Penitential Psalms: A Big Mix-Up?
First things first–Disclaimer: This is a technical article most likely of interest to very few. I promise this series will get better once we get past the linguistic details and consider these amazing psalms themselves. If anyone wishes to skip this chapter, please feel free. Otherwise, proceed.
What images come to our minds when we say the word “penitential?”
If we are to understand why seven psalms are classed together in a family (1), we must become detectives who put on our thinking caps. And in doing so, we’ve already admitted that the connection is not obvious, and we take one step away from our hearts as we begin talking with our heads.
Most theological traditions give these psalms a meaning related to penitence, sorrow for sin, or repentance. This is not a popular evangelical theme; evangelicals tend to emphasize joy, joy, joy. Further, today’s evangelicals, reading their Bibles at home, seek to discover their own meanings in Scripture, rather than basing their meditations on centuries old, prior church traditions of which they are largely unaware. They couldn’t care less. In line with that, this blog challenges us as “common,” everyday readers under the influence of and in the presence of the Holy Spirit, to hear what God says about his own psalms. But we will plow forward through this technical mumbo jumbo as a corrective, just in case my conclusions might lead us down the wrong track.
First, let us consider the word “penitential.” The English “penitential” word family includes penitential, penitent, penance, and even penitentiary. Then there is the word family in which the “pen” portion occurs in the middle: repent, repentance, repentant. But what about another distinct set of meanings: penury and penurious? There are also words that use “pen” as a prefix, as in “penultimate.”
In the Oxford English Dictionary, the gold bar standard for English, the etymologies for most of the previous words stretch no further back in time or language than Latin, Old English, and Middle French. The word “penitence” in its Latin form paenitentia occurs in manuscripts of the 5th and 6th century, and in the Vulgate of the 6th and 7th century. “Penury” comes to us from classical Latin, but is of “uncertain origin.” French, Spanish, and Italian have similar words, none of which reach further back than the late Middle Ages. “Penultimate” derives from a Latin prefix meaning “almost.”
But what happens when we go all the way back to Old biblical Greek? I find it very odd that none of the entries for any of the above English words mentions the possibility of Greek origins for the “pen” family. There are many occurrences in the Greek Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) and a few in the Greek New Testament with “pen” words as their base (2). The Greek letters when pronounced sound like English “pen.” They are transliterations. It appears as though English and other Latin based languages, such as French and Spanish, preserved the transliterated sounds and spellings of their Greek precursors, but substantially altered their meanings. How did this big mix-up occur? Since the Oxford English Dictionary offers no more than unspecified uncertainties, it follows that I can merely offer reasonable speculation. But the clarity and quantity of the Greek witness overwhelms to the point of crying out for speculation.
For example, here are some of the Greek words:
- πένητος (pen-ee-tohss) A “penitose” person is a poor person. Note the similarity to English “penitent.”
- πένομαι (pen-o-may) 1) To work for one’s living; to toil, to labor 2) to be poor and needy.
- πεινάω (pen-a-oh) To be hungry
- πενθέω (pen-thay-oh) To be sad, to grieve and mourn, in contrast to being joyful. While the object of the grieving is not included in the word itself, it is sometimes scripturally applied to sin. One can grieve and mourn over one’s own sin, over the sin of someone else, and very importantly, over the effects of someone else’s sin upon oneself as victim.
- πενθουντες (pen-thun-tes) The ones who are mourning. Note the similarity to English “penitents,” especially if one were to change the central “t” to “th.” All the consonants are present in both words and the vowels are very similar: penit[h]ents, penthuntes. Bagster comments on Matthew 5:4, ” the penthountes mourn not for their own sins but because of the power of the wicked who oppress the righteous [642].”
- πενθος (pen-thos) Mourning, grief. Again, in each of these last three words, the mourning need not be associated with sin. The mourning in Genesis 50:10-11 was over the death of Jacob. In 2 Samuel 19:2, the joy of victory for David’s people over their conquering the rebels changed to mourning when David learned that his son Absalom the rebel had died. The grief in Proverbs 14:13 is general and unspecified. In Micah 1:8 and Isaiah 17:14, those who receive God’s judgment experience grief, penthos.
