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With the passing of the years, I have found that my faith awareness has been increasingly nourished by the psalms. Why should this be, when the songs of old Israel take for granted attitudes with which Christian faith finds it impossible to identify?
The vindictive nature of some of the psalms - calling upon God, for instance, to break the teeth of the psalmist’s enemies (Ps 3); rejoicing that the just shall bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked (Ps 58) - became a matter of inconclusive discussion at Vatican II. It is clear that a number of psalms discount the afterlife of Christian hope - from the grave who can praise you? (Ps 6); What profit would my death be, my going to the grave? Can dust give you praise? (Ps 30). And the psalms’ interpretation of divine providence? The problem of innocent suffering seems to be evaded - I have never seen the just forsaken nor their children begging for bread (Ps 37). Interpretation of God’s support for Israel in its battles against its enemies is often simplistic and self-serving.
The problem is magnified when it is recognised that the psalms soon became the preferred prayers of the Christian Church. This practice contrasts with developments within Judaism. The psalms had an important place in the life of the Old Testament people. As familiar songs, often incorporating repeated refrains, they were a confession of faith for a people which was largely illiterate. We catch a glimpse of a world which was passing away when we hear from St Jerome that in his day the farmers of Palestine still sang the psalms in the fields. In later Judaism this enthusiasm waned - in the words of one commentator: ‘The frequency with which the psalms and all the psalms began to be prayed within the Church dwarfs anything which Jewish liturgy and devotion can show at any time in their now four-thousand-year-long history’ [1] . He goes on to suggest the reason for this contrast.
His comments remind one of the
final pages of Gerhard von Rad’s Old Testament Theology,
which are a moving description of the tragic situation of Israel
after the coming of Christ: ‘the great moments of Israel’s
history’, he writes, brought the nation a faith awareness
in which it was ‘always on pilgrimage ... a stranger in
time’; they were ‘archetypes of mighty predictions’;
with the passing of time Israel ‘swelled Yahweh’s promises
to an infinity‘, so that in the nation’s scriptures
‘expectations kept mounting up to vast proportions‘.
Left to itself, von Rad concludes, the Old Testament becomes
a baffling enigma, because, if it has no sequel its unbounded
expectation ‘points straight into the void’ [2] .
For Stanley Jaki, it is this enigma which explains Israel’s waning enthusiasm for the psalms as a common confession of faith: ‘It is not easy to feast on dramas that connote tragedies for which there seems to be no answer ... The psalms are prayers of deeply religious men who are also profoundly puzzled, because the final explanation slips through their fingers’ [3] . For the Christian Church, however, Jaki points out, the situation is completely reversed: ‘whereas for the Jews the recitation of’ many ‘psalms could be a source of perplexity, the same psalms appeared from the start to Christians as triumphal songs’ [4] . We shall consider this contrast in more detail below, and the lessons it holds for us today. But first let us seek a fuller understanding of the psalms as Israel’s confession of faith.
The simplicity of the psalms
Some of the psalms have a recognisable form which helps us to understand the burden of their message and to relate to them: many are heartfelt laments which end in a reaffirmation of hope and trust; some are songs of pilgrims approaching the temple; some concern warfare, anticipated or completed; some are prayers of repentance; some are songs addressed to the king. Often however, the psalms seem disjointed to our literary sensibilities. This problem disappears to a large extent if we see them as litanies of spontaneous prayer, in which a limited number of themes are constantly repeated. Once we have come to appreciate these themes, it is not difficult to see that together they make a coherent confession of faith. This is confirmed by a small but invaluable publication of the scholar, Jean-Pierre Prevost, A Short Dictionary of the Psalms, in which he explains the significance of forty key words, as constituting the essential vocabulary of the psalms: ‘there is a great deal of repetition’, he writes, ‘The prayer vocabulary ... is not extensive; the same words are used over and over again ... They are not the essence of the prayer, which lies in the relationship they presuppose and are there to deepen’ [5] .
