Psalm 139 v 7: Inner conviction must drive our prayer and actions

Verse 7 is an expression of absolute trust in God, the mark of a true saint.

Looking at the Latin

The key Latin (and the Septuagint) translations of verse 7 of the psalm are set out below:

7	V	Dixi Dómino: Deus meus es tu:  exáudi, Dómine, vocem deprecatiónis meæ.
	OR	dixi Domino Deus meus es tu exaudi Domine vocem orationis meae
	NV	Dixi Domino: “Deus meus es tu; auribus percipe, Domine, vocem deprecationis meae ”.
	Pian	Dico Domino: Deus meus es tu; Ausculta, Domine, vocem obsecrationis meae..
	JH	Dixi Domino, Deus meus es tu ; audi, Domine, uocem deprecationis meae.
	Sept	εἶπα τῷ κυρίῳ θεός μου εἶ σύ ἐνώτισαι κύριε τὴν φωνὴν τῆς δεήσεώς μου

The key vocabulary is:

exaudio, ivi, itum, ire, to hear, hearken to, listen to, give heed to; to regard, answer.

vox, vocis, f., the voice of a person, or, the sound of an instrument, thunder. 

deprecatio, onis, f  prayer, supplication, entreaty

Pharse by phrase:

Dixi Dómino: Deus meus es tu: exáudi, Dómine, vocem deprecatiónis meæ.

I said to the Lord: Thou art my God: hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication.

And word by word:

Dixi (I said) Dómino (to the Lord): Deus (God) meus (my) es (you are) tu (you): exáudi (hear), Dómine (O Lord), vocem (the voice) deprecatiónis (of the supplication) meæ (of me).

Selected English translations are provided below:

DR	I said to the Lord: Thou art my God: hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication.
Brenton	I said to the Lord, Thou art my God; hearken, O Lord, to the voice of my supplication.
MD	I said to the Lord, Thou art my God, hear, O LOrd, the voice of my supplication
RSV	I say to the LORD, Thou art my God; give ear to the voice of my supplications, O LORD!
Cover	I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God; hear the voice of my prayers, O Lord.
Knox	To the Lord I make my appeal, Thou art my God, listen, Lord, to the voice that pleads with thee.
Grail	I have said to the Lord: "You are my God." Lord, hear the cry of my appeal!

Our claim on God

St John Chrysogonus pointed out in his commentary on this verse that our claim on God arises not from any good works that we can adduce, but rather from our recognition of God as our creator, sustainer and ruler:

...he did not say, I performed this or that act of virtue, or such righteousness; instead, what, 'You are my God', citing the greatest claim on assistance his recourse to the Lord, creator and king.

The verse then points to the conviction of the person of faith that God, not man, is the only one capable of helping us when we are beset on all sides. St John pointed out:

After mentioning war and plots, and showing the unspeakable calamities, he then takes refuge in the irresistible assistance, calling on help from heaven that is capable of removing them.  This is proof of noble spirit, this is sound thinking, not to take refuge in human help when these troubles beset one on all sides, but to look to heaven and call on God present everywhere, and not lose heart or fall victim to panic or alarm….

St Augustine argued that although God is the God of all, he is especially the God of those who serve him:

 Is He not the God of the others? Of whom is not He God, who is the true God? Yet is He specially theirs, who enjoy Him, who serve Him, who willingly submit to Him. For the wicked too, though unwillingly, are subject to Him..

Indeed, St Jerome goes a step further, arguing that ony a saint - or indeed Christ himself - truly has this degree of faith:

These are words that only a saint may claim, a man who is not dominated by sin, a man who bears witness that 'my portion is the Lord.'

It is the faith that enabled David to defeat Goliath, for example, Theodore of Cyrus suggested.

God hears our inner being

The second half of the verse, St Augustine argued, goes to the real source of prayer, which is not the words, but rather that inner conviction that gives the impetus to our words: 

He did not say, Hear with Your ears my prayer; but, as though expressing more plainly the affection of his heart, the voice of my prayer, the life of my prayer, the soul of my prayer, not that which sounds in my words, but that which gives life to my words. For all other noises without life may be called sounds, but not words. Words belong to those that have souls, to the living. 

But how many pray to God, yet have neither perception of God, nor right thoughts concerning God! These may have the sound of prayer, the voice they cannot, for there is no life in them. 

This was the voice of the prayer of one who was alive, forasmuch as he understood that God was his God, saw by Whom he was freed, perceived from whom he was freed.

