Professor David Peimer
The Poetry of the Psalms
Professor David Peimer - The Poetry of the Psalms
- [Judy] So welcome again, David, and welcome to everybody who’s joining us this afternoon. And David, over to you.
- Okay, thanks so much again, Judy, to you and Wendy and everybody, and you know, hi to everybody everywhere around, all over in disparate parts of the world. So hope everyone is well, and we’re going to kick off today with looking at the Poetry of the Psalms. What I’m going to do is just talk a little bit about the Psalms and some context first, and then secondly, look at it overall from the perspective of the Psalms as poetry and literature and very different obviously, to, you know, the many varied and rich interpretations that are possible. Then after that, what I’m going to do is just share some of David Suchet, the superb British actor, I’m sure many know, aside from him being Jewish. But he has read all 150 Psalms from the book of Psalms, and it’s all been recorded and it’s amongst the best readings I’ve found, combining a sense of the actor reading and performing and also, as you know, trying to get a sense of the poetry and the meaning. And I’ll be playing some of him actually reading some of the Psalms.
Okay, first of all, just to say that, to give a context before we dive into looking at some of them specifically, again, I’m really looking at it in terms of the poetry. It’s far too complex a question, I think, of interpretation and response, to look at only one, you know, simple or literal or obvious meaning. I’m not going to be focusing on historical, religious debates and interpretations. And as I said, you know, the treasure chest of many fascinating possible interpretations, which many people, not only scholars, but many individuals over the centuries have written about, you know, of Judaism and obviously Christianity, and other scholars, philosophy and so on. So this combines, in a way, something of the personal, together with, as trying to have a sense of the complexity of how the poetry works and what it evokes, why and how it evokes certain things in us. Not only, you know, Jewish people watching or Jewish people reading or hearing, but in a sense, universal. Because obviously, it speaks to Christianity, it speaks to Judaism and others globally, I would say. But this is coming from a certain personal perspective, given the enormous complexity of the debates.
And I’ve also tried to include some very contemporary thinkers who look at it in terms of poetry. Obviously, that will defacto link to some of the history, a little bit of the history and a little bit of the religious connotation and interpretation. If I may just say, my first interest started, and this is a very simple example, many, many years ago, decades ago in Johannesburg. And I have a very good friend who’s Xhosa, and also he often writes the music for plays I do, et cetera, together with my great friend Sharon, who does a lot of the visuals that we’ve done together. His name is Sink, and he’s Seventh Day Adventist. And many, many years ago we went travelling together with a group of us. There were about five of us in a fairly big car. And he asked, and he’s very, very devoutly Seventh Day Adventist. And he asked if, at the beginning, before we all travelled, if we could all just spend two minutes and he would like to just say a psalm.
And in the beginning everybody was cynical and negative and questioning and teasing and so on. But he just slowly started ‘cause he knows a lot of the psalms of the heart, and slowly started to say one. And within about seven or eight seconds, there was complete silence. Everybody listened. And then he asked at the end of the Psalm, a little prayer that we would not have an accident and everybody would be safe. Nobody spoke for the next 20 minutes in the car, from being pretty boisterous before. And it’s always struck me through learning and understanding some of the interpretation and approach, through Sink, my friend, you know? What is it actually that is working so powerfully, and again, coming in through the poetry? And of course, you know, there is so much here in it. When I first was reading all those years ago, it struck me, and some of the things I’m going to say are pretty obvious and I’m sure many people have thought of this or have read in various ways. So it is something of a more personal response, given the number of, you know, the thousands, if not millions of interpretations. There’s a God who we can debate with, can argue with, discuss, and most importantly dialogue. A speaking God who speaks back, and we speak to, you know?
The archetypal figure, and I use that word thoughtfully, the archetypal of figure of a David speaking to, being spoken back, hearing, listening, you know? It’s very much an oral and and literary culture in a way, that has been represented here. Most importantly, obviously, as we know, a monotheistic, abstract notion of God, but a constant dialogue almost all the time. And when one reads psalm after psalm, again and again and again, you get that sense all the time, much more developed than the soliloquies of Shakespeare and many others of great theatre; of a constant dialogue happening, and argument and discussion, seeking help for the sorrows and lamentation. The grief of life, guidance, seeking refuge. And I think, in the end, talking to, and being spoken back to. And I’m going to come onto the kinds of language that strikes me here. Okay, there’s 150 psalms, as I’m sure many people know, in the book of Psalms.
