treacherous as their ancestors,
they gave way like a faulty bow,
provoking him with their high places,
rousing his jealousy with their idols.
God listened and vented his wrath,
he totally rejected Israel;
he forsook his dwelling in Shiloh,
the tent where he used to dwell on the earth.
He abandoned his power to captivity,
his splendour to the enemy's clutches;
he gave up his people to the sword,
he vented his wrath on his own heritage.
Fire devoured their young men,
their young girls had no wedding-song;
their priests fell by the sword
and their widows sang no dirge.
The Lord arose as though he had been asleep,
like a strong man fighting-mad with wine,
he struck his enemies on the rump,
and put them to everlasting shame.
Rejecting the tents of Joseph,
passing over the tribe of Ephraim,
he chose the tribe of Judah,
his well-loved mountain of Zion;
he built his sanctuary like high hills,
like the earth set it firm for ever.
He chose David to be his servant,
took him from the sheepfold,
took him from tending ewes
to pasture his servant Jacob,
and Israel his heritage.
He pastured them with unblemished heart,
with a sensitive hand he led them.
Psalm 79
National lament
Psalm 79 belongs to the period immediately after or contemporaneous with that pivotal moment, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The event seems with out meaning, an annihilation not only of the city but also of a faith itself. But it is this very crisis that was to prove totally transformative for the Hebrews. The psalmist, lost in grief, cannot see that meaning, but in reality this is was a time of grace for the Hebrews.
God, the pagans have invaded your heritage,
they have defiled your holy temple,
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins,
they have left the corpses of your servants
as food for the birds of the air,
the bodies of your faithful for the wild beasts.
Around Jerusalem they have shed blood like water,
leaving no one to bury them.
We are the scorn of our neighbours,
the butt and laughing-stock of those around us.
How long will you be angry, Yahweh? For ever?
Is your jealousy to go on smouldering like a fire?
Pour out your anger on the nations
who do not acknowledge you,
and on the kingdoms
that do not call on your name;
for they have devoured Jacob
and devastated his home.
Do not count against us the guilt of former generations,
in your tenderness come quickly to meet us,
for we are utterly weakened;
help us, God our Saviour,
for the glory of your name;
Yahweh, wipe away our sins,
rescue us for the sake of your name.
Why should the nations ask,
'Where is their God?'
Let us see the nations suffer vengeance
for shedding your servants' blood.
May the groans of the captive reach you,
by your great strength save those who are condemned to death!
Repay our neighbours sevenfold
for the insults they have levelled at you, Lord.
And we, your people, the flock that you pasture,
will thank you for ever,
will recite your praises from age to age.
Psalm 80
Prayer for the restoration of Israel
The previous psalm expressed the sense of utter meaninglessness that is our universal experience when what we value in life is stripped away, especially when we are convinced that what we valued is also valued by God.
Psalm 80 belongs a generation or two later than Psalm 79. The story of the past involving God’s act in bringing the people out of Egypt has taken hold and given a perspective both on God and on the meaningfulness of the Hebrew community in the world.
Shepherd of Israel, listen,
you who lead Joseph like a flock,
enthroned on the winged creatures, shine forth
over Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh;
rouse your valour
and come to our help.
God, bring us back,
let your face shine on us and we shall be safe.
Yahweh, God Sabaoth, how long
will you flare up at your people's prayer?
You have made tears their food,
redoubled tears their drink.
You let our neighbours quarrel over us,
our enemies mock us.
God Sabaoth, bring us back,
let your face shine on us and we shall be safe.
You brought a vine out of Egypt,
to plant it you drove out nations;
you cleared a space for it,
it took root and filled the whole country.
The mountains were covered with its shade,
and the cedars of God with its branches,
its boughs stretched as far as the sea,
its shoots as far as the River.
Why have you broken down its fences?
Every passer-by plucks its grapes,
boars from the forest tear at it,
wild beasts feed on it.
God Sabaoth, come back, we pray,
look down from heaven and see,
visit this vine;
protect what your own hand has planted.
