Psalm 65

Psalm Category: Community song of gratitude

Central Thought: Silence is a precious way of giving praise to God, and is often a natural response to an understanding of God’s greatness.

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.

Our culture, too, has become a noisy place. Technology and media have steadily advanced and engulfed our society, reducing quiet moments and places to a precious few. Silence seems to make us self-conscious (hence the phrase “awkward silence”).

Perhaps all this helps to explain why Bible translators cannot bring themselves to equate silence with praise, as does the Hebrew text on more than one occasion.

The book of Proverbs makes it clear that, in our relationships with others, sometimes silence is golden. Psalm 65 is among several psalms that remind us that silence has its place in our adoration of God. Silence can be a worshipful acknowledgement that God is worthy of much more praise than what may be contained in mere words, and that whatever words we may muster will ultimately fail to rise above our weak conceptions of God and adequately portray His true majesty. Silence is a tacit confession that words have their limit, and that our great Lord is, ultimately, beyond the power of description.

We must, of course, for the sake of orthodoxy, commit the doctrine of God to the peril of words (to paraphrase John Calvin); and our adoration can be safely articulated with the God-given praises of the psalter. There is, of course, a time to “make a joyful shout unto the Lord” (Ps. 100:1). But there is also a time for worshipful quiet, and for praise to be contained in awestruck silence. Silence makes us self-conscious of our humble place before a holy God.

Psalm 65 begins with the awestruck silence of God’s people but ends with the hills and valleys singing and shouting for joy (v. 13). Such is the glory and majesty of our God. The hills and valleys with no power of speech cannot help but burst forth in song, yet the only articulate creature in creation is left in speechless wonder.

We have our “quiet times” of devotion, but often they are quiet in name only. We would do well to worship God at times with nothing more than pure, submissive silence, being self-conscious of our humble place before our holy and mighty Redeemer.

—C.J. Williams