Episode 304: Pete Enns - Pete Ruins Psalms
In this episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete takes a deep dive into the Psalms—who really wrote them, how they were edited, and why they’ve endured for thousands of years. He explores how these ancient prayers reflect the full range of human experience with God—raw lament, joyful praise, and everything in between.
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: American Christianity: How Did We Get Here? with Dr. Jemar Tisby
Books: Psalms for Normal People by Josh James
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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Pete: You're listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
Hey folks. Last call to pay what you can for our July class, “American Christianity: How Did We Get Here?” taught by Dr. Jemar Tisby. Jemar is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Color of Compromise, and will be walking us through the history of how Christianity in the U.S. got tangled up with race, power, and very relevantly, politics.
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Pete: Hey everybody, welcome back to The Bible for Normal People, it's Pete here, ready to ruin another book of the Bible for you. And of course, by ruin, I mean more diving into the academic side of the Bible and its many surprises and challenges and also its clarifications.
So today it's the Book of Psalms, also known as the Psalter, that mishmash of ancient prayers and songs that are our favorite of Christians and Jews since forever. And it has a lot of moving parts and very interesting things to talk about. So first, as we get started, I want to remind you all of the wonderful commentary we have in our Bible for Normal People commentary series on the Book of Psalms by the wonderful Josh James.
Some of what I say here is probably going to overlap with things that Josh covered and that's inevitable. But I really encourage you to check out Josh's commentary if you have a chance. I have a course on Psalms and wisdom literature at Eastern University, where I teach, and Josh's book is an assigned text, so it's definitely worth your while.
Today, from synagogue to megachurch, from homes to concerts, the Psalms endured regardless of how they first functioned, because its readers have refused to keep this collection of songs in the past. Instead, they have been repurposed by communities and individuals for reasons that are as diverse as human experience itself.
Alright, so for today. Here are the main topics we're going to cover. First is authorship, who wrote them? The second is, how is the Psalter, the Book of Psalms, how is it organized? Also, what are the big theological themes we find in the Salter and for what purpose were Psalms written? That's the fourth one, and the fifth is how have Christians, including the New Testament writers, used the Psalms?
Okay, so let's get going. First off, who wrote the Psalms? Well, 116 of the 150 Psalms have a title called a superscription. 73 of those super descriptions say that the Psalm is attributed to David somehow. It says a Psalm of David. Other psalms are attributed to other people like Asaph, 12 Psalms. The sons of Kora, 11 Psalms.
Both of these are temple figures, uh, Solomon, David's son, two Psalms to him, and Moses even gets one, Psalm 90, among others. And even some are written to the chief musician with no name attached. Uh, some superscriptions include musical direction, like “with stringed instrument” or “upon the flutes,” et cetera, or even some historical notes which we'll get into.
Uh, like when he fled from Absalom, that's when David fled from Absalom and on the dedication of the temple and others like it. But authorship is much more involved from a historical point of view than what these supers descriptions tell us. So let's look at those David Psalms, for example, which are entitled Mismor L’Dovid, A Psalm of David, and that would seem to settle the matter, and it has, frankly, for much of the history of Judaism and Christianity.
In fact, biblical writers, like in 2 Chronicles chapter 29 or in 2 Samuel 22, refer to David as the Singer of Songs, and the New Testament, for example, the Book of Acts chapter 2 and the Book of Hebrews chapter 4, they treat David as the sweet psalmist who composed many Psalms, and this reflects the longstanding belief in Judaism and Christianity that the Davidic superscriptions denote genuine authorship.
In other words, a Psalm of David means David is the author. However, contemporary scholars almost universally regard most of these titles, these superscriptions as later editorial notes rather than reliable historical claims. In other words, they were not written by the psalmists, but by later editors. They might have been scribal notes indicating which tune to use in singing a certain Psalm or some historical event that is supposedly linked to it.
And that was probably done to make the Psalms more concrete and thus link them to the reader for personal devotional use. Now, one reason scholarship has questioned Davidic authorship of the Psalms is precisely because of that recurring phrase, a Psalm of David. Specifically, it's the word “of.”
The Hebrew phrase is, as I said before, Mismor L’Dovid, Psalm of David, and that, that little word “L,” Mismor L’Dovid, that, that is a preposition in Hebrew. That's the letter Lamed, which roughly corresponds to our letter L, and it's translated as “of.” Which, if you think about it, that word “of” is really ambiguous, isn't it? I mean, even in English, think of how many meanings there are for the word “of,” and the phrase Psalm of David is therefore open to various interpretations. That preposition can mean “by,” which indicates authorship, a Psalm by David, written by David, right?
