Psalm 25:6, 7b, 17-18, 20-21 or 27:1, 4, 7, 8b, 9a, 13-14

“Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.” (Psalm 25:6)

Psalm 25 is an alphabetic acrostic, its lines running through the Hebrew alphabet with the irregularities usual in the form, and the day’s selection lifts four widely separated couplets out of that scheme: the appeal to God’s ancient mercy (v. 6), the plea to be remembered apart from one’s sins (v. 7), the enlarged troubles of the heart (vv. 17-18), and the commending of the psalmist’s life into God’s keeping (vv. 20-21). The verb “remember” carries the whole selection, asked first of God’s own steadfast love and then turned against the record of youthful sin, which is precisely why the psalm suits a commemoration of the dead: what is requested is that God’s memory prove longer than the account. The alternative, Psalm 27, supplies the other register the day needs, confidence rather than petition, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (27:13).

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