(Here’s the 15th post in my continuing series on the Psalms for All Seasons Sunday school class I co-teach with Andrew Friend. Each week we sing psalm settings from Psalms for All Seasons, Lift Up Your Hearts, and other CRC hymnals. Previous posts is the series focused on Psalm 121, Psalm 122, Psalms 2/99, Psalm 72, Psalm 95, Psalm 147, Psalm 112, Psalm 29, Psalm 40, Psalm 23, Psalm 27, Psalm 130, Psalm 15, and Psalm 51.)
Our class tackled Psalm 6 together with Psalm 32 during our third Sunday (Feb. 9) looking at the seven penitential psalms. Psalm 6 is ignored by the Revised Common Lectionary and neglected in the CRC hymnals despite containing one of the best descriptions of grief in the Psalter.
The psalmist calls out to the Lord for mercy because of his physical (“my bones are in agony”) and mental (“my soul is in deep anguish”) distress and anticipates his death.
I am worn out from my groaning.
All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.
Like the author of Psalm 32, who also suffers in the bones, the psalmist asks not for what is deserved, but mercy from God because of his “unfailing love.” In the final three verses, the mood of the psalm shifts as the psalmist announces that “The LORD has heard my weeping…, has heard my cry for mercy… [and] accepts my prayer.”
The musical highlight of our slim Psalm 6 pickings was “My Eyes Are Dim with Weeping” (PFAS #6B), the responsorial setting in Psalms for All Seasons. The response, from the Iona Community, has a leader’s part (“My eyes are dim with weeping and my pillow with tears”), which Naomi sang, and a congregational response (“Faithful God remember me”). The paraphrase of the Psalm is by Calvin Seerveld. (“In Psalm 6,” says Seerveld in his introduction, “the psalmist admits that his life is a mess.”) Here are the first three verses:
LORD God! Please do not set me straight while you are angry!
Don’t try to correct me while you are all wound up!
Deal gently with me, LORD, because I am fragile, petering out, really—
Heal me, O LORD, for my very bones are caving in,
my deepest self is horribly disturbed—
and you, LORD, how long will it be before…
I’d like to use this in worship and it’s a shame the lectionary doesn’t give us an obvious service for its use.
The alternative responsorial is the refrain of “Healer of Our Every Ill” (PFAS #6B-alt/LUYH #303)—“Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow, give us peace beyond our fear and hope beyond our sorrow.” The entire song, by Marty Haugen, is in Lift Up Your Hearts. We liked the full song, but it isn’t closely connected to the psalm. [Haugen has nine hymns in LUYH, including “Shepherd Me, O God” (PFAS #23H/LUYH #456) and “Gather Us In” (LUYH #529/SNC #8). Haugen’s “Bring Forth the Kingdom” (SNC #123/SWM #236/SNT #20) and “Awake! Awake and Greet the New Morn” (SNC #91) didn’t make the cut.]
“LORD, Chasten Not in Anger” (PFAS #6A/LUYH #409/PH87 #6) is the only complete Psalm 6 setting in the new CRC hymnals. It’s one of a number of psalm settings in the gray Psalter Hymnal that combined a fresh versification (by Clarence Walhout) with the appropriate tune from the Genevan Psalter (GENEVAN 6). (A sample is here.) (GENEVAN 6 trivia from the Psalter Hymnal Handbook: “This tune is one of the few in the Genevan Psalter to include a melisma, a syllable set to more than one note.”)
LORD, chasten not in anger,
nor in your wrath rebuke me.
Give me your healing word.
My soul and body languish;
I wait for you in anguish.
How long, how long, O LORD?
According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, “Walhout… was a member of the Poets’ Workshop, a group of several writers who worked on versifications for the 1987 Psalter Hymnal.” I’m curious about how many versification that group composed and how many were included in the new hymnals.
The last line of GENEVAN 6 is used as the refrain of “A Prayer of Lament in Solidarity with Sufferers” (PFAS #6C) by John Witvliet. Here is the first part of the prayer:
Our hearts cry out, to you, O Lord.
Those whom we love (_________) struggle in fear and pain.
They feel abandoned.
Their eyes—and ours—are filled with tears.
The blue Psalter Hymnal has two versifications of Psalm 6. “No Longer, Lord, Do Thou Despise Me” (PH57 #10) is set to a tune (credited to Louis Bourgeois, 1549), which appears to be a slightly revised version of GENEVAN 6 (which is from the 1542 Genevan Psalter). It has two extra syllables in the first line and is missing the melisma; the rest is nearly identical.
The other versification in the blue Psalter Hymnal is “Lord, Rebuke Me Not” (PH57 #9). Our class preferred this to the Genevan tune and wishes it would have been included in Psalms for All Seasons. (Our class member who grew up with the blue Psalter Hymnal didn’t recall singing either of its two Psalm 6 settings.)
God hath heard my supplication,
He will surely grant my plea.
Let mine enemies be routed,
Be defeated suddenly.