If we keep vigil in church, David comes first, last and central. If early in the morning we want songs and hymns, first, last and central is David again. If we are occupied with the funeral solemnities of those who have fallen asleep, or if virgins sit at home and spin, David is first, last and central. O amazing wonder! Many who have made little progress in literature know the Psalter by heart. Nor is it only in cities and churches that David is famous; in the village market, in the desert, and in uninhabitable land, he excites the praise of God. In monasteries, among those holy choirs of angelic armies, David is first, last and central. In the convents of virgins, where are the communities of those who imitate Mary; in the deserts where there are men crucified to the world, who live their life in heaven with God, David is first, last and central. All other men at night are overcome by sleep. David alone is active, and gathering the servants of God into seraphic bands, he turns earth into heaven, and converts men into angels.
Saint John Chrysostom, quoted by Father Lazarus Moore, Orthodox Psalter
A few months ago I discovered Father Lazarus Moore’s translation of the Psalter, which is available online here. (It’s available in Word somewhere too, but I can’t find it now). Apart from being a highly recommended translation of the Septuagint Psalter (the esteemed Esteban Vázquez praises it here as “at once laconic and lyrical”), it also has an introductory essay on the Psalms that is one of the best things I remember reading on them. In it Father Lazarus discusses not only the nature, content, and theology of the Psalms, but also their use and impact as the prayer book of the Church. Here are some rather pithy snippets that suggest the riches to be found in this article and the themes it raises:
The songs of Israel find their full meaning only in the New Adam. …
The eternal Spirit transforms history into theology. …
We need to learn afresh the Christian use of the Psalter. …
The Church never merely studied the Psalms. …
Orthodox theology as a unity of knowledge is a means to an end that transcends all knowledge. The end is union with God. The Psalms sum up the whole salvation history and theology of the Old Covenant. The lights and shadows of the total panorama are all here. …
The meaning of the events lies in man’s meeting with God. …
The light that judges us, transfigures and saves us. …
The Psalms are the Bible in miniature. By a kind of divine tom-tom they drum into our consciousness the truth that we meet God in the world of persons, things and events. Here and now we are to pass through the visible and transient to the invisible and true. Yet the initiative always rests with God. …
The Psalms were the utterances of both David and Christ. …
A striking and mysterious figure looms larger and larger, and gradually takes shape, as we read and re-read the Psalms. He is the Son of God, appointed King on Zion to rule the nations (Ps. 2). … different facets of the same face and person are sprinkled throughout the Psalter, and we need them all to get the full portrait. …
We are at the same time in the wilderness and in the Promised Land. …
The Psalms teach us to enlarge our hearts or consciousness to embrace all mankind. …
…the cross is the key to the Psalms, as it is the key to the Kingdom. …
The Psalter is the expression of the heart of the true man. It is the prophetic portrait of the mind and heart of the coming Saviour. …
One of the images that struck me most in this essay was the comparison of the Psalms to “a kind of divine tom-tom.” I suspect that many of us were brought up expecting religious texts to be clear-cut and to easily and immediately reveal their meaning. I have heard many people saying that that they dislike the Psalms because they are dark or violent or do not express what they are feeling. The Church’s discipline of praying the Psalter – the whole Psalter and not only the bits that we pick and choose – confronts us with a range human realities and does not allow us to escape into our own subjective preferences at any given moment. But it also hold before us a reality that cannot be reduced to any one set meaning; it presents a range of voices and many layers, which, over the years, yield their meaning to us. But this is no simply cerebral meaning – praying the Psalms is a also a physical act, an act that involves our whole person and in which we immerse ourselves, allowing ourselves to be shaped and ultimately transformed by them. As Father Lazarus writes:
People talk of haunted houses. The Psalter is a house of prayer haunted by the Spirit of Christ Who inspired the Psalms. Used aright, they cannot fail to lift us above and beyond ourselves. They confront us with God and we find ourselves haunted by His presence and gradually brought face to face with Him. They bring our hearts and minds into the presence of the living God. They fill our minds with His truth in order to unite us with His love. The saints and fathers of the Church, like the patriarchs and prophets of Israel, were haunted by the living reality of the Redeemer revealed to the world in the Psalter. He is the Word of God hidden in these ‘words of God’. As you persevere in praying the Psalms, you will be drenched with the Holy Spirit as the trees are drenched with the rain (Ps. 103:16), you will be rapt in God and penetrated from time to time with vivid intuitions of His action, your mind and heart will be purified.
Postscript: I had been thinking about this text for some time. But yesterday I happened to listen to a lecture by James K.A. Smith entitled Redeeming Ritual: Penance Takes Practice and realized that it was quite applicable to the praying of the Psalter. While what he says shouldn’t be anything new for Orthodox Christians, he does articulate well what we may take for granted and which I suspect goes rather against the grain for some Protestants, or at least for some of the rather glib things many people say about ritual.
A vow of conversation 
January 25, 2015 at 7:53 pm
Wondering why Father Lazarus Moor used the word “tom-tom” in his sork on the Psalms?
Haven’t read the book, but I do love the Psalms as they are whatever their translation may be. It’s also good to go to the root of the translations, I believe, either in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin — official translations — Lyrical is good, too, but it seems, more personal!
Thank you for the post! It’s beautiful done!
p.s. instead of “tom-tom” one could use “bells”, “chimes”, or anyother vehicle of sound/ vibration/ tone/ a piano, an organ, a flute, a simple whistle, etc. It’s the “listening ear of the heart” the receptive element of the WORD, that is so necessary, don’t you think?
In Christ Jesus, Peace!
January 25, 2015 at 8:26 pm
Thanks for your comment, and peace to you. I can see that the term “tom-tom” might sound jarring to some, but I found that it somehow expressed my experience that even when I’m not particularly receptive or well-tuned the Psalms still pray themselves, carry us and form us. Yes, of course we are called to pray them reverently and with attention, but I think that we are speaking about praying them for the long haul and it is inevitable that there will be times than we are not as attentive as others and that the Psalter works on us in ways that are not only conscious. Tom-tom somehow suggests that they are able to eventually break through my various competing voices, whether internal or external. At least, I think that’s what it said to me…
Also, while I certainly agree about faithfulness to the original texts, and while my own Greek is (most regrettably) not good enough to judge, from what I know of Esteban, if he praises a translation as lyrical I am pretty sure that he’s not using the term as an alternative to faithful! Rather the discussion needs to be seen within the context of suitable English translations of the Greek Septuagint text, which is the official Psalter of the Orthodox Church.
January 26, 2015 at 1:52 am
Thanks for this! Your post reminds me of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible:
I suspect the variety of different things presented today under the common name “worship” stems from the question of whether our encounter with God is meant to express us, or to shape us.
January 26, 2015 at 8:04 am
Thank you for your comment, Father. I really appreciate the quote from Bonhoeffer.
February 4, 2015 at 3:28 pm
It was not the Spirit of Christ Who inspired the Psalms. they where given by God and not by His son.
February 4, 2015 at 3:34 pm
[…] The Psalms as a Divine Tom-tom (avowofconversation.wordpress.com) A few months ago I discovered Father Lazarus Moore’s translation of the Psalter, which is available online here. (It’s available in Word somewhere too, but I can’t find it now). Apart from being a highly recommended translation of the Septuagint Psalter (the esteemed Esteban Vázquez praises it here as “at once laconic and lyrical”), it also has an introductory essay on the Psalms that is one of the best things I remember reading on them. In it Father Lazarus discusses not only the nature, content, and theology of the Psalms, but also their use and impact as the prayer book of the Church. […]