When it is said
Anyone may pray it, anywhere and at any hour. This page gives only its first four verses: a cry for help from someone at the end of their strength.
In the Greek Psalter that the Orthodox Church uses, it is Psalm 60.
Where it comes from
Author by tradition
A psalm of David, far from home
Psalm 61’s heading reads, in a Jewish translation of 1917: “For the Leader; with string-music. [A Psalm] of David.” The singer calls to God “from the end of the earth”. The Jerusalem Bible, a Catholic translation, calls it the “prayer of an exile”.
The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society (1917), on Mechon Mamre; Wikipedia, Psalm 61
Sung in many churches
The Coptic Orthodox Church prays it at midday in its book of hours. In the West, monks who kept the Rule of St Benedict, written in AD 530, sang it in the night service on Wednesdays. The composer Antonín Dvořák set three of its verses to music in 1894.
What the words mean
Overwhelmed, or faint?
The King James Version says “when my heart is overwhelmed”. The Jewish Publication Society’s version of 1917 says “when my heart fainteth”. Two old translations put the same Hebrew word in two ways. This page keeps “overwhelmed”, the word most people know.
The King James Version (Project Gutenberg); Jewish Publication Society (1917), on Mechon Mamre
A rock too high to climb
The 1917 Jewish version reads “lead me to a rock that is too high for me”: a height no one could climb alone. So the psalm asks God Himself to lead the way up.
What is Selah?
Selah, at the end of verse 4, comes 74 times in the Hebrew Bible. No one now knows exactly what it means. It was probably a mark for the singers or the reader, perhaps “stop and listen”.
The Scripture in it
Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call out to You whenever my heart is faint. Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. For You have been my refuge, a tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in Your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of Your wings. Selah
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.