And obviously, these were written initially, as far as I think, most scholars or historians agree, they’re written as songs to be sung with the harp or other musical instruments. So a certain aesthetic beauty already built into the lyrical way of writing and the lyrical way of imagining singing, before it becomes codified in organisational structures, much later, in the last couple of centuries, going into our century. As we all know, they’re written in the praise of God. You know, originally the Greek word psalm, is really meant about praise, reaching out, asking for help, as we all know, used in Christianity, part of the daily mass, how to pray, how to engage with prayer, how to recite the words as if the words are our own. And I think that’s very important. It’s almost as if when one reads them again and again, and one gets a sense with, when the actor David Suchet, reads, they almost feel that one can take them in as one’s own words. That’s an extraordinary achievement for poetry written, you know, possibly thousands of years ago. Extraordinary, as if there are one’s own words.
And you know, obviously, there are poets like Shakespeare and many of the others who come close to this. But this somehow, goes deeper, and I’m going to try and understand why, that we can individualise and imbibe them almost like our own words although, they ironic, paradoxically, have such a universal appeal. And the fact that it is poetry. So how do we relate to this God, or a notion of God, through poetry? Ask for help, for guidance and so on? I’m not going to go into the whole area of discussion whether, you know, David wrote them, and Moses, or Solomon wrote two of them, you know, a couple of them, et cetera. That’s all separate discussions about authorship, and debates. But it’s generally accepted they were written over many, many years, as everybody knows. Just one small indication of the power of the Psalms is the, you know, when, in the Book of Luke, where, where he, quotes yeah, apparently quotes Christ. And the quote is, “All things which are written about me,” that’s about Christ, about me, Christ, “In the laws of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. So it’s a sense of Luke interpreting Christ’s words from the laws of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms to be fulfilled, interesting word fulfilled, but also that, that Luke puts these three together and the absolute centrality of the Psalms, not only of beauty, but a way of living, way of being in poetry with these words. Obviously they offer comfort and often they offer comfort without necessarily judgement , which I find quite fascinating.
You know, the writer is not judged really as you know, the writer seeks comfort. And what’s extraordinary ultimately is our book of poems, of Psalms, songs coming from a fairly small group, you know, in the Middle East, a fairly small group could have such extraordinary resonance as the centuries rolled by, you know, going way out of the Middle East globally and remaining in the 21st century. So extraordinarily powerful and again, I’m trying to come I guess with a sense of my own. And from a 21st century perspective here, it’s what strike me, it’s obviously, you know, it’s about worship and you know, the worship of a god, but the resonance about why resonate so much. And I believe it because there is such common human experience and that’s why we can say these words almost as if they are own. They articulate so many, so much of our intimate relationships with ourselves and people we are close to or not so close to, but that we know so much of, so intimate, are really deep thoughts about ourselves and others that we engage with in family, community, work, you know, and then of course an intimate relationship with a God who we call Lord, Father.
Extraordinary connection. And I know obviously in Christianity it’s much more the Father, but nevertheless one must be open to these varied interpretations to really, I sent I think get a sense of the richness. So there’s such a close relationship, there’s obviously theological certainty. There’s hardly any questioning of whether God exists or not, that in other parts Book of Job and others, as we know, no need to prove God exists or not. It’s assumed, which gives it a fascinating approach to asking for, you know, the God to help or to at least comfort. A God who blesses, who gives victory, who punishes, who understands and gives love, gets angry, wants revenge, can forgive, be compassionate. The most fundamental aspects of the human condition and human heart are explored and expressed and for me, quite simple but beautiful language of nature. And by nature I mean, you know, rocks and the rocks and the wind and the earth and the land is so important. And imagery of animals and arrows and chariots of fire and other things. Quite not long words, you know, you know, as often as spoken about when you write librettos, you look for the short number of syllables in words. You don’t look for for words which have three or four, five syllables, usually, not always.
And the similar thing here with the poetry, at least anywhere in some of the, in English language translations. There’s also a question of, you know, the writer speaker to God, why me? God, why do I have to suffer all this? Why am I going through this? How dare you do this to me, God, you know, and it reminds me a bit to talking the other week about Tevye in "Fiddler”, you know, why can’t I have a bit more of this and a bit more of that? And would it be such a hassle, you know, if my horse wasn’t lame, you have to do that to me? Could I have a few more bucks, God? You know, your eternal picture and of course done with irony and charm and wit through Tevye. But it’s, I think coming from this ancient tradition of the Psalms and speaking to God and dialoguing with a force, a God out there and of course within us. And that’s such a beautiful and fascinatingly powerful way of understanding poetry. 'Cause the really good poetry, I believe, is poetry that again, that we feel is almost putting in words what we feel, what we’d like to say to each other, what we’d like to share. It just puts it with such rhythm, such metre, it puts it with such poetic intensity of emotion and imagination.