It stretches credulity to think that these Greek words are not in some way related to the English “pen” family, yet the meanings are mostly different. This is a puzzle to be solved. It appears that the English word family with the meaning of “penury,” poverty, may follow the Greek word family for being hungry and working for a living (penomay, penitose, peinaoh). Likewise, the “penitent” word family sounds very much like the Greek word family for mourning, “penthountes.”
What is strange and unusual is that as early as the 4th century [Catholic] church (3), the concept of personal penitence, or sorrow, guilt, and repentance for one’s own sin, came to be associated with words that originally meant poverty and grief in general. The Catholic tradition carried over into Protestantism. Isn’t it characteristic of human nature, many church cultures, and societies in general? It’s what we call the blame game. We blame the victims. It is not so in God’s word. The wicked in God’s Word of the Old Testament are those who oppress the poor and needy, not vice versa. But this is my etymological conjecturing.
Sermon on the Mount: An interesting example, however, is the preaching one often hears for Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Some excellent preachers will say that the ones mourning in this verse are mourning and lamenting their own sinfulness, and that they will be comforted when they complete the process of repentance and experience God’s forgiveness. However, none of the Greek words in the verse imply or connote sinfulness. Rather, as Bagster wrote (see above), Jesus was saying to those who were poor and mournful because of the oppression of the powerful against them, that they would be comforted. In other words, it won’t always be this way. This corresponds better with the following verse in which the meek are told they will inherit the earth. In no manner is the earth spiritual; the earth is physical. The meek will inherit a physical earth. How about verse 3? Jesus addresses a hillside packed with poor people. He could be saying something like, “Since you are already economically poor, let me show you a benefit of poverty–to be poor in spirit.” And for verse 6, “I know you are physically hungry and thirsty, but that won’t be permanently helped now. But why not try this? What will happen if you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Then I guarantee that you will be satisfied.” You see, nowhere in the context of the Beatitudes does it explicitly state that Jesus was addressing a sin problem.
As further evidence toward my line of thinking, we find that when English translations use words such as “repent” and “repentance,” the corresponding Greek word is not of the “pen” family at all, but completely different. The Greek words for English repentance concern turning, turning away from, changing the direction of one’s face, changing one’s mind, and so forth. Greek words with these meanings are epi-strephoe in the Old Testament–to turn to, and meta-no-ee-oh in the New–to change one’s mind.
Summary: So far we have looked at the Greek words underlying the English word “penitential.” We have found that the English word means an attitude of sorrow, guilt, and repentance for one’s own sin, but the Greek words refer to 1) sorrow and grief in general and 2) economic poverty. The sorrow words can be applied to sorrow and grief over one’s own sin, someone else’s sin, and most importantly over the effects of someone else’s sin upon oneself as victim. But none of these applications is necessary. Neither the sorrow nor poverty words themselves carry overtones of sin. I believe a certain facet of human, societal, and church-culture nature is being expressed in the frequent association of sorrow, grief, and economic poverty with an assumed sinfulness on the part of the victim.
But we haven’t talked about any of the Penitential Psalms in particular. Why these psalms? And why sin? Do these psalms even speak of sin and repentance? If the answer was simply yes, I wouldn’t be asking these questions. Stay tuned as we explore other reasons why these psalms may be grouped together (4).
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1 The seven penitential psalms are 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.
2 Why consider Old Greek? It is the language from which Augustine’s Old Latin Bible was translated, and it is my version of preference for studying the Psalter.
3. The Eastern Orthodox Church has preserved to the present day the Greek Bible and uses it as its preferred text for translation into English and other languages. Study notes in one of these Bibles preserves in many cases the Greek meanings of the “pen” family of words, rather than the later Latin and English meanings. See Academic Community of St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology, Elk Grove, California. The Orthodox Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008.
4 Here are links to all the Penitential Psalms on this site OneSmallVoice.net by Christina M. Wilson, July 2, 2020.
Penitential Psalms
The Penitential Psalms: A Fresh Look
Penitential Psalms: A Big Mix-Up?
Penitential Psalms: The Amazing Psalm 6–Windup to the Pitch
Penitential Psalms: The Amazing Psalm 6 (continued)
Penitential Psalms: After Psalm 6–Psalms 7 and 8
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 8–Closing the Overture
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 32–How Could Christ Pray the Words of a Sinner?
