Psalm 92 and the sixth day of creation

Rudolf von Ems: Weltchronik. Böhmen (Prag), 3.
Viertel 14. Jahrhundert. Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek Fulda, Aa 88.
c14th

Psalm 92 - Dóminus regnávit, decórem indútus est - Festal Lauds/Matins Friday I, 5

Vulgate	Douay-Rheims
Laus cantici ipsi David, in die ante sabbatum, quando fundata est terra.	Praise in the way of a canticle, for David himself, on the day before the sabbath, when the earth was founded.
1 Dóminus regnávit, decórem indútus est: * indútus est Dóminus fortitúdinem, et præcínxit se.	The Lord has reigned, he is clothed with beauty: the Lord is clothed with strength, and has girded himself.
2  Etenim firmávit orbem terræ, * qui non commovébitur.	For he has established the world which shall not be moved.
3  Paráta sedes tua ex tunc: * a sæculo tu es.	2 My throne is prepared from of old: you are from everlasting.
4  Elevavérunt flúmina, Dómine: * elevavérunt flúmina vocem suam.	3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord: the floods have lifted up their voice
5  Elevavérunt flúmina fluctus suos, * a vócibus aquárum multárum.	The floods have lifted up their waves, 4 with the noise of many waters.
6  Mirábiles elatiónes maris: * mirábilis in altis Dóminus.	Wonderful are the surges of the sea: wonderful is the Lord on high.
7  Testimónia tua credibília facta sunt nimis: * domum tuam decet sanctitúdo, Dómine, in longitúdinem diérum.	5 Your testimonies have become exceedingly credible: holiness becomes your house, O Lord, unto length of days.

The kingship of Christ

The reasons for Psalm 92's use in the festal Office are obvious: this is the first of a group of psalms (to Psalm 99) that proclaim the kingship of God, and looks forward to the establishment of his dominion over the earth.

St Alphonsus Liguori, for example, comments:

The psalmist exalts the power that God manifested in creating heaven and earth; and transporting himself in thought to the first moment of creation, he represents to himself God, who in some way proceeds from the mystery of his eternal existence, in order to reveal himself in the production of creatures.

The reasons for its omission in St Benedict's original version of the Benedictine Office perhaps rather less so.

It is true of course that it contains no clear references to morning prayer or dawn.  Still, verses 1-2 and 6 are certainly interpreted by the Fathers as references to the future after the Resurrection, so it fits in well with the general themes we have identified in the psalms of Lauds, thus perhaps explaining its ready acceptance in later versions of the Office.

The days of creation in the Office

One possibility is that St Benedict felt its particular relevance to the day of the week, suggested by the title (reflecting its use in the temple on thatday according to the Talmid), outweighed its relevance to his Lauds themes.  

In the past I've mainly talked about a cycle around the life of Christ built into the Benedictine Office, but there are also traces, I think, of a (not unrelated) cycle around the seven days of creation.

St Augustine provides the explanation of how this psalm fits with that:

It is entitled, The Song of praise of David himself, on the day before the Sabbath, when the earth was founded. 

Remembering then what God did through all those days, when He made and ordained all things, from the first up to the sixth day (for the seventh He sanctified, because He rested on that day after all the works, which He made very good), we find that He created on the sixth day (which day is here mentioned, in that he says, before the Sabbath) all animals on the earth; lastly, He on that very day created man in His own likeness and image. For these days were not without reason ordained in such order, but for that ages also were to run in a like course, before we rest in God. But then we rest if we do good works....

And because these good works are doomed to pass away, that sixth day also, when those very good works are perfected, has an evening; but in the Sabbath we find no evening, because our rest shall have no end: for evening is put for end. As therefore God made man in His own image on the sixth day: thus we find that our Lord Jesus Christ came into the sixth age, that man might be formed anew after the image of God. 