Not just a literal, you know, God, can you help me with you know, this or that? We see praises, lamentations, obviously, the grief, the sorrows of life. A plea and asking for help and a difference to the ancient Greek theatre. But we can see the influence with a song and, you know, speaking to the gods in that case. Religious ritual, the chorus in ancient Greek theatre of storytelling in ancient Greek theatre, the chorus and narrator characters and so on. And those also meant to be stories with music and a lot sung. So there’s, as we all know, a link with that. So in the 21st century, the Lord is my shepherd, a shepherd, you know, in such a highly technological, you know, century and era of human development, the Lord is my shepherd. And can we still respond to that, a shepherd looking after a flock? Well, yes, you know? My rock, a rock in a sea, you know, the land, Zion and so on. These words come down such simple words, which could, are taken completely out of context might seem banal, but in the context of a poem and what I’m trying to describe of this intimacy with ourselves, not just others, can come the language of, that has such immediate impact and articulate for us what I think we so often try to, which is really what good poetry does in a way that good songs do, I believe, whatever kind what whatever genre of song, you know, the 21st century and before, regardless of culture almost, regardless of era, it’s extraordinary how these 150 can have spread so widely and translated into so many languages globally. Ultimately we get it through this simplicity of language and the beauty and the rhythms of myth and poetry.
It’s not, you know, God, look, I’m having a real big problem. Can you help me? You know, I’ve got a problem with my job, my boss who I work with, or my family, my child is sick, please, you know, whatever, et cetera. It’s not the literal language of fact, it’s the language through, as I’m saying, as we all no through poetry, it’s the language of aesthetics, you know, and if we imagine it being sung. We are alone. We have things that we feel about being alone, thrown into this world, as Heidegger would say, you know, that we are thrown into the world and what happens alone. Family, love, hate, fear, wall suffering, refuge, respite. In Primo Levy’s beautiful phrase, the title of one of his book, “Moments of Reprieve”. And I always think that for, for Levy, for primo, ha ha has obviously a biblical echo and resonance, moments of reprieve. And he, in the book, he’s just finding little moments of reprieve in the horror of the camp where it’s a moment of humanity and it might be as fleeting as three seconds or a couple of minutes, you know, or even a glance that, that give us reprieve through the suffering and lamentations of life.
So, you know, I think that that Primo understands, and I really, I think his phrase for his book echoes through the centuries, you know, when he puts, use that word reprieve, you know, not consolation, not only comfort, those are words belonging to other centuries, maybe, you know, but reprieve from, from the sufferings and the, the griefs of life. Then of course the safety, the wisdom. There are insights in the Psalms, insights on life, the agonies and ecstasies of an ordinary human life, not necessarily just a great leader human life, but also a very ordinary human life. And I think it’s a part of that ordinariness that speaks to so many people wherever they are on the planet. You know, these are not only words put into the, into the mouth of a fictional character who is a great leader and statesman and, you know, leading battle charges and armies of the knight clashing, et cetera.
They can also just be ordinary people going through all these ordinary emotions. The language, it’s often argued that perhaps some of the origins of language, certainly, you know, some of the origins that have been discovered, I think in Latin or even older languages, you know, much older, ancient Sumerian and so on were about accounts and numbers, you know? You owe me 10 goats I give you et cetera, transaction business, but also the language of poetry. And I think that is fascinating for me. The language of accounts, which is business transaction, the language of poetry, and then of course the language of history, the language of narrative, and so many others come afterwards, the language of fact. And yet, so early on in human evolution comes the language of poetry, which is so powerful in, and the wonderful, the brilliant for me, African playwright, Wole Soyinka, who won the Nobel Prize, as we all know, and I hate that he was called the Shakespeare of Africa. I think it’s nonsense, you know, he just writes some beautiful, some amazing plays. But I don’t want to talk about that. What I want to mention is another book of his called “Myth, Literature and the African World”. And in that he understand, he links ancient African myths and how it works with, you know, the African world and the perception and worldview way back centuries, aeons before colonisation.