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 32–Grace
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 38–Christ’s Passion Speaks Loudly
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 51–A Personal God of Love
Penitential Psalms–Psalm 102: Why Penitential?
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–Who Is Speaking?
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–God’s Son Speaks: Technical Background
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–Summary of Its Dialogic Structure
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–Devotional
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 130–Praying from the Grave
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 143–Knowing Who We Are in Christ
Penitential Psalms: Conclusion
The Penitential Psalms: A Fresh Look
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-1191 réserve, Bibliothèque nationale de France
What are the Penitential Psalms? If you said, “I don’t know,” then you’ve just explained why we have difficulty understanding them today. Most people have never heard of them, unless they attend an Orthodox liturgical church. So if you’re protestant, evangelical, or Catholic, why bother?
Little is known about the very early history and origin of the grouping of what later became the seven penitential psalms. Within the already Catholic tradition, the earliest information this author found is that fourth century Gregory of Nyssa classed Psalm 6, the first of the seven, as “confession and penitence” (1 Waltke, Laments, 43). Still later, St Augustine, before his death in 430 CE, repeatedly read and wept over four penitential psalms that had been written out and pinned to the wall in front of his bed. Which four they were has not been preserved (2). Cassiodorus, a sixth century Roman statesman, is apparently the first to have named the group of seven psalms as 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 (3). These seven psalms eventually worked their way into the public liturgy of the Catholic church, and just as eventually were deleted. They were removed in 1911 from public reading and sidelined to private devotions (Ibid., 160-61). John Ubel describes their status within the Catholic church in 2014, “The penitential psalms are not collected in any currently approved liturgical text emanating from the Holy See, despite the intentions of the council and those entrusted with carrying out the liturgical reform” (Ibid., 165). Within the Eastern Orthodox tradition, although the nomenclature “penitential psalms” is known, these seven appear singly in varying portions of the liturgy. Each has its own distinct use and purpose. For example, Psalm 6 is used in Great Compline, Psalm 32 immediately after baptism, Psalm 38 in Orthros, and so forth (4). Evangelical churches tend not to focus on deep study of the Psalter, and most likely “Penitential Psalms” is not a topic often considered.
If you managed to wade through the previous paragraph and are still with me, you may be yawning profusely, scratching your head, and saying to yourself, “I can’t take much more of this. This is not why I read the Psalms.” And in my opinion, you would be correct.
I love John the Apostle’s statement in 1John 2:27:
But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie– just as it has taught you, abide in him (ESV).
The “anointing” John proclaims is the Holy Spirit of Christ, which every believer receives from the Father. He is the Spirit of God who lives within believers and is the source of their new birth (see John chapters 3 and 4, 6:63, 14, 15, and 16).
What John is saying is that each believer is connected to Christ the Son and through him to God the Father by means of the indwelling Spirit of God. Christ is the Living Word, and as such, he is quite able to communicate to every believer the messages from the Psalter which he wants to impart. He does this with all of Scripture. Therefore, the true value of studying Psalms is not to be had by reading about them in the words of someone else, such as the ancient church fathers and my words to you right now, but their true value is in hearing the Spirit speak into your own heart the Lord’s message to you in particular.
My purpose here is to hold up a road sign to you that says, “Have you tried this pathway through Psalms?” The pathway we will consider is Christ and his cross. Even in the so-called grouping of seven Penitential Psalms, we find Christ ever present and revealed. These psalms are not primarily about experiencing emotions of penitence designed to lead us to repentance. Rather, they are primarily about the life of Jesus Christ during his incarnation.
My premise is that Psalms reveal Christ. He is their primary focus. As we see Christ revealed, we also learn about God’s love for us, and that is what makes them important.
In future posts, we will consider each psalm individually and from a variety of angles (5).
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1 Waltke, Bruce K. and James M. Houston with Erika Moore. The Psalms as Christian Lament: A Historical Commentary. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014.
2 DiPippo, Gregory. “The Penitential Psalms in the Liturgy of Lent.” New Liturgical Novus Motus: Movement Liturgicus (March 10, 2017). Accessed February 2, 2019. http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/eleu/ vol2/iss1/5/.
