Prayer sometimes refers to everything that a person says to God. The English word “pray” means “to petition, entreat, implore,” and a third of the psalms are petitions or prayers for God to rescue the psalmist. Though these psalms reflect the same elements and patterns, they show us a wide range of possibilities.

13.1. Petitions in Ordinary Speech

Although we think of prayer as a religious activity, petitions are a regular feature of daily life and language. Often someone needs to ask someone for help: a cup of sugar, directions to a new store, a helping hand. As a result, there is a typical pattern for making petitions.

Often when someone says our name and compliments us, we sense what is about to come. The personal address creates a connection, and the complimentary description explains why a person should respond. The “so that” introduces a result or purpose clause that describes the hoped-for outcome. While all the elements fit together logically, the only necessary element is the petition. The order of the elements can change. We could begin with the petition: “Please, help me, Joe, because you are a strong fellow, and I need to move this bookcase.”

This same basic pattern shapes petitions to God throughout the Bible; cf. Gen 24:12-14; 1 Kgs 3:6-9; 18:36-37; 2 Kgs 19:15-19; Dan 4:27; Mark 14:36, as well as the prayers of the Roman Missal, the Book of Common Prayer, and the like.

The prayer psalms or psalms of petition constitute the largest group of psalms. Often these psalms give a dramatic account of some immediate and pressing problem facing either the community or the individual psalmist. As a result, Herman Gunkel called these psalms “Klage,” which refers to the description of psalmist’s desperate, often a major feature of these psalms. The German was translated as “lament,” which is not entirely accurate. A lament is traditionally a poem that laments the death of a person, such as David’s lament over the dead Saul and Jonathan in 2 Sam 1:19-27. Even so, the term has stuck, these poems are often called “laments.”

Gunkel further divided these psalms into communal and individual laments, but except for the differences between the singular “I” and the plural “we,” the basic elements are the same. The communal laments deal mainly with war, while the individual laments arise from personal problems. Susan Gillingham lists forty psalms as individual prayer psalms and another sixteen as communal prayers (2016, 216).

13.2. Prayer Psalms as Dramatic Monologue

Dobbs-Allsopp emphasizes the lyric quality of biblical poetry, which he defines as “chiefly… a non-narrative, nondramatic, nonrepresentational kind of poetry” (185). For these laments, that is not entirely accurate.

Like lyrics, these psalms give us a speaker making a direct presentation, which we overhear, but they move toward drama. They are speeches to another person, that is, petitions to God. These speeches also contain a larger story, but they do not tell it sequentially with a beginning, middle and end. Instead, the audience must reconstruct the implied story with its plot and characters. English literature calls this a “dramatic monologue”: a speech by a single character to another character revealing a dramatic situation.

Robert Browning was a master of the dramatic monologue, and his “My Last Duchess” is a prime example. The poem reports the Duke’s speech to the emissary, who has come to negotiate a marriage contract. The Duke begins: “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, / Looking as if she were alive.” After reading the poem, one may reasonably ask whether the Duke had his last Duchess murdered because of his jealousy. Although Browning bases his poem loosely on historical characters, he is not a historian; he is a poet. His poem does not depend on knowing any more of the history than he presents in his poem. The reader must reconstruct the story from what the Duke says in the dramatic monologue. The implied story is Browning’s version of the story as its author. However, what we know of the plot and characters comes only from the Duke’s point of view. and he does not tell us everything that we want to know.

The prayer psalms or laments are also dramatic monologues, and we must reconstruct the implied story with its characters from what the psalmist tells us. These psalms are speeches in the first person with a very personal point of view. They do not claim the authority of the omniscient third person voice.

A few psalms have a clear historical context. Their power comes in the personal plea. Psalm 74 presents a vision of the destruction of Jerusalem, but it opens with a direct question: “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” The psalm follows with a plea for God to “remember” and then a detailed picture of the destruction and violence (74:4-8 ). The next section shifts and celebrates God as the divider of the sea and the conqueror of the mythic Leviathan as well as the founder of this world (74:12-17). This faith sets up the psalmist’s nine pleas for God to remember the covenant and not to forget (74:18-23). The psalm has a historical context, but mainly it reveals the personal struggle of this psalmist caught between desperation and belief.

