(Here’s the 20th 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, Psalm 51, Psalm 6, Psalm 32, Psalm 143, Psalms 38/102, and Psalm 31. On March 2, our class took up Psalm 116.)
Psalm 116 is the only place in the Psalter, indeed the entire Bible, where anyone declares, “I love the Lord.”
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
The psalm is part of the Egyptian Hallel, Psalms 113-118, which is sung during the Passover meal (113-114 before the meal; Psalm 115-118 after it). Thus, it is probably part of the hymn Jesus and his disciples sang after the Last Supper (Mark 14:26).
Psalm 114 is the only psalm in that collection to make direct reference to the Exodus, but Psalm 116, a song of individual thanksgiving, is the psalmist’s response to the Lord’s rescue from a dire-situation—an Exodus-like experience.
The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came over me;
I was overcome by distress and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“Lord, save me!”
The Lord responds by not just saving the psalmist’s life, but also rescuing him from sadness and from missteps in his walk with the Lord.
For you, Lord, have delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
The psalmist thus responds not just with love, but with public worship: twice the psalmist promises to “pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.” Remembering escape from near death leads the psalmist to look forward to the inevitability of his death and that even then the Lord will be with him.
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful servants.
This verse makes the psalm appropriate for a funeral, while a reference to “the cup of salvation” suggests its possible use during communion.
The Revised Common Lectionary assigned Psalm 116 to Maundy Thursday in all three years as well as the 3rd Sunday in Easter in Year A and a pair of ordinary time Sundays in Years A & B.
Psalms for All Seasons and Lift Up Your Hearts have five Psalm 116 songs between them.
“I Love You, LORD, for You Have Heard My Voice” (PFAS #116A/LUYH #735/PH87 #116/HFW #9) is a full (unrhymed) versification by Helen Otte set to GENEVAN 116 for the gray Psalter Hymnal. (The song is titled “I Love the LORD, for He Has Heard My Voice” in the gray Psalter Hymnal. Third-person pronouns are changed to second-person throughout for the new CRC hymnals.) According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, “This Mixolydian tune is one of the simplest, finest, and most loved of the Genevan repertoire.”
I love you, LORD, for you have heard my voice.
You turned to me and heard my cry for mercy.
Anguished by death and overcome by sorrow,
I turned in my distress to you in prayer.
“What Shall I Render to the Lord” (PFAS #116B/LUYH #871/PH87 #178/PH57 #230) is “one of the most loved from the 1912 Psalter” (says the Psalter Hymnal Handbook). It is a versification of the second half of the psalm (vv. 12-19). It was set to WALLACE in the 1912 Psalter and blue Psalter Hymnal, but was changed to ROCKINGHAM for the gray Psalter Hymnal. (Our class disagreed about which was the better tune.)
What shall I render to the LORD
for all his benefits to me?
How shall my life, by grace restored,
give worthy thanks, O LORD, to thee?
[ROCKINGHAM is also used for “O Christ, You Wept When Grief Was Raw” (LUYH #467), “Commit Your Way to God the Lord” (PFAS #37A/LUYH #840), “Let God, Who Called the Worlds to Be” (SNC #60), and “That Night, at Table” (SNT #156).]
“I Love the Lord; He Heard My Cry” (PFAS #116C/LUYH #439/SNC #227) has lyrics based on vv. 1-2 by Isaac Watts set to an Afro-American spiritual tune. Richard Smallwood composed the current version.
I love the Lord; he heard my cry
and pitied every groan.
Long as I live and troubles rise,
I’ll hasten to his throne.
The first line of the Watt’s song is the Psalm 116 responsorial “I Love the Lord, Who Heard My Cry” (PFAS #116D/LUYH #152/SNC #226). (PFAS changed “He” to “who” in the first line; LUYH & SNC keep the “who.”) Psalms for All Seasons includes only vv. 1-9 & 12-19; the other two hymnals include the entire psalm.
The fourth and final Psalm 116 hymn in PFAS is “I Will Walk in the Presence of God” (PFAS #116E). A fragment from the hymn is also given as an alternative responsorial setting.
I will walk in the presence of God.
I trusted when I felt afflicted,
I walk in the sight of the Lord,
and even in the face of death
I will walk in the presence of God.
Lift Up Your Hearts includes another Psalm 116 setting, “I Love the Lord” (LUYH #819), a beautiful 21st Century composition by Arnel Aquino. This was one of my favorites. Here is the refrain:
I love the Lord;
he is filled with compassion.
He turned to me on the day that I called.
From the snares of the dark,
O Lord, save my life, be my strength.
The blue Psalter Hymnal includes two more Psalm 116 settings: “I Love the Lord, the Fount of Life” (PH57 #228) is, like Otte’s versification, set to GENEVAN 116, but a wordier approach resulted in a hymn of 10 stanzas. (Otte’s has five).
“I Love the Lord, for My Request” (PH57 #229) is a versification of the first half of the psalm (vv. 1-11) set to CANONBURY, the tune of “Lord, Speak to Me that I May Speak” (LUYH #754/PH87 #528/PH57 #404).
Since he has freed mine eyes from tears
And kept my feet from evil ways
Redeemed from life’s distressing fears,
With Him I walk, and Him I praise.