To enter the world of the psalms we must also appreciate the culture within which they expressed Israel’s relationship with God. It is far removed from our experience and much that we take for granted. Its ideals are not abstractions, but the realities of concrete immediacy. The conflict, bloodshed and oppression frequently referred to are not the product of the metaphorical imagination, but the stuff of everyday experience. The ‘rock’, for instance, which is so often spoken of - I love you Lord ... my rock, my fortress, my saviour (Ps 18) - is not a monument or a scenic wonder, but the eminence which gave a fighter an advantage in Palestine’s mountainous terrain.
The central confession of the psalms
The themes which the psalms repeat make up together, as we have said, a simple, coherent confession of the faith of old Israel. The greatness of this confession is not in its theological subtleties or inventiveness, but in the daring with which it affirms the reality and practical implications of Israel’s on-going relationship with God. It is surely this daring realism which made it possible for the Christian Church to make the psalms an essential part its own confession, as it celebrated the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes.
What are the themes which Israel so often celebrated? Central to Israel’s confession is the psalms’ vivid witness to faith in the relationship referred to by Prevost, faith in the living God who has entered into covenant with Israel. The magnalia Dei, the great things God has done for Israel, are constantly recalled - I remember the deeds of the Lord, I remember your wonders of old ... you showed your power among the peoples. Your strong arm redeemed your people (Ps 77). Israel rejoices in the love of God, as practically expressed in the history of the people - O give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his love endures for ever. Who can tell the Lord’s mighty deeds? (Ps 106). The God who intervened in Israel’s history is recognised at the champion of the oppressed. As the covenant relationship teaches Israel the ways of God, the psalms confess their God to be forever the champion of those who are oppressed - You may mock the hope of the poor, but their refuge is the Lord ... when the Lord delivers his people from bondage, then Jacob will be glad (Ps 14); The Lord is high yet he looks on the lowly ... Your love, O Lord, is eternal, discard not the work of your hands (Ps 138). This faith in God’s covenant faithfulness is often remarkable in its confident intimacy - my eyes like the eyes of slaves on the hands of their lords ... so our eyes are on the Lord our God till he show us his mercy (Ps 123); The Lord is my shepherd ... surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life (Ps 23); Guard me as the apple of your eye. Hide me in the shadow of your wings (Ps 17). The ‘love’ so often proclaimed in the psalms, of course, is the practical faithfulness of God’s love in the covenant relationship - O give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his love endures for ever. Who can tell the Lord’s mighty deeds (Ps 106).
Through the covenant relationship, Israel found itself caught up in the great plan of God and its boundless expectations. When one considers the exclusivism which was to become Israel’s great temptation, it is remarkable how frequently the psalms speak of this plan as embracing all peoples - All the earth shall remember and return to the Lord, all families of nations worship before him ... he is ruler of the nations (Ps 22); Babylon and Egypt I will count among those who know me ... and Zion shall be called ‘Mother’ for all shall be her children (Ps 87).
As Israel’s faith developed and matured, the unique power and authority of the God of the covenant and the Lord of the nations is recognised as belonging to the Creator of the world. Many times, as a consequence, the psalms celebrate the Creator’s greatness, as manifest in the power and wonder of the material universe - The heavens are yours, the world is yours. It is you who founded the earth and all it holds (Ps 89); Before the mountains were born, or the earth or the world brought forth, you are God, without beginning or end (Ps 90); When I see the heavens, the work of your hands ... what are we that you keep us in mind, men and women that you care for us (Ps 8).
One of the most remarkable features of the psalms is the way in which they speak of Israel’s experience in the on-going drama of the covenant relationship. The psalms are an unconscious disclosure of how Old Testament faith understood the human condition. We could describe this awareness as a personalism of concrete immediacy. Its ideals, as we have said, are not abstractions, but the realities of concrete immediacy. It has no concept of immateriality. Transcendence it knows in the incomparable divine ‘otherness‘. In some mysterious way this divine greatness is shared through the awareness of the covenant and God’s ‘presence’ in temple worship - O send forth your light and your truth ... Let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell (Ps 43).
The personalism of the psalms has been described as ‘visceral‘: the whole bodily person is involved in the drama of personal existence, reflected in two terms frequently occurring in our versions, ‘heart’ and ‘soul‘.