They have thrown it on the fire like dung,
the frown of your rebuke will destroy them.
May your hand protect those at your side,
the child of Adam you have strengthened for yourself!
Never again will we turn away from you,
give us life and we will call upon your name.
God Sabaoth, bring us back,
let your face shine on us and we shall be safe.
Psalm 81
For the Feast of Shelters
This Psalm is probably post-exilic, after the Hebrews were allowed to return to Judah after the Persians destroyed Babylon. There a new temple was built and worship renewed, but very different from the cult and temple of the time before the exile. Before the exile, it is most probable that the cult of Yahweh was just one of many cults observed in the Jerusalem temple -- the book of Ezekiel makes this very plain. The Hebrews were a polytheistic people worshipping many gods, of whom Yahweh was only one but who was their national protect or. During the exile, the people came to the conviction that there was only one god -- or, more likely, that Yahweh was a god supreme over all the other gods -- and that the Hebrews were called to worship Yahweh alone and abandoned the other gods.
Sing for joy to God our strength,
shout in triumph to the God of Jacob.
Strike up the music, beat the tambourine,
play the melodious harp and the lyre;
blow the trumpet for the new month,
for the full moon, for our feast day!
For Israel has this statute,
a decision of the God of Jacob,
a decree he imposed on Joseph,
when he went to war against Egypt.
I heard a voice unknown to me,
'I freed his shoulder from the burden,
his hands were able to lay aside the labourer's basket.
You cried out in your distress, so I rescued you.
'Hidden in the storm, I answered you,
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
Listen, my people, while I give you warning;
Israel, if only you would listen to me!
'You shall have no strange gods,
shall worship no alien god.
I, Yahweh, am your God,
who brought you here from Egypt,
you have only to open your mouth for me to fill it.
'My people would not listen to me,
Israel would have none of me.
So I left them to their stubborn selves,
to follow their own devices.
'If only my people would listen to me,
if only Israel would walk in my ways,
at one stroke I would subdue their enemies,
turn my hand against their opponents.
'Those who hate Yahweh would woo his favour,
though their doom was sealed for ever,
while I would feed him on pure wheat,
would give you your fill of honey from the rock.'
Psalm 82
Against the judges of the nations
The comment was made in connection with Psalm 81 that the exile was a time when the Hebrews came to comprehend Yahweh as the single God or, more probably at this point, the Supreme God. The psalm, 80, reflects the latter option. Here the psalmist envisages a council of all the gods, to whom Yahweh gives his address, chastising them and effectively dismissing them from their roles as gods.
Although what we see here is an echo of the nature of polytheistic mythology as being everlastingly about the struggle among the gods for cosmic supremacy, what we have here is something fundamentally different. The impetus to throw over traditional polytheism began in the seventh century with a group, probably of priests, and probably influenced by the dramatic religious changes taking place in India at that time, which was gripped by the utterly novel concept that the divine was ethical. Because they were priests of the cult of Yahweh, they proclaimed Yahweh as an ethical god, demanding an ethical life from his followers.
God takes his stand in the divine assembly,
surrounded by the gods he gives judgement.
'How much longer will you give unjust judgements
and uphold the prestige of the wicked?
Let the weak and the orphan have justice,
be fair to the wretched and the destitute.
'Rescue the weak and the needy,
save them from the clutches of the wicked.
'Ignorant and uncomprehending, they wander in darkness,
while the foundations of the world are tottering.
I had thought, "Are you gods,
are all of you sons of the Most High?"
No! you will die as human beings do,
as one man, princes, you will fall.'
Arise, God, judge the world,
for all nations belong to you.
Psalm 84
Pilgrimage song
Here in this psalm, we can almost experience the sense of having walked out of a dark, threatening room into blazing sunlight. The years of exile are over, the temple has been rebuilt, worship has been restored, peace reigns and the world is filled with wonder. The people make their way to the rebuilt Jerusalem temple, making a pilgrimage.
How lovely are your dwelling-places,
Yahweh Sabaoth.