For the first period, as the first day, was from Adam until Noah: the second, as the second day, from Noah unto Abraham: the third, as the third day, from Abraham unto David: the fourth, as the fourth day, from David unto the removal to Babylon: the fifth period, as the fifth day, from the removal to Babylon unto the preaching of John. The sixth day begins from the preaching of John, and lasts unto the end: and after the end of the sixth day, we reach our rest. The sixth day, therefore, is even now passing. And it is now the sixth day, see what the title has; On the day before the Sabbath, when the earth was founded.

In this light, Cassiodorus, for example, sees this psalm as primarily celebrating the Incarnation of Christ rather than the Resurrection.  He suggests that:

The first topic describes His beauty, the second His strength, the third His deed, the fourth His power, the fifth praises of the whole creation, the sixth the truth of His words, and the last praise of His house which fittingly basks in eternal joy...

It is worth noting that while some of the Fathers (including St Benedict in my view) seem to place the Incarnation on Sunday or Monday in their schemas, others linked the Incarnation with the creation of man on the sixth day and our redemption through the cross in their commentaries on the Hexameron.

In any case, St Benedict perhaps preferred to focus Lauds on Friday on the major theme of the day, namely the Passion, and on Sunday, to psalms with a more overt focus on the Resurrection, such as Psalm 117.

And you can notes on the last psalm in this series on Lauds, Psalm 99, here.


Scriptural and liturgical uses of the psalm

NT references	Rev 19:6 (v1)
RB cursus	Friday Matins 1.5
Monastic feasts	Festal Lauds
Roman pre 1911	Sunday Lauds
Thesauris schemas	A: ; B: ; C: ; D:
Roman post 1911	1911-62: Sunday Lauds. 1970:
Mass propers (EF)	-

Psalms of the day in the liturgy of the Temple

One of the ongoing debates is the extent to which the Divine Office (and the liturgy more generally) represents a continuation of ancient Jewish practice.   Unfortunately, while there are passing references to the liturgy in the Old Testaments (such as King David's instigation of choirs of priests singing in the first temple) very little concrete evidence survives.

Still, those crumbs that do survive are interesting.  Consider this rationale for one of the psalms set for use each day, tied to the days of creation, an idea reflected in our Office today in the Vespers hymns (and arguably in certain other psalms set for the Benedictine Office at least).

The source for this daily service in the Temple  is theTamid, sect. vii, and Maimonides in Tamid:

On the first day of the week they sang Psalm 23, 'The earth is the Lord's,' etc., in commemoration of the first day of creation, when 'God possessed the world, and ruled in it.'

On the second day they sang Psalm 47, 'Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,' etc., because on the second day of creation 'the Lord divided His works, and reigned over them.'

On the third day they sang Psalm 81, 'God standeth in the congregation of the mighty,' etc., 'because on that day the earth appeared, on which are the Judge and the judged.'

On the fourth day Psalm 93 was sung, 'O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth,' etc., 'because on the fourth day God made the sun, moon, and stars, and will be avenged on those that worship them.'

On the fifth day they sang Psalm 80, 'Sing aloud unto God our strength,' etc., 'because of the variety of creatures made that day to praise His name.'

On the sixth day Psalm 92 was sung, 'The Lord reigneth,' etc., 'because on that day God finished His works and made man, and the Lord ruled over all His works.'

Lastly, on the Sabbath day they sang Psalm 91, 'It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord,' etc., 'because the Sabbath was symbolical of the millennial kingdom at the end of the six thousand years' dispensation, when the Lord would reign over all, and His glory and service fill the earth with thanksgiving.'

Psalm 92: The organic development of the Office?

Since today is the feast of the Assumption, I thought I’d interrupt my consideration of St Benedict’s weekly psalm cycle and focus instead on one of the festal psalms of the day, Psalm 92.

It also provides an opportunity to reflect a little on what constitutes legitimate liturgical development and what doesn’t!

The Benedictine Office and feasts

St Benedict’s Rule prescribes that on the feasts of saints and festivals, the Office should be performed as on Sundays (so three Nocturns at matins for example) except that the psalms of the particular day are to be said.

