Daily Psalms - Classical Psalms Every Day

Psalm 22: From the Pit to the Congregation
No line in Scripture is darker than the one that opens this psalm, and none has traveled further. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" — the cry of a man who has run out of everything but breath, and even breath is beginning to fail. The middle of the psalm reads like a coroner's report: bones out of joint, heart melted like wax, tongue cleaving to the jaws, hands and feet pierced. And then, without warning, the floor of the pit gives way to something deeper — not more despair, but praise. "I will declare thy name unto my brethren." By the end, all the ends of the world are remembering and turning to the Lord. How does a song that begins in total abandonment end in global worship? Only one way: the psalmist has discovered that even at the bottom of the bottom, underneath the underneath, there is still a voice to cry to — and that voice has been there the whole time, listening. Centuries later, a man on a cross would borrow this psalm's first line, and by doing so, teach us that its last line was meant for him too.
00:00 My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me
00:30 Our Fathers Trusted in Thee
01:00 I Am a Worm, and No Man
01:30 Bulls of Bashan Compass Me
02:00 They Pierced My Hands and My Feet
02:30 I Will Declare Thy Name
03:00 All the Ends of the World Shall Turn

Psalm 21: The King Who Cannot Keep a Secret
If Psalm 20 was the hushed prayer whispered on the eve of battle, Psalm 21 is the bright song sung the morning after. The king has come home with everything — the crown, the long days, the desire of his heart — and yet notice what he cannot seem to do: take credit for any of it. "Thou hast given him... thou hast not withholden... thou settest a crown... thou gavest it him." The verbs are all His. The victor stands at the center of the celebration and insists, like a man who has just been startled by kindness, that none of this is really his. And that may be the hardest miracle of all. To receive a gift without quietly believing you had earned it, to be crowned and not turn it into an occupation — this is rarer in kings than in children. The psalm ends where every honest joy ends: not with "look what I have," but with "be thou exalted, Lord."
00:00 The King Rejoices in Thy Salvation
00:12 Thou Hast Given Him His Heart's Desire
00:24 A Crown of Pure Gold
00:36 The King Trusteth in the Lord
00:48 Thine Hand Shall Find Out Thine Enemies
01:05 Be Thou Exalted, Lord

Psalm 20: Some Trust in Chariots
This is a blessing psalm — the kind of prayer a congregation sends with a soldier the night before a battle, or a parent whispers over a child going somewhere frightening. "The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble." Every line is a hand laid on someone's shoulder. And then, in the middle, comes the line that has echoed down three thousand years of wars and elections and anxious weekends: "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." It is not a boast — David had plenty of chariots himself. It is a statement about where a man's deepest confidence is kept. You can have the horses and still know they are not the reason you will stand upright in the morning. The psalm ends with the briefest prayer in the whole Psalter, barely five syllables long: "Save, Lord." As if, at the end, when the benedictions are all spoken and the armor is on, there is only one thing left worth saying.
00:00 The Lord Hear Thee in Trouble
00:15 Send Thee Help From the Sanctuary
00:30 Grant Thee Thine Heart's Desire
00:45 We Will Set Up Our Banners
01:00 The Lord Saveth His Anointed
01:15 Some Trust in Chariots and in Horses
01:30 Save, Lord

Psalm 19: The Sun, the Bridegroom, the Runner
There is no psalm quite like this one, and the reason is that its poet cannot seem to sit still. He begins with the silent speech of the heavens — "there is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard" — a paradox only a poet in love could have written. Then he fixes his gaze on the sun, and the sun is suddenly a bridegroom leaping out of his chamber, a runner exulting in a great race, and we are no longer watching astronomy at all but a wedding and a footrace rolled into one. And then, just when you think the psalm will stay out there among the constellations, it turns inward and becomes the most lyrical passage in Scripture on the loveliness of God's law. The statutes that once felt like a cage become honey. The commandments that seemed a burden become more desirable than fine gold. And the psalm ends with the prayer every maker of words has prayed since: "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight." The man who started by listening to the sky ends by hoping his own small voice might join the chorus he heard there.
00:00 The Heavens Declare the Glory
00:15 Day Unto Day Uttereth Speech
00:30 The Sun as Bridegroom and Runner
00:45 Nothing Hid From the Heat Thereof
01:00 The Law of the Lord Is Perfect
01:15 Sweeter Than Honey in the Comb
01:30 Cleanse Me From Secret Faults
01:45 Keep Back Presumptuous Sins
02:00 The Words of My Mouth, the Meditation of My Heart

Psalm 18: The Large Place
This is the longest psalm so far, and for good reason — it is a song composed after a great rescue, and when you have been rescued you tend to want to tell the whole story. David does. He tells of the sorrows of death compassing him, the snares that nearly had him, the cry that went up from his distress. And then the language suddenly breaks into something cosmic: God bowing the heavens, riding upon a cherub, flying on the wings of the wind. You can feel the poet reaching for bigger and bigger images, as if no ordinary word could contain what has happened to him. But then, in the middle of all that thunder and lightning, comes the line that has always seemed the quiet center of the whole song: "He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me." A large place. Spaciousness. Room to breathe again after the walls had closed in. And the reason given is not David's worth but God's delight. Later comes a line that ought to stop every reader in his tracks: "Thy gentleness hath made me great." That what made a warrior king into something more than a warrior was not strength but gentleness, not God's power but God's tenderness. The whole psalm, with all its fire and chariots and trembling mountains, turns on that one quiet word.
00:00 I Will Love Thee, O Lord, My Strength
00:25 The Sorrows of Death Compassed Me
00:50 The Earth Shook and Trembled
01:15 He Bowed the Heavens and Came Down
01:45 He Drew Me Out of Many Waters
02:15 He Brought Me to a Large Place
02:50 With the Merciful Thou Art Merciful
03:20 Thy Gentleness Hath Made Me Great
03:55 Feet Like Hinds' Feet
04:30 Girded With Strength for the Battle
05:00 Beat Them Small as Dust
05:30 The Lord Liveth, Blessed Be My Rock
06:00 Great Deliverance to His Anointed