September 16, 2014

Psalm 145: A Song of Praise

1 I will extol Thee, my God and King,
  and bless Thy name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless Thee,
  and praise Thy name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
  and His greatness is unsearchable.
4 One generation shall laud Thy works to another,
  and shall declare Thy mighty acts.
5 On the glorious splendor of Thy majesty,
  and on Thy wondrous works, I will meditate.
6 Men shall proclaim the might of Thy terrible acts,
  and I will declare Thy greatness.
7 They shall pour forth the fame of Thy abundant goodness,
  and shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness.
8 The Lord is gracious and merciful,
  slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 The Lord is good to all,
  and His compassion is over all that He has made.
10 All Thy works shall give thanks to Thee, O Lord,
  and all Thy saints shall bless Thee!
11 They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom,
  and tell of Thy power,
12 to make known to the sons of men Thy mighty deeds,
  and the glorious splendor of Thy kingdom.
13 Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
  and Thy dominion endures throughout all generations.
The Lord is faithful in all His words,
  and gracious in all His deeds.
14 The Lord upholds all who are falling,
  and raises up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look to Thee,
  and Thou givest them their food in due season.
16 Thou openest Thy hand,
  Thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is just in all His ways,
  and kind in all His doings.
18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
  to all who call upon Him in truth.
19 He fulfils the desire of all who fear Him,
  He also hears their cry, and saves them.
20 The Lord preserves all who love Him;
  but all the wicked He will destroy.
21 My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
  and let all flesh bless His holy name for ever and ever.


1. Praise: Psalm 145 introduces the last section of the Book of Psalms as one continuous hymn of praise. It is an acrostic prayer, meaning that each verse begins in order with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, to convey a sense of completeness,  A to Z (or aleph א, to tav ת.). The psalm says that “One generation shall praise thy works to another,” and indeed this prophecy is proven true. The psalm could have been written as early 1000 BC and here we are 3000 years later—or about 120 generations, each one encountering God, following Him, worshipping Him,  and praising Him to their children and grandchildren.

2. The Names of God. Psalm 145 is also a hymn blessing the name of God. Or rather names, beginning with the sacred tetragrammaton, YHWH (יהוה), unpronounced in Jewish piety but replaced with Adonai (“The Lord”). But in the first seven verses He is also named King, Eternal, Everlasting, Grand, Majesty, Mighty and Master. Verse 2 is used in the doxology: Every day I will bless Thee, and praise Thy name for ever and ever.

3. A God for All. While Israel in the Bible sees itself as inexplicably chosen by God, it is striking here how often He is extolled as the God of all.

Food
“The eyes of all look to Thee, and Thou givest them their food in due season”

The Lord is good to all, and His compassion is over all that He has made.
The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to Thee, and Thou givest them their food in due season.
Let all flesh bless His holy name for ever and ever.

4. Food for All. Psalm 145 might be best known from verses 15-16 which are often used as a blessing for meals in various Christian traditions of East and West:

The eyes of all look to Thee,
and Thou givest them their food in due season.
Thou openest thy hand,
Thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing.

The Coptic Liturgy of Saint Basil includes this as part of a petition to the One who “gives food to all flesh.”

Give joy to the face of the earth. May its furrows be abundantly watered and its fruits be plentiful. Prepare it for sowing and harvesting. Manage our life as deemed fit. Bless the crown of the year with your goodness for the sake of the poor of your people, the widow, the orphan, the traveler, the stranger, and for the sake of us all who entreat you and seek your holy name. For the eyes of every one wait upon you, for you give them their food in due season. Deal with us according to your goodness, O you who give food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that we too, having sufficiency in every thing always, may abound in every good deed.

The connection with food also links Psalm 145 with Christ giving His Body and Blood as food to the faithful, so it is used in the Orthodox world as a prayer after communion (together with Psalm 34).

Update

Bp Alexander
Bishop Alexander at St Vladimir’s Seminary

Last Sunday evening, I was at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary to hear Bishop Alexander of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese give the annual Father John Meyendorff Memorial Lecture. He is an eminent scholar of patristic teaching on the spiritual life, and his lecture was entitled: “Force Your Mind to Descend into the Heart”: Some Resemblances between Byzantine Hesychasm and Merkavah Mysticism”. As the SVS website reports,

In his presentation, Bishop Alexander described the development of the Orthodox Christian hesychast tradition and highlighted its affinities with Jewish Merkavah Mysticism. The Hebrew word “merkavah” meaning “chariot,” was the name assigned to a type of prayerful meditation practiced by early Jewish mystics as they contemplated the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of heavenly beings.

According to His Grace, common threads between the Christian and Jewish meditation practices include: invocation of the Divine name as means of entry into the heavenly realm; emphasis on self denial and purification; and similar temple traditions. These two “concurrent and parallel streams,” said His Grace, might provide a basis for productive inter-faith dialogue.

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Bishops
Metropolitan Tikhon (r), Archbishop Demetrios (left), at 2013 meeting of the Assembly of Bishops

His Beatitude and the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America are in Dallas this week for the annual gathering of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. This brings together the bishops of the various jurisdictions to work on greater collaboration and common witness, leading one day—at least this is the OCA hope—to a single, united, autocephalous Orthodox Church. Please keep the bishops in your prayers.