Lenten Meditation #2: The Penitential Psalms in the Pilgrimage of Lent
The Penitential Psalms in the Pilgrimage of Lent
Christ Church, Lent 2021
Lenten Meditation # 2: “O Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation,/
neither chasten me in thy displeasure” (Psalm 6.1)
Domine, ne furore is the Latin title to Psalm 6 derived from the first half of the first verse. Along with Psalm 38 which bears the same Latin title and for the same reason, it brackets Psalm 32, Beati, quorum, “Blessed is he (those) whose unrighteousness is forgiven.” These three Psalms form a triplet of penitential reflection. Our intent is to concentrate upon the opening lines in relation to the other verses in each Psalm in order to identify the voice of the Psalm, the different tonal qualities of the voices of penitence in the Penitential Psalms. The idea which is part of the devotional tradition in the liturgies of the Church is that in praying these Psalms, their words become our words of prayer through which we enter more fully into the heart of all prayer, the prayer of Christ. Tonight we focus on Psalm 6 as the preliminary Psalm of Confession.
The Psalter or the Book of Psalms is also called the Psalms of David. What is true for the whole remains true for the part. This Psalm is specifically entitled “A Psalm of David” in the traditions by which the Psalms have come down to us. It is largely a title derived from the Septuagint translation (Greek) as following the Hebrew. Psalm 6 is a Psalm of David within the later designation of the Psalter as The Psalms of David.
The Psalms we have suggested are essentially a prayer book giving us, as Athanasius says, “a picture of the spiritual life,” providing us, as Calvin notes, “an anatomy of all of the parts of the soul,” and presenting to us, as Dean Comber says, “the quintessence of all scripture.” To this we may add St. Basil’s trenchant remark that the Psalms are “a compendium of all theology” so much so that “no other book is needed for spiritual uses but the Psalms.” Given such encomia of the Psalter, what does it mean to say the Psalms are the Psalms of David? Perhaps it is something like this. In David we have a kind of picture of every man. David is the great and attractive figure in the Jewish Scriptures or Old Testament. But why? Because he constitutes an example for all. His history concerns and embraces all. In other words, we are in the story of David.
This idea is wonderfully expressed by the poet/preacher John Donne. Speaking about David, he says, “his Person includes all states, between a shepherd and a King.” David epitomizes the whole of Israel and by extension the whole of humanity. For the Christian understanding, that is why the Davidic lineage of Jesus is so crucial. Jesus as “the Son of David,” as the blind man refers to him in the Gospel for Quinquagesima Sunday, and as the Canaanite woman on the Second Sunday of Lent, locates Jesus within the scope of Jewish Messianic hopes and what will become the newly emerging Christian understanding. Moreover, David epitomizes the whole of Israel and the whole of our humanity not only in its truth but also its untruth. As Donne notes: “his sinne includes all sinne.”
Something of the essential character of our humanity and something of the essential character of our sinfulness is revealed in the figure and story of David. “We need no other Example,” Donne says, “to discover to us the slippery wayes into sin, or the penitential ways out of sin, than the Author of that Book, David.”
