Psalms in Our Time

Psalm 146: I'll praise my Maker with my breath

Another timeless theme: the brevity of human life, and making wise use of the time we have, seemed to resonate with Isaac Watts, who was for most of his life painfully aware of his own mortality.

I'll praise my Maker with my breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

Why should I make a man my trust?
Princes must die and turn to dust;
Vain is the help of flesh and blood:
Their breath departs, their pomp, and power,
And thoughts, all vanish in an hour,
Nor can they make their promise good.

Happy the man whose hopes rely
On Israel's God: he made the sky,
And earth, and seas, with all their train:
His truth for ever stands secure;
He saves th'oppressed, he feeds the poor,
And none shall find his promise vain.

The Lord hath eyes to give the blind;
The Lord supports the sinking mind;
He sends the lab'ring conscience peace;
He helps the stranger in distress,
The widow and the fatherless,
And grants the pris'ner sweet release.

He loves his saints, he knows them well,
But turns the wicked down to hell;
Thy God, O Zion! ever reigns:
Let every tongue, let every age,
In this exalted work engage;
Praise him in everlasting strains.

I'll praise him while he lends me breath;
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers:
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

Text: Isaac Watts (1719)

Meter: 8,8,8,8,8,8
Rhyme scheme: aabccb

The psalmist meditates on the concept of time: not the unimaginably vast divine time of Psalm 90, but the "vapor" or "breath" of the current moment. God works in a time of his choosing, but the psalmist has only "this moment" in which to choose to work: and he will choose to devote it to the praise of God.

Isaac Watts1 expresses a faith going beyond this psalm (but not Psalm 23): even though he has not the promise of another moment of life to choose, he sees an eternity in which his current choices will be abundantly vindicated.

"Old 113th": Matthäus Greiter, 1525

Strasbourg Psalter; abridged
Incipit: ddrmdmfs|sfmrdmfs; 11231 34554 32134
Melodic scheme: Through-composed

Matthäus Greiter (~1490-1550) was a monk, precentor, and musician in Strasbourg, regarded as one of the best composers of his generation. He became a protestant in 1524, and served Lutheran churches as singer, cleric, and teacher until 1548. Four of his tunes were taken up in Calvin's first psalter, and still remain in use in the Genevan Psalter

Since 1525, this tune has been used in Germany with Es sind doch selig alle, die, Greiter's version of Psalm 119. The completed Genevan Psalter (and Lobwasser's German translation of it) has always used it for psalms 36 and 68. It passed into English use through the Anglo-Genevan Psalter. In the English and Scottish Psalters, it was used with Psalm 113. John Wesley, generally critical of psalm tunes currently in use, especially loved this one: he included it in all his tune books, and sang it (in this abridged form2, to this text) the day before he died.

Its only presence in our hymnals is in Great Songs of the Church, Revised.

Use:

This message reappears in the New Testament: God will save his people "in an acceptable time", but from our perspective "today is the day of salvation" -- "The night is coming, when nobody can work". The psalm is appropriate whenever we are reminded of the passage of time, or need to be reminded to use it well. With a culture geared toward providing so many distractions, and with so many sources advertising twenty-four-hour consumption of advertising-laden entertainment as the ideal, this is a message we need to hear.

See the devotional plans for Isaac Watts: Time in the Psalms and The Hallel Psalms: Between the Hallelujahs.

Notes:

1See notes on Isaac Watts; also Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts and Dictionary of National Biography, "Isaac Watts", online at CCEL.
2Robert Bridges protested the abridgement ("330 years of abuse") and used the original (unabridged, or, I suppose, "Bridged") version of the tune in his 1899 Yattendon Hymnal.

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Copyright © 2002,2003,2004, Stephen Hutcheson
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These studies are created by members of the West Allen Church of Christ in Allen, Texas