Today's Featured Psalm
Psalm 65

Read this Psalm

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. A Song.

1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
   and to you shall vows be performed.
2 O you who hear prayer,
   to you shall all flesh come.
3 When iniquities prevail against me,
   you atone for our transgressions.
4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
   to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
   the holiness of your temple!

5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
   O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
   and of the farthest seas;
6 the one who by his strength established the mountains,
   being girded with might;
7 who stills the roaring of the seas,
   the roaring of their waves,
   the tumult of the peoples,
8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

9 You visit the earth and water it;
   you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
   you provide their grain,
   for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
   settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
   and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
   your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
   the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
   the valleys deck themselves with grain,
   they shout and sing together for joy.


Scripture taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Psalm Devotional
Silent Praise

The Davidic context of struggle and hardship that has dominated the last dozen psalms now gives way to the joyous praise of Psalm 65, which exalts the Lord as both redeemer (vv. 1-8) and provider (vv. 9-13). The focus of our short study will be the familiar first line of Psalm 65, “Praise waits for Thee, O God, in Zion.” This is one possible translation of the Hebrew text which, taken quite literally, says, “Silence is praise to You, O God, in Zion.”

What may therefore be pictured is not a noisy throng of worshipers but an awestruck silence that speaks louder than words. This may be, on a corporate level, the same silent devotion that David expressed at the beginning of Psalm 62—”Truly my soul silently waits for God”—where again, silence is praise, and the idea of “waiting” is supplied by translators.

The worshipful meaning of silence may be hard to grasp at first thought, given the fact that prayer and praise are normally articulate actions with intellectual and emotional content. The very idea of worshipful silence may be further obscured by trends in modern worship, which incorporate everything from multimedia presentations to praise bands, on the assumption that louder is better.

Listen to this Psalm

Zion album art Awaiting You in Zion (Psalm 65A)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Zion
Zion album art O God of Our Salvation (Psalm 65B)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Zion
Deliverance album art Praise Awaits You, God (Psalm 65C)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Deliverance
Deliverance album art The Far and Distant Peoples Fear (Psalm 65D)
The Book of Psalms for Worship | Deliverance