It’s a mythical way of seeing the world. It’s a metaphorical way of understanding life, of teaching us a way of living in the world. It’s metaphorical, it’s mythical, it’s poetic in the end. And these are passed down through, you know, hundred thousands of generations through oral storytelling, songs and dance as we know. And I don’t think that is so, and for me that is really the origin of theatre, more than only the Greeks going way back even before oral storytelling, you know, acting out main characters, an oral storyteller, et cetera. Song and dance, it’s, and so on. And Soyinka captures this, and that’s what he argues in that book, “Myth, Literature in the African World”. And it’s fascinating to go into these very, very ancient times in the other continent. He also talks about, you know, the rhythms of the language. And for me, in the translations at least, the rhythms in the language of the poetry, the images, and how metaphor not literal language is used to communicate. So what is poetry? Poetry captures something of emotion and imagination. Not only factual narrative. And strictly, you know, historical or sequence of events. “I wondered lonely as a cloud”.
Wordsworth. I mean, just that phrase, I wondered lonely as a cloud. It’s not just I walked down the street lonely, or I walked in the park lonely, or I was a bit sad, or I felt a bit alone. I wondered lonely as a cloud. It captures the emotion and the imagination of poetry and the rhythm and how language can work when with a poet so powerfully to evoke so much and speak to us, and this is to me what these psalms achieved and how in the 21st century they still speak to us, you know, so powerfully. “Life is better walking shadow. A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”. “Macbeth”. Well, three lines, but it captures wisdom of insight, of poetry, of almost lamentation, but then of a kind of sad yet mature realisation about life. “Poor player, his struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” It’s not only sad, you know, even the character MacBeth in that moment in the play, it’s said with insight, you know, it’s said with thought, and yet it evokes emotion and imagination and becomes unforgettable. So much written in so many such conciseness. And for me, this is what these psalms achieve in the poetry beyond narrative, beyond factual. You know, I went there, I did that, I took my dog, I felt alone and so on.
And we feel the rhythm of I iambic in Shakespeare, we feel the rhythm, I don’t have time to get into it, but of some of the ancient Hebrew or Aramaic in the words and the lines here. The symbols, as I said, come from nature and the mythical world of animals and the imagery of the life of the times, obviously of arrows and spears, chariots and fire, wind, house, the city, the land, the rock, all of these. And these are a one or two maximum three syllable words offered and powerful, a lot of powerful poetry uses that, that speaks to us today anyway, in, in, in the 21st century. This is how some of the poetry is shaped. Why poetry, why the need in human experience, human condition? Because I believe it captures emotion and imagination and gives us a way of expressing something very concisely and articulates so much of wisdom, feeling, and a bit of imagination together, the need for that. And of course then it can have many resonant meanings. You know, one can argue, one can debate, one can plead, lament, you know, or one can search, quest. All of these things can come through the myth and the metaphor. Also it, the psalms interestingly never question whether God loves the writer David or whoever or not. It’s taken as a given and there’s something very powerful and differentiates Shakespearean and many other soliloquies, you know, between that and the soliloquies, which are much more individualist and internal.
But here, there is a God, there is a force, there is a spirit, there is a belief, which is so profound and that’s very different to the soliloquies. You know, either of the ancient Greeks, even in their plays or in Shakespeare and and his contemporaries, Marlo and many others. Shakespeare’s phrase, “What is this quintessence of dust about being human?” Or what is quintessence? Quintessence, I can never get that word. Quintessentially human. I mentioned many of the other ideas. The one one I mentioned is the Lord God King, Father figure. Obviously we know Freud and many others have written about this, you know, but there is a sense of a father leader figure built in, the rock in the wilderness, the rock in the sea of life, the archetype through the suffering and the vulnerability and the questions of cheating and liars and betrayals. There is a rock somewhere to hold onto, to reach out for. Are they idealistic? Are they I romantic? Are they not realistic for us in the 21st century?
That’s for each person, I think to decide and to question really. Where there is a difference between the experience soliloquies is the sense of this greater power and this reaching out and absolute firm conviction and belief that there is that to worship or believe in and to praise. And that’s what will help. Also, unlike Beckett waiting for “Gadot”. you know, that is, there’s something out there that will come and help. Gadot will come, you know, will be there. And of course the brilliance of Beckett’s play doesn’t necessarily challenge, but at least questions and opens that, you know, in a fascinatingly poetic way. And then finally the difference with the ancient Greeks is that of course they have their gods, Zeus, you know, so many of the others and so on, and they’re full of mischief and they’re playing with each other and they play with the humans. And the old question of, you know, is is life human destiny and fate, or do we have choice? And of course the dramatic tension between the two in the worldview of the ancient Greeks and for us today, but here, this is not a God of mischief. This is not a series of gods of mischief and all sorts of other things. It’s a very different kind.
