Rector’s Bible Study

“Singing in the Dark” is a twelve-week journey through the Psalms, the oldest prayer book still in daily use in the West and one that is striking for its honesty: its 150 poems, gathered over roughly nine hundred years, include more laments than praises. Written in Hebrew poetry that works through paired, echoing lines rather than rhyme, the Psalms come from many voices (David, Asaph, the Sons of Korah, Moses, Solomon, and many anonymous authors) and are arranged into five books that mirror the Torah and trace a movement from personal crisis through communal catastrophe to cosmic praise, each ending with a doxology. They fall into recognizable types, such as praise, lament, thanksgiving, royal, wisdom, and historical psalms, and they have been a living practice for three thousand years, from the Temple and synagogue to monastic prayer and the Anglican Daily Office. For Christians they are also the prayer book of Jesus, who prayed Psalms 22 and 31 at his death and sang the Hallel at the Last Supper, and whom the New Testament writers explain through Psalms 16, 110, 69, and 118. Over the coming weeks, each session takes one psalm and a theme, from creation and pilgrimage to death, desolation, wrath, penitence, joy, and finally worship, teaching us that singing in the dark is not a contradiction but the whole point.

This session of “Singing in the Dark” takes up Psalm 104, a creation hymn that invites us to bless the LORD for what God has made. We begin by reading the psalm together and noticing what catches us, surprises us, or makes us want to push back. Situated in Book IV, the Psalter’s theological response to exile, it is anonymous, likely pre-exilic, and cosmic rather than personal in voice, pure adoration expressed through the created world. Its poetry relies on synonymous and synthetic parallelism, so that each line deepens the one before it, and its movement travels outward from God to sky, earth, sea, creatures, humanity, night, and day before circling back to God. It deliberately echoes Genesis 1, but where Genesis is spare and architectural, Psalm 104 is lavish and delighted, and even the leviathan, the ancient chaos monster, is simply at play. Four Hebrew words anchor our study: nephesh (the whole animated creature who praises with God-given breath), ruach (spirit, breath, or wind, which makes creation a present breathing rather than a past event), kabod (glory as the weight of God’s presence, so that the world is dense with God), and samach (delight, the theological center of the psalm, since God rejoices in his works). We then walk through the psalm’s five movements: God robed in creation (vv. 1-4), the earth and its creatures (vv. 5-18), night and day (vv. 19-23), the sea and the ruach (vv. 24-30), and the closing doxology and return (vv. 31-35). Along the way we compare the NRSV with the Coverdale translation in the Book of Common Prayer, noticing where it feels richer, flatter, or stranger, and we close with three discussion questions: what in this psalm provokes us, how it speaks to the world we live in right now, and where we see Jesus or the Holy Spirit in it.

This session of “Singing in the Dark” takes up Psalm 78, a long teaching psalm that retells Israel’s history as an act of formation. We begin by reading the psalm together, noticing the rhythm of grace and failure: what God keeps doing and what Israel keeps doing. Situated in Book III, the darkest book of the Psalter, it is unusual for looking forward as well as back. It is attributed to Asaph, the temple singer and prophet who speaks for God as much as to God, and is both a maskil (teaching psalm) and a historical recitation, the longest in the Psalter at 72 verses running from Egypt to David. Its poetry relies mainly on synthetic parallelism, which gives the psalm a narrative drive as history accumulates and pressure builds, and it moves through a three-part cycle repeated twice: God’s mighty acts, Israel’s rebellion, and God’s response of judgment and then mercy, with each cycle ending in renewed faithfulness rather than punishment. In conversation with Deuteronomy 32 and Exodus 12-20, it is catechesis rather than law, teaching by story, and we notice that Moses is barely named, David ends as a shepherd rather than a king, and only God is constant. Four Hebrew words anchor our study: maskil (deliberate formation through deep consideration), mashal (parable, proverb, or riddle, a verse Matthew 13:35 sees fulfilled in Jesus), chidoth (dark sayings, the encoded meaning of historical events, with the psalm as the decoding key), and zakar (to remember, since Israel keeps forgetting while God keeps remembering, making the psalm itself a structured refusal to forget). We then walk through its five movements: the teacher speaks (vv. 1-8), Exodus and the wilderness (vv. 9-39), Egypt retold (vv. 40-55), the land and its losses (vv. 56-64), and the awakening and David (vv. 65-72), where God rises “like a warrior shouting because of wine” and chooses David from the sheepfold. Along the way we compare the NRSV with the Coverdale translation in the Book of Common Prayer, asking whether “mysteries of ancient times” opens the text further than “dark sayings from of old,” and we close with three discussion questions: what in this psalm provokes us, how it speaks to the world we live in right now, and where we see Jesus or the Holy Spirit in it.