As with Browning’s dramatic monologues, we must reconstruct the story and the psalmist’s understanding. Unlike other books of the Bible that have a growing unity, the Book of Psalms offers us one hundred and fifty different voices. We must identify and appreciate each voice.

13.3. The Stock Plot of the Prayer Psalms

Most laments have no clear historical context. Their problems come with life: sickness, false accusations, oppression, unjust judges, and enemies. As such, they presume an implied narrative with the psalm as a speech from the middle of the story:

• Beginning: Something terrible has happened to the psalmist: sickness, false accusation, betrayal, sin, etc.
• Middle: As the problem grows worse, the psalmist makes a prayer (i.e., the psalm), petitioning God to be the hero and resolve the problem.
• End: Some psalms end only with the hope of a resolution, but others follow the petition with a thanksgiving hymn, praising God for resolving the problem.

This sequence of events represents the traditional plot—the way we expect things to work out, and many laments move according to this expectation.

In terms of basic plots, the psalm is a call narrative. This subplot belongs particularly to the battle narrative in which some enemy physically threats “our” side. Those beset by the enemy call a hero to save them, and here the psalmist calls on God to be the hero. Some laments reflect the rebirth narrative in which some death-like state overwhelms the psalmist who calls on God for new life.

13.4. The Stock Characters

These prayer psalms have their stock characters who play traditional roles.

a. The good psalmist, trusting but weak, depends on God’s help to overcome the enemy whose attack lacks a just cause.

b. The enemy plays the traditional role of the villain in the story. Having no redeeming qualities, the enemy attacks and even threatens the psalmist’s life, as in Ps 64:1-4. Villains are comic figures in the sense that we cheer at their downfall. As flat characters, they represent evil with no redeeming qualities.

c. The hero of the story is, of course, the LORD, whom the psalmist expects to act swiftly and decisively to resolve the problem. Ps 31:1 captures this hope:

“In you, O LORD, I seek refuge;
do not let me ever be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me.”

Here we have the makings of the stock hero found in every battle narrative, cowboy movie, and police show. Though the psalmist expects God to be the ideal hero, God proves more interesting than this stock character.

d. The psalmist’s friends, acquaintances, and community appear regularly. While we might expect them to offer support, they typically stand aloof and create a sense of isolation. Generally, they do not provide support until the tension has been resolved. The psalmist is left to depend on God alone.

The characters above are flat; they represent a simple idea, and the stock plot has God coming quickly to rescue the poor, weak psalmist from the evil enemy. However, some psalms add complications and create a genuine sense of realism, as we shall see below.

13.5. The Prayer Psalm in One Act

Many of these prayer psalms end in hope but without our knowing the outcome. Psalm 70 provides a basic example. It begins by asking God “to deliver me” and petitions God to bring “shame and confusion” upon those “who seek my life.” The psalm ends with the plea, “O LORD, do not delay!” The characters are flat, predictable characters with a single motivating force. However, in 70: 4, the psalmist moves beyond concern for himself and breaks out of the traditional role. Turning outward, the psalmist makes a prayer for “all who seek you.” This small detail adds a bit of realism. No matter how personal a problem may seem, no matter how isolated “I” may feel, the problem is a human problem, and this psalmist acknowledges this connection to other people before returning to the final petitions in which “hasten” and “delay” repeat the urgency of the opening.

Psalm 70 ends without a resolution. Though the psalm and psalmist are hopeful, this dramatic monologue does not tell us the ending. In that sense, it does not fulfill the expectations of the stock plot, which insists that all come to an end and that it will end well. This lack of closure raises the possibility that God will not act, and some psalms address that possibility (Ps 88:9)

13.6. The Prayer Psalm in Two Acts

As translated in the NRSV, a dramatic shift takes place in a number of prayer psalms, dividing the psalm into two pieces. The problem, which had been so urgent in the first part of the psalm, is resolved somehow. The psalmist is no longer making desperate pleas for God’s help but turns instead to thank God for deliverance. In short, the psalm has moved from a prayer of petition to a thanksgiving hymn. We can see this in Psalm 54, which begins:

“Save me, O God, by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.”