Beyond its purely physical association with strong emotions, the ‘heart’ designates ‘the interior mystery of the person’ where ‘intentions, decisions, feelings and speech take form’; there ‘the just experience the presence of God who knows him or her profoundly and gives support throughout life’ [6] - O search me, God, and know my heart (Ps 139); The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart (Ps 19); My heart is ready, O God ...I will sing your praise (Ps 57); Of you my heart has spoken: ‘seek his face’ (Ps 27). For the psalmist, the eyes are closely associated with the movements of the ‘heart’.
‘Soul’ is the term frequently used to translate the Hebrew word for the gullet or the neck. Like ‘heart’, its significance expands, to refer to more than bodily hunger, thirst and taste; it ‘stands for the human being in a situation of want and necessity ... as a desiring being’ [7] - How long must I bear grief in my soul? (Ps 13); Heal my soul for I have sinned against you (Ps 41); Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God (Ps 42).
The psalms’ personalism of concrete immediacy frequently expresses itself in a narrative form which captures the drama of the believer’s present moment within the totality of their on-going story. Vivid images abound. Human life is the walking of ‘paths’ - I keep my feet firmly in your paths (Ps 17); I said: ‘I shall be watchful of my ways’ (Ps 39); Your word is a lamp for my steps (Ps 119); My eyes are always on the Lord; for he rescues my feet from the snare (Ps 25). God is a very real companion - Your right hand holds my fast (Ps 63); The Lord is at my side as my helper (Ps 118); If the Lord does not build the house ... (Ps 127). In you my soul has taken refuge. In the shadow of your wings I take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by (Ps 57). God is described as the glory of Israel, the one who lifts up Israel’s head (Ps 3), as Israel’s portion and cup (Ps 16), as Israel’s shepherd (Ps 23), as the Lord of armies (Ps 24), as a mighty stronghold (Ps 31), even as Israel’s hiding place (Ps 32).
It is moving to reflect that the astounding confidence and trust of which we are speaking coexists with a tragic realism, profoundly aware of the precariousness and transitoriness of our existence, strikingly manifest in its contrast with God’s unique greatness - To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday come and gone ... you sweep us away like a dream, like grass which springs up in the morning (Ps 90); You have given me a short span of days ... In your house I am a passing guest (Ps 39). And the endless blackness of death’s pit is not far away - What profit would my death be ... Can dust give you praise? (Ps 30). Even so, confidence in God is so remarkable that some commentators are uncertain whether some psalms look forward to something more than knowing the joy of God’s presence in the temple worship - For you will not leave my soul among the dead, nor let your beloved know decay (Ps 16).
The covenant experience gives rise to derivative themes which have an important place in the psalms’ confession of faith: the challenge brought to the plan of God by the abuse of human freedom, and the tangible ways in which God’s presence in the midst of Israel is mediated.
When Israel’s life is undermined, as the unjust and the powerful oppress those who are defenceless, the true faith of Israel, learned from the God who intervened in their history as the champion of the oppressed, is reaffirmed and deepened. The psalms take us to the threshold of the Christian Gospel when they insistently proclaim that God hears the cry of the poor - They crush your people, Lord ... They kill the widow and the stranger ... Can judges who do evil be your friends? (Ps 94); ‘For the poor who are oppressed ... I myself will arise’, says the Lord (Ps 12); When the poor cry out the Lord hears them (Ps 34); He crowns the poor with salvation (Ps149); From the dust he lifts up the lowly, from the dungheap he raises the poor (Ps 113).
The psalms reflect the hard lessons of defeat and exile from the blessings of the temple - By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept (Ps 137); When can I enter and see the face of God? Why do I go mourning oppressed by the foe? (Ps 42); Turn your steps to those places that are utterly ruined! The enemy has laid waste the whole of the sanctuary (Ps 74).
The psalms humbly recognise that opposition to God’s designs comes also from Israel’s own sinfulness. It has been pointed out that there is no parallel in the world’s literature to the Old Testament’s acknowledgement of the nation’s sinfulness and failure. Through its backsliding and its struggle to live in fidelity, Israel came to a profound knowledge of God’s mercy and forgiveness, frequently echoed in the confession of the psalms - My guilt I did not hide ... those who trust in the Lord, loving mercy surrounds them (Ps 32); Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness ... Against you, you alone, have I sinned; what is evil in your sight I have done (Ps 51); The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy ... As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our sins (Ps 103).
