Category Archives: Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 100 & 134 Hymns

Exploring Our Hymnals, Lift Up Your Hearts, Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 100,  one of the best known and beloved psalms, is a call to worship addressed to “all the earth” and especially worshipers about to enter the temple courts. It affirms that the LORD is God, that he made us and we belong to him, that he is good, and that his love and faithfulness will endure “through all generations.”

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Although Psalm 100 is always suitable for use as a call to worship, the Revised Common Lectionary pays it little attention. It is assigned to Christ the King Sunday in Year A as a response to the Ezekiel (which shares with it the image of the Lord as Shepherd). (It shows up as an alternative stream reading in Year A and for Thanksgiving Day in Year C.)

Psalm 100 is connected to one of the most famous tunes in Christian hymnody (and the most famous tune in the 1551 Genevan Psalter), OLD HUNDREDTH (AKA GENEVAN 134), which was written by Louis Bourgeois for Psalm 134. Ten years later it was paired with William Kethe’s versification of Psalm 100 in the 1561 Anglo-Genevan Psalter. The Psalms for All Seasons performance notes claims that the tune is “probably the most sung church melody throughout the world” and that Kethe’s hymn is “perhaps the oldest English psalm versification that continues to be sung today.”

“All People on the Earth Do Dwell” (PFAS #100A/LUYH #1/PH87 #100/PH57 #195/PH34 #205/HFW #6), the marriage of Kethe’s hymn with OLD HUNDREDTH, gets special treatment in the CRC’s new hymnals, which provide the lyrics in 12 languages, including Chinese, Swahili, and Indonesian. Lift Up Your Hearts, which include no other Psalm 100 settings, places the hymn first.

Lift Up Your Hearts uses a modern version of the lyrics, which also appeared in the gray Psalter Hymnal. Psalms for All Seasons uses the older version of Kethe’s lyrics with OLD HUNDREDTH. The modern lyrics are used with another tune. Here is stanza 1 of the modern lyrics:

All people that on earth do dwell,
sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Serve him with joy, his praises tell,
come now before him and rejoice!

(The gray Psalter Hymnal sets the modern lyrics to GENEVAN 100, including an alternative harmonization with French lyrics. The red and blue Psalter Hymnals set them to another Bourgeois tune, ALL LANDS. The 1912 Psalter uses OLD HUNDREDTH, which is clearly the best of these tunes)

Many people are familiar with OLD HUNDREDTH for its use as a doxology (with lyrics by Thomas Ken). Lift Up Your Hearts includes that hymn, “Praise, God, from Whom All Blessings Flow” (LUYH #965/PH87 #638/PH57 #493/PH34 #468), which is placed last in LUYH in the same 12 languages. The tune also appears in a communion song, “Be Present at Our Table, Lord” (LUYH #843) and the Psalm 134 setting (see below).

The blue and gray Psalter Hymnals uses OLD HUNDREDTH for the doxology and their versifications of Psalm 134 (see below.) Sing! A New Creation has another hymn set to the tune, “For All the Saints Who Showed Your Love” (SNC #195).

An alternative version of “All People on the Earth Do Dwell” (LUYH #100B) pairs the modern version of Kethe’s lyrics with the traditional gospel tune NEW DOXOLOGY, which sounds like a hybrid of OLD HUNDREDTH and DUKE STREET (“Jesus Shall Reign”). The doxology is added as a fifth stanza. It’s a fun tune to sing.

“Let Every Voice on Earth Resound” (PFAS #100C) matches GENEVAN 100 (also by Bourgeois) with lyrics by Michael Morgan. GENEVAN 100 is a big step down from OLD HUNDREDTH and Morgan makes the odd choice of putting the first stanza in passive voice:

Let every voice on earth resound,
and joyful hearts hold God adored;
in gladness may God’s courts abound
with songs of praise unto the Lord.

OLD HUNDREDTH, NEW DOXOLOGY & GENEVAN 100 are all 8.8.8.8 so they are interchangeable.

Psalms for All Season includes four other Psalm 100 hymn settings.

“With Shouts of Joy Come Praise the Lord” (PFAS #100D) is a Punjabi hymn. The score includes only a melody, but parts are given for finger cymbals and bells/Orff instruments.

“Lán tioh kèng-pài Chú Siōg-tè/Let Us Come to Worship God” (PFAS #100E) is a Taiwanese hymn with a traditional tribal melody. Again PFAS provides just the melody and some percussion parts (drum and bass xylophone). The song has one short stanza:

Let us come to worship God,
let us come to worship God,
bless the holy name;
enter God’s house with thanks and reverence,
for the LORD is good, God’s love endures forever.

“Jubilate Deo omnis terra/Raise a Song of Gladness” (PFAS #100G) is a catchy Taizé song by Jacques Berthier with lyrics in Latin and English. The tune is here. The Latin is from Psalm 100 (“Jubilate Deo omnis terra, servite Domino in laetitia.”). The English translation adds a Christian interpretation (“Raise a shout of gladness, peoples of the earth. Christ has come, bringing peace, joy to every heart.”).

“All the Earth, Proclaim the LORD” (PFAS #100H/PH87 #176) is by Lucien Deiss, who was part of the post-Vatican II worship renewal movement. The refrain (“All the earth proclaim the LORD, sing your praise to God”), based on verse 1, is intended to be sung by a cantor. The five stanzas are based on vv. 2-5. The sixth stanza is a trinitarian doxology. The tune is DEISS 100. This song was in the gray Psalter Hymnal but I don’t recall singing it.

The responsorial setting is “Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord” (PFAS #100F).

Psalm 134

Psalm 134 is the conclusion of the songs of ascents sung during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In my mind, I picture a group of pilgrims arriving after sunset and rushing to the temple, where they find that the worship of the Lord is ongoing throughout the night. They raise their hands and join in worship with the other servants of the Lord.

Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord
who minister by night in the house of the Lord.
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.
May the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.

All the CRC hymnals have kept the traditional association between Psalm 134 and OLD HUNDREDTH, but have used different versifications of the lyrics.

The red and blue Psalter Hymnals use a three-stanza versification titled “O Bless Our God with One Accord” (PH57 #281/PH34 #295) by Lambertus Lamberts. [The red Psalter Hymnal also includes the versification from the 1912 Psalter, “Come, All Ye Servants of the Lord” (PH34 #296).]

