O Elohim, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have related to us, the work You did in their days, in the days of old. Psalm 44:1  ISR

The work You did – I must confess.  I can’t hold it in any longer.  The current praise and worship music drives me crazy.  It sounds like soap-opera love songs to Jesus.  If I hear one more chorus of “like a rose trampled on the ground,” I think I’ll just turn up the volume on “Get Back.” When I recently preached at Glad Tidings Tabernacle in New York City, I interlaced songs from Janis Joplin into the message about dysfunctional families and Adam and Eve.  I just couldn’t endure the standard three repetitions of the ending chorus of popular Christian music or the syrupy lyrics of force-fitting biblical translations into contemporary rhythms.  I wanted the congregation to know that the music of the world is filled with cries for God – and real truth about the human condition.  Maybe that’s why I love the blues.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t like the wonder and elegance of biblical lyrics and poetry.  This verse is a splendid example of what happens when we remove the translation and hear the verse in its original language.  Listen to this. What you will hear is a repetition of the suffix ending nu, alliterations of fe, rhyming of hem, dem, and nice little phonetic plays like ata yadha – all in the first two verses.

Rather than try to examine all the intricacies of this poetic tour-de-force, let’s concentrate on only one small example of David’s incredible mastery.  The phrase “the work You did” in Hebrew becomes a marvelous word play, po-al pa-al-ta.  Even visually the phrase is arresting with the repetition of the consonants Pey-Ayin-Lamed, Pey-Ayin-Lamed-Tau. “Work You worked” is a better way to capture what is happening in Hebrew, although it doesn’t look very elegant in English.  And that’s the trouble.  Most of the exquisite poetic constructions of the Hebrew psalms vanish in translation.  So it’s not surprising that singing praise and worship music based on the translated passages lacks the poetic impact and seems forced.  Wouldn’t it be better to simply teach the psalms as they were written in Hebrew?  Isn’t that how we learned language in the first place, by reciting rhymes and signing songs?

Now let’s think about the message in this little word play.  “Work You worked” tells us about the history of God’s interaction with His people.  Didn’t we hear with our own ears those great stories about YHWH’s interventions?  (You might ask why it is necessary to say “hear with our ears”?  How else does one hear?)  Don’t we have a legacy to lean on?  Haven’t we been instructed in God’s compassion, rescue and deliverance?  (There’s another poetic construction going on here beneath the surface.  It’s called parallelism – but that’s for another day).  If we come to God without His authorized history, we will be faced with a confusing mess.  How will we know what God can do unless we know what God did?  Those stories aren’t simply Sunday school attention-getters.  They are our vital connection to the one true God.  We are expected to know them – and know them very well.  They give us hope when life turns sour.  They remind us of His care when we are crushed.  They point to His character when our character wavers.  “The work You worked” covers everything from creation to regeneration.  Time and again the poetry of the Psalms reaches back to the legacy of the works.  How can you read David’s marvelous poetry if you don’t know what he’s talking about?  How can the Psalms speak to you if the history of God’s interaction with Israel isn’t your history?

Topical Index:  work, poal, poetry, praise and worship music, Psalm 44:1