Symbols have an indispensable function in our human existence. It is not surprising, therefore, that symbolism has a place in the confession of Israel’s faith. God’s presence came to be mediated in the life of the nation in different ways: in the common confession itself, in the Jerusalem temple, and through the line of David, seen as God’s ‘anointed’.
God’s presence was mediated
by the nation’s common confession of faith. The confession
we have been considering is so strikingly personal that for a
long time modern scholars interpreted the ’I’ so often
finding voice in them as an individualised piety finding expression
for itself. Today, it is recognised that in the psalms
- as for the Old Testament as a whole - it is the common faith
of Israel which is finding expression - a faith, certainly, which
at times finds expression through contributions of poetic genius.
Group solidarity had a fundamental importance in biblical awareness
(the ’corporate personality’ paradigm, as it is called).
The ‘I’ of the psalms is usually, therefore, the community
of Israel confessing its faith through a spokesperson.
Clearly, individual contributions were not absent, as leaders
- levites, prophets or kings and their associates - articulated
the common faith from within their peculiar perspectives.
The shared nature of the psalms’ confession is made clear
when we reflect that they were commonly chanted, as their many
references to ‘singing’ make clear (and their frequent
use of simple refrains in which all could join).
In other words, we have in the psalms an interesting example of the sensus fidelium, functioning with health and vigour in the life of the old people - You, O God, are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our forebears put their trust (Ps 22); How good and how pleasant it is, when people live in unity! It is like precious oil upon the head, running down upon the beard (Ps 133).
God’s presence was mediated in the temple worship, in which Israel ‘saw the face of God’ - The nations shall fear the name of the Lord ... when the Lord shall build up Zion again and appear in all his glory (Ps 102). This immense significance of the temple as the symbol of God’s presence in the midst of Israel is reflected in the countless references of the psalms - Lord who shall be admitted to your tent, and dwell on your holy mountain? (Ps 15); His holy mountain rises in beauty, the joy of all the earth (Ps 48); How lovely is your dwelling place ... one day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere (Ps 84). The joyful faith of those approaching the temple rings out in a series of remarkable pilgrim psalms (Pss 120-29, 131-34).
The Davidic dynasty, too, came to be seen as the agent of God’s designs and the bearer of God’s promises. For the cultures of the world of the Old Testament, the ruler was commonly seen as embodying the presence of the divinity they worshipped. It is not surprising, therefore, that - with important modifications reflecting Israel’s faith in the divine mystery - the nation’s royal line was celebrated, in several psalms, as enjoying a divine adoption - You are my son. It is I who have begotten you this day. Ask and I shall bequeath you the nations (Ps 2); O Lord, your strength gives joy to the king (Ps 21); I will establish your dynasty for ever, and set up your throne through all ages (Ps 89).
There is an irony and ambiguity in this biblical tradition, since the kings and their officials were often oppressors of the people. It was only when the Davidic line no longer ruled, in post-exilic times, that this theme could fully establish itself as part of the nation’s confession of faith and hope. During the same period, the theme of God’s kingship emerged - O sing a new song to the Lord ... Proclaim to the nations ‘God is king’. The world he made firm in its place; he will judge the peoples with fairness (Ps 96).
Different ways of praying the psalms: as songs of anticipation, and as songs of triumphal fulfilment
The Christian Church is impoverished if our people’s faith awareness does not recognise the continuity between the two covenants. An appreciation of Israel’s confession of faith in the psalms can help them to own this continuity. The faith of old Israel and the faith of the Christian Church is one. By a gift of the Spirit, faith makes the believer alive to God’s active presence in our human story. This same gift, of course, translates into different perspectives of awareness for each testament - so that the truths of Christian faith are the fulfilment of the boundless promises of Israel’s faith. It was inevitable that the Christian Church should make the psalms its own as triumphant songs.
The ardour, simplicity and coherence of Israel’s confession in the psalms can help Christian faith to clarify its own vision. For the psalms, the magnalia Dei, the great acts of God on behalf of Israel, were portents in a great plan which was just beginning to unfold. Christian faith, on the other hand, proclaims and celebrates the Christ-event and its culmination in the Paschal Mystery as God’s final achievement in creation: ‘the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but now has been revealed to his saints ... Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (Col 1:26-27).