My whole being yearns and pines
for Yahweh's courts,
My heart and my body cry out for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow has found a home,
the swallow a nest to place its young:
your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth,
my King and my God.
How blessed are those who live in your house;
they shall praise you continually.
Blessed those who find their strength in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of the Balsam,
they make there a water-hole,
and -- a further blessing -- early rain fills it.
They make their way from height to height,
God shows himself to them in Zion.
Yahweh, God Sabaoth, hear my prayer,
listen, God of Jacob.
God, our shield, look,
and see the face of your anointed.
Better one day in your courts
than a thousand at my own devices,
to stand on the threshold of God's house
than to live in the tents of the wicked.
For Yahweh God is a rampart and shield,
he gives grace and glory;
Yahweh refuses nothing good
to those whose life is blameless.
Yahweh Sabaoth,
blessed is they who trusts in you.
Psalm 85
Prayer for peace and justice
Here, too, is a psalm belonging to the period after the exile. There is peace in the land and a sense of quiet joy, yet the psalmist sees that beneath the surface there is still the problem of the ethical quality of the community life. The jarring notes of wrath coming in the middle of the psalm serve as a reminder to the people that they live always on a knife-edge, for if they fail to act justly, faithfully and mercifully then the experience of the exile may again be repeated.
Yahweh, you are gracious to your land,
you bring back the captives of Jacob,
you take away the guilt of your people,
you blot out all their sin.
You retract all your anger,
you renounce the heat of your fury.
Bring us back, God our Saviour,
appease your indignation against us!
Will you be angry with us for ever?
Will you prolong your wrath age after age?
Will you not give us life again,
for your people to rejoice in you?
Show us, Lord, your faithful love,
grant us your saving help.
I am listening. What is God's message?
Yahweh's message is peace
for his people, for his faithful,
if only they renounce their folly.
His saving help is near for those who fear him,
his glory will dwell in our land.
Faithful Love and Loyalty join together,
Saving Justice and Peace embrace.
Loyalty will spring up from the earth,
and Justice will lean down from heaven.
Yahweh will himself give prosperity,
and our soil will yield its harvest.
Justice will walk before him,
treading out a path.
Psalm 86
Prayer in time of trial
The spirituality of this psalm is post-exilic. It illustrates another aspect of the transformation and spirituality that took place during and after the exile. In pre-exilic Judah, as a polytheistic society, the gods were honoured culticly and they were supposed to help and aid those who faithfully carried out their cult. They would not, however, have had 'personal' relationships with their followers. I suspect that Jeremiah may have been a revolutionary in this as in other aspects, because in Jeremiah we see, in a new record directly from his mouth, his tempestuous personal relationship with God. That tradition is picked up by is Ezekiel (who would almost certainly have known and been influenced by Jeremiah).
Listen to me, Yahweh, answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Guard me, for I am faithful,
save your servant who relies on you.
You are my God, take pity on me, Lord,
for to you I cry all the day.
Fill your servant's heart with joy,
Lord, for to you I raise up my heart.
Lord, you are kind and forgiving,
rich in faithful love for all who call upon you.
Yahweh, hear my prayer,
listen to the sound of my pleading.
In my day of distress I call upon you,
because you answer me, Lord;
among the gods there is none to compare with you,
no great deeds to compare with yours.
All nations will come and adore you, Lord,
and give glory to your name.
For you are great and do marvellous deeds,
you, God, and none other.
Teach me, Yahweh, your ways,
that I may not stray from your loyalty;
let my heart's one aim be to fear your name.
I thank you with all my heart, Lord my God,
I will glorify your name for ever,
for your faithful love for me is so great
that you have rescued me from the depths of Sheol.
Arrogant men, God, are rising up against me,
a brutal gang is after my life,
in their scheme of things you have no place.
But you, Lord, God of tenderness and mercy,
slow to anger, rich in faithful love and loyalty,
turn to me and pity me.
Give to your servant your strength,
to the child of your servant your saving help,
give me a sign of your kindness.
My enemies will see to their shame
that you, Yahweh, help and console me.
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