The opening section ends in 54:5 with the petition:

In your faithfulness, put an end to them.

The following verses reflect a complete change of mood.

With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies (Ps 54:6-7).

The translation’s use of the perfect tense –” has delivered…has looked”—indicates that the act of salvation has already taken place. Sacrifice and thanksgiving are now the order of the day because God has filled the role of savior.

Some scholars make sense of this shift by understanding the psalm as part of a liturgy. A person would come to a sanctuary and re-live their trouble by reciting the first part of the psalm. A priest would then deliver a salvation oracle, that is, a speech by God announcing deliverance. After that, the person would recite the thanksgiving hymn in the final section of the psalm. This explanation seems reasonable, and it would be even more convincing if the psalm preserved the salvation oracle.

Other scholars read these psalms as a unity with the problem still unresolved. They see 54:6-7 as a promise to sacrifice, trusting that God will act as the savior. They read the last two lines to mean that since God “has delivered me” in the past, I trust that God will do it again, and so I am promising that I will make a thanksgiving sacrifice when that happens. (See Hossfeld and Zenger on Psalm 54.) The ambiguity of the Hebrew tense system makes both positions tenable for this psalm.

While I can see both sides of the argument for Psalm 54, other psalms have a clear break between the lament and the thanksgiving hymn. The famous Psalm 22 would be a good example. This thanksgiving element appears in the following: Pss 6:8-10; 13:5-6; 22:21b-31; 28:6-9; 31:21-24 (beginning perhaps already in 31:19); 52:8-9; 54:6-7; 56:12-13; 57:5-11; 59:16-17; and perhaps also 69:30-36 and 94:22-23. See what you think.

13.7. The Basic Elements of the Prayer Psalms

The elements of these psalms are those of the petition described above with the addition of two standard elements.

a. the call or invocation

The invocation calls directly on the LORD (YHWH) God. Psalmists use other titles, such as “Most High” and “Holy One of Israel,” and these move toward a description of God.

b. a description of God serving as the reasons why God should act

The description of God is simply statements and, therefore, praise, which also serves as the reason why God should act. As a result, it may begin with the conjunctions “for” or “because” (kî in Hebrew). The description underlines God’s power and highlights other themes, such as God’s covenant love.

c. a description of the psalmist’s situation as the reason why God should act

The psalmist typically devotes considerable narrative time to a description of the problem, which may be told more than once to create a sense of drama. From these disjointed elements, we must reconstruct the implied story as best we can.

The main problems concern sickness and the prospect of death, unjust accusation and injustice, persecution and oppression by evildoers, and physical attack by enemies (whether personal or national). Although the descriptions can be rather concrete, they maintain a generality that allows others to identify with their problem. For instance, in the psalms concerning sickness, it is difficult to diagnose the exact disease; as a result, the psalm confronts us with the larger problem of sickness that touches many.

As with the description of God, the psalmist’s situation also becomes an important reason why God should act and so may begin with “for” or “because” as in Ps 56:1-2: “Be gracious to me, O God, || for people trample on me.”

d. the petition

The petition is the main element of this genre. It reveals the psalmist’s desire. Since the creature is petitioning the Creator, we would expect the psalmist to use deferential language. Wishes can express the hope that the future might bring salvation, and English often uses helping verbs to express these wishes: let, may, might, and would. Ps 17:1-2 begins with an imperative asking God to listen and then says:

Let my vindication come from Your presence;
Let Your eyes look on the things that are upright.

Ps 54:1-2 begins with four imperatives.

Save me, O God, by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
Hear my prayer, O God;
give ear to the words of my mouth.