When the psalms speak to Israel of the covenant which makes God’s people, Christian faith rejoices in the Saviour ‘destined before the foundation of the world, but ... revealed at the end of the ages’ in the forming of a new people ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people’ called ‘to proclaim the mighty acts’ of the God who called them ’out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Pet 1:20; 2:9), and consecrated through ’the blood of the new covenant’ (Mt 26:26).
When Israel’s confession celebrates the divine authority which will extend God’s saving plan to embrace all the peoples of the earth, and indeed the whole of creation, Christian faith rejoices in ’the first-born of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him ... the head of the body, the Church ... through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross’ (Col 1 15:20).
As Israel’s psalms anguish over the struggle between good and evil in the realisation of God’s plan, Christian hope can proclaim that, while ‘the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now’, we may confidently expect that ‘it will be set free from its bondage to decay’ and ‘obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (Rom 8:21-2).
As Israel expresses the visceral realism of its on-going relationship with God, Christian faith wonders at the incarnational realism which is the consummation of God’s plan, as the ‘bridegroom’ becomes ‘one body’ with the new people he has taken as his ‘bride’ (Mt 915; 1 Cor 6:15; 2 Cor 11:2).
As the old people expresses the realism of their relationship with God in an on-going narrative, with God at Israel’s side, directing Israel’s feet along the right path, Christian faith celebrates the amazing climax of this narrative in the gospel story of the one who called his disciples to ‘follow him’ and ‘resolutely took the road for Jerusalem’ (Lk 9:51), because it was ‘necessary that the Messiah should suffer ... and then enter into his glory’ (Lk 24:26) in the terrible climax of his Paschal Mystery.
And so, the tragic realism of Israel’s confession, as it bravely acknowledged the fragility and transience of human existence, gives way to Christian faith’s celebration of the Paschal Mystery of the one who ‘emptied himself’ (Phil 2:7), to share the burdens and struggles of our human condition ‘in every respect tested as we are, yet without sin’ (Heb 4:15), who for our sake ‘learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect’ in the humanity he shares with us, became ‘the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him’ (Heb 5:8-9).
For Christian faith, the blessings
in which Israel found such joy as it sang the psalms were but
shadows ‘to instruct us, on whom the end of the ages has
come’ (1 Cor 10:11); and now they have given way to the
realities of God’s final achievement. Israel’s
sensus fidelium united the old people in the faith and
hope of their boundless expectations. The new Israel, as
the Second Vatican Council declares, ’shares in Christ’s
prophetic office’ so that it is united in the ’sense
of faith which is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth’
and ’God’s people accepts not the word of men but the
very Word of God’ as it ’clings without fail to the
faith once delivered to the saints’ (Lumen gentium
n 12). As the psalms rejoice in their beloved temple, Christians
remember Jesus speaking of the new temple he would establish,
‘that of his body’ (Jn 2: 21) and Paul’s announcing
of the prophecy fulfilled: ‘You are God’s temple ...
God’s Spirit dwells in you’ (1 Cor 3:16). The
promise of the Davidic line, so central in the end to Israel’s
hopes, has been fulfilled in the one of whom it is announced
‘the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor,
David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and
of his kingdom there will be no end’ (Lk 1:32-3).
All the great themes of Israel’s confession, ‘the spirit of the Lord’, ‘the word of the Lord’, ‘the presence of the Lord‘, ‘the face of the Lord’, ‘the glory of the Lord’ take on an astounding new realism and depth of meaning for Christian faith.
Because they were the familiar expression of Israel’s faith - the psalms are cited in the scrolls of Qumran more frequently than any other Old Testament text - it is not surprising that New testament citations from the Old Testament are in large part from the psalms - more than a third of 360 citations. For the same reason, Jesus is remembered as making frequent reference to the psalms in the final hours of his life: ‘Blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Ps 118:26/Mt 21:9); ‘The Lord’s revelation to my master’ (Ps110:1/Mt 22:44); ‘who ate my bread with me turned against me’ (Ps 41:10/Mt 26:23); ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Ps21:1/Mt 27:46); ‘Into your hands I commend my spirit’ (Ps 31:6/Lk 23:46). As he instructs the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:44) he appeals to ‘the psalms’ together with ‘the law’ and ‘the prophets’. It was a short step which made the psalms the Church’s favourite songs.
