A Psalm Of Grace: Psalm 51

1 God be merciful to me [1]
On Thy grace I rest my plea;
Plenteous in compassion Thou,
Blot out my transgressions now;
Wash me, make me pure within,
Cleanse, O cleanse me from my sin.

2 My transgressions I confess,
Grief and guilt my soul oppress;
I have sinned against Thy grace
And provoked Thee to Thy face; I confess
Thy judgment just, Speechless,
I Thy mercy trust.

3 I am evil, born in sin;
Thou desirest truth within.
Thou alone my Saviour art,
Teach Thy wisdom to my heart;
Make me pure, Thy grace bestow
Wash me whiter than the snow.

4 Broken, humbled to the dust
By Thy wrath and judgment just,
Let my contrite heart rejoice
And in gladness hear Thy voice;
From my sins O hide Thy face,
Blot them out in boundless grace. [2]

—Psalter, Tune: Ajalon

In the first four issues of our journal we presented four “Hymns of Grace.” But the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostle Paul, wants us to be built up in the faith in hymns (hymn oi)-compositions addressed directly to God, spiritual songs (ōdai pneumatikai)—songs about our spiritual walk with God and our problems, and psalms (psalmoi). (See Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16.) The last category is generally believed to refer to the same psalms that we have in our OT, which were sung by the early Christians.’

There was a time when psalms were sung nearly exclusively in Protestant churches. Isaac Watts’s first compositions were largely paraphrases of the Psalms, and only later do we find completely fresh hymns not based on the Psalter. (There were, however, many hymns used from the earlier days of Christianity, and the NT itself probably contains fragments of these compositions (such as Phil 2:5ff).

So popular was the Psalter during the great period of Huguenot history that when a Roman Catholic was converted to the Reformation, he or she was said to “have gone to singing psalms.” In the shops, fields, and everywhere, the air was filled with the psalms-in French, Dutch, and English.

Today the opposite is true. The psalms have been crowded out by hymns, hymns by spiritual songs, and in many circles, the latter have been replaced by choruses, many of them devoid of doctrine or the beauty of holiness.

The editor was not raised in a psalm-singing community (except for the handful in the hymnal), but the addition of a psalter to our congregational singing has greatly enriched our worship. I recommend the psalms for building up spiritual backbone (compare the Scots, the Dutch, and the Huguenots for evidence of this observation).

Psalm 51 is a favorite psalm with millions simply because it has been the experience of millions after confession of sin and restoration.

What would David say if he could see his psalm translated, paraphrased, and featured in a Christian journal? I think he would say, “Amen!”

Some very strict Reformed churches will sing only psalms in church. They teach that Paul’s three categories are only three types of compositions, all from the Book of Psalms. Since the NT is believed to contain fragments of early Christian hymns, most Christians, including most Reformed people, would see this restriction as too rigid.

Notes

1. This metrical paraphrase of Psalm 51 is often sung to “Ajalon” by Richard Redhead. It is the tune associated with Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s lovely hymn, “When This Passing World is Done” (found in many Protestant hymnals).
2. The translation of ḥesed is usually “lovingkindness” or “mercy” in KJV and NKJV. Currently it is popularly translated “loyal love,” though actually there is strong, evidence that the word does not really mean “love,” but God’s gracious commitment m action. Whether for reasons of poetry (“grace” is a one-syllable word with many rhymes!) or spiritual perception on the part of the paraphraser, grace frequently shows up m English psalters. To this editor, at least, grace seems a good translation of ḥesed.