(Here’s the 16th 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, Psalm 15, Psalm 51, and Psalm 6.)
Our class looked at Psalm 32 (along with Psalm 6) during our third Sunday (Feb. 9) on the seven penitential psalms. Psalm 32 is included in the Revised Common Lectionary during Lent (Years A & C) and two ordinary time Lord’s Days in Year C. (Psalm 6 isn’t included in the lectionary.)
Psalm 32 finds the psalmist looking back on a time of unrepentant sinning—“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long”—and recognizing the joy and peace that comes from repentance.
Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
Now the psalmist can recognize that the Lord is “my hiding place [who] will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance” and raise a call to worship: “Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!”
Psalm 32 has elements of a wisdom psalm: its opening (reminiscent of Psalm 1) and verses 8-10:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.
Some commentators suggest that this section has another speaker (viz., God instructing the psalmist in response to repentance), but it may be that the psalmist’s response to God’s mercy is to instruct others in the ways of the Lord (like the author of Psalm 51; see verse 13). Members of our class disagreed about the contemporary relevance of mule references in a society with a paucity of mules. I think it’s a pointed comparison: Where do I go that I couldn’t if the Lord limited my movement by tying me up? What sort of things do I say that I couldn’t if God placed a bit in my mouth to limit my speech to “only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29)?
There are only three settings of Psalm 32 in CRC hymnals.
“How Blest Are They Whose Trespass” (PFAS #32A/LUYH #669/PH87 #32/PH57 #55) is one of the select 69 hymns to appear in all three Psalter Hymnals and Lift Up Your Hearts with the same tune (RUTHERFORD). It is the only Psalm 32 setting to appear in any of the Psalter Hymnals.
How blest are they whose trespass
has freely been forgiven,
whose sins are wholly covered
before the sight of heaven.
Blest they to whom the LORD God
does not impute their sin,
who have a guileless spirit,
whose heart is true within.
The lyrics come from two songs in the 1912 Psalter. The first three stanzas (vv. 1-7) are from a hymn set to RUTHERFORD. The fourth and fifth stanzas (vv. 8-11) are from another hymn. (Each hymn covers only part of the psalm.) The two hymns were collapsed into one in the 1934 Psalter Hymnal. The lyrics and title, originally “How Blest Is He Whose Trespass,” were updated for the gray Psalter Hymnal.
The saying about horses and mules, bits and bridles doesn’t appear in the hymn. Stanza 3 contains a paraphrase of v. 9 (“Then do not be unruly or slow to understand; be not perverse, but willing to heed my wise command”). The lyrics and a footnote suggesting the stanza be sung by a soloist seemingly endorse the theory that vv. 8-9 is spoken by the Lord.
[RUTHERFORD’s other use in Lift Up Your Hearts is for the hymn “Cast Down, O God, the Idols” (LUYH #626).]
The responsorial setting is “You Are My Hiding Place” (PFAS #32B/LUYH #412). It also appears in Lift Up Your Hearts as a standalone song, which can be sung as a canon. The beginning is derived from Psalm 32:7, the ending from Joel 3:10.
You are my hiding place.
You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance.
Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you.
I will trust in you.
Let the weak say,“I am strong in the strength of the Lord.”
The only other Psalm 32 hymn in Psalms for All Seasons is “While I Keep Silence” (PFAS #32C), which is inspired by verses 3-4 & 7. (Unhelpfully, the musical score has only the melody line.) We sang it with piano (Andrew) and violin (Naomi). However, we liked the version here and concluded that the hymn may work best a cappella.
While I keep silence, silence, silence in my flesh,
my breath and body fail.
My sins grow bitter, bitter, bitter in my mouth.
My bones return to dust.
O God, I groan both day and night,
beneath your heavy hand.