The gray Psalter Hymnal substituted a new two-stanza versification by Calvin Seerveld, “You Servants of the LORD Our God” (PH87 #134). Seerveld makes explicit the psalm’s suggestion that worship is going on “both day and night”:

You servants of the LORD our God
who work and pray both day and night,
in God‘s own house lift up your hands
and praise the LORD with all your might.

Lift Up Your Hearts uses a two-stanza versification by Arlo Duba, “Come, All You Servants of the Lord” (PFAS #134A/LUYH #924). The arranagement of OLD HUNDREDTH includes a instrumental introduction/interlude/ending the performance notes claims should be played “as a slow rock ballad

Come, all you servants of the lord,
who work and pray by night, by day.
Come, bless the Lord within this place;
with lifted hands your homage pay.

Psalms for All Seasons includes two other Psalm 134 hymns, “Come Bless the Lord” (PFAS #134B), which is uses only vv. 1-2, and “We Will Rest in You” (PFAS #134C), which uses the refrain “Silently, peacefully, we will rest in you.” The verses of “We Will Rest in You” is a chant, which is not something we would use for congregational singing.

This  is part of a series of posts on the psalm hymns in the CRC hymnals related to one of the Sunday school classes I’ve co-taught with Andrew Friend—Psalms for All Seasons and Exploring Our Hymnals—or from my worship planning notes. We have now covered 40 psalms. The list of psalms can be found here.

Psalm 19 Hymns

Exploring Our Hymnals, Lift Up Your Hearts, Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 19 is a brilliant composition that connects God’s glory in creation to the perfection of His Law, both calling forth a response of humility from the worshiper.

The first part (vv. 1-6) describe how “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Although the heavenly bodies use no words, “their voice goes out into all the earth.” The second part (vv. 7-11) describes the perfection of the law, using a series of synonyms (“statutes,” “precepts,” commands,” etc.) and images (“making wise the simple,” “giving light to the eyes,” etc.). The final part (vv. 12-14) describes the psalmist’s reaction:

But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
May these words of my mouth
and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

The last verse is commonly used as a prayer before  preaching.

According to the Word Commentary (vol. 19 by Craigie & Tate), “each of the characteristics of the Torah listed [in the psalm] contains an allusion to the tree of knowledge (Gen. 2-3), and that by means of these allusions the psalmist is expressing the superiority of the Torah to the tree of knowledge.” I wouldn’t have noticed that myself.

Also from the Word Commentary: “Just as the sun dominates the daytime sky, so too does the Torah dominate human life. And as the sun can be both welcome, in giving warmth, and terrifying in its unrelenting heat, so too the Torah can be both life-imparting, but also scorching, testing, and purifying.”

Our Exploring Our Hymnals class took up Psalm 19 on Sept. 21. The Revised Common Lectionary assigns the psalm on eight occasions (putting it in among the five most used psalms), including the Easter vigil for all three years. On Oct. 4 (Oct. 2-8, Year A), it’s assigned as a response to the Ten Commandments.

“The Heavens Declare Your Glory” (PFAS #19D/LUYH #3/PH87 #429/PH57 #31/PH34 #31) is one of just 19 Psalm settings to appear in all four of the CRC’s main hymnals. (I believe it is the only one of these  that isn’t also in the 1912 Psalter.) Lyrics are by 19th Century British minister Thomas Birks. The version in the first two Psalter Hymnals is “The Heavens Declare Thy Glory”; the lyrics were updated for the gray Psalter Hymnal. All versions are set to FAITHFUL, “an adaptation of a tune from Johann S. Bach’s well-known aria ‘Mein gläubiges Herze’ (‘My heart ever faithful’), found in his Cantata 68” (Psalter Hymnal Handbook).

The first two stanzas cover the heavens portion of the psalm (vv. 1-6). (The first stanza can be heard here.) The third and final stanza is a loose versification of v. 14:

All heaven on high rejoices
to do its Maker’s will;
the stars with solemn voices
resound your praises still.
So let my whole behavior,
each thought, each deed I do,
be, Lord, my strength, my Savior,
a ceaseless song to you.

Since the section on the law is skipped, this doesn’t make a good response to the Ten Commandments.

The other Psalm 19 setting in Lift Up Your Hearts is “God’s Glory Fills the Heavens” (PFAS #19B/LUYH #719/SNC #88), with modern lyrics by Carl Daw set to Franz Haydn’s CREATION. We were familiar with it from Sing! A New Creation. The three stanzas are about God’s glory filling the heavens, God’s perfect law reviving the soul, and God’s servant praying to be faithful. (A sample of the first stanza is here.)

God’s glory fills the heavens with hymns;
the domed sky bears the Maker’s mark.
New praises sound from day to day
and echo through the knowing dark.
Without a word their songs roll on;
into all lands their voices run.
And with a champion’s strength and grace
from farthest heaven comes forth the sun.

This is my favorite of the Psalm 19 hymns and the one we’re using Sunday. I’ve paired it with a Ten Commandments litany (LUYH #722) in the “We Are Renewed in God’s Grace” section of our liturgy.

Psalms for All Seasons includes three additional Psalm 19 settings. “The Stars Declare His Glory” (PFAS #19A) follows pattern of the heavens declaring God’s glory (stanzas 1-2), the glory of God’s law (stanza 3), and a response from the psalmist (stanza 4). Lyrics are by Timothy Dudley-Smith; the tune is David Haas’ DEERFIELD. (A sample of stanza 1 is here.)

The stars declare his glory;
the vault of heaven springs
mute witness of the Master’s hand
in all created things,
and through the silences of space
their soundless music sings.

“Silent Voices” (PFAS #19F) follows a similar pattern. Stanza 1 describes the “silent voices” of the sun and stars. Stanza 2 has “human voices” telling again “what they were told… Laws, decrees, precepts, commandments.” Stanza 3 asks that our “daily lives” will reflect this same glory. (A sample of stanza 1 is here.)

Silent voices, unheard voices,
day to day and night to night.
Sun in blue sky, stars in black sky:
singing, speaking, telling light.
Everything that God has made
tells his glory, tells his glory.