And relating it again to poetry and literature and, but the fact that it goes way back to the ancient Greek times is equally fascinating to me. Okay, what I’d like to do is place some of these, which we’re going to go through with David Suchet reading. Two, we’re going to start with one of the great classics that I’m sure and we all know, but if we can try to listen with almost, I guess, slightly fresh ears in terms of something of this, you know, that I’ve been speaking about. And of course we’re all going to know this only too well.
[David] “Nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his namesake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
I found that, what I find amazing is, is the classic that we know of Psalm 23, is when he reads it, we feel it’s so, in silence.
Psalm 24.
So human, so ordinary and yet articulated in these ways that firm conviction, that belief ,that searching, you know, but I have this conviction that this will help, and though I’m suffering and lamentations, this is what I can hold onto, but again, written in this way can last, you know, thousands of years. Okay? I want to go on to another one. Yeah, which we’ll have.
[David] “Courage from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand. When you rebuke and discipline anyone for their sin, you consume their wealth like a moth. Surely everyone is but a breath. Hear my prayer, Lord, listen to my cry for help. Do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were, look away from me that I may enjoy life again before I depart and am no more.”
Me. That’s extraordinary phrase. I’m a foreigner. We’re all just a breath. Look after me. Help me. I know that, you know, life is so short in fleeting. One of the great phrases from one of the other psalms, “Teach me, oh God, how to number my days.” Ever since I heard that decades ago. It just always is, has stuck in my head. Teach me, oh God, how to number my days. Carpe diem, how to seize the day, how to live, how to make smart choices, not foolish choices, you know, but it’s a combination of I may only have a few days, I may have many days, who knows in life? But how to teach me how to number my days so that I can make them with value, I can make them worthwhile for something every moment. And to aspire to that I think is an extraordinary aspiration. But it’s so personal the way that Suchet reads it, it strikes as such, it’s beyond Shakespearean soliloquy. It’s articulating something so deep and personal in us. Then to go on Psalm 40.
[David] “Psalm 40. I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mile. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
I have to hold it there for a second. He lifted me out of it, out of the mud and the, I mean short words. So evocative today, written thousands of years ago, the Bob Dylan song, you know, “Desolation Road”, you know, he’s, you know that he, he’s taken me down into the hole that he’s stuck in, you know, and trying to get out of the hole that he’s stuck in. It’s not me that’s, there’s so many poets that have been so inspired and echo these, some of these phrases and ideas, wisdom and emotion put in the, in the simple words of of poetry to carry on.
[David] “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you. Were I to speak and tell of your deeds? They would be too many to declare sacrifice and offering, you did not desire, but my ears you have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, here I am, I have come. It is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will my God. Your law is within my heart. I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly. I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know, I do not hide your righteousness in my heart. I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly. Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord, may your love and faithfulness always protect me, for troubles without numbers around me. My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head and my heart fails within me. Be pleased to save me Lord. Come quickly Lord.
Come quickly to help me.
"May all who want to take my life be put to shame and confusion. May all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. May those who say to me, aha, aha, be appalled at their own shame. But may all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You. May those who long for Your saving help always say 'The Lord is great’. But as for me, I am poor and needy. May the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer. You are my God. Do not delay.
I found some of those words so evocative, do not delay. Come quickly, help me. And he’s put with these other words and in the way that he’s obviously, you know, as, as a superb actor reading them just so simply evocative and powerful. And it makes me think whether it’s, I’m just using, I want to use the archetype of a David figure. He doesn’t flee, he doesn’t flee to God’s mercy in order to escape the judgement . He flees and appeals to God’s righteousness, to a sense of a comforting, helping and vengeful and angry and wrongful. But he appeals. He’s not scared to go there, not scared to go or to hide away. You know, in fact, I mean one of the great phrases, hide not your face. Hide not your face from me. I’m coming to you. Help me. Okay? Teach me the way I should go. You know, for my enemy has crushed my life to the ground. He’s made me sit in darkness. My spirit faints within me. My heart is appalled. Lest I be like those who go down to the, I have fled to you for refuge. So just such human, ordinary things of the slings and arrows of everyday life, which may be minus slings and arrows or huge ones. You know, for me, they still speak to us so powerfully. In other words, he’s fleeing to the arms of a God to help. And that’s saying, well, you know, of course we’re all sinners and he’s, you know, we are trying to get some help. And it’s also presented to me, which is the part of the intellectual side, which is almost like an argument. He’s arguing with himself and arguing, come, come on, come help me, please don’t delay. I’m crushed. I need your help.