These are not the commands of a person in authority; rather they are the entreaty of desperation.

In Ps 44:23, however, the psalmist in frustration takes a different path and commands God:

Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O LORD?
Awake, do not cast us off forever!

Here we no longer have a meek psalmist, but one who takes God to task.

The curse is a negative wish and is found rather frequently in this form: “Let something bad happen to X.” Psalm 58 lashes out against unjust judges who “devise wrongs…and deal out violence.” In Ps 58:7-8, the psalmist graphically asks for vengeance from the LORD. These curses reflect more than a cerebral response to injustice. Though their violence may offend us, they reveal the psalmist’s deep hurt and thirst for justice, and the psalm invites our empathy even if we do not join them literally in their petition. The petition not only tells us what the psalmist wants but also something about the character of the psalmist.

e. the purpose and result of the petition: “so that” and “(in order) to”

English expresses the hoped-for result with the conjunctions “so that” or just “that.” We see this in Ps 60:5.

Give victory with your right hand, and answer us,
so that those whom you love may be rescued.

English also expresses the result or purpose with “to,” meaning “in order to,” as in Ps 31:2cd.

Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me.

Even so, this is not a major feature of the prayer psalms of the Bible. Rather the psalmist uses curses to express their hope, or they state confidently what God will do, as in Ps 64:7.

But God will shoot his arrows at them;
they will be wounded suddenly.

Hebrew tends to add sentences without making their relationship explicit.

f. statements of trust

The prayer psalms often feature a statement of trust affirming that God will intervene for the psalmist, as in Ps 71:5:

For you, O LORD, are my hope,
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.

These statements of trust serve as a reason for God to act, and they reinforce our sense of the psalmist’s righteousness and piety.

In some psalms, trust is the dominant theme: Psalms 16, 61, 62, 90, 131. These psalms shift the focus away from the petitions to statements of trust that God will act.

g. questions

Questions appear in various psalms. Some are rhetorical questions that expect no response because the answer is obvious. A good orator will use these questions to invite the audience to take the initiative and answers the question in their own minds. This allows the orator to make the point without saying it. Ps 56:11 is an example:

“In God I trust; I am not afraid.
What can a mere mortal do to me?”

The answer is, of course, “Nothing.”

In other laments, questions express deep frustration and irony, as in Ps 74:10:

How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?”

These questions challenge God to act immediately. They also tell us something about the psalmist’s relationship with God. Likewise, Psalm 13 begins with a series of questions that capture the psalmist’s frustration. We see this also in Ps 88:14, which invites us to imagine the psalmist’s state of mind:

O LORD, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?

These questions help to establish the psalmist’s character.

h. bartering with God and vows

Rhetorical questions are also used to barter with God as in Ps 37:9: “What profit is there in my death…” The answer is obvious: “None!” This kind of bartering with God sometimes, at least, involves a vow made during the crisis. Our information about these vows comes mainly from thanksgiving hymns, such as Ps 66:13-14 where the psalmist promises to make a sacrifice to repay a vow made during the time of trouble.

This kind of bartering with God is sometimes criticized as being a very low-grade spirituality that seeks to buy off God. While there may be some truth in that, it is also true that desperate people will do anything, even barter with God, in the hope that something might work. Anyone who has sat in the waiting room of an intensive care unit knows this. The issues here are not trivial but questions of life and death, of faith and despair. Before belittling this bartering, we should look to see what desperation it may represent.

i. thanksgiving

As discussed above, a number of psalms end with the psalmist either vowing to give thanks or offering thanks for God’s salvation. This section draws its elements from the thanksgiving hymn, sometimes with a call for others to join the psalmist. See §11.3 and §13.6 above.

13.8. Realism and the Laments

The traditional implied story of the prayer psalm presents the good psalmist, beset by an enemy and crying out to God for help. Even the psalms adhering most closely to the stock plot add details to make it real, as in Ps 102:3-5:

For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my skin.

