HÔDÂH: SPONTANEOUS OR PLANNED? - While this psalm has the word, hôdâh, translated in English as, "to give thanks," Westermann comments that technically, this is a psalm of praise, since in the Hebrew language, there was no word that corresponded exactly to our notion of "to give thanks."

. . . praise differs from thanksgiving above all in being spontaneous; it can never become a duty, something one has to do. When one praises, it is a sign that one is happy; praise is never mandatory, thanksgiving always is

. . . thanksgiving can be a private act where one expresses one’s gratitude, and so it is often stressed that the really important thing then is the inner feeling of thankfulness. By contrast, it is characteristic of praise to be given voice and that before other people. [1]

HOW DO YOU HEAR PSALM 30? - The NIB commentator suggests that we can hear this psalm either in a simplistic way (pray long enough and God will make everything all right), or we can hear this psalm as a new reorientation to life that, through experience has come to acknowledge suffering and joy. [2]

QUOTE: Praise is the language of joy and gladness that goes with life and is life in contrast to the silence of death. [3]

EVELYN UNDERHILL: As the life of prayer deepens it brings a gradual realization . . . that through all the vicissitudes of trial, sin and conflict, the ground of the soul is rooted in God’s life.

How have you found Underhill’s statement to be true for you? Can you think of a time of "vicissitude" when you still knew that you were grounded in God’s life and love?

Taking our cue from the commentator’s conversation about the two ways that we could approach this psalm, I would create a simplistic world of trust that seems to work only for a tiny few insulated diehards of happily ever after faith.

Juxtapose that fleshed-out image with the other way we can approach the psalm-someone who has been through the "vicissitudes" of life and has come out on the other side with a new orientation that clearly acknowledges both suffering and joy, both of which are rooted in God’s life.

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[1] Claus Westermann, The Living Psalms (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ, 1989), page 168.
[2] The New Interpreter’s Bible IV (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), page 797.
[3] Ibid, page 797.