“May the Words of My Mouth” (PFAS #19E) uses v. 16 as a refrain. The five stanzas versify vv. 7-15. (The refrain is here.)

The responsorial setting is “Through the Witness of Creation” (PFAS #19C). The alternate setting is “Lord, You Have the Words” (PFAS #19C-alt).

The Psalter Hymnals include another four Psalm 18 songs.

“The Spacious Heavens Tell” (PH87 #19) was versified for the gray Psalter Hymnal by Helen Otte and set to GENEVAN 19.

The three additional settings in the red and blue Psalter Hymnals are: “The Spacious Heavens Declare” (PH57 #28/PH34 #29); “Jehovah’s Perfect Law” (PH57 #29/PH34 #30); and “The Spacious Heavens Laud” (PH57 #30/PH34 #32). The first two are from the 1912 Psalter.

This  is part of a series of posts on the psalm hymns in the CRC hymnals related to one of the Sunday school classes I’ve co-taught with Andrew Friend—Psalms for All Seasons and Exploring Our Hymnals—or from my worship planning notes. We have now covered 38 psalms. The list of psalms can be found here.

Psalm 149 Hymns

Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 149, like Psalms 45 and 17, turned up in a worship service I planned this summer (not as part of last year’s Psalms for All Seasons Sunday School class). The prayer book I use—Book of Common Worship: Daily Prayer—has Psalm 149 one of the seven laudate psalms (145-150 with 147 split in half) assigned for each morning office so it feels to me like a stalwart psalm despite its rare appearance in the lectionary and in CRC hymnals.

Praise the Lord.
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with timbrel and harp.

After the opening call the praise, this short psalm anticipates God’s victory over his enemies and calls for his people “to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples.” Psalms for All Seasons includes a long note (reprinted here) discussing the imprecatory nature of the psalm. It offers three interpretive options: (1) spiritualizing the warfare imagery; (2) “a prophetic call to ensure that every military action is done in light of and in praise for God’s longing for justice, peace, and reconciliation”; and (3) “an example of OT experience that is challenged by the NT’s call for peacemaking and reconciliation.”

The lectionary assigns Psalm 149 to a Sunday after Pentecost (Sept. 4-10, Year A) as a response to the institution of Passover (Exodus 12:1-14) and to All Saint’s Day (Year C) as a response to Daniel’s dream of four beasts (Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18).

The only Psalm 149 hymn in Psalms for All Seasons, Lift Up Your Hearts and the gray Psalter Hymnal is “Give Praise to Our God” (PFAS #149B/LUYH #566/PH87 #149/PH57 #306/PH34 #323).

The hymn appeared in the 1912 Psalter and first two Psalter Hymnals as “O Praise Ye the Lord.” The lyrics were revised for the gray Psalter Hymnal. The most interesting change is in the fourth stanza (covering vv. 6-9): “For this is His word:/His strength shall not fail,/But over the earth/Their power shall prevail” becomes “For this is God’s word:/the saints shall not fail,/but over the earth/the humble prevail.” Here’s the revised first stanza:

Give praise to our God, and sing a new song.
amid all the saints God’s praises prolong;
a song to your maker and ruler now raise,
all children of Zion, rejoice and give praise.

The 1912 Psalter set the hymn to HOUGHTON, the three Psalter Hymnals use HANOVER, and LUYH and PFAS use LAUDATE DOMINUM. (We sang it as an opening song to HANOVER-sound-alike LYONS [“O Worship the King”].)

The first two Psalter Hymnals also include another Psalm 149 hymn from the 1912 Psalter, “Ye Who His Temple Throng” (PH57 #306/PH34 #324), which has three stanzas covering verses 1-5.

Ye who his temple throng, Jehovah’s praise prolong, New anthems sing;
Ye saints, with joy declare Your Maker’s loving care, And let the children there Joy in their King.

The responsorial setting in Psalms for All Seasons is an abbreviated version of “Holy God, We Praise Your Name” (PFAS #149A), which is based on the Te Deum. [The full version is LUYH #540/PH87 #504.] The alternative is “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia” (PFAS #149A-alt).

(This is the 28th 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 118, Psalms 47/93, Psalm 66, Psalm 45, Psalm 104, and Psalm 17.)

Psalm 17 Hymns

Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 17 is another bonus Psalm. We didn’t cover it during our Psalms for All Seasons class, but I looked over the handful of Psalm 17 settings in CRC hymnals while planning last week’s service.

One thing I’m starting to pay more attention to is what Old Testament readings the Psalms are paired with. (The RCL selects the psalms as responses to the OT readings, which isn’t how we typical use them during our services.) Psalm 17 is a prayer for protection and vindication that ends with the psalmist’s belief that “I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied, beholding your likeness.”

Last week (Year A, July 31-Aug. 6) Psalm 17 was paired with the weird and wonderful story of Jacob wrestling with God. (Says Jacob: “I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared.”) The other OT passage paired with Psalm 17 in the RCL ( Year C, Nov. 6-12, alternate stream) is Job 19:23-27a, which includes Job’s declaration that “I know that my redeemer lives… I myself will see him with my own eyes.”

The contemporary CRC hymnals include only two Psalm 17 hymns. “LORD, Listen to My Righteous Plea” (PFAS #17C/LUYH #888/PH87 #17) was versified for the gray Psalter Hymnal by Helen Otte and set to ROSALIE MCMILLAN. A sample is here.

The Psalter Hymnal version is a succinct versification of the entire Psalm. Here is stanza 1, which versifies vv. 1-5:

LORD, listen to my righteous plea;
you will not find deceit in me
as my prayers rise.
Examine me and probe my heart
to see that I have kept apart
from ways of sin.

The version of the hymn in Lift Up Your Hearts and Psalms for All Seasons is just three stanzas. The first and final stanzas are the same; the middle stanza combines the second half of the original stanza 2 with the first half of the original stanza 3. The lines about enemies pursuing the psalmist have been dropped.

The other Psalm 17 setting in PFAS is “Lord, Bend Your Ear” (PFAS #17B) by Jeffrey Honoré.  Here is a sample. The song, which is probably works better as a choral piece than a congregational hymn, is based on vv. 1, 8 & 15. According to the PFAS performance notes these are “the traditional verses recited in the service of night prayer. It is appropriate to sing and meditate on these verses at times when we must put our trust in God. In fact, each night when we go to sleep we place our lives in God’s care, confident that we will awaken in God’s presence, whether in this world or another.”

