Psalm 138

Psalm 138 in the Très Riches Heures manuscript . 15th century

The 138th psalm is a biblical psalm from the fifth book of the psalter . It is a thanksgiving psalm that belongs to the group of David psalms .

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The psalmist recites his hymn in the forecourt of the temple . In it he thanks God for salvation from great need. When it says in the 1st verse that he wants to sing praises to God “before the gods”, then this probably means that he wants to thank God in spite of all false gods who are worshiped in the vicinity of the worshiper. Verses 4 and 5 are to be understood as a request to recognize God's greatness and to sing about it. Verse 6 emphasizes that in spite of His exaltation, God still knows the needs of the lowly . Verses 7 and 8 close the psalm with a confession of unshakable trust that God will do everything to save the prayer.

reception

Confitebor tibi Domine (v.1.), Motto on the bishop's coat of arms by Filippo Strofaldi

Johann Rist (1607–1667) takes up verse 7 in his song Man praises you in the silence (1654; EG 323) verse 3.

See also : Settings of Psalm 138

Web links

Commons : Psalm 138  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Psalm 138 in the standard translation , the Luther Bible and other translations from bibleserver.com
• Psalm 138 in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) on bibelwissenschaft.de
• Public domain sheet music of settings for Psalm 138 in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stuttgart Explanatory Bible. 2nd Edition. German Bible Society , Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-438-01121-2 , p. 768