And you know, it’s a very different kind of, I’m using the word again, quite thoughtfully archetype of character that is obviously, of many writers writing this and appealing and also the sense that we can rant, we can get upset, we can, you know, indulge, we can freak about suffering and mentations and grief and hard stuff that’s happening. It’s okay. I’m not going to be judged. And I think that’s, that’s a whole new addition. And in fact, asking to shame others. And as you know, some of you will know the, you know, I spoke about shame the other, other week. You know, the notion of shame often comes into these translations, you know, of that’s necessary, that others are shamed so that they become aware of, of what they’re doing to people. Contemporary references are obvious on a broader political sense, you know, Afghanistan and whatever, et cetera. But the shame here of just in ordinary day-to-day life. And that’s what’s the power for me. Okay, and I want to go on to the next one, that’s from the first 50 of the psalm and then the next one here, Psalm 51.
[David] Psalm 51. "Have mercy on me, me, oh God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash away all my inequity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, though you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb. You taught me wisdom in that secret place. Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones You have crashed, rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity, create in me a pure heart oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence, or take your holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways so that sinners will turn back to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed oh God, you who are God, my saviour and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Open my lips Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, oh God, is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart You, God will not despise. May it please You to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole. Then bulls will be offered on your altar.”
What’s amazing to me is, you know, he’s the, the character saying, I don’t need, you don’t need burnt offerings. I don’t need to, you know, slaughter cow or you know, animals and so on. My sacrifice is my broken spirit. That’s the sacrifice I offer to you. So can you help me? A little help from my friends? I mean, you know, it’s, it’s such a powerful image capturing again in, in a line or two, the image, imagination the emotion and the intelligence of insight. The wisdom. My sacrifice is a broken spirit. You know, I’m not cutting up a, a cow or chicken or whatever, and you don’t need the burnt offerings. This is what I bring, this is my sacrifice. It’s such a raw honesty that I think, you know, it cuts across aeons when you really think. So it’s, for me, there’s so many meanings contained, but what I’m trying to get at today is how the poetry through metaphor expresses it. And yet can you know, roam over centuries and I think really from the 21st century, speak to us today. Okay, so the next one I want to do is Psalm 55. And here.
[David] Psalm 55. “Listen to my prayer of God. Do not ignore my plea. Hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught because of what my enemy is saying, because of the threats of the wicked. For they bring down suffering on me and assail me in their anger. My heart is in anguish within me. The terrors of deaths have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me. Horror has overwhelmed me. I said, ‘Oh, that I had the wings of a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee far away and stay in the desert. I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.’ Lord confuse the wicked, confound their words, for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night, they prowl about on its walls. Malice and abuse are within it. Destructive forces are at work in the city. Threats and lies never leave its streets. If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it. If a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God as we walked about among the worshipers, let death take my enemies by surprise. Let them go down alive to the realm of the dead.
For evil finds lodging among them. As for me, I call to God and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon. I cry out in distress and he hears my voice. He rescues me unharmed from the battle waged against me even though many oppose me. God who is enthroned from of old who does not change, He will hear them and humble them because they have no fear of God. My companion attacks his friends. He violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart. His words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords. Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never let the righteous be shaken. But You God will bring down the wicked into the pit of decay. The blood thirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you.”
Extraordinary poetry capturing so much. Obviously the wars of David and others that are implied here, but I’m trying to move away from the wars. But to go into the person.
Psalm 56.
As well.
“Be merciful to me, my God, for my enemies are in hot pursuit. All day long, they press their attack. My adversaries pursue me all day long. In their pride, many are attacking me. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise, in God I trust. And I’m not afraid. What can mere immortals do to me? All day long, they twist my words. All their schemes are for may ruin. They conspire, they lurk. They watch my steps hoping to take my life. Because of their wickedness, do not let them escape. In your anger God, bring the nations down. Record my misery. List my tears on your scroll. Are they not in Your record? Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this, I will know that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, in God I trust. And I’m not afraid. What can man do to me? I am under vows to You, my God. I will present my thank offerings to You. For You have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling that I may walk before God in the light of life.”
Again, for me, it’s not only about, you know, David, the the archetypal warrior, king figure, but also obviously all the battles, but it’s the minutia.