The PFAS responsorial setting, “Lord, Bend Your Ear” (PFAS #17A) uses the stanza (“Lord, bend your ear and hear my prayer”) of Honoré’s hymn.

The Psalm 17 setting in the red & blue Psalter Hymnals is “Lord, Hear the Right” (PH57 #24/PH34 #24), which appeared in the 1912 Psalter and is set to LONGFELLOW. Psalm 17 is another example of the creators of the gray Psalter Hymnal replacing a catchy psalm setting with an original one set to a more difficult tune. Here is the seventh and final stanza:

When I in righteousness at last
Thy glorious face shall see,
When all the weary night is past,
And I awake with Thee
To view the glories that abide,
Then, then I shall be satisfied.

(This is the 27th 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 118, Psalms 47/93, Psalm 66, Psalm 45, and Psalm 104.)

Psalm 104 Hymns

Psalms for All Seasons

We looked at 34 psalms during this past year’s Psalms for All Seasons Sunday school class. I’ve blogged about 28 of them so far. I hope to cover the remaining six before our next class starts this fall. I’m teaming up with Andrew Friend again to explore music in CRC hymnals. This time we plan on using some classes to look at psalms (as we did last year) and some to look at sections of Lift Up Your Hearts.

We covered Psalm 104 in class on April 27. Psalm 104 is song of praise for God’s creation and sustenance of the natural world. The lectionary assigns the second half of the psalm to Pentecost Sunday all three years.

Psalms for All Seasons includes five hymns based on Psalm 104, four of them using traditional hymn tunes.

“O Worship the King” (PFAS #104F/LUYH #2/PH87 #428/PH57 #315), by far the most well-known of the Psalm 104 hymns, is described by the Psalter Hymnal Handbook as “a meditation on the creation theme of Psalm 104. Stanzas 1-3, which allude to Psalm 104:1-6, focus on God’s creation as a testimony to his ‘measureless Might.’ More personal in tone, stanzas 4 and 5 confess the compassion of God toward his creatures and affirm with apocalyptic vision that the ‘ransomed creation, with glory ablaze’ will join with angels to hymn its praise to God.” The song, which is one of the perennial hymns that appear in all four main CRC hymnals, is set to LYONS.

“My Soul, Praise the LORD!” (PFAS #104E/PH87 #104/PH57 #206), set to the similar (to LYONS) sounding HANOVER, is a versification of the entire psalm that appeared (in some form) in three Psalter Hymnals but is not in Lift Up Your Hearts. [HANOVER is the tune of “You Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim” (LYUH #582/PH87 #477) and also an alternative tune for “O Worship the King.”]

The lyrics—twelve stanzas and a refrain—are derived from three songs in the 1912 Psalter: “My Soul, Bless the Lord” (#285), “He Waters the Hills” (#286) and “Thy Spirit, O Lord” (#287), each versifying part of the psalm for a total of 13 stanzas. The 1934 & 1957 Psalter Hymnals turned these 13 stanzas into two hymns of eight and seven stanzas (two stanzas are repeated). These hymns are “My Soul, Bless the Lord!” (which is set to HOUGHTON) (PH57 #206) and “The Seasons are Fixed by Wisdom Divine” (PH57 #207).

The gray Psalter Hymnal combines these two hymns into “Your Spirit, O Lord, Makes Life to Abound” (PH87 #104) (also set to HOUGHTON), moving the stanza based on vv. 30-31 to the beginning of the hymn (and suggesting it be repeated three times) but putting the others in order.

Psalms for All Seasons turns the “Your Spirit, O Lord…” stanza into the refrain of the song.  According to the performance notes: “This versification leaves nothing out. Groups of stanzas can be selected to create shorter hymns of praise for creation and God’s providential care. The optional refrain is inserted at several points to suggest stanza groupings. (When following the text of the psalm, the refrain text should come only after st. 10.) When preaching or teaching about creation, select stanzas that correspond to the particular facets of creation.”

Your Spirit, O LORD, makes life to abound.
The earth is renewed, and fruitful the ground.
To God be all glory and wisdom and might.
May God in his creatures forever delight.

“We Worship You, Whose Splendor Dwarfs the Cosmos” (PFAS #104C/LUYH #11) is set to TIDINGS with lyrics by Martin Leckebusch that, as the titles suggests, modernize some of the images from the psalm. Instead of setting the earth on its foundations, God “made the earth, determining its orbit.”

We worship you, whose splendor dwarfs the cosmos,
whose very clothes are robes of dazzling light;
on wind and cloud you ride across the heavens;
your word bids fiery angels soar in flight.
Lord, God, our voices gladly we raise,
joining creation’s unending hymn of praise.

[TIDINGS is also the tune for the perennial Psalm 103 setting, “O Come, My Soul, Sing Praise to God” (PFAS #103B/LUYH #672/PH87 #297/PH57 #204), but “O, Christians Haste” (PH87 #525), AKA “Publish Glad Tidings” is one of the notable mid-19th Century hymns not included in LUYH.]

“The Mountains Stand in Awe” (LUYH #104B) has lyrics by Ken Bible set to LEONI, tune of “The God of Abraham Praise” (LUYH #39/PH87 #621).

The mountains stand in awe.
The thunder speaks your name.
Creation waits to serve its God with wind and flame.
The heavens know your power.
None question what you do.
The oceans riot unrestrained but bow to you.

The fifth song in Psalms for All Seasons, “Send Forth Your Spirit, O Lord” (PFAS #104D), is a modern hymn with a short refrain based on verse 30 (“Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth” X 2) and three short stanzas based on vv. 1-2, v. 24 & vv. 27-28.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Lord God, how great you are,
wrapped in a garment of glory and might,
clothed in light as in a robe.

The responsorial settings in Psalms for All Seasons is “Lord, Send Out Your Spirit” (PFAS #104G), which is based on verse 30 and includes the text of vv. 1-9, 24-34 and 35b.

Psalms for All Seasons also includes “A Litany of Praise” (PFAS #104A) based on the psalm.