3 Ubel, John L. “Septem Psalmi Poenitentiales History, Demise, and Rebirth of an Ascetical Tradition.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought & Culture 17, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 155–68. Accessed February 19, 2019. doi:10.1353/log.2014.0036.
4 Academic Community of St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology, Elk Grove, California. The Orthodox Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008. (See the notes for each individual psalm).
5 Following is the complete index of the Penitential Psalms series on this blogsite.
Penitential Psalms
The Penitential Psalms: A Fresh Look
Penitential Psalms: A Big Mix-Up?
Penitential Psalms: The Amazing Psalm 6–Windup to the Pitch
Penitential Psalms: The Amazing Psalm 6 (continued)
Penitential Psalms: After Psalm 6–Psalms 7 and 8
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 8–Closing the Overture
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 32–How Could Christ Pray the Words of a Sinner?
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 32–Grace
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 38–Christ’s Passion Speaks Loudly
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 51–A Personal God of Love
Penitential Psalms–Psalm 102: Why Penitential?
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–Who Is Speaking?
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–God’s Son Speaks: Technical Background
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–Summary of Its Dialogic Structure
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 102–Devotional
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 130–Praying from the Grave
Penitential Psalms: Psalm 143–Knowing Who We Are in Christ
Penitential Psalms: Conclusion
Why a Jigsaw Puzzle?
Why would God seemingly hide his prophetic intentions in Psalms in such a way that even today biblical pundits do not agree on their overall meaning? Why not speak clearly, directly, and openly about the coming of Christ? No doubt each commentator would answer this question differently, but here’s what I think.
The first reason, at what may appear to the modern eye to be the cold end of the continuum, is that God is sovereign. He owes nothing to anyone. He is not a politician trying to win an election. He bows to the whims of no one. He is not looking to go viral, nor does he care to win a popularity contest. When God caused the Bible to be written, he did it his own way for his own reasons. God chose the vehicle of human faith as the means through which he would manifest himself. “Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 NET) Solving the puzzle of Psalms God’s way requires faith.
When we think about it, faith is fair. It requires neither intellect nor non-intellect, no particular personality type, no particular race, neither wealth nor poverty, neither male nor female, nor any particular nationality. No particular skill is necessary for faith, nor does faith favor a lack of skill. Faith does not require virtue, nor does it need an over abundance of sin. The only requirement of faith is a humble heart. A proud heart is likely to reject faith. God in his sovereignty chooses to hide himself to all but those who look through the eyes of faith. Solving a puzzle requires faith in its maker, who presents us its key. Faith in Christ is able to solve the puzzle of Psalms. [Disclaimer: the reverse is not necessarily true. I am by no means saying that people who do not view Psalms as I do lack faith in Christ.]
The second reason is humankind’s hardness of heart toward God. Throughout the entirety of Scripture, front cover to back, God has always favored the humble heart. In the New Testament Jesus spoke a saying, “Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6 NET) And in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit wrote, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17 ESV) What better way to publicly sow seed than by means of puzzles? Everyone sees the puzzle. The hard of heart will not understand, while the broken of heart will receive the key and solve the puzzle.
Why does God hide his word from the hard of heart? First is the matter of judgment. God judges the hard of heart by withholding understanding from them. Apart from this, I also believe he does so to provide time for the broken of heart to hear and understand. When God came to visit humanity in physical person in the form of a man, Jesus the Son of God, he often spoke in parables, or story puzzles. Jesus’s disciples once asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (Matthew 13:10 ESV) He replied, “…this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” He was quoting Isaiah from the Old Testament. Jesus continued, “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:” (Matthew 13:15-18 NIB)
In other words, Jesus didn’t want those who hated him to understand his words. This was God’s judgment upon them. On the other hand, he wanted those who would become his friends to understand. For this to happen, he needed to give them time. When Jesus’s enemies finally, clearly, understood Jesus’s stance as God’s Son, they crucified him. But not before he had three years to present his entire case. During this time, his disciples and others had opportunity to hear and see all that he gave them. Although they didn’t fully understand at the time, after his resurrection they did.
