Ps. 69.29-31 (toward the nature of praise)

But I - / lowly / and in pain
defend me / with your saving works / O God
I will praise / God’s name / in song
and magnify it / with thanksgiving;
that will please Yhwh / more than an ox
more than a bull / with horns and hoofs.

These lines begin the transition toward praise and deliverance that marks the end of the psalm. It also inaugurates a dynamic that will prevail until the end: giving and receiving. The psalmist positions himself as ‘lowly and in pain’, a status he has clearly inhabited throughout the psalm but one he has never described in these terms. Rather, the predominant image previously set out involves his being beset by enemies and the ‘water-flood’ they are covering him with. Here, the enemies are sent into the background, while the psalmist emerges as a person in need of hospitality. As we saw in our previous reflections, a person who is suffering inhabits a realm that places duties on others—they must give them ‘comfort and companionship’; they must, in other words, extend hospitality. This can be expected. Here, especially when that person is a ‘servant’, can he, by positioning himself as “lowly and pain”, create a obligation on the part of the stronger party to act. He is almost de facto entitled to deliverance because of this. Justice demands it. Hence, “defend me with your saving works, O God.” This reception is then met by the return gift of praise. There are two important points about this ‘return’—1) it is in thanksgiving and not sacrifice; 2) although it appears to be a part of this ‘obligatory’ structure, it is clearly an act of devotion. As to the first point—it may be that what we see here is that sacrifices can’t be offered as the ending of the psalm seems to contemplate that Zion needs to be rebuilt. Without a Temple there are no sacrifices. Seen from this perspective, the psalmist is simply saying that in the absence of sacrifices praise/liturgy will be pleasing to God. However, even granting this possibility, there is, it seems to me, the clear sense that praise in some way is a higher ‘offering’ than sacrifices. This is not to say that sacrifices are unimportant. Just because praise is pleasing to God does not mean that sacrifice is not. It is simply to observe that praise, on the hierarchy of ‘return’, is greater than sacrifices, more ‘pleasing’ than them. Which leads to the second point. As we have seen in other psalms, there is always the danger with sacrifices that they appear to be a type of transaction or payment to God; that they somehow ‘enhance’ what he otherwise wouldn’t have. That said, they are clearly offer-ings. What we have seen in those meditations is that sacrifices are, in some way (particularly thank-offerings) ‘encased’ in praise; they are liturgical offer-ings in that they become the ‘handing-over’ of all creation in an act of blessing-praise. They are, in other words, acts of love and charity that include within them this dynamic of ‘obligation’ but also, importantly, transcend them in the joy of the handing-over. In this way, the ‘handing-over’ is always ‘more-than’ the animal being sacrificed. Here, the act of ‘magnifying God’s name’ and praising ‘his name in song’ is this prodigal nature of liturgy. The act of praise and liturgy is not contained within bonds of obligation although those bonds are included in them. This is why the ‘act of praise and liturgy’ can be seen here is a greater handing over than sacrifice. More than an animal is being handed over when this reality of the ‘prodigal nature of praise’ is grasped, not less. The liturgy of the angels is really pleasing to God. It is a real handing-over of something to God. It is, I believe, in this dynamic of the ‘more-than’ that God’s “Name” can actually receive something humanly proportionate to it. Again, this does not denigrate sacrifice in any way (although it does perhaps re-orient it). It does, however, lift the act of liturgy and praise into an incredibly high realm of dignity—indeed it lifts it all the way up the Name itself. This the ‘return’ that is seemingly proportionate to the giving.