The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship — Key Ideas to Explore

Diction of Lament and Trust

Watts's lexical choices in the penitential psalms create a stark emotional landscape. In Psalm 77:1, the speaker 'cry'd with mournful voice' and 'fill'd the night with fear.' The repetition of 'sad' and 'dark' intensifies the opening: 'Sad were my days, and dark my nights.' Yet the turn comes through deliberate self-correction: 'But I forbid this hopeless thought, / This dark despairing frame.' The verb 'forbid' is striking—it suggests an act of will, not passive consolation. Watts pairs abstract nouns ('grace,' 'wrath,' 'rest') with concrete bodily states ('heart began to break,' 'eyes awake'), grounding theology in physical experience. The resulting diction is both intimate and doctrinal, a voice that reasons with itself as much as it prays.

Dialogue Between Self and Scripture

Watts frequently structures psalms as internal dialogue. In Psalm 77:1, the speaker addresses God directly ('To God I cry'd'), then turns inward: 'I call'd back years and ancient times.' The questions that follow—'Will the Lord no more be kind? / His face appear no more?'—are rhetorical, but they mimic the wavering of faith. The answer comes not from a divine voice but from the speaker's own recollection: 'I'll think again of all thy ways, / And talk thy wonders o'er.' This pattern of question and self-answer recurs throughout the collection. It transforms the psalm into a script for private devotion, where the believer rehearses scriptural history as a remedy for doubt. The dialogue is never truly two-sided; instead, the speaker persuades himself using the language of the covenant.

Description as Theological Argument

Watts's descriptive passages serve a doctrinal purpose. In Psalm 77:2, the Red Sea crossing is rendered with sensory force: 'The waters saw thee, mighty God! / The waters saw thee come; / Backward they fled, and frighted stood.' The personification of the sea ('frighted stood') turns natural phenomena into witnesses of divine power. Similarly, 'Thy voice with terror in the sound / Thro' clouds and darkness broke' merges meteorological description with theophany. These are not mere embellishments; they argue that creation itself responds to its Maker. Watts selects details that reinforce his Calvinist framework—human helplessness, divine sovereignty, and the typological link between Israel's history and Christian experience. The description always points beyond itself to a moral or spiritual lesson.

Structure of Repetition and Variation

Watts organizes his psalms into numbered parts and stanzas, creating a predictable yet flexible structure. Psalm 78 appears in two parts: the first instructs children in 'mighty deeds,' the second recounts 'Israel's rebellion and punishment.' Each stanza follows a consistent meter (common metre: 8.6.8.6), but Watts varies the rhyme scheme and line length within that framework. The repetition of key phrases—'Let children hear,' 'He bids us make,' 'Our lips shall tell'—builds a litany-like rhythm suitable for congregational singing. Yet within this formal constraint, Watts introduces dramatic shifts: the first part ends with a promise ('Thus shall they learn'), while the second opens with a rebuke ('What a stiff rebellious house'). This structural contrast mirrors the psalms' own alternation between praise and lament, making the collection usable for both public worship and private meditation.

Readers approaching this edition should attend to the interplay between Watts's poetic craft and his theological commitments. The psalms are not spontaneous outpourings but carefully wrought artifacts, each line shaped by the demands of metre, rhyme, and doctrine. Johnson's preface provides a useful biographical frame, but the real interest lies in how Watts transforms ancient Hebrew poetry into eighteenth-century English hymnody. For those studying the history of Christian worship or the development of English verse, this text offers a rich case study in adaptation and invention.

There’s a particular ache in Watts’s psalms—David’s grief reframed through a Christian lens—that makes you wonder how much of our longing is inherited rather than discovered. It reminded me, strangely, of a quieter book I once picked up, The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity — A Closer Reading. Different traditions, yes, but both trace that same faint thread of searching, across centuries and translation, for a voice that already knows your loneliness. I still think about that juxtaposition sometimes.