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Spring 2000 Mini-Course

Praying at the Edge:
Suffering, The Psalms of Lament, and God

Dr. Rosann M. Catalano
Roman Catholic Scholar
Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies

The Psalms of Lament

The Book of Psalms is considered by many to be the prayer book par excellence. In it we hear the voices of women and men who turn to God in moments of joy and sorrow, pain and promise, anger and praise. Praying at the Edge: Suffering, The Psalms of Lament, and God focuses its attention on the experience of human suffering and the struggle to remain faithful in its midst. This course explores the contours of the world of human pain, the questions and challenges it puts to all who believe in God, and the remarkable ways in which these ancient biblical prayers give expression to the mystery of human suffering that confounds us all.

The Structure of the Lament Form

The lament form is divided into two main sections: plea and praise. Each section has a specific purpose and is made up of components that function in important and unique ways. Listed below is the structure of a "typical" psalm of lament.

The Moment of Plea

• address or call to God
• complaint or lament proper
• turn to God or confession of confidence or trust
• petition
• motivation

The Moment "Between"

The Moment of Praise

• assurance of being heard
• promise of praise

The Lament Corpus

One hundred fifty psalms comprise the Book of Psalms. In the Jewish Bible (the Tanakh), Psalms is the first book of the Kethuvim, or The Writings. In the Christian Bible, Psalms is part of the Old Testament, placed after the Book of Job and before the Prophets.

A conservative estimate places the number of psalms of lament at fifty-seven (57), approximately 38% of the Book of Psalms.

Scholarly convention divides the lament psalms into two general types: personal, or individual, laments; and com-munal laments.

Personal Laments
(Laments of the Individual)
(43 psalms)

3	25	42	63	102
5	26	43	64	109
6	27:7-14	51	69	120
7	28	54	70	130
9:13-20	31	55	71	140
10	35	56	77:1-12	141
13	38	57	86	142
17	39	59	88	143
22	40:11-17	61

Communal Laments
(Laments of the Community)
(14 psalms)

12	60	80	90	126
44	74	83	94	137
58	79	85	123

Within the classification of laments, three sub-categories are often distinguished. They are:

• Penitential psalms: 6, (32), 38, 51, 102, 143
• Imprecatory (or cursing) psalms: 12, 35, 58, 59, 69, 70, 83, 109, 137, 140
• Protestations of innocence: 17:3-5, (18:20-24), 26:1-6, (41:12), 44:17-22, 59:3c-4a

(Psalms listed in parentheses -- viz., Pss. 32, 18, and 41 -- are really Individual Psalms of Thanksgiving but derive from a lament context.)

Two other psalm types, Psalms of Thanksgiving and Psalms of Confidence, although not Lament Psalms in the formal sense, are important in any discussion of the literature of lament because they are generally believed to have derived from a lament context.

Psalms of Thanksgiving (17)

Psalms of Thanksgiving are believed to be a response to an answered lament. They are characterized (1) by their note of thanks to God for specific help already received, and (2) by their recollection of the lament situation, usually in terms of a description of the plight as well as of the cry to God for deliverance. Thanksgiving Psalms almost always recount the deliverance and conclude with a resounding thanks to God for hearing and answer-ing the lament.

Individual Psalms of Thanks (12)

9:1-12	34	92
18	40:1-11	116
30	41	118
32	66:13-20	138

Communal Psalms of Thanks (5)

65	68
66:1-12	124
67

Psalms of Confidence (12)

Psalms of Confidence, sometimes designated Psalms of Trust, are also believed to derive from the context of lament. Oftentimes the plight of the lamenter is de-scribed and the petitions for help included, but the primary element of these psalms is the profound trust in God's ability to deliver the lamenter from the situation of distress. This element of trust is so pervasive that the affliction itself seems to recede into the background.

Individual Psalms of Confidence (9)

4	23	91
11	27:1-6	121
16	62	131

Communal Psalms of Confidence (3)

115

125

129

Taken together, the psalms that derive from the expe-rience or context of suffering -- Lament Psalms, Psalms of Thanksgiving, and Psalms of Confidence -- account for 86 of the 150 psalms preserved in the Book of Psalms -- approximately 57% of the entire corpus.

Psalms of Praise

The category of Praise includes 32 psalms: 20 Hymns of Praise, 6 Enthronement Psalms (psalms proclaiming God as king), and 6 Hymns of Zion (psalms praising Zion as the place of God's continuing presence).

Taken together, Psalms of Praise and psalms deriving from the experience of suffering (Laments, Thanksgiving, and Confidence) account for 118 psalms, approximately 80% of the Book of Psalms.

See a Selected Bibliography for this course.

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