But it could also mean, like, “to” or “for,” meaning a Psalm concerning David or about David or maybe dedicated to David. Now early Jewish and Christian voices certainly took that Lamed to indicate authorship. The prevailing academic consensus, however, maintains for various reasons that a Psalm of David should probably be better understood as a Psalm to David or for David, or concerning David.
So, for example, Psalm 24 is a Psalm of David, but it seems to be a reflection on the temple, which was not erected until after David's death. That's his son Solomon who built it. So the bottom line, the Psalms seem to be anonymous, works with precious little information to pin down who wrote them. In fact, there is little to go on for determining when a Psalm was written.
Though academics have suggested they range from probably beginning around, let's say roughly 11, 1200 BCE, and continuing to the post-exilic period. As we see, for example, quite clearly in Psalm 137, which is a lament over the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in 587. And so it begins by the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept.
Babylon is the place of captivity, and so this looks explicitly like a post 587 BCE Psalm, but not all Psalms are that helpful in terms of giving us clues as to when they were written. Now, one last thing on authorship. For the most part, scholars don't really care about finding out who wrote them.
This is due to the early 20th century work of the German scholar Hemann Gunkel. Instead of trying to see the Psalms as reflecting the experiences of individual writers, Gunkel's focus turned to a broader question of how they functioned in the life of the community. That is a hugely important distinction that we'll come back to a little bit later.
I just wanted to throw it out there now. Now, to sum up Gunkel and Psalms scholarship ever since, the Psalms were written not as personal prayers or diary entries. But they were written for liturgical purposes, for cultic purposes, which is a common academic phrase, and cult means simply anything to do with worship.
It has nothing to do with cults of the way that we think of it today. Let's move on to the structure of the Book of Psalms. See, why the Book of Psalms looks the way that it does is a matter of very intentional editing. Investigating that editing process is referred to in scholarship as redaction criticism, and redaction is just a fancy word for editing.
The point here is that the arrangement of the salter was intentional. It was not haphazard, at least on the macro level. Let's look at the big framing of the book, the beginning and the end. The first two Psalms set things up for the entire book of Psalms.
In Psalm 1, we read that Israel is divided into two groups of people. Those who meditate on the law, they will flourish, while those who do not will dry up and be drawn off by the wind. This Psalm is often referred to as the gateway to the Book of Psalms, because of how it sets up things like God's rewards and punishments, the importance and centrality of meditating on God's law.
And so it's interesting. You know, the Book of Psalms begins with an ode to Torah. Uh, Psalm 2 reminds us that God's chosen king reigns, and so the nations should be quaking in their boots. The king referred to here is unnamed, but it either refers to David or perhaps to any king sitting on the throne.
So Psalms 1 and 2, God's law is central. Psalm 1. God's chosen king is sitting on the throne and the nations are quaking in their boots. Life is good. This is how the Psalter begins, and one cannot help but notice that right away the next several Psalms are less cheerful, less optimistic, and somewhat distressing because there is some problem that the Psalmist needs help with.
I mean, here's how Psalms 3-7 begin in order. Oh Lord, how many are your foes? Answer me when I call, oh God. Give ear to my words, Oh God. Oh Lord. Do not rebuke me in your anger. Oh Lord, my God, and you, I take refuge. Save me from all my pursuers. See, despite how confidently Psalms 1 and 2 begin the book, the facts on the ground are more complex.
Now moving to the end of the Book of Psalms in terms of its big macro structure. The Psalter ends with five Hallelujah Psalms. Psalms 146 to 150, and they're named that because they begin with the word hallelujah, which means praise Yahweh. Hallelu, praise. Yah, the first half of the word Yahweh. So hallelujah means praise Yahweh, and it's a fitting end to the book.
Now another big picture organizational scheme is the Psalters five book structure. Very much intentional on the part of pretty much anybody who's thought this through, but think the five books of Torah when we see the five books of the Psalter, five books of the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Psalter imitates that fivefold form, that fivefold structure.
Which tells us something of how the editors of the Psalms thought about them. Remember, Psalm one is an ode to the study of Torah. This, the first book of the Psalms is 1 to 41. The second begins at 42 and goes to 72, so about 30 Psalms there, and about 40 in the first group. Book three is 73 to 89.
That's 17 Psalms. 90 to 106. That's book four, and that is 27 Psalms. And then Book five is from 107 to 150, which is 44 Psalms. That's how they're divided. And we know that these are divided into five books because each book ends with a little doxology, a little praise or blessing.
