Psalms of Supplication and Lament

The 150 psalms carry a diversity of emotions, themes and promises. They have been central to Jewish and Christian worship for three thousand years. It is human nature to categorize things, to draw lines and put objects in boxes and there are many ways to categorize the psalms. Here is one such list at a webpage of the Christian Resource Institute.

The most common type of psalm is a psalm of Lament, a song of crying out to God. As Bob McCabe writes in The Genre of the Psalms, "Lament is the most dominant genre found in the Psalter. More than one-third of the psalms are of this nature." Many of these songs have a plaintive plea, "How long?", begging God to step forward and answer their prayers. "Why is God silent?" is a question many of us have asked as some fervent prayers go unanswered. This question is asked by Job and many of the psalmists. 

In Psalm 79:1-3 the psalmist walks through the Jerusalem temple after its destruction by the Babylonians. The temple is burned. Bodies litter the streets. No one is around to bury the dead. The once glorious temples smells of smoking wood and rotting bodies. How could God allow this? What is to come next? Will God protect the prisoners enroute to Babylon? Will He ever return to watching over Jerusalem?

In many of these laments, there is a supplication, a begging, that is eventually replaced by a uplifting statement of trust and thanksgiving. In Psalm 73 Asaph laments about the success of the wicked. In verse 13 he complains

 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure

    and have washed my hands in innocence...

and then admits to the stress these thoughts give him (verse 14):

All day long I have been afflicted,

and every morning brings new punishments.

A transition occurs in verse 15, where he admits

If I had spoken out like that,

I would have betrayed your children.

Sometimes the resolution is strong and enthusiastic; the answer and victory have appeared in front of the psalmist and he sings of his thankfulness. In others psalms, like Psalm 73, above, the thanksgiving is more a statement of faith, a statement that the answer is coming soon. In some psalms, like Psalm 79, written by the despondent man among the ruins of Jerusalem, there is only lament and a promise that if YHWH will someday answer their pleas, the people will praise Him. (Even more depressing is Psalm 88 where the distressed psalmist laments about death and, in his supplications, makes no faith statement.) These psalms run the gamut of confidence, some ending with an enthusiastic, "Yes! Thank-you!" while others end with the weeping of someone saying, "I am still here God, still calling, still trusting, even in the silence."

At this point we have finished Book I of the Psalms and are almost a third of the way through the psalter. Let's review some past examples.

• In Psalm 3 (blog post here) David alternates between supplication and confidence, rising at the end to a statement of confidence, not just for himself but for the nation of Israel.
• Psalm 12  (blog post here) is a lament about the success of the wicked, ending with a strong statement of confidence in God's promises and that justice will come.
• Psalm 13 (blog post here) is a classic example, in which David begins with "How long?" but ends with the confident "But I trust in your unfailing love..."
• Psalm 22 (blog post here) begins in distress, distress so deep that it describes a death scene. The mood of the psalm alternates between supplication and confidence in God's eternal plan. The end of the psalm describes suffering beyond those of David and includes global promises to "the ends of the earth" and "famiies of nations". This song grows in meaning when we hear Messiah Yeshuah repeating the opening words of this psalm upon the cross (Matthew 27:46.)
• Psalm 42 (blog post here) and Psalm 43 (blog post here), originally a single song, cycles through stanzas such as

"Why, my soul, are you downcast? 

Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, 

for I will yet praise him, 

my Savior and my God,"

stanzas that follow the lament with an admonition of faith.

Resources

Here are several online lectures related to psalms of supplication and lament.

1. An online lecture on The Suffering Psalms by Mike Mazzalango (36 minutes)
2. An online lecture on The Assurance Psalms by Mike Mazzalango (41 minutes)

We will look at various psalm themes as we continue in Book II of the psalter.