Read: 1 Samuel 16:14-23
Whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played. (v. 23)
There are two puzzling words in this next line of Herbert’s poem. Why does he describe prayer as “a kind of tune”? And in what sense is it a tune “which all things hear and fear”?
Music comes to the fore again today, as yesterday (though here too we can readily apply his words to ourselves even if we have no particular musical gifts). George Herbert loved music, could play two or three instruments, and often walked in to Salisbury to hear sung services in the cathedral. As to the effects music can have, he may well have known the song in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (a stage hit in Herbert’s young days) that describes Orpheus, the lute player of classical legend, moving even the trees and hills and waves to attend to his music, which had the power to make “killing care and grief of heart / Fall asleep, or hearing, die.”
The Bible’s counterpart is the musicianship of the young David, who first came to public notice when his playing was able to soothe the tormented King Saul. What “heard and feared” David’s music, and was overcome by it, was the evil spirit that was causing Saul’s suffering. Prayer is the equivalent gift that God gives to us, to bring the same divine power to bear on our own fraught situations, “a kind of tune” that sends the enemy packing.
Here is the poem in its entirety:
Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – A Kind of Tune