  

Vulgate	Douay-Rheims
In finem. Psalmus David.	Unto the end, a psalm of David.
1 Eripe me, Dómine, ab hómine malo: * a viro iníquo éripe me.	Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: rescue me from the unjust man.
2 Qui cogitavérunt iniquitátes in corde: * tota die constituébant prælia.	3 Who have devised iniquities in their hearts: all the day long they designed battles.
3 Acuérunt linguas suas sicut serpéntis: * venénum áspidum sub lábiis eórum.	4 They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent: the venom of asps is under their lips.
4 Custódi me, Dómine, de manu peccatóris: * et ab homínibus iníquis éripe me.	5 Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the wicked: and from unjust men deliver me.
5 Qui cogitavérunt supplantáre gressus meos: * abscondérunt supérbi láqueum mihi:	Who have proposed to supplant my steps: 6 The proud have hidden a net for me.
6 Et funes extendérunt in láqueum: * juxta iter scándalum posuérunt mihi.	And they have stretched out cords for a snare: they have laid for me a stumbling block by the wayside.
7. Dixi Dómino : Deus meus es tu: * exáudi, Dómine, vocem deprecatiónis meæ.	7 I said to the Lord: You are my God: hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication.
8 Dómine, Dómine, virtus salútis meæ: * obumbrásti super caput meum in die belli.	8 O Lord, Lord, the strength of my salvation: you have overshadowed my head in the day of battle.
9 Ne tradas me, Dómine, a desidério meo peccatóri: * cogitavérunt contra me, ne derelínquas me, ne forte exalténtur.	9 Give me not up, O Lord, from my desire to the wicked: they have plotted against me; do not forsake me, lest they should triumph.
10 Caput circúitus eórum: * labor labiórum ipsórum opériet eos.	10 The head of them compassing me about: the labour of their lips shall overwhelm them.
11 Cadent super eos carbónes, in ignem dejícies eos: * in misériis non subsístent.	11 Burning coals shall fall upon them; you will cast them down into the fire: in miseries they shall not be able to stand.
12 Vir linguósus non dirigétur in terra: * virum injústum mala cápient in intéritu.	12 A man full of tongue shall not be established in the earth: evil shall catch the unjust man unto destruction.
13 Cognóvi quia fáciet Dóminus judícium ínopis: * et vindíctam páuperum.	13 I know that the Lord will do justice to the needy, and will revenge the poor.
14 Verúmtamen justi confitebúntur nómini tuo: * et habitábunt recti cum vultu tuo.	14 But as for the just, they shall give glory to your name: and the upright shall dwell with your countenance.

And for notes on verse 8 of Psalm 139, please continue on here.

The design of the Benedictine Office and Thursday Vespers, Part I

We are  a little over half way through Psalm 139, the third psalm of Thursday Vespers in the Benedictine Office, and I thought this might be a good point to pause briefly, and provide the first part of a series of posts that I plan to post weekly, looking at the reasons for the selection of these particular psalms for Thursday Vespers.

This little sub-series may be of interest to those interested in the spirituality of the Benedictine Office in particular, or Office history more generally, but if you are just interested in the individual psalms, feel free to skip past this quickly.

Just how the psalms fall out?

Before we can consider possible reasons for the allocation of particular psalms to particular hours and days in the Benedictine Office we need first to look at the question of whether they really were deliberately selected at all, or they just happened to land on particular days by virtue of the psalm sequences.

For the much of the last century, the consensus view has been that the allocation of psalms to particular days of the week in the Benedictine Office is 'just how they happen to fall out'.

The liturgists have argued that the Roman Office, which, it was thought, was used both by monks and the secular clergy, had a fixed weekly psalm cursus that predated St Benedict's version of the Office, with Psalms 1-108 essentially allocated to the morning hours, and Psalms 109 to 147 to the evenings.

St Benedict, they argued  simply made a few tweaks to this in order to shorten the day hours and provide more variety.  Consequently, the allocation of the psalms to Vespers each night is driven by purely mechanistic considerations.

There is now, I think, strong evidence that the liturgists were altogether wrong about the Roman Office's fixed psalm cursus predating the Benedictine.

In this post though, I want to start, for arguments sake, from the assumption that St Benedict's starting point was indeed the Roman psalm cursus as we know it (in its pre-1911 form), and demonstrate that the ordering is not simply 'how things happen to turn out'. 

The allocation of psalms in the early Roman Office

The early Roman Office as we know it had five psalms each day.  None of the psalms were divided, a principle maintained throughout the Office except in the case of Psalm 118, which was repeated each day from Prime to None.  

Roman Vespers was based around the sequence of psalms from 109 to 147, but skipped over four psalms allocated to other hours, viz Psalms 117 (Prime in the Roman Office, Lauds in the Benedictine), 118 (day hours), 133 (Compline), and 142 (Lauds).

The table below shows the Roman ordering of Vespers prior to 1911, and the post 1911 ordering (the later strictly for reference purposes).

	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Roman 1911-1962	109 110 111 112 113	114 115 119 120 121	122 123 124 125 126	127 128 129 130 131	132  135/1  135/2  136 137	138/1  138/2  139 140 141	143/1 143/2 144/1 144/2 144/3
Roman Pre 1911		114 115 116 119 120	121 122 123 124 125	126 127 128 129 130	131 132 134 135 136	137 138 139 140 141	143 144 145 146 147

Shortening the Office?

If this was St Benedict's starting point, his first key decision, it is generally assumed, was to reduce the number of psalms from five to four each day.  

It is often claimed that this would have shortened the hour compared to its Roman counterpart, but in reality they would probably have been roughly the same length since the Benedictine Office includes a hymn, whereas the Roman didn't (until the tenth century).