Although it isn’t designated as a Psalm 104 setting, David Haas’ hymn “Send Us Your Spirit” (LUYH #228/SNC #163) has a chorus derived from verse 30 (“Come, Lord Jesus, send us your Spirit; renew the face of the earth” X 2) with three stanzas that build on the theme of receiving God’s Spirit. The refrain is used in Sing! A New Creation as a responsorial setting (SNC #174). (We used this responsorial setting in our Pentecost service.)

The blue Psalter Hymnal includes three settings of Psalm 104, two of which were described above. The third is “O Lord, How Manifold the Works” (PH57 #208).

(This is the 26th 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 118, Psalms 47/93, Psalm 66, and Psalm 45.)

Psalm 45 Hymns

Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 45 is a royal wedding song, the only one in the Psalter. (It is unknown for which king it may have been composed, but the reference to the bride’s origin in Tyre has led to the suggestion that the couple was Ahab and Jezebel.)

The first half of the psalm (vv. 1-9) is in praise of the king. The second half (vv. 10-17) focuses on his bride. It was interpreted Christologically as early as the book of Hebrews, which quotes vv. 6-7:

Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.

There are also obvious correspondences with the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation.

The lectionary assigns the entire Psalm to the Annunciation of the Lord in each year. It is also used twice on Lord’s Days, including this past Sunday (Year A between July 3-9), where the second half of the psalm (only vv. 10-17 are assigned) serves as a response to the story of Isaac and Rebekah. I looked over different settings of the psalm in preparation for planning the service. (Unlike the other psalms in this series, we didn’t study it during our Psalms for All Seasons Sunday school class. Andrew and I went through all the settings one evening after summer book club.)

There are only four Psalm 45 hymns in CRC hymnals and just one in the new hymnals: “For the Honor of Our King” (PFAS #45A/LUYH #221), which is the best of the four and the one we sang at yesterday’s service.

It is a very loose, explicitly Christological version of the psalm with each stanza ending with “our royal Savior.” Stanzas 1-3 are in praise of the king. Stanza four introduces the bride:

See the splendor of Christ’s bride
led in honor to his side—
chosen, loved, and beautified
by her royal Savior.

Stanza 5 captures the psalm’s ending by promising “one unending song of praise to our royal Savior.”

The lyrics are by Martin Leckebusch; the tune is MONKLAND, which is also used for “For the Glories of God’s Grace” (LUYH #677/PH87 #223) and the John Milton Psalm 136 setting “Let Us with Gladsome Mind” (PFAS #136A/PH87 #136).

The gray Psalter Hymnal’s only Psalm 45 setting is “I Praise the King with All My Verses” (PH87 #45). It’s a much more literal versification by Marie Post and Bert Polman. It is set to O DASS ICH TAUSEND ZUNGEN HÄTTE; while not a Genevan tune, like many of the original psalm settings in the Psalter Hymnal, it is similarly irregular and not intuitively singable.

 I praise the king with all my verses;
with blessings on my tongue I sing.
Your grace and beauty show God’s favor;
God’s richest gifts are for our king.
Gird on your sword, ride forth with might;
defend the cause of truth and right.

The blue Psalter Hymnal includes two Psalm 45 settings. “A Godly Theme is Mine” (PH57 #82) is a seven verse versification set to FAIRFIELD. “O Royal Bride, Give Heed” (PH57 #83), from the 1912 Psalter, is a Christological translation of the second half of the psalm set to GERAR.

Psalms for All Seasons includes two responsorial settings (both for vv. 1-2, 6-17): “The Throne of God Is Righteousness” (PFAS #45B) and “Take, O Take Me As I Am” (PFAS #45B-alt), which uses the entire song (also found in LUYH #741/SNC #215/SWM #227) as the response.

(This is the 25th 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 118, Psalms 47/93, and Psalm 66.)

Psalm 66

Psalms for All Seasons

 Shout for joy to God, all the earth!
Sing the glory of his name;
make his praise glorious. (v. 1)

Psalm 66 is an extended call to worship filled with reminders of “what God has done.” This includes the Exodus (vv. 6), but also God’s testing of his people (vv. 10-12).

Your let peoples ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance. (v. 12)

In response, the psalmist promise to offer sacrifices in the temple (vv. 13-15). The final section of the psalm (vv. 16-20) has a final call to worship and expresses thanks that God has heard the Psalmist’s prayer.

The Revised Common Lectionary assigns Psalm 66 to the 6th Sunday of Easter in Year A, where it serves as a response to Paul’s address on the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-31). It is also assigned to two Sundays in Year C. We took up Psalm 66 in our class on April 13.

Psalms for All Seasons includes four Psalm 66 hymns, two of which are also in Lift Up Your Hearts.

“Come, All You People, Praise Our God” (PFAS #66C/PFAS 495/PH87 #242/PH57 #120) is from the 1912 Psalter and is one of 18 Psalm settings to appear in all three Psalter Hymnals  and Lift Up Your Hearts with the same tune (ADOWA) The tune was composed by Iowa native Charles Gabriel , the prolific gospel songwriter who composed “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” (LUYH #441) among thousands of other songs.

The gray Psalter Hymnal dropped the fourth verse so although the Psalter Hymnal Handbook claims the song versifies vv. 8-20, the hymn now actually ends with v. 18.

Come, all you people, praise our God
and tell his glorious works abroad,
who holds our souls in life;
he never lets our feet be moved
and, though our faith he often proved,
upholds us in the strife.

“Come All You People” (PFAS #66B/LUYH #496/SNC #4) is a Zimbabwean tune that appeared in Sing! A New Creation (with no explicit connection to Psalm 66) and then was included in PFAS and LUYH as a Psalm 66 hymn as it appears to be based on verse 8. The 1995 Lutheran hymnal With One Voice added two verses to make it a Trinitarian hymn. The second and third verses substitute “Savior” and “Spirit” for “Maker.”

Come, all you people, come and praise your Maker;
Come, all you people, come and praise your Maker;
Come, all you people, come and praise your Maker;
Come now and worship the Lord.

“Praise Our God with Shouts of Joy” (PFAS #66E) has modern lyrics by Christopher Idle set to GENEVAN 136.

Praise our God with shouts of joy;
sing the glory of his name;
join to lift his praises high;
through the world his love proclaim!