Clear and direct statements can easily be rejected outright without a pause for deliberation. Puzzles coax. They give people time to ponder and reconsider. They give opportunity for puzzle solvers to ask for help. They give time for some hardened hearts to be softened. Jesus’s disciples were the puzzle solvers, and by giving them parables, he protected them from immediate retaliation of outright enemies. His parables gave his disciples and friends the time they needed to fully understand his words and actions.
What about today? Here we have a second aspect of the explanation. God loves us. He is our Father and Jesus is our Brother. Parents and grandparents who love their children know they can’t get enough time with them. They love and savor every moment of pleasure in watching them grow. They love helping the child grow. Growing takes time, and God has all the time in the world to enjoy his children.
Jigsaw puzzles take time. It’s pretty difficult to go racing through jigsaw puzzles. They are not like driving down a scenic highway at eighty miles an hour, missing all the sights along the way. The best way to see scenery is at a slow pace. Likewise, by their very nature, jigsaw puzzles must be slowly solved. The time necessary to solve these puzzles allows them to work well as a group activity. The puzzle solvers can remain quiet, or they can talk. Great visiting and fellowship can take place when friends do jigsaw puzzles together. They produce a relaxed atmosphere where eventually hearts are often shared. The Psalter as jigsaw puzzle takes time. When a pliable, humble, seeking heart reads Psalms, God is reading with her. Sometimes God talks, and often he watches. Solving this puzzle together results in fellowship with God. As a parent, God often enjoys watching his child place the pieces. At other times, he guides his child’s hand.
Puzzles frustrate certainty and foster humility. It’s easier for us to learn when we give God our uncertainties. Being stuck on a puzzle piece encourages us to ask God for help. This is good, because God loves to help his children and it gives us opportunity to hear from him directly. As Father, he loves to give good things to those who ask him (Matthew 7:11).
Finally, puzzles grow with a child. A very young child begins with a three piece puzzle. Preschool children can move up to twenty-five pieces. Some, like myself, never choose to go beyond five hundred pieces, no matter how old I am. And, I like my puzzle pieces large, so I can see and handle them easily. God’s Word is adaptable to the individual. The Psalter grows with us. The more time we spend in this book, as in all of God’s Word, the more of himself God shares with us. That is, as long as he has given us the key, and we choose to receive. Jesus Christ is the key to all God’s Word. Praise be to the Lord.
Psalms as Jigsaw Puzzle
hans-peter-gauster-252751-unsplash Jigsaw Puzzle.jpg
Setting: You’re working on a jigsaw puzzle. Most of the pieces look more or less the same, and you feel like it’s a puzzle depicting fog. Suddenly, you find a piece that makes your heart leap. You examine it closely and yes, it contains strong clues that tell you this piece is pivotal and unique. But where does it belong?
Sometimes reading Psalms is like working on a jigsaw puzzle. Many psalms sound more or less the same. Most people might tell you that there is no distinguishable “plot line” to Psalms. Once we find the key, however, the pieces of individual psalms fit together into a beautiful portrait of the face of Christ. But where do we begin?
A good place to start a jigsaw puzzle is the picture on the top cover of the box. But when we dump the pieces out and turn them over, do we recognize that these pieces will form that picture? Or is this something we accept by faith? Do we think that the publisher of the puzzle lied to us and purposefully put an incorrect picture on the top side of the box just to trick and confuse us? Of course not. Now if we receive something as mundane as a jigsaw puzzle by faith, why not the word of God? Who better than the author of the book would know what the book contains?
What does the author of the book say about Psalms? (What picture does the publisher of the jigsaw puzzle place on the cover of the box?)
Luke 24:25 And he [Jesus] said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (ESV)
Acts 2:30 [Peter speaking about David] Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. (ESV)
Luke 24:44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, (ESV)
In other words, God, who wrote the book, claims that Psalms are prophetic of Christ. The picture on the box of the jigsaw puzzle is a picture of the life of Christ. This information proves to be invaluable when unlocking the solution of what so often appears to be an insoluble jigsaw puzzle.
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Stay Tuned: We’ll be continuing this motif in later posts as we consider a group of psalms known collectively as the “Penitential Psalms.”
One Small Voice 