St Benedict omitted the same psalms as the Roman from the 109-147 sequence, but in order to achieve a further reduction in the number of psalms said at the hour, St Benedict also transferred the first nine of the Gradual Psalms, Psalms 119-127, to Terce to None on weekdays.  

Why the Gradual Psalms?

One key question is, why move  the first nine Gradual Psalms out of Vespers?  

They do, it is true, follow on numerically from Psalm 118, which St Benedict spread over the Sunday and Monday day hours, but if St Benedict's aim was purely to make the day hours very short in order to accommodate the demands of farm work, as is often suggested, he could have made other choices, starting with Psalms 116 and 132, for example, the two of the shortest psalms of the psalter.  

St Bede, however, suggests that this decision has to do with St Benedict's humility theme in the Rule, and indeed, humility is, I think, one of the key themes driving St Benedict's design of his Office, a point I will talk more about in the next part of this series.

Dividing the longest psalms?

The excision of Psalms 119-127 leaves the hour two psalms short, as the following table illustrates, showing the sequence just run through in numerical order.  

	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Early Roman	109 110 111 112 113	114 115 119 120 121	122 123 124 125 126	127 128 129 130 131	132, 135/1, 135/2, 136, 137	138/1, 138/2, 139, 140, 141	143/1 143/2 144/1 144/2 144/3
Four psalms, No divisions	109 110 111 112	113 114 115 116	128 129 130 131	132 134 135 136	137 138 139 140	141 143 144 145	146 147 [] []

	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Benedictine actual order	109 110 111 112	113 114 115/116 128	129 130 131 132	134 135 136 137	138/1 138/2 139 140	141 143/1 143/2 144/1	144/2 145 146 147

In contrast to the Roman practice, St Benedict was quite willing to divide psalms in his Office, so the key question for Vespers would have been which ones to split in order to fill the missing slots.

At the other hours with divided psalms (Matins, Lauds and Prime), St Benedict simply divided  the longest psalms, thus helping to even out the length of the hours somewhat.  

The table below shows what would the Benedictine Vespers have looked like if St Benedict had simply divided the largest psalms. 

	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Divide longest psalms	109 110 111 112	113 113 114 115	116 128 129 130	131 132 135 135	136 136 137 138	139 140 141 143	144 145 146 147

In fact though, the Benedictine psalm cursus looks quite different.

First, instead of treating Psalm 116 as a separate psalm, perhaps desirous of keeping the Gradual Psalms together (since 119 - 127 are said at Terce to None from Tuesday to Saturday each week), St Benedict combined Psalm 115 and 116 under one doxology, thus creating the need to divide three psalms, not two.

Then, rather dividing the two longest psalms, he divided the third, fourth and seventh longest psalms of the hour instead.   

There is another oddity here -  it would have been straightforward enough to make Tuesday Vespers flow on directly from Tuesday None's Psalm 127, and start at Psalm 128, then consist of five psalms (perhaps making it technically four by combining two of the hours under one doxology) in order to have all of the Gradual Psalms said on that day.  

He could then have also divided the longest psalm of the hour to fill in the resulting gap, as the table below illustrates: 

	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Graduals on Tues	109 110 111 112	113 113 114 115/116	128 129 130 131 [132]	134 135 135 136	137 138 138 139	140 141 143 144	144 145 146 147

The Benedictine psalm allocation

In fact though, rather than dividing the longest psalms of the hour, St Benedict divided the third, fourth and seventh longest psalms of the set, Psalms 138 (23 verses), 144 (22 verses) and 143 (18 verses) respectively. 

This means that instead of the Gradual Psalms being said in sequence, Psalm 128 is said essentially out of order from the Tuesday vertical Gradual sequence, at Monday Vespers, and the psalms allocated to their days also shifts in important ways, as the table below, showing the actual Benedictine Office psalm ordering illustrates: 

	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.
Ben. actual order	109 110 111 112	113 114 115/116 128	129 130 131 132	134 135 136 137	138/1 138/2 139 140	141 143/1 143/2 144/1	144/2 145 146 147

In particular for our purposes, rather than Thursday Vespers starting with Psalm 137 as would have been the case if the longest psalms were divided, it starts at Psalm 138 and encompasses Psalm 140.

It also results in a quite uneven number of verses said each day at Vespers, as the table below illustrates, with Monday and Wednesdays being the longest, because they contain the two longest psalms, Psalms 113 and 135 respectively, each of which has 27 verses.   

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Verses	44	63	36	69	58	47	43

Conclusion: why engineer the Office?

The changes St Benedict made to a purely mechanistic allocation of the psalms, I hope to convince you over the course of this series, were quite deliberate.

The reasons for them, I want to suggest, can be divided into three broad categories: 

• a desire to give each hour in the Office a distinctive character, through use of particular themes and repeated words and images; 
• some particular thematic connections between St Benedict's Office and Rule, most particularly relating to his humility theme; and 
• themes that go to the very reasons for adopting a weekly psalter in the first place, related to the idea of a seven day cycle based around the days of creation and other cycles that the Fathers saw as flowing from that seven day template. 

You can find the next part in this series here.