[David] Psalm 57. “Have mercy on me my God, have mercy on me. For in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God most high, to God who vindicates me. He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me. God sends forth his love and his faithfulness. I am in the midst of lions. I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts. Men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp sorts. Be exalted oh God, above the heavens. Let Your glory be over all the earth. They spread a net for my feet. I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path, but they have fallen into it themselves. My heart, oh God is steadfast. My heart is steadfast. I will sing and make music. Awake my soul, awake, harp and liar. I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you Lord, among the nations I will sing of You among the peoples. For great is Your love reaching to the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted oh God above the heavens. Let Your glory be over all the earth.”
You know, in these times to quote WB Yates, if you all know the phrase, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. You know, and how the worst are full of passionate intensity and the best lack all conviction. You know, in, in WB’s, fantastic poem, “The Second Coming”. Here there’s such a sense of it isn’t a relativist sense of uncertainty about a way of finding a steadfastness and asurity of rock-like quality within oneself. Obviously through, you know, here through God, but speaking in of that intimacy I was mentioning earlier, yeah, it’s coming through to the self and it’s a way to hold onto that regardless again of the slings and arrows, you know, that may be happening in the daily minutia of life. Okay, I want to do another two from the last 50 Psalms, and this is Psalm 102.
[David] “Let my cry for help come to you. Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me when I call. Answer me quickly for my days vanish like smoke, my bones burn like glowing embers. My heart is blighted and withered like grass. I forget to eat my food. In my distress I’ve groan aloud, and I’m reduced to skin and bones. I’m like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake. I have become like a bird alone on a roof. All day long, my enemies taut me. Those who rail against me use my name as a curse, for I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears because of Your great wrath. For You have taken me up and thrown me aside. My days are like the evening shadow. I wither away like grass. But You Lord, sit in throne forever. You are renowned, endures through all generations. You will arise and have compassion on Zion. For it is time to show favour to her. The appointed time has come. For her stones are dear to your servants. Her very dust moves them to pity. The nations will fear the name of the Lord. All the kings of the earth will revere Your glory. For the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in His glory.
He will respond to the prayer of the destitute. He will not despise their plea. Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord. The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high. From heaven, he viewed the earth to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death. So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the peoples and the kingdoms assembled to worship the Lord. In the course of my life, He broke my strength. He cut short my days. So I said, do not take me away my God, in the midst of my days. Your years go on through all generations. In the beginning, You laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens of the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like clothing. You will change them and they will be discarded, but You remain the same and Your years will never end. The children of Your servants will live in Your presence. Their descendants will be established before You.
Okay, then the last one I want to do is share one, which Psalm 137, Psalm 137, which I’m sure we’ll pretty well. And I think it says Something very powerful.
"Praise the Lord my soul, all my inmost being praise His holy name. Praise the Lord my soul. And forget not all His benefits. Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love. And love endures forever. He gives food to every creature. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven, his love.” This is Psalm 137.
“Endures forever.”
Psalm 137. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps for their, our captors asked us for songs. Our tormentors demanded songs of joy. They said, sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the song of the Lord while in a foreign land? If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth. If I do do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy. Remember Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. ‘Tear it down,’ they cried. ‘Tear it down to its foundations.’ Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction. Happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
What I want to come to at the end is to try and show that, of course he’s talking about war and battles, you know, of the king leader. But you know, that’s, that’s fairly obviously known. But more than that is that intimacy again, of dialoguing with a god, of having, you know, such a close relationship with oneself and being able to reach out and through using this language, this kind of poetry extraordinary, you know, stretching over centuries, centuries and centuries of imagery, of myth, of symbol, of nature, of animals. And yet so deeply personal, of fairly simple words, not highly complicated. And yet in a way that David Suchet reads them, I think captures a very 21st century approach, which is so deeply individual, so deeply personal, almost like what we might whisper just before going to sleep to ourselves. And those sorts of all the little, you know, the little problems of daily life and the bigger problems as well. How they can almost meld into each other. And once there is that poetic sense, it almost takes us, you know, if I may use the word for a moment, but it does take us into a little transcending moment at least, you know, with imagination and some honest emotion.
Just try and find a certain beauty in the language about very profound lamentation, suffering and pain through praise and joys. Not naively I don’t think, but in quite a realistic, brutal, direct way. In a sense to try and share with you a little bit of something of a 21st century perhaps approach. One amongst so many that are obviously possible and a little bit of how I think the poetry can work us today. Okay, thank you very much everybody. And I hope it’s just given a little bit of extra richness to, you know, these songs and poems which are written, you know, so many thousands of years ago. Okay, thank you.