“Cry Out to God in Joy” (PFAS #66A) is a modern choral piece by Steven Warner. It might work best to have a soloist or choir sing the stanzas and the congregation sing the refrain. A sample is here. The chorus is also used as the responsorial setting in Psalms for All Seasons, “Cry Out to God in Joy” (PFAS #66D). It’s more singable than many of the responsorial choruses.

Sing! A New Creation includes another responsorial, “Cantad al Señor/O Sing to the Lord” (SNC #224/225), which uses uses the five stanzas of the hymn as responses to five sections of the psalm.

The Psalter Hymnals include three Psalm 66 hymns that don’t appear in the new CRC hymnals. “Come, Everyone, and Join with Us” (PH87 #66) is a versification of the entire psalm written for the gray Psalter Hymnal by Marie Post (lyrics) and Dale Grotenhuis (tune). The tune is ELEANOR.

The two additional Psalm 66 settings in the blue Psalter Hymnal are from the 1912 Psalter. “All Lands, to God in Joyful Sounds” (PH57 #118) is a versification of vv. 1-6, each verse getting its own stanza. “O All Ye Peoples, Bless Our God” (PH57 #119) is a versification of vv. 8-20.

(This is the  24th 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 118, and Psalms 47/93.)

Psalms 47 & 93

Psalms for All Seasons

The Revised Common Lectionary designates either Psalm 27 or Psalm 93 as the psalm for Ascension Sunday so our Sunday school class looked at both of them on March 30. The psalms are both about God’s reign, but focus on different demonstrations of that reign.

Psalm 93 is about creation, using the image of conquering the primeval water found in Genesis. Not only are the waters unable to move the world God established (v. 1) or his throne (v. 2), the majesty of its waves pales in comparison to majesty of the Lord (vv. 3-4). This brief psalm concludes by declaring that God’s decrees, like his reign, are “very sure” and his holiness, evident in creation, adorn his temple “for endless days” (v. 5).

In Psalm 47, the reign of God is demonstrated through subduing and ruling over “the nations,” perhaps referring specifically to Israel’s conquering the Promised Land under Joshua. The psalm is filled with calls to worship with by clapping, singing, shouting, and sounding a trumpet (maybe in reference to Jericho). The language of verse 5 (“God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of trumpet”) suggests the psalm’s use for celebrating Jesus’ Ascension.

The only Psalm 47 setting that appears in Lift Up Your Hearts is “Nations, Clap Your Hands” (PFAS #47E/LUYH #216/PH87 #47) which is set to GENEVAN 47. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, “Cor Wm. Barendrecht originally versified this psalm in an unrhymed text in 1980; the Psalter Hymnal Revision Committee added rhyme and recast a number of lines to arrive at the current versification.” Each of the three stanzas consists of five rhyming couplets.

 Nations, clap your hands; shout with joy, you lands.
Awesome is the LORD; spread his fame abroad.
He rules every land with a mighty hand.
God brings nations low; he subdues each foe.
From his mighty throne God protects his own.

 Psalms for All Seasons has four other hymn settings of Psalm 47.

“Clap Your Hands, O Faithful People!” (PFAS #47A) is set to NETTLETON (“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”) with lyrics by Michael Morgan, lyricist of our class theme song “Trees” (PFAS #I),  “All on Earth and All in Heaven” (PFAS #29A/LUYH #922), and “O Shepherd, Hear and Guide Your Flock” (PFAS #80C/LUYH #64). (He is credited with 23 songs found in PFAS and 16 in LUYH.) The hymn is a loose versification of the psalm. It’s the probably the best of the PFAS settings for congregational singing.

We enjoyed the three other settings in PFAS although each would require a song leader or choir for us to use in worship.

“God Has Gone Up” (PFAS #47B) has a chorus focusing on Ascension (“God has gone up with a shout of rejoicing: he has ascended in glory! O clap your hands, clap your hands all you people: he has ascended in glory!”) and an explicitly Christological final stanza. A sample is here.

“Clap You Hands, All Ye Nations” (PFAS #47C) has a catchy syncopated rhythm. Its refrain focuses on God’s being “King over all the earth.”

“Clap Your Hands, All You Nations” (PFAS #47D) has lyrics by Gren Scheer set to a Yoruba folk song. It has a call-and-response format; the leader’s part is written as a descant.

A strange omission from the new hymnals is “Clap Your Hands” (PH87 #166/SWM #2), which is on my list of notable psalm hymns in the gray Psalter Hymnal that were left out of Lift Up Your Hearts. It’s a lively canon (with up to four parts) based on the first verse of Psalm 47. I don’t understand why it didn’t even make Psalm for All Seasons.

Clap your hands, all you people;
shout unto God with a voice of triumph!
Clap your hands, all you people;
shout unto God with a voice of praise!

Sing with Me includes a second, Ascension-based stanza by Bert Polman.

 Clap your hands, all you people;
Christ has ascended into heaven!
Clap your hands, all you people;
Christ has ascended with shouts of joy!

We enjoyed singing this in a round and I expect to use the Sing with Me version during our Ascension Sunday service (and likely none of the others—there are just too many good Ascension songs from which to choose).

Sing! A New Creation includes another Psalm 47 song, “Clap Your Hands All You Nations” (SNC #156), an Iona Community song by John Bell. A sample is here. The first two lines are use in Psalm for All Seasons’ responsorial setting “Clap Your Hands All You Nations” (PFAS #47E).

The blue Psalter Hymnal contains two Psalm 47 settings: “Praise the Lord, Ye Lands” (PH57 #86) and “All Nations, Clap Your Hands” (PH57 #87).

The CRC hymnals contain only three hymn settings of Psalm 93, with just one in the two new hymnals. “Robed in Majesty” (PFAS #93A/LUYH #546) has modern lyrics set to the frequently used tune SALZBURG. [SALZBURG is the tune of three additional songs in Lift Up Your Hearts: “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise” (LYUH #104/PH87 #361), “God, You Call Us to This Place” (LUYH #531/SNC #14), and “At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing” (LUYH #832)].

Robed in majesty, he reigns,
sovereign from eternity;
praise the Lord, the God of strength,
robed in awesome majesty.
Firm and sure the world will stand;
here the Maker’s power is shown—
yet, predating even time,
firmer, surer stands his throne.