The concreteness of the metaphors and the description moves this psalm toward realism, but it mainly through more complex characterization that breaks with the stereotypes.

a. the depth of emotion

As someone once told me, the Book of Psalms shows that you can say anything to God. These psalmists are not afraid to reveal the depth of their emotion or to show their anger and frustration with God. They share their violent wishes freely and pointedly; they do not hold back.

In Ps 58:10, the psalmist looks forward to the day when the righteous can “will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked” judges. In Ps 137:9, the exile of Jerusalem says of Babylon:

Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!

The violence of this verse reveals both the depth of the psalmist’s anger and hurt.

Here it is important to recognize that we are confronting another person’s prayer. Often people who take up the Book of Psalms expect  to a hundred and fifty psalms like “The LORD is my shepherd.” Instead, they find things that they would never want to say. In this way, the psalms present us with a range of raw human emotions. The anger of Psalm 58 toward unjust judges comes from an ancient time, but it has modern counterparts. The ancient and the modern can inform each other and help us confront the present reality of injustice.

b. theologies different than ours

Unlike other biblical books where a single theology or even several theologies shape the whole book, each psalm is its own theological unit. Some psalms reflect a similar theology, that is, a similar understanding of God and of how this God relates to “me” and “us.” Others have a very individual and personal understanding of God and how the world should work. These texts create a round character with complex emotions and desires.

The curse, calling for violence against others, is a scandal to many modern readers, and it stands in opposition to the theology elsewhere in the Bible. However, we must not dismiss them, but let them tell us about the psalmist’s depth of feeling. This does not mean that we must make their words our words. Still, we must take their words seriously.

While sin may undo our well-being, some psalms understand sickness as a direct result of personal sin, as in Ps 38:3b: “there is no health in my bones || because of my sin.” Those around the psalmist are often convinced that sin is the root cause of the psalmist’s sickness, and they use this as a reason to isolate and even persecute the sick. While our common humanity allows us to relate to human suffering and joy found in the psalms, some elements, like this, reveal the distance between their world and ours. We may think of ourselves better than this, but Susan Sontag’s books on illness challenge our self-righteousness.

c. the psalmist as a sinner and therefore the cause of the problem

The good and trusting psalmist of the traditional story is innocent and upright, but in Ps 38:1-4 and 41:4, the psalmists under­stands their sickness as retribution for their sin. In the communal laments, the problem is more typically tied to the sin of the community, as in Ps 79:9 or 90:8. However, Ps 43:17-18 goes against this common wisdom by claiming that they have suffered even though they had not sinned.

In Psalm 51, the psalmist offers a heartfelt admission of guilt and asks for God’s forgiveness. Here there is no enemy or problem caused by them. The psalm focuses on the bald fact of personal sin, and the realism of the psalm lies first in this frank admission and then in the sense of interiority created by the images of “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart” (Ps 51: 17; also 51:6,10-12).

d. the feeling of abandonment by God

While the statements of trust are a major feature of the prayer psalms, some psalmists accuse God of abandoning them. Perhaps the most famous example comes at the beginning of Ps 22:1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? “The psalm then moves back and forth between this sense of isolation and a sense of trust ending in 22:21a with the line: “Save me from the mouth of the lion!” A joyous thanksgiving hymn follows in the second part.

Psalms 39 and 88, however, move deeper and deeper into the darkness of despair. The only ray of hope is the fact of their prayer.

e. “my” friend, the enemy

The stock enemy is bad and different than “me.” However, in Ps 41:9 the psalmist says:

“Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,
who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.”

Here, the enemy is not some outsider or even a bad person within the community. Rather a friend has surprised the psalmist with betrayal. We find this again in Pss 35:13; 38:11; 55:13-14, 20-21; 88:18. The traditional expectation has been broken.

f. the community’s opposition

We might expect that the psalmist’s community would be a support in times of trouble, but, in general, these psalms portray the psalmist as alone. Since the community sees sickness and adversity as signs of sin, they excommunicate the sinner. The psalmists may heighten this isolation with their own assertions, as in Ps 35:13-14.