Should I do some questions, Judy? Okay. Thank you Dawn. Thank you Ona. Okay, to everybody, Rodney. Okay. Really appreciate, Marcia. Okay, Dionne. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Q&A and Comments:
You mentioned Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, so the idea, thank you so much Dionne and others. The idea of what we can try and get a glimpse of through the Psalms, as you’re mentioning here, you know, this, you know, over this period of, of the High Holy Days-
I don’t know what’s I’ve done. I can’t actually get onto the.
Even, even more than the poems are virtually impossible to translate. The Biblical Hebrew is very inflected exactly. You know, so the English words are approximate, absolutely. And Suchet, yeah. You know, as, as the words he’s using. But I would say that if poetry is going to last, it has to be open to adaptation constantly. You know, who knows, in a few hundred, few thousand viewers where the English will be a language? Who knows? Does it matter? It’ll be adapted, it will find ways from wherever the source is.
Okay, Dawn. Okay. It, it was, it was Psalm 57. Thanks.
Okay, Rodney, thank you and Romaine.
Sonya, links translation. Yeah, the English translation is, is intentionally tried to make it lyrical and it’s developed from the St. John, St. James, sorry, king James version. Which theory is that Shakespeare and others worked on a bit.
At least we can’t prove it that. Yeah, it is good point. It’s is familiarity and I think the modernization does lose a bit, but I think it tries to add in like the way he’s reading through very short one or two syllable words.
Okay. Nicole Calinsky, Christianity translated the word Torah very differently.
Absolutely. You know, and here I’ve gone with this translation here.
Okay. Rodney and Romaine. Yep. Dialogue, reverence, empowerment, narrative. Yep. You know, they capture all of this from quotes what I’ve tried to give here in, in Suchet’s is reading.
Okay. Thank you, Margie. Thank you. Thank you Margie.
Okay, Carol. Great. Sharon. Sharon.
Okay. This is a Contemporary translation by David Suchet. Sorry, read by Suchet. Okay. It’s using the NIV. Exactly. New international version of the Bible. Okay. Yep. Thank you. And I know as you’re saying, the translation uses translates Torah as law instead of teaching. You know, I think it’s one of many attempts to try and find resonance and echo in, in, you know, the 20, early 21st century.
I can hear, but I can’t see, I can’t do anything. I can’t, I dunno whether I’m on mute.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Judy, you’re on, you’re on. Okay.
David, sorry, my computer’s frozen. I can’t hear you David?
Yeah, I can hear you and your lovely dogs.
So sorry, everybody, my computer’s frozen.
No, I’ll celebrate.
Can’t see anything on the screen.
It’s, but it’s fine. It’s great. Okay. It’s bringing in the sounds of life. Okay.
So sorry everyone, but thank you David and happy birthday again for yesterday-
Okay Monday.
[Judy] Sorry. ‘Cause I can’t see where we at.
Okay. Don’t worry Rhonda, yeah. We tried to bring a little moment of beauty through some of the Psalms and through the poetry of it, which is what I’ve tried to stress. And there are renditions, I think in, in a fantastic actor, reading them with such, you know, gravitas and emotion.
Marlene, you can find it on YouTube free. It’s all on Google free. No problem. Just download it. You know, as you can see, just David Suchet reading the Psalms. He’s the best I found of many that they had reading it. That is, that is, that is easily accessible.
Laurie, thank you. Okay. Marlene, you don’t have to purchase, again. It’s all free on the internet. There are many actors and many versions, but this I found the most evocative.
Okay, Ronnie. Okay. Yeah. The mourning and lamentations, yeah. Of what is, I know. Okay. But on the other hand, there’s also richness, I think. Yeah.
Okay. Ruth and Yvonne, thanks. Okay. Adele. Okay. Right. I think that’s most of it.
And you know, it’s worth delving into, even if we just pick up one or two every now and then, what my friend Sink taught me, he’s Israeli Seven Day Adventist. Very, very religious, you know, at least a poetic appreciation of how poetry moves us and how, you know, we can find these gems, which really do speak in a highly technological age, yet a very uncertain time, you know, that we all know we live in.
Okay, thank you so much, and to Judy, and to everybody, and hope you have a good time and safe times coming up over the holidays coming.
[Judy] Thank you, David. And thank you everybody who joined us and I’m so sorry that you’ve heard all the noise in the background, but my computer has frozen, so I can’t see all. No, none of my controls are here. But thank you again, everybody. Take care.
Okay, thanks Judy.
Take care. Thank.
Thank you, bye-bye.
All right, ciao, ciao.