Going Deeper with God
How to Make the Psalms your Own.
Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Jesus chose to cite the Psalms for his final words on the cross. In Luke 23:46, he shouts a phrase from Psalm 31:5, which he must have read and recited over and over, which expressed his life, not just his death: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
The Psalms have been a central expression of the deep relationship between humans and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for millennia. This collection of songs, hymns and prayers, flowing from the Torah (especially Genesis and Exodus) and the Prophets (especially Isaiah), has been shaped and molded over generations, reflecting the ongoing dialogue, the conversations of the heart of people who live their lives in reliance upon the God who promised to bless the whole world.
We have been given such powerful help in our own prayers. Not only by joining the “great cloud of witnesses”1 by praying these prayers, but by allowing the Psalms to guide us in shaping and molding our own prayers.
The experiences of Abraham’s extended family were developed with the help of poetry. It was a very common type of poetry in their day in which two lines expressed the same essential idea:2
Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
‘Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.’ -Psalm 2:1-3
Jesus cited the Psalms 11 times in the gospels.3 For example, the famous phrase from the Servant on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” 4comes from Psalm 37: “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.” The New Testament as a whole cites the Psalms more than 70 times. The influence of the Psalms doesn’t end there.
The Psalms are often the first book of the Old Testament translated into a new language. The Gospels with the Psalms are frequently made available for reading before other books of the OT and the NT have been translated. Today they are a model for our own dialogue with God as we walk through the ups and downs of daily life.
Reading the Psalms helps us to express and deepen our relationship with God. But there is another way to work with the Psalms that can take us even deeper in our conversation with God. We are free to translate the Psalms into our own lives.
Isaac Watts lived in a time when church worship was a bit tired, singing the words of the Psalms as they appear in Scripture. He set himself the following challenge: “…to improve singing and encourage frequency in public assemblies and private families with more honor and delight.” He sought to fulfill his goal by drawing together the Old Testament Psalms and what we learned about God’s purposes in the New Testament and expressing the result in the poetry and language of his day.5 For example, he offers three versions of Psalm 2, the same Psalm we quote above, using the poetic methods of Short Metre, Common Metre, and Long Metre:
The first verse of his Short Metre version (four lines with 6,6,8, and 6 syllables) is:
Why did the Gentiles rage,
and Jews with one accord,
Bend all their counsel to destroy
Th’ anointed of the Lord?
The first verse of his Common Metre poem, that is, four lives 8 syllables and 6 syllables alternately is:
Why did the nations join to slay
The Lord’s anointed Son?
Why did they cast his laws away,
And tread his gospel down?
And the first verse of his hymn based upon Long Metre (4 lines, 8 syllables each) is as follows:
Why did the Jews proclaim their rage?
The Romans why their swords employ,
Against the Lord their powers engage
His dear Anointed to destroy?
Watts achieved his goal. He wrote over 750 hymns, many of which (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, “Joy to the World”, and “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”) are still known to churchgoers centuries later. Today he is known as the “Godfather of English Hymnody.”
Church hymnody, however, was not his only goal. He also aimed to write hymns that would support private devotion; as he puts it, “devout pleasure and holy meditations.”
We are free to follow Watts in three steps. First, we need to read the Psalms as our own prayers. Second, we should read the prayers and songs of others, like Isaac Watts, who’ve written poetry based on the Psalms. Third, we can draw together our experiences with God and the Psalms of the Bible into the poetry and language of our own time.
How to begin? Following Watts’ suggestion for the use of his book, with a few adaptations of our own, is helpful :
find a Psalm that fit our situation and needs,
memorize it,
write our own version, using our own language and situation,
run your version by family members to help you sharpen your work,
share them with friends.
Isaac Watts quotes Pliny the Younger’s descriptions of Christians in a letter to the Roman Emperor Trajan at the beginning of his hymnal. “They were accustomed to come together and to sing hymns to Christ as God.”
The Psalms are an abundant feast for us; a means by which every follower of Jesus can give voice to their faith in every moment of life. Enjoy!
Hebrews 12:1 reads: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…”
Known as parallelism, their poetry develops ideas through symmetry; two lines expressing essentially the same idea through techniques like restatement, synonyms, amplification, grammatical repetition, and opposition.
Psalm 6:8: Matthew 7:23, Luke 13:27
Psalm 8:2: Matthew 21:16
Psalm 22:1: Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34
Psalm 31:5: Luke 23:46
Psalm 35:19, 69:4: John 15:25
Psalm 37:11: Matthew 5:5
Psalm 41:9: John 13:18
Psalm 82:6: John 10:34
Psalm 110:1: Matthew 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:42-43
Psalm 118:22-23: Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10-11, Luke 20:17
Psalm 118:26: Matthew 23:39, Luke 13:35
Matthew 5:5
The Psalms of David Imitated in the language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship, Together with Hymns and Spiritual Songs, by Isaac Watts, was published in 1719.