(Here’s the 14th 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, and Psalm 15. On Feb. 2, we tackled Psalm 51)
Psalm 51, the second of the seven penitential psalms our class is taking up, is another of the famous psalms that deserves its reputation. It contains the most heartfelt expression of guilt and repentance in the Bible and several passages used regularly in liturgy and prayer.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
In my home church, we sang vv. 10-12 as part of our regular liturgy:
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with your free Spirit.
Verse 15—“Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise”—is another standard opening for worship or daily prayer.
The psalm also contains some anticipations of Christian doctrine, like original sin (“Surely I was sinful at birth”) and the Holy Spirit.
The ending of the psalm seems schizophrenic. Verses 16-17 give a pointed expression of the anti-sacrifice attitude found in many of the prophets:
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
Many commentators view verses 18-19—which conclude the psalm with a reference to “bulls will be offered on your altar”—as a later addition. The Revised Standard Lectionary doesn’t include them and neither do most of the psalm settings in Psalms for All Seasons.
(The lectionary assigns Psalm 51:1-17 to Ash Wednesday for all three years, and 51:1-12 or 1-10 during three Lord’s Days.)
The Psalm 51 settings in Psalms for All Seasons range from full versifications to short choruses (some of them alluding only vaguely to the psalm).
The most complete versification is “Be Merciful, Be Merciful, O God” (PFAS #51B/PH87 #51), which was written for the gray Psalter Hymnal by Stanley Wiersma and set to GENEVAN 51. Its five stanza cover the entire psalm with vv. 18-19 taking the entire fifth stanza.
Be good to Zion; LORD in mercy hear.
The walls around Jerusalem lie broken.
Rebuild the walls, LORD; help us rebuild them.
Be good to Zion; LORD in mercy hear.
While not as old as GENEVAN 51, another versification, split between two hymns with four stanzas each, has its origins in the 1912 Psalter and has appeared in some form in all three Psalter Hymnals, Lift Up Your Hearts and Psalms for All Seasons. “God, Be Merciful to Me” (PFAS #51N/LUYH #622/PH57 #94) is a versification of the first nine verses of Psalm 51. The song is set to REDHEAD (a.k.a. REDHEAD 76/AJALON/GETHSEMANE) in the 1912 Psalter and blue Psalter Hymnal. Psalms for All Seasons set it to GOD, BE MERCIFUL, a modern tune full of syncopation by Christopher Miner.
God be merciful to me,
on your grace I read my plea.
Wash me, make me pure within;
cleanse, O cleanse me from my sin.
“Gracious God, My Heart Renew” (PFAS #51O/PH57 #95) is versification of verses 10-19, which was set to tune called GETHSEMANE by John Dykes in the 1912 Psalter and the blue Psalter Hymnal, but to REDHEAD in Psalms for All Seasons. Somewhat confusingly, Lift Up Your Hearts combines this hymn with the first stanza of “God, Be Merciful to Me” to create another hymn called “God, Be Merciful to Me” (LUYH #623) (also set to REDHEAD).
Gracious God, my heart renew,
make my spirit right and true;
in your presence let me stay,
by your Spirit show the way;
your salvation’s joy impart,
steadfast make my willing heart.
The gray Psalter Hymnal picks and chooses lines from the two versifications to create a composite hymn, again called “God, Be Merciful to Me” (PH87 #255), which covers verses 1-3, 4, 8, 10-12, 13-14, 17 & 19 and is set to REDHEAD.
“Have Mercy upon Me, O God” (PFAS #51D) is a modern versification that covers most of the psalm. “Have Mercy on Me, O God” (PFAS #51L) has a versification of vv. 1-2 as the chorus with stanzas based on vv. 3-6, 12-13 and 16-17. A sample is here.
“Ten piedad de mí/Lord, Have Mercy on Me” (PFAS #51E) is more loosely based on the psalm. Here is stanza 3:
Lord, refresh and make me like the newness of the spring,
like a flower opening to your warming rays.
So my grateful tongue will tell the wonders of your love,
and my pardoned heart will sing your praise.
Four of the modern hymns focus on verses 10-12. The most straightforward of these are “Create in Me a Clean Heart” (PFAS #51F/SNC #49/SWM #153) (the tune is here) and John Carter’s “Create in Me a Clean Heart” (PFAS #51H) (the tune is here). We were familiar with the former from Sing! A New Creation.
“Give Me A Clean Heart” (PFAS #51C) by Margaret Douroux is more loosely connected to the psalm text. Here’s the refrain.
Give me a clean heart so I may serve thee.
Lord, fix my heart so that I may be used by thee.
For I’m not worthy of all these blessings.
Give me a clean heart and I’ll follow these.
“Change My Heart, O God” (PFAS #51A/SNC #56) is another song we knew from Sing! A New Creation. It’s seems only tangentially connected to Psalm 51 (“clean heart” = “changed heart”?). The tune is here.
Change my heart, O God; make it ever true.
Change my heart, O God; may I be like you.
You are the Potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me; this is what I pray.
The responsorial setting in Psalms for All Seasons is “The Sacrifice You Accept, O God” (PFAS #51G). The two alternative refrains are “Khudaayaa, Raeham Kar/Have Mercy on Us” (an Urdhu hymn) and “Nkosi, Nkosi/Lord, Have Mercy” (from South Africa). The responsorial setting in Sing! A New Creation, “Kyrie Eleison/Lord, Have Mercy” (SNC #50), uses the Ghanan Kyrie (LUYH #637) as its refrain.
Psalms for All Seasons also includes “Misericordia, Señor/Be Merciful, O Lord” (PFAS #51M), a chant that incorporates parts of the psalm.
Psalm 51 is hardly the only Bible passage (or psalm) to ask the Lord to “have mercy,” but the editors of Psalms for All Seasons have decided to place several “kyrie” settings here. The first of these are two “Prayers of Confession,” both with old and familiar lyrics (and no explicit connection to Psalm 51). Each is followed by a short musical response consisting of either repeated “Lord, have mercy” or “Kyrie eleison.” “Prayer of Confession 1” (PFAS #51J/SNC #52) begins “Merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed…” and is followed by a response from the Russian Orthodox liturgy. “Prayer of Confession 2” (PFAS #51K/SNC #53) begins “Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide…” and is followed by the response from Ghana.
Psalms for All Seasons also includes a “Kyrie/Lord, Have Mercy” (PFAS #51I/LYUH #633) with a tune by Kathleen Hart Brumm. Since Naomi is a self-described fan of kyries, we sang all of these. The Brumm kyrie, which has leader & congregation parts, was our favorite.
[Versions of these two confessions are found in Lift Up Your Hearts as “A Prayer of Confession and Assurance of Pardon” (LUYH #636) and “A Prayer of Confession” (LUYH #640). Lift Up Your Hearts has four “Kyrie/Lord, have mercy” songs: Brumm’s version; “Kyrie Eleison/Lord, Have Mercy” (LUYH #635), the Russian Orthodox kyrie; “Kyrie Eleison/Lord, Have Mercy” (LUYH #367), the Ghanan kyrie; and “Lord, Have Mercy” (LUYH #639) by Steve Merkel. None of these are linked to Psalm 51 in the indices.]
There are two other Psalm 51 settings in the Psalter Hymnals. The gray Psalter Hymnal includes “O God, Be Gracious to Me in Your Love” (PH87 #167), which is set to SONG 24, while the blue Psalter Hymnal has “O God, the God That Saveth Me” (PH57 #96), another hymn from the 1912 Psalter.