But as for me, when they were sick,
I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting.
I prayed with head bowed on my bosom,
as though I grieved for a friend or a brother;
I went about as one who laments for a mother,
bowed down and in mourning.

Here the metaphor of family shows how deep the rejection cuts.

g. God’s delay

God according to the stock plot should come and rescue the psalmist quickly, but this does not always happen. Significantly Psalm 13 begins not with the usual plea for God to listen or help but with rhetorical questions asking God “How long?” This phrase appears nineteen times in the mouth of various psalmists: Pss 6:3; 13:1-2; 35:17; 62:3; 74:9-10; 79:5; 80:4; 82:2; 89:46; 90:13; 94:3; 119:84.

Generally, the rhetorical question is used ironically in these laments to chastise God for inaction: Ps 74:10-11; 79:5; 80:4. Even so, these psalms do not answer the question of why God delays.

Some psalmists do more than question God. Some tell God exactly what to do, and they are not afraid to make it a command. Even though God may eventually come to the psalmist’s rescue, the question of why God delays remains unanswered.

h. God as the one who has caused “my” problem

According to the stock plot, the enemy causes the psalmist’s problem, but in some psalms, the psalmist identifies God as the source of the problem. In that sense, God takes on the role usually given to the enemy. Within a theology that connects sin with sickness and adversity, it is easy to see God as the source of the problem as in Ps 38:1-2 where the psalmist boldly says to God:

For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.”

The psalmist goes on to admit that his sin has caused the problem with God’s punishment described graphically. This speech reveals the psalmist’s anguish and fear of abandonment.

Perhaps the most sustained accusations against God come in Psalm 44, a communal lament. In Ps 44:9-14, the psalmist states that God has “rejected …not gone out with our armies” even though “we have not forgotten you.” For the psalmist,  God is clearly the problem, for “we” have kept the covenant, and so the psalmist says in 44:23: “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O LORD?”

Scholars have also identified a number of prayers or laments in the Book of Jeremiah. In them, Jeremiah calls for God to take vengeance on those who attack him for bringing a prophetic word. After Jeremiah’s laments in 12:1-4 and 15:15-18, God responds with an oracle. The last two laments are, perhaps, the most famous. Jer 20:13-17 accuses God of seducing him and forcing him to be a prophet though it ends with a statement of trust that God will vindicate him. The last, 20:14-18, gives us a man in despair, wishing he had not been born. They show the pattern’s ability to create a sense of great realism. A list of Jeremiah’s laments includes the following: Jer 11:18-23; 12:1-6; 15:15-21; 17:14-18; 18:19-23; 20:7-13; 20:14-18.

13.9. Conclusion

The psalms were first of all other people’s prayers to God. Sometimes people think that they should be “my” prayers. Some, like Psalm 23, can be “my” prayer. We find in some pieces of psalms words that capture what we are thinking or feeling in the moment. However, mostly when we read these psalms, we are confronting other people’s prayers in the midst of great rouble. They are not pure lyric but reveal the intimate moment of a person addressing God and expecting a response. Though these psalms reflect a traditon, the break from it in personal ways as they capture a breadth of emotion and faith.

13.10. Exercises for Chapter 13

Vocabulary

• prayer psalm or lament or psalm of petition: a plea for God to come and save the psalmist with a thanksgiving hymn added sometimes. §13.0
• curse: a negative wish, frequently in this form: “Let/May something bad happen to X.” §13.7d

Questions

1. Write your own lament.

2. Psalm 79 is very similar to Psalm 74; both petition God for help in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem. Compare the two voices. What differences do you find between them?

3. What is the implied story of Psalm 5? Who are its characters? What kind of person is the psalmist? What is its tension? What is the hoped-for resolution?

4. Psalms 6, 13, 22, and 28 end with praise/thanksgiving. Do you see them as a single psalm or a psalm in two acts: lament and thanksgiving?

5. Make a close reading of one of the following psalms: Ps 38, 39, 44, 102