For example, book 1. This is Psalm 41. It closes with the following. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen. Book 2, Psalm 72. It ends with quote, blessed be the Lord. A refrain. Book 3. This is in Psalm 89. Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen And amen. Book 4, which is Psalm 106. Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the people say amen. Praise the Lord.
Book 5 ends with a rousing note. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. This five-part shape was almost certainly imposed by the final editors to give the Psalter a grand Torah-like structure.
So they're not just songs you sing, they're, they're more important to that. They're more integral to the life and faith of ancient Israel. Now, Walter Brueggemann, who is one of my favorite Hebrew Bible Scholars, and it's a name that I think many of you know. He was on the podcast back in the first season, but he has an interesting take on the big structure of the Psalms.
He divides the book into three parts, Psalms of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. This does not map well onto the five book scheme, but it doesn't need to. There are different schemes we can take for trying to understand this very complex book. So first, the Psalms of orientation. Well, they see the world as stable, as ordered and reliable.
God is trustworthy. Things make sense, and they emphasize things like creation and God's rule over creation, Torah wisdom, God's sovereignty, and also gratitude. The Psalms of disorientation reflect on things that aren't going well. Crises, suffering, betrayal, loss, they reflect anguish, doubt, rage toward God, or abandonment by God.
You know when the old certainties break down and God seems absent or unfaithful? That's what these Psalms talk about. You know, think of the “how long, oh Lord” Psalms like 13 or 44. These include individual and communal laments, laments in the first person and first person singular, and also laments in the first person, plural, and also what are called imprecatory Psalms or cursing Psalms, which assert of cries for help.
Psalms of reorientation. These reflect a fresh, surprising gift of life from God following seasons of disorientation. And this is important. They are not about returning to the old days of orientation, but it reflects a transformation, a renewed trust after God has rescued or restored or renewed the sufferer.
And these are often seen in Psalms called Thanksgiving Psalms or hymns of praise, or various celebrations of God's deliverance. I have to say I like Brueggemann’s scheme as a way of representing the moods of the Psalms. I think it's very, very helpful, especially in today's age when there's a lot of talk about deconstruction or disorientation.
Uh, we see that same kind of movement in the Psalter itself. I think that alone is a lesson for people to learn so they can get a sense of the degree to which the Bible really reflects spiritual journeys and not just final answers. So anyway, just some random notes on structure.
A few pairs of Psalms were originally one Psalm and then later split by copyists. For example, Psalms 9 and 10 in Hebrew were one long acrostic Psalm, and it makes sense, see 9 through 10, it has all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet represented. So it seems to be one Psalm, but in the early medieval period, Jewish scribes split them into two.
That's why we have 9 and 10 and not just one big 9. Similarly, Psalms 42 and 43 clearly form a single poem of yearning for God's temple, but they're divided into two and what we call Psalms 146 and 147 was also once one Psalm. Now the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Vulgate, another ancient translation, this one being Latin, they preserved those pairs as single Psalms.
That's fascinating. Not the way we have it, but they have a different sort of numbering system. So the point is that the number 150 and how you get there is a bit arbitrary. Alright, so the bottom line on structure, think five books, each ending with a blessing, with lots of little editorial footprints, like superscriptions and doxology, and a few split and merged Psalms.
And also these Psalms express a lot of moods. In that sense, despite the diversity of the Psalms that were written over centuries. The Book of Psalms is organized to create one big book. How best to understand this organization of the Book of Psalms we have in our Bibles, well that's, that's debated, but scholars overwhelmingly see a purposeful overarching structure to the book.
Okay, let's move on now to theological themes of the Psalms. And that's a big issue in Psalms scholarship to identify the theological themes in the book, which is harder than you might think. See, whenever someone tries to put all the Psalms into discreet categories, which is what Hermann Gunkal did, by the way, they invariably have to use a shoehorn to make them all fit.
And that's because a good number of individual psalms legitimately contain more than one theme. So it's best not to be too rigid with some of these theological categories. I'm gonna show you here in a second. Um, but having said that, there are some things to be gained from looking at some of these themes and noticing them when we see them, right?
So the first theme is God as king, and many Psalms celebrate Yahweh's kingship, his cosmic kingship. And we see this, for example, in like Psalm 93 and then 95 to 99, um, and they shout that the Lord reigns over all creation. That's a celebration of God's kingship. Uh, related, we have royal Psalms, for example, Psalm 2, which we looked at, and, and a few others like 20, 21, 110 for example, and many others.
They often talk about Davidic king's anointed princes and God's own son, which means the king, not Jesus. It's just the king. And so you tie God's sovereignty to his chosen human king. So God is the king, he's the creator. But God has chosen by God's sovereignty a human king. And so that human king is sort of an earthly placeholder for the actual God.
