I Will Meditate on All Thy Work

Psalm 77 — the night song of the Book of Psalms — continues. Part 1 ended with a searching spirit: a man awake at night, asking where salvation is. Part 2 is the answer — but it does not come at once. First come the questions.

Part 2 of the song (verse 1 and verses 8-13) opens with the sharpest questions ever asked in prayer: Will the Lord cast off for ever? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? — questions Asaph asks aloud, one after another, hiding nothing.

And inside the questions hides faith: whoever asks "hath God forgotten to be gracious" still calls Him gracious; whoever asks about the mercy still remembers it. Asaph's questions are prayer wearing the shape of a question.

Then comes verse 11 — the turning point of the whole psalm: And I said, This is my infirmity. It is my weakness that sees it so; God has not changed. And at once, the great decision: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

From there the song bursts into joy: I will remember. Memory becomes medicine, and the aching questions melt into praise.

The central verse of the psalm, chosen as the name of the song, is:

"I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings"

This is also the chorus of the song. No longer a man communing with his own heart alone, as in Part 1 — now he meditates on God's work and speaks of His deeds, and the meditation turns into song.