Somewhere along the way, the Benedictine Office instead adopted the practice of using the actual Sunday psalms, at Lauds and Vespers, and special sets of psalms at Matins instead. Moreover, the ‘Sunday’ psalms used at Lauds on major feasts are not the standard Sunday psalms of the Benedictine Office (Psalms 117&62), but rather those of the Roman Office, Psalms 92 &99.

This elaboration of the liturgy was not, of course, restricted to the Benedictines: as time went on the Church sought to give greater honour to God and his saints in many ways, including through the liturgy.

And just as the traditional version of the Mass has what Catherine Pickstock in After Writing calls liturgical stuttering - stops and restarts, circling and around and returns to things, repetitions that do not flow in a neatly linear way - so too our weekly cycle of worship is interrupted by the injection of feasts. Perhaps they serve in part as a reminder that God stands outside time and space, and can jolt us, just a little, out of our time bound, linear logical conceptions of Him?

The Kingship of God

Certainly Psalm 92 draws our attention to the eternality of God and his Christ: “My throne is prepared from of old: you are from everlasting” (v3).

In the context of Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven though, it is perhaps the stress on the kingship of God that is most relevant for us to focus on today: Psalm 92 is actually the first of a group of psalms (to Psalm 99) that proclaims the kingship of God, and looks forward to the establishment of his dominion over the earth.

Opinions differ on its age, and whether the Septuagint/Vulgate ascription to David should be accepted or not, but the current consensus seems to be that because of the style of its language, it is in fact fairly ancient, from the early period of the monarchy.

St Benedict himself gave this psalm no special prominence, taking it out of Sunday Lauds and consigning it instead to Friday Matins. Its return to the Benedictine Office in the form of festal Lauds and Sunday Lauds during Christmas and Eastertide perhaps suggests that this one change he made to the Office that did not entirely stand the test of time, but rather proved to be inorganic!

Still this in itself tells us something about what is and isn’t legitimate change to the liturgy. St Benedict certainly reshaped his Office quite substantially, importing elements from other rites (such as hymns from the Ambrosian) and adjusting which psalms were said when.

All the same, it survived in its essentials for over a millennium in part surely because he respected things such as the existing tradition about which psalms were said in the morning, which in the evening.  And in giving his Office a more thematic approach than that the Old Roman Office he took as his template, he did not attempt to impose a simple linear, logical progression of ideas and events, but rather allowed his Office to move back and forwards between ideas, providing a meditation for us rather than a logically sequenced piece of closely argued theology.

St Benedict’s approach to creating a distinctively Benedictine Office - one that for centuries shaped a distinctively Benedictine spirituality -  provides no justification whatsoever, I would suggest, despite the claims to the contrary, for the decidedly inorganic revisions of the Divine Office adopted by most modern Benedictine monasteries.

Our Lady pray for us.

Psalm 92

Dóminus regnávit, decórem indútus est: * indútus est Dóminus fortitúdinem, et præcínxit se.
2 Etenim firmávit orbem terræ, * qui non commovébitur.
3 Paráta sedes tua ex tunc: * a sæculo tu es.
4 Elevavérunt flúmina, Dómine: * elevavérunt flúmina vocem suam.
5 Elevavérunt flúmina fluctus suos, * a vócibus aquárum multárum.
6 Mirábiles elatiónes maris: * mirábilis in altis Dóminus.
7 Testimónia tua credibília facta sunt nimis: * domum tuam decet sanctitúdo, Dómine, in longitúdinem diérum.

The Lord has reigned, he is clothed with beauty: the Lord is clothed with strength, and has girded himself.
For he has established the world which shall not be moved.
2 My throne is prepared from of old: you are from everlasting.
3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord: the floods have lifted up their voice.
The floods have lifted up their waves, 4 with the noise of many waters.
Wonderful are the surges of the sea: wonderful is the Lord on high.
5 Your testimonies have become exceedingly credible: holiness becomes your house, O Lord, unto length of days.