Neither of the Psalm 93 settings in the gray Psalter Hymnal were included in Lift Up Your Hearts. “The LORD in King” (PH87 #172) was versified for the gray Psalter Hymnal by Clarence Walhout and set to GENEVAN 93. “The LORD is King, Enthroned” (PH87 #93/PH57 #184) is from the 1912 Psalter, where it was titled “Jehovah Sits Enthroned.” It is set to RIALTO.

The responsorial setting is “Every Since the World Began” (PFAS #93B).

(This is the  23rd 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, and Psalm 118.)

Psalm 118

Psalms for All Seasons

Psalm 118, which our class took up on March 23, is (possibly excepting Psalm 22) the psalm most associated with Holy Week. It’s the psalm shouted by the crowds as Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. It’s the psalm quoted by Jesus following the Parable of the Tenants, which he tells in the temple courts the next day, and again when he mourns for Jerusalem. Since it is the concluding psalm in the Egyptian Hallel, it is likely part of the hymn Jesus and his disciples sang after the Last Supper.

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” (Matthew 21:42-43)

The Revised Common Lectionary assigns Psalm 118 to Palm Sunday and to Easter in all three years (and on the 2nd Sunday in Easter in Year C).

Psalm 118 was originally a processional psalm; the different sections may have been sung at different places along the way to the temple. The opening is a call for praise (vv. 1-4) followed by testimony about the Lord’s deliverance from enemies (vv. 5-13). Aside from the first two verses, the lectionary ignores this part of the psalm. (Psalm Sunday uses vv. 1-2, 19-29; Easter uses vv. 1-2, 14-24.)

After more testimony about the Lord saving the psalmist from death (vv. 14-18), the psalm calls for the “gates of righteousness” to be opened (presumably as the procession reaches the temple gates). The final part of the psalm contains its most famous verses: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (v. 22), “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” (v. 24); and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (v. 26).

The only full versification of Psalm 118 in recent CRC hymnals is “Give Thanks to God for All His Goodness” (PFAS #118H/LUYH #196/PH87 #118), which was written for the gray Psalter Hymnal by Stanley Wiersma and set to GENEVAN 98/118 (the only tune used for two psalms in that hymnal). Each line ends with “Your love forever is the same!” The versification is very concise; stanza two covers 10 verses. A sample is here.

The remaining hymns in PFAS and LUYH ignore the first 13 verses of the psalm.

“The Right Hand of God” (PFAS 118F) is inspired by vv. 14-15 (“The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: ‘The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!’”).

The right hand of God is writing in our land,
writing with power and with love,
our conflicts and our fears,
our triumphs and our tears
are recorded by the right hand of God.

Subsequent verses have God’s hand pointing, striking and healing.  The tune is LA MANO DE DIOS.

“The Glorious Gates of Righteousness” (PFAS #118A/PH87 #179/PH57 #234) is a versification of vv. 19-29 from the 1912 Psalter. It’s one of only five psalm settings to appear in all three Psalter Hymnals but not in Lift Up Your Hearts. It is set to ZERAH.

The glorious gates of righteousness
throw open unto me,
and I will come to them with praise
and enter thankfully,
and I will come to them with praise
and enter thankfully.

Four of the hymns in PFAS are derived from v. 24, reportedly the most shared (on social media) Bible verse of 2013. The verse probably refers to Passover or the Exodus from Egypt, not “today.”

The most familiar to us was “This Is the Day” (PFAS #118K/PH87 #241), which is one of the notable psalm settings from the gray Psalter Hymnal that was omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts.  The version in the Psalter Hymnal has three Trinitarian verses: “This is the day that the Lord has made…,” “This is the day that he rose again,” and “This is the day when the Spirit came….” (The three days in the three verses are Passover, Easter and Pentecost.) The version in PFAS has stanzas 2 & 3 based on vv. 24 & 28 of Psalm 118: “Open to us the gates of God…” and “You are our God, we will praise your name….” The tune is here.

“This Is the Day the Lord Hath Made” (PFAS #118E) is a paraphrase of part of the psalm by Isaac Watts and set to NUN DANKET ALL’ UND BRINGET EHR’.

This is the day the Lord hath made;
the hours are all God’s own.
Let heaven rejoice; let earth be glad,
and praise surround the throne.

“This Is the Day the Lord Has Made” (PFAS #118D) is another paraphrase of the last part of the psalm in 7/8 time. One of our class member described is as “interesting, but not unsingable.”

“Psallite Deo/This Is the Day” (PFAS #118C) is a Taizé hymn with a simple congregational refrain (“This is the day the Lord has made! Alleluia, alleluia!”) and a solo part. A sample is here. A related Taizé hymn is “Surrexit Christus/The Lord is Risen” (PFAS #118J).

Psalms for All Seasons includes four responsorial settings. “Hail and Hosanna!” (PFAS #118B/LUYH #147/SNC #146) is a three-part canon. It is set to vv. 19-29 in PFAS and LUYH and vv. 1-4 & 14-29 in Sing! A New Creation. According to the performance notes: “This setting is most appropriate when using the psalm in the context of a Palm Sunday celebration or during the season of Advent.”

“This Is the Day the Lord Has Made” (PFAS #118G) is another responsorial refrain with vv. 1-2 & 14-29 as the text. The alternative is “Celtic Alleluia” (PFAS #118G-alt) which is also found in Lift Up Your Hearts (#198) without the Psalm 118 text and in Sing! A New Creation (#148) as the refrain of a longer hymn (“Now He Is Living, the Christ”).

The final responsorial setting is “Jesus Is Risen and We Shall Arise” (PFAS #118I) (called “A Paraphrase for Easter”) with The Message paraphrase of vv. 14-24 as the text. The refrain is the refrain of “Alleluia! Jesus Is Risen” (LUYH #205), which is set to EARTH AND ALL STARS.

The blue Psalter Hymnal includes two additional Psalm 118 settings: “O Praise the Lord, for He Is Good” (PH57 #232) and “Let All Exalt Jehovah’s Goodness” (PH57 #233). We didn’t sing either of these.

(This is the  22nd 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, Psalm 16, and Psalm 22.)

Psalm 22

Psalms for All Seasons

(Here’s the 21st 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, Psalm 31, Psalm 116, and Psalm 16. On March 16, our class took up Psalm 22.)

