“TODAY IF YE WILL HEAR HIS VOICE”: THE ROLE OF PSALM 95 IN MATTINS

Inzameling van het manna door de Israëlieten De Kinderen Israëls Versaamelen het Mana by Jan Luyken, courtesy of the Rijksmuseum.

Part I

Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts *
as in the provocation,
and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness;
When your fathers tempted me, *
proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, *
It is a people that do err in their hearts,
for they have not known my ways.
Unto whom I sware in my wrath, *
that they should not enter into my rest.
(Book of Common Prayer (BCP) 1979, p. 146)

In 1789 the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, replaced these words from the Venite, Psalm 95, in Morning Prayer with vv. 9 and 13 of Psalm 96.

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; *
let the whole earth stand in awe of him.
For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth, *
and with righteousness to judge the world
and the peoples with his truth.

Although the preface to the 1789 disclaims “intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship; or further than local circumstances require” (BCP 1979, p. 11 ), several of the revisions seem to exceed the necessities of local circumstance, including this modification to the Venite (retained in 1892, 1928, and 1979). At the 1886 Convention there was an unsuccessful proposal to restore Psalm 95 without modification with the option to omit the last four verses (a path taken in the 2019 BCP of the ACNA, though it requires them during Lent). The 1928 and 1979, while retaining the modified Venite, permit the use of Psalm 95 unmodified instead. In recent years, several have written in favor of the full Venite in Morning Prayer, including S. L. Bray, the Rev. Dr. S. C. Rice, the Rev. J. M. Lock; I add my voice to theirs. Particularly during this season of Lent, I urge you to read Morning Prayer with the Venite in its fullness.

Psalm 95, known in the West by its Latin incipit, Venite, exultemus Domino, has formed part of the entrance to daily worship “from time immemorial” (as Blunt says). It is so used in the liturgies of Saints Chrysostom and Basil; Ambrose and Augustine indicate its use in their churches as well. The discussion in Hebrews 3:7—4:11 has prompted some to wonder if it was in regular use in the community to which that epistle was addressed. The Venite has been universally regarded as “a whetstone to set an edge upon our devotions at the very beginning of public prayers,” as Dean John Boys put it (in The Minister’s Invitatory, 1609). It does not express praise but rather exhorts the assembly with what Boys, Comber, and Wheatly characterize as a three-fold exhortation: to praise (vv. 1-5), pray (vv. 6-7), and hear (vv. 8-11), the three acts with which the office is concerned: “to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary as well for the body as the soul” (BCP 1979, p. 41).

Why were the last four verses replaced in the first American Prayer Book? Brownell reports this explanation from Bishop William White:

We left out the latter part of the “Ventite” (as in the English book) as being limited to the condition of the Jews: but I wish we had ended with the 7th verse, as there is now an awkward repetition of the two added verses on the 19th day of the month. (p. 84). 

White’s wish -- that the last four verses simply be deleted (not replaced) -- was the course adopted by the 1928 English Proposed Book, and it is not uncommon to hear English choirs sing the Venite this way in Mattins today, as in this recording. The 1929 Scottish and 1962 Canadian Prayer Books include the last four verses but permit their omission. White’s explanation is surprising in at least two ways. First, it is widely thought that the omission was to avoid ending on a negative note (though, of course, since the Venite ends with the Gloria Patri, like all the psalms in the daily office, it doesn’t). Another, similar argument is that references to temptation and wrath are not appropriate in a call to worship. However, White makes neither of these arguments (though he does not speak for the whole Convention).

The second surprise is much more troubling. White claims these verses are only relevant to “the condition of the Jews.” He does not argue along literalist lines that it is only applicable to its original audience, but “limited to the condition of the Jews.” It would be less troubling (though still incorrect) had he said they are not applicable to the condition of the Christian (whether Jew or Gentile), but he did not. However, even that argument — if he means something along those lines — flies in the face of Hebrews 3:7—4:11. Five times in this passage, the writer repeats “today,” emphasizing that the Spirit intends this warning for us, those redeemed in Christ, today.

This modification of the Venite reveals a misunderstanding of its role in the office. The psalm calls the assembly to praise, to pray, and to hear, the three aims identified in the opening exhortation of the office. The omitted verses contain the exhortation to hear God’s word, which the preface to the first English liturgy of 1549 identifies as a principle motivation: “that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once in the year… that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) should continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true religion” (p. 866 BCP 1979).

These verses not only call us to hear, but to hear in a particular way:

Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts *
as in the provocation,
and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness;
When your fathers tempted me, *
proved me, and saw my works.

This punctuation obscures the shift in speakers that occurs at this point. The “me” of v. 9 can only be God — the one whose patience the rebellious try — who in v. 8 is referenced in third-person, “him.” Somewhere between these two pronouns, probably immediately after the word “voice,” God cuts off the speaker, the voice the psalmist bids us hear breaks in and addresses the assembly directly. “Today if ye will hear his voice — ‘Harden not your hearts.’” This is the climax of the psalm.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is the first half of a two part series. You can read the second part of this post here.