In a Moment
The beginning and the end of Psalm 6 are built to match. Each runs three verses, six lines, twenty-four words — the same length to the word — and the echoes between them are deliberate.
Words for the Ones Who Have None
In counseling the grieving, Donna noted, “A lot of times, the widows don’t have words.” So when she sits with one of them, she brings a psalm and lets it do the speaking.
The Word That Isn’t “Law”
Open almost any English Bible to the first line of Psalm 119 and you will read that the blameless “walk in the law of the LORD.” “Law” is the natural word, the expected word—and a growing number of translators think it is the wrong one.
A King Reached for These Words (Psalm 6)
Is the sufferer in Psalm 6 actually sick? The psalm never quite says. It gives you hints, but never names a disease. One detail tips the balance.
The Hardest Words for the Worst Moment
The exact middle of Psalm 6 is also its most extravagant stretch of language. The psalm’s center is verse 7, which artfully depicts a man worn out with groaning.
The Man Who Came for the Rhythm
At Pastor Abou Assifa’s church, they were playing the tam-tam. A man arrived who had not come for the service. He had come for the sound.
Two Words Nobody Can Pin Down
Line up modern Bibles at Psalm 51:6 (Heb v. 8) and you will be pointed in different directions. The trouble is two Hebrew words: tukhot (טֻחוֹת) and satum (סָתֻם), which present translators with a double problem.
The Word in the Title No One Can Translate (Psalm 6)
Open Psalm 6 and before the first line of the poem there’s an instruction — a note to the music director. Part of it is a single Hebrew word that has defeated translators for two thousand years: sheminith (שְׁמִינִית).
The Name That Goes Missing
Count the times God is named in Psalm 6 and you get eight. Yet in the middle of the psalm, across its darkest stretch, the name vanishes completely. That gap isn’t random.
What We Don’t Sing
One Sunday, as Psalm 13 was being taught, two things struck Jon: the psalmist’s vow to sing in the midst of lament, and the observation that singing Psalm 13 today would feel foreign in modern churches. So he went home that night and started writing.