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).… And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. (Matthew 27:45-46, 50)

The first line of Psalm 22 are the only words that Mark and Matthew report Jesus speaking from the cross, shortly before his death. They have come to stand for the abandonment Jesus felt during the cruxifiction, but also point ahead to the rest of the psalm (which Jesus may also have recited), which looks forward not just to personal salvation from death but to all the ends of the earth, even generations still unborn, worshiping the Lord.

The first 18 verses detail the psalmist’s dire circumstances: abandoned by the very same God who had saved our ancestors (vv. 1-5) and had protected the psalmist since birth (vv. 9-11), abandoned by other people (vv. 6-8), surrounded by enemies and near death (vv. 12-18). Features from the psalmist’s description of his distress, e.g., enemies casting lots for his garments, correspond to details of the cruxifiction.

Then the psalm takes a turn with a prayer for deliverance (vv. 19-21) and a response to that deliverance in which the psalmist calls the people to worship (vv. 22-26) and looks forward to God’s worldwide reign (vv. 27-31). If the CRC hymnals are any indication, this final section of the psalm is more popular with songwriters  than the earlier parts of the psalm.

The Revised Common Lectionary designates Psalm 22 for Good Friday during all three years (as well as three more three more Lord’s Days in Year B and one in Year C).

“My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” (PFAS #22A) is the only hymn in Psalms for All Seasons based the first section of the psalm. The refrain is the title of the hymn. The four stanzas are based on vv. 7-8; 16-17; 18-19; and 22-23. It seems better suited for for choral than congregational singing. A sample is here. According to the performance notes, “The paraphrase here offers a compelling interpretation of the psalm in the voice of Christ, making it ideal for use on Good Friday.”

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
People who see me are scornful,
sneering at me, and tossing their heads.
“His trust was in God, let God save him.
come to the aid of his own special friend.”

A majority of the Psalm 22 hymns are based on the final triumphant section of the psalm. Three of these are in Psalms for All Seasons, include two great hymns from the 1912 Psalter.

“Amid the Thronging Worshipers” (PFAS #22E/LUYH #551/PH87 #239/PH57 #37) is a versification vv. 22-28 set to BOVINA. (A sample is here.) “The Ends of All the Earth” (PFAS #22G/LUYH #594/PH87 #542/PH57 #36) is a versification of vv. 27-31 set to VISION. (A sample is here.) These two songs are in the select 18 psalm hymns that appear in all three Psalter Hymnals and Lift Up Your Hearts with the same tune. (No other psalm has more than one setting on this list.) Either of these would be appropriate as an opening hymn for almost any service.

The ends of all the earth shall hear
And turn unto the Lord in fear;
All kindreds of the earth shall own
And worship him as God alone.
All earth to him her homage brings,
The Lord of lords, the King of kings.

“In the Presence of Your People” (PFAS #22F/PH87 #160) was written by Brent Chambers in the style of Jewish dance music. The first verse, which appears in the gray Psalter Hymnal,  is based on Psalm 22:3, 22 and Psalm 145:7. Bert Polman wrote stanzas 2-3 based on Psalm 22:3, 23-28. However, these rejected by the hymn’s copyright holders for the gray Psalter Hymnal and they first appear in Songs for LIFE, the CRC’s 1994 children’s song book. A sample is here. My daughters, Lydia and Chloe, who attended class today (the children’s classes were cancelled), said this was their favorite song of all we sang.

Two other hymns based on the conclusion of the psalm (both from the 1912 Psalter) can be found in the Psalter Hymnals. The blue Psalter Hymnal contains “All Ye That Fear Jehovah’s Name” (PH57 #35). The gray Psalter Hymnal includes “Come, All Who Fear the Lord God” (PH87 #240). (This is first instance I’ve noticed of a hymn from the 1912 Psalter appearing in the gray Psalter Hymnal despite being left out of the blue Psalter Hymnal.) “Come, All Who Fear the Lord God” is a good hymn, but doesn’t compare to “Amid the Thronging Worshipers” or “The Ends of All the Earth.” (We had so many hymns to choose from today that we didn’t sing “All Ye That Fear Jehovah’s Name.”)

Two full versifications of Psalm 22 from the Psalter Hymnals are left out of the new CRC hymnals. The blue Psalter Hymnal’s full versification is the 11-stanza “My God, My God, I Cry to Thee” (PH57 #34), which is from the 1912 Psalter (and wasn’t sung by us).  The gray Psalter Hymnal replaces this with “My God! My God!” a 10-stanza versification by Calvin Seerveld set to MALDWYN. Seerveld did an excellent job of turning the psalm into vivid rhyming couplets.

My God! O my God! Have you left me alone?
Why have you forsaken me, deaf to my groan?
I cry to you daily and plead late at night,
but you do not answer or pity my plight.

The responsorial setting in Psalms for All Seasons is “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” (PFAS #22D). The alternative is “All the Ends of the Earth Shall Remember” (PFAS #22D-alt).

Sing! A New Creation includes another responsorial setting (of vv. 1-11 & 22-31) using the first two lines of “What Wondrous Love” (SNC #142). An updated version of this appears in Psalms for All Seasons and Lift Up Your Hearts, titled “Psalm 22:1-11, 22-29: A Scripted Reading” (PFAS #22C/LUYH #165). It uses four sung responses, which are the openings of the four stanzas of “What Wondrous Love.”

Lift Up Your Hearts places this setting opposite the full version of “What Wondrous Love” (LUYH #164/PH87 #379), which is designated as a Psalm 22 hymn.

Psalms for All Seasons also includes a chant, “Lord, Why Have You Forsaken Me” (PFAS #22B), that covers vv. 1-11 and 23-31. The first part is sung in union is a minor key, the second part in four-part harmony in major mode. A sample is here.

If I have a complaint about the Psalm 22 settings in the two new CRC hymnals (PFAS & LUYH), it’s that they don’t provide a great hymn for congregational singing on Good Friday. Most of the settings ignore the section of the Psalm most relevant to the crucifixion, including the “scripted reading” that is in the Good Friday section of LUYH. The lectionary assigns all of the psalm to Good Friday, not just 1-11 & 22-29, so those missing verses are an odd lacuna in that reading. “Lord, Why Have You Forsaken Me” skips the same section as well.