And that's why kings are called sons of God, uh, in antiquity, and certainly in the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 2 by the way, which we looked at already, is one example of the king being called the Son of God, who's begotten by God himself. The second is lament and praise. So this is a dialogue with God that is rooted in some suffering.
Let me explain that. The Psalms famously let people yell at God about suffering and also sing God's praises often in the same Psalm. Most of these lament Psalms end in hope, though there are two Psalms that are notable exceptions. I'll mention those later. Psalm 88 and 89. Walter Brueggemann, he puts a big label on this.
He says, the Psalter is Israel's, and I'm gonna use some big words here. The Psalter is Israel's normative script for dialogical, covenantalism, right? So it's a script, and that's the threefold pattern that he mentioned before of orientation, disorientation and reorientation. It's dialogical. It's a back-and-forth conversation between Israel and God.
And it's covenantal, meaning it has to do with Israel's bounded and unique relationship to God. So translation, the Psalms are supposed to be prayed aloud again and again in God's presence, modeling an ongoing conversation with God under God's covenant, we go from “how long, Oh Lord,” to “praise his holy name,” sometimes in the same Psalm.
And that makes the Psalter or something of an emotional, maybe rollercoaster of trust at times. Now, a big element of these lament psalms is God's hiddenness, God's absence. How long, Oh Lord, again, Psalm 13 44, 74. Or why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22, these express without meekness, anguish or doubt, the tension between the old days, memories of the old days when God showed up for Israel.
Psalm 44 is a great example of that. The contrast between that when God showed up and the present time when God is silent. And that disconnect is a driving force of a good number of Psalms. And as I said, Psalm 44 is a really good example. Wow. We love the stories of the old days when you showed up and saved our ancestors.
So, uh, what's keeping you from showing up here? Another one is theodicy and suffering. And this is related to the theme of lament. The Psalms here frequently confront the problem of evil and why God lets it happen. See some lament, the prosperity of the wicked and the plight of the righteous. Like Psalm 73 is a great example of that.
This guy is lamenting the fact that while he is a covenant keeper, he is obedient to God and he's suffering while as the wicked. They have everything they need. It doesn't make sense in many Psalms, the faithful suffer illness, injustice, or abandonment. Psalms 38, 88 and 102, and then the prayerful voice does not shy away from demanding answers of God.
Defend yourself. What's going on here? So covenant faith under trial is a notable theme, maybe a sub theme in the Psalms. Even in lament, psalmists often reaffirm trust in God's covenantal hesed, which means God's steadfast love and the call to remember me according to your covenant. Remember me, oh Lord, according to your own set of rules.
Okay, let's move on to the next theme. That's creation. Several Psalms focus on God as creator, as opposed to God's of other nations who the Bible claims weren't creators. So think Psalm 8, for example. Very famous Psalm. When I look at the heavens, you know what is man, that you are mindful of him, right?
He's making God out to be this creator who is alone, the creator, nobody else. Psalm 19, the sky proclaims God's handiwork. Psalm 104 is a nature epic from sunlight to sea to animals, and the final praise. Psalms 148, 149, and 150, which call on sun moons, mountains and beasts to praise God. These poems portray the cosmic order as singing and worshiping praises to God, which ties back to the notion of God's kingship over everything, which was an earlier theme.
And you know, after you work with these themes, you just realize how many of these just really do overlap. One more. Again, this is just a quick overview, justice and implication.
A dark corner of the Psalms is the impracation passages, which are prayers that curse enemies and demand God's justice, not just saying, oh Lord, be with me. Where are you? It's actually demanding some type of vengeance against the enemies. Now, Christians today wrestle with the sentiments again, like Psalm 137, happy shall he be who takes your little ones, meaning the little ones of the Babylonians, the babies and dashes them against the rock.
Right. It's, it's fine to struggle with these. It's like, what do you do with them? Uh, but they remind us, I think that the biblical worldview isn't always sweet and sentimental. Sometimes the Psalter models the cry for God's vengeance on evil. And you know, I might be bothered by that. You might be, but I've often wondered how I would react to being subject to political violence and injustice.
It's easy to discount these cursing psalms, but they make sense if we remember that all of the Psalms reflect the reactions and responses of ancient Israelites. In that sense, they are valid responses to threat. I don't think God condones the smashing of Babylonian babies' heads against the rocks, but that doesn't mean a psalmist can't express that deep agony to God.
To sum up this theme buffet, Yahweh as king and and Lord are, are pretty constant themes. Human experience like pain and praise, they are spoken of very candidly. And creation and, and trusting in God. These are ever present threats. Psalm-speak, folks, is raw and it's real. It's full of images like a rock, a shepherd, a king, but also an angry storm or a dry soul.