For old Israel, the ‘I’ finding expression in the psalms was a ‘corporate personality’ - the old people united in their common faith. For the Christian Church, this solidarity finds its fulfilment in the Saviour (‘Servant of Yahweh’, ‘Son of Man’) who has made us a new people, uniting us to himself, sharing our burdens, and realising - in the humanity he shares with us - our ultimate destiny in the plan of God. Jesus himself is our spokesman, and leads us as we pray together the ‘I’ of the psalms.
A new way of praying the psalms
We have come to appreciate two very different ways in which faith in the God who is living and active in our history has found expression in the psalms - as songs of boundless confidence and expectation, and as songs of triumphant fulfilment.
It is only in recent times that biblical scholarship has made it possible for us to appreciate the authenticity of these two very different understandings. This development invites the Christian Church to make its confession of faith through the psalms in a new way. Too easily, we must acknowledge, Christian faith can become complacent in the knowledge that it enjoys the fulfilment of Israel’s boundless hopes. Learning to pray the psalms with the old Israel as our tragic companion can help us to avoid this complacency and to find a new vitality in our own faith. Praying the psalms with the witness of ancient Israel ringing in our ears can have two lessons for us.
Those of us who have been privileged to enjoy a well developed spiritual formation have all had the experience of meeting people who, though they have not had our advantages, show a generosity and depth of commitment to the faith which humbles us. The comparison which suggests itself is obvious. When we compare ancient Israel’s situation with our own we must be astounded and humbled as we compare our own attitudes with the vitality of Israel’s confession of faith in the living God as the companion of their troubled journey as a nation, and with the hope against hope which they reaffirmed time and again.
We are invited, too, to recognise the transparent honesty with which the psalms own the emotions and confusion with which they approach God - My heart is withered like the grass. I forget to eat my bread ... I lie awake and I moan like some lonely bird on a roof (Ps 102); As parents have compassion on their children, the Lord has pity on those who fear him; for he knows of what we are made, he remembers that we are dust (Ps 103). This visceral honesty is in stark contrast with the respectability we have so easily presumed to be appropriate in conventional Christian prayers.
A second lesson and challenge is brought by the attitudes in ancient Israel’s confession with which Christian faith can not identify. As ancient Israel learned the ways of God, their attitudes were often still exclusive and vindictive. Their interpretation of the rule of God’s providence - in the life of the nation as a whole, and in the life of the individual - was crude and simplistic. Living in the fullness of the light brought into the world by Christ, we should not be conceited. Rather we should ask ourselves how well we have learned the lessons Israel still had to learn, despite the vitality of their faith. As a distillation of the spirit and outlook of the Old Testament, the psalms provide the Christian Church with a mirror which helps us to ask ourselves to what extent we still share in the darkness which should be dispelled by the light of Christ.
The psalms have a great potential in this time of renewal which is still to be recognised. We need to make the Prayer of the Church - specially organised for parish groups - a familiar experience for our people. In the mid-twentieth century, the Gelineau Psalms promised to recover for contemporary believers something of the long tradition of chanting the psalms. Unfortunately, in the upheaval brought by the Second Vatican Council, they seem to have been forgotten. Perhaps it is time to revive them, in the spirit we have suggested in this article.
REFERENCES
[1] Stanley L. Jaki, Praying the Psalms: A commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001, p17.
[2] Old Testament Theology 2:319-21
[3] Praying the Psalms, p17
[4] Praying the Psalms, p19
[5] A Short Dictionary of the Psalms, Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1997, p xii
[6] Prevost, A Short Dictionary of the Psalms, pp22-23
[7] Prevost, A Short Dictionary of the Psalms, pp66-67
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Dr John Thornhill, Marist priest and theologian, is a former member of the International Theological Commission and past president of the Australian Catholic Theological Association. He is the author of numerous scholarly works including Christian Mystery in our Secular Age and Making Australia: Exploring our National Conversation.
