Psalm 141

Some readers, who have attended liturgical churches, may recognize this psalm. Since the early centuries of the church it has been used to introduce Evening Prayer. The reference to the “evening sacrifice” in verse 2 is probably the occasion for the original setting of how David intended the psalm to be used and the reason why it later became connected with the evening prayer of the church.

Sometimes in reading the psalms we might read over certain things that seem to have little significance. Yet sometimes it is the things of little significance from which we learn something about worship. Consider the second verse:

“Let my prayer be counted as incense before you” (Psalm 141.2).

In the Bible, prayer is often connected with incense. In the system of worship commanded by God in the book of Exodus, incense was to be burnt in the evening by Aaron the priest and his descendents on a specially designed incense altar in the Tabernacle (Exodus 30.1–10). The image of the smoke of incense ascending upward with its sweet-smelling aroma seemed best suited to picture the praises of God’s people ascending to his throne. In John’s second vision in the book of the Revelation, angelic creatures are seen in God’s throne room holding “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 4.7). David’s statement in psalm 140 seems to be the source of this image, which ties together the idea of incense and prayer.

There are churches that have maintained the use of incense in worship, particularly the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The teachings of Jesus emphasize that worship is spiritual and rational in nature is made visible in a life of godliness rather than one of ritual (John 4.23–24; Romans 12.1–2). New Testament worship is remarkably free from the use of many symbols in worship—the water of baptism and the bread and wine of communion seem to be the only material and visible representations of spiritual truth the early church had. The idea of incense is, however, one of the Old Testament images of prayer that is instructive to us.

Note the second half of verse 2:

“Let my prayer be counted as incense before you and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!” (Psalm 141.2).

Today when we think of prayer we think of bowing the head and folding one’s hands. It appears from both the Old and New Testaments that standing and lifting one’s hands to God was the normal posture of prayer in the ancient world (Psalm 28.2; Lamentations 3.41; Luke 24.50; 1 Timothy 2.8). The image seems to be that of entire openness to God, holding nothing back. It doesn’t seem that the lifting of hands accompanied singing as is common today. Of course none of these things are prescribed in scripture as the way in which prayer must be done. Scripture tells us that prayer is the expression of our heart’s feelings to God—posture is unimportant, with the one exception that our posture should be culturally acceptable.

Sometimes we might pass over these details but it is important to draw from scripture all that it teaches us about worship and to distinguish what is prescribed for us to follow from what isn’t. There are many details like this in the psalms and constant reflection upon them allows us the freedom to reflect on them at length for our soul’s benefit.