This session of “Singing in the Dark” takes up Psalm 121, a song of pilgrimage that begins with a question and ends with a promise. We start by reading the psalm together and noticing who is speaking, how the voice shifts, and how the opening question is answered. Situated in Book V, the most celebratory book of the Psalter, it is the second of the fifteen Psalms of Ascent (120-134), the collection pilgrims sang on the way to Jerusalem. It is anonymous, which is unusual among the Songs of Ascent, and so belongs to no individual but is a song of the road: a psalm of trust that works as both a personal confession and a communal sending. Its form is antiphonal dialogue, with verses 1-2 spoken in the first person (I/my) and verses 3-8 shifting to the second person (you/your), so that one voice asks and another blesses. The movement runs from question to declaration to blessing, enacting the journey itself as anxiety gives way to assurance. It echoes the Aaronic Blessing of Numbers 6:24-26, making it a kind of walking version of the priestly blessing, and we notice that shamar (keep) sounds like a drumbeat throughout, because the Keeper does not stop keeping. Four Hebrew words anchor our study: shamar (to keep, guard, or protect, since God is your guardian, not your jailer), ezri (my help, where the personal pronoun is load-bearing and the maker of heaven and earth is specifically yours), tzel (shade, a practical theology of God as the thing between you and what would kill you), and ma’alot (ascents, whether the climb to Jerusalem, the steps of the Temple, or the rising structure of the psalms themselves). We then walk through its five movements: the question and answer (vv. 1-2), the Keeper who does not sleep (vv. 3-4), shade at your right hand, the vulnerable sword side (v. 5), sun and moon, the obvious danger and the unseen one (v. 6), and going out and coming in, every departure and return (vv. 7-8). Along the way we compare the NRSV with the Coverdale translation in the Book of Common Prayer, noting that the BCP’s “watches over” offers a guardian image where the NRSV’s “keeps” offers a keeper image, and we close with three discussion questions: what in this psalm provokes us, how it speaks to the world we live in right now, and where we see Jesus or the Holy Spirit in it.

This session of “Singing in the Dark” takes up Psalm 22, the psalm of Jesus, which begins with the cry of abandonment and ends with praise that reaches the whole world. We start by reading it together and noticing where the psalm turns and what changes between its first half and its second. Situated in Book I, the most personal and Davidic book of the Psalter, it is its emotional center, the deepest descent before any other psalm. It is attributed to David and set “according to The Doe of the Dawn,” a musical note that suggests liturgical performance, so that an individual’s suffering became a communal prayer. It is the fullest and most developed individual lament in the Psalter, and uniquely it does not end in lament. It follows the classic lament structure of address, complaint, trust, renewed complaint, petition, and vow of praise, but breaks the mold by giving a full third of the psalm to praise, which grows to cosmic dimensions. Its three-part arc moves from lament (vv. 1-21a), framed by “you do not answer” in verse 2 and “you have answered me” in verse 21, to praise in the gathered congregation (vv. 22-26), to an expansion that takes in all nations, all generations, and even the dead (vv. 27-31). It echoes and is echoed by Isaiah 53, the Suffering Servant, and we dwell on the dramatic pivot between verses 21 and 22, where no reason is given for the turn: something happened, and the text does not explain. Four Hebrew words anchor our study: azab (forsake, meaning not destroyed but left in a place of danger without protection), rachaq (far, which pairs with azab so that distance and desertion together describe the felt experience of the cross), ka’aru (the contested “they have pierced” of verse 16, where the Masoretic Text reads “like a lion” while the Septuagint and a Dead Sea Scroll read “pierced,” a difference of a single letter), and anah (answer or rescue, the pivot of the whole psalm, given rather than explained). We then walk through its five movements: lament and trust intertwined, an oscillation that is honest prayer rather than weakness (vv. 1-11), the body under attack (vv. 12-18), the petition and the turn (vv. 19-21), the vow of praise, in which the sufferer becomes the witness (vv. 22-26), and the cosmic and eternal scope, where one person’s cry becomes a proclamation to all (vv. 27-31). Along the way we compare the NRSV with the Coverdale translation in the Book of Common Prayer, asking whether “the words of my distress” or “the words of my groaning” feels closer to what Jesus cried from the cross, and we close with three discussion questions: what in this psalm provokes us, how it speaks to the world we live in right now, and where we see Jesus or the Holy Spirit in it.