Psalm 138: The Essence Of Prayer
An anthology of allusions in one psalm
Maybe it is just because we are nearing the end of Psalms, but it feels as if Psalm 138 is an anthology of allusions to earlier psalms. And with that, its conceptual cadence is distinctive.
It is easy to obsess over the seemingly internal contradictions of Psalms, and the mental or linguistic acrobatics some commentaries need to do to find coherence.
Sometimes we know the exact location of His temple (138:2), and sometimes, we need directions (43:3-4). Sometimes we have a personal God (138:3, Psalm 118), and sometimes we celebrate God’s universality (138:4, Psalm 113). Sometimes God answers (138:3), and sometimes God ignores (13:2).
Sometimes we pray for the kings of the earth to praise God and all His glory (138:5), and sometimes we pray for God to destroy all the kings (105:10, 68:13-15, among others). Sometimes God is literally “on high” and sometimes God visits or sees the lowest of the lows, and often the two occur in the same psalm or verse, like 138:6 echoing 113:4-6.
Sometimes we walk among or through our enemies, like 138:7, or more famously, 23:4, and sometimes we are surrounded by them (3:7). Sometimes God extends His right hand to us (138:7) and sometimes we consider ourselves to be the right hand of God (Psalm 118).
And sometimes we ask for God to fight our battles for us (138:8), and sometimes, we offer to fight His battles for Him (Psalm 118, again), or decide for Him who His enemies are and question His creations, even if they are members of our own families (Psalm 58).
Psalms is a collection of the human experience: encompassing love and hate; being both heard and ignored; individualistic, but part of a greater whole; connection and loneliness; the highs and the lows; having stability, or being in dire straits; the ability to walk with your head up high, and the cowering in fear; the asking of directions and finding your own way; the considering of oneself to be righteous, and being the victim of the self-righteous.
When we lack the words to describe how we are feeling at a moment, we can find a psalmist who felt the same. It’s like listening to Taylor Swift. There is hope in seeing that we weren’t the first to experience a certain emotion, and finding a phrase that perfectly encapsulates a mood, that whenever we read or recite it, it transforms itself into a beautiful version of self-expression.
And that is the essence of prayer in its purest form.