Psalms 141:2

Psalms THE INCENSE OF PRAYERPsalm 141:2 . The place which this psalm occupies in the Psalter, very near its end, makes it probable that it is considerably later in date than the prior portions of the collection. But the Psalmist, who here penetrates to the inmost meaning of the symbolic sacrificial worship of the Old Testament, was not helped to his clear-sightedness by his date, but by his devotion. For throughout the Old Testament you find side by side these two trends of thought-a scrupulous carefulness for the observance of all the requirements of ritual worship, and a clear-eyed recognition that it was all external and symbolical and prophetic. Who was it that said ‘Obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams’? Samuel, away back in the times when many scholars tell us that the loftier conceptions of worship had not yet emerged. Similar utterances are scattered throughout the Old Testament, and the prominence given to the more spiritual side depends not on the speaker’s date but on his disposition and devotion. So here this Psalmist, because his soul was filled with true longings after God, passes clear through the externals and says, ‘Here am I with no incense, but I have brought my prayer.

I am empty-handed, but because my hands are empty, I lift them up to Thee; and Thou dost accept them, as if they were-yea, rather than if they were-filled with the most elaborate and costly sacrifices.’ So here are two thoughts suggested, which sound mere commonplace, but if we realised them, in our religious life, that life would be revolutionised; first, the incense of prayer; second, the sacrifice of the empty-handed. Let us look at these two points. I. The Incense of Prayer. ‘Let my prayer come before Thee as incense.’ Now, that symbol of incense is thus used in many places in Scripture. I need only remind you of one or two instances. You remember how, when the father of John the Baptist went into the Holy Place, as was his priestly duty at the time of the offering of the evening oblation, the whole multitude were in the Outer Court praying; he in the Inner Court, presenting the symbolical worship, and they, without, offering the real. Then, if we turn to the grand imagery of the Book of the Revelation, where we find the heavenly temple opened up to our reverent gaze, we read that the elders, the representatives of redeemed humanity, have ‘golden bowls full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints.’ So there is no fancifulness in interpreting the incense of the ancient ritual as meaning simply the prayers of devout hearts.

Psalm 141:2 . Let my prayer be set forth before thee — Hebrews תכון לפניךְ , be directed to thy face, person, or presence. Let it not be lost, but let it come unto thee and find audience; as incense — Let it be owned and accepted by thee, no less than if it had been offered with incense at thine altar, from which I am now banished, and so am prevented from offering it there. And the lifting up of my hands — My prayer made with hands lifted up, which was the usual gesture in praying; as the evening sacrifice — In which he instances rather than the morning sacrifice, either because this prayer was addressed to God in the evening, or because the evening sacrifice was more solemn than that of the morning, and was attended with more company and more prayers; whence the ninth hour, which was the time of this sacrifice, is emphatically called the hour of prayer, Acts 3:1 .

(2) Set forth . . . —See margin; but more literally, be erected, suggesting the pillar of smoke (comp. Tennyson’s “Azure pillars of the hearth”) continually rising to heaven. Some think the incense refers to the morning sacrifice, so that the verse will mean, “let my prayer rise regularly as morning and evening sacrifice.” But this is hardly necessary. Sacrifice—i.e., the offering of flour and oil, which followed the burnt offering both at morning and evening (Leviticus 2:1-11; in Authorised Version,” meat offering “), and here probably associated specially with evening, because the prayer was uttered at the close of the day. (See Note, Psalm 141:3.) For the “lifted hands,” here, from the parallelism, evidently only a symbol of prayer, and not a term for oblation, see Psalm 28:2, Note. “For what are men better than sheep or goats, That nourish a blind life within the Drain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, Both for themselves, and those that call them friend.” TENNYSON: Morte d’ Arthur,