And that mix makes it enduring for personal prayer. Okay, so our next topic here for this episode is the purpose for which the Psalms were even written. Now we have to get into scholarship a little bit here because in the early 20th century we see a big shift in Psalms scholarship. Hermann Gunel, whom I mentioned before, he pioneered a way of classifying Psalms by genre.
Sometimes it's called by form and hence this whole thing is called form criticism. Anyway, he noticed as everyone noticed before him, that there are different types of Psalms that have similar properties. Laments have a complaint and a petition. Usually hymns have a call to praise. Royal Psalms talk about the king or God's kingship.
So he, Gunkel, he theorized that these different types of psalms, they're not just different, they're not just randomly different, but they reflect different moments in Israel's collective national experience. And these moments were the Psalms. Here's the German term that all seminarians love to say, sitz im leben, which literally means setting in life.
Gunkel says that these Psalms have a sitz im leben that come out of the life experiences of Israel nationally. Not so much individually. Now, as I mentioned before, form criticism moves us away from trying to understand a Psalm as a, let's say, psychological expression of an individual author, which is to say, to ignore the super descriptions that treat some of the Psalms in just that way, as you know, reflecting maybe something in David's life.
Remember that these superscriptions are seen by scholars and for very good reason as later additions and not part of the original composition. Now that life setting is not the personal experiences of the Psalm writers. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I gotta get it across. Rather, it reflects the communal, religious setting of Israel's worship.
Now, let me give a concrete and often cited example of a sitz im leben of Psalms, and this comes from the Norwegian scholar, Sigmund. Mowinckel, and I'm gonna pause here for a minute because even though he has painted the Psalter with maybe perhaps too broad of a brush, his insights have proven useful and generally very convincing, and actually has led to other kinds of similar studies.
Mowinckel's central claim is that the Psalms are primarily liturgical texts. They originated in public worship in ancient Israel and not just as private devotion or poetic reflection. He argued that to understand the Psalms properly, we need to see them as tied to specific religious festivals and rituals in the Jerusalem temple.
That's where he stands apart from others specific religious festivals and rituals. So Mowinckel is best known for his theory of an annual enthronement festival of Yahweh. Which he believed took place at the new year, possibly the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival celebrated God's kingship, his past acts of salvation and his ongoing rule over creation and history.
It was kind of like an ancient Israelite version of New Year's, Easter, national holiday, and coronation all wrapped up into one. Now, Mowinckel believed many Psalms were composed or used for this enthronement festival. For example, Psalm 47, God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with a sound of a trumpet.
See, God has gone up where? Up to his throne. Psalm 93. The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty. It's got a royal robe on right? Psalm 96 and 99, often called Yahweh reigns Psalms 'cause that's what they all say. So he referred to these as enthronement Psalms, a term that stuck in scholarly circles, even if the underlying festival theory connection has been and continues to be debated.
So Mowinckel applied the form critical approach of Gunkel. Like there are different types of Psalms, but he went a step further by trying to tie them to specific Israel rituals involving worship in the temple. So a lament was not a spontaneous personal outburst. It may have been a formalized temple prayer, perhaps even recited on behalf of the community, and left very, very vague so that it could apply to a number of different national laments.
A Thanksgiving Psalm may have been part of a ritual of restoration or healing, right? These, these are the kinds of ideas that Mowinckel pushed, and his approach did influence how scholars began reading the ser, not just as a devotional book, but as a liturgical anthology, deeply embedded in ritual life and national memory.
Now, I know that's a bit weird to hear because especially modern Christians are used to thinking of the Psalms as very personal things I can utter to talk about my problems. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just laying out that Psalm scholars don't see the personal use of the Psalm as a good historical explanation for how the Psalms came about.
Now, one last point, Mowinckel also made waves with his interpretation of Royal and Messianic Psalms, and he distinguished between the two. And, uh, I think we should be careful to, to really follow him here on, on, on what he's trying to get across. First, the actual Royal Psalms used in the coronation or life of a historical king, right?
That Psalm 2, again, is a good example. Uh, you have these Psalms, but then later these Psalms were interpreted Messianically. Especially in the post-exilic period. See, Mowinckel believed that post-exilic Israel had a robust hope and a coming king, a Messianic figure. And so they repurposed these royal Psalms, which are not Messianic looking forward.
They're talking about their own circumstances, but they repurposed these royal Psalms as a way of expressing that future hope, right? The future-ness is something introduced later on through interpretation. And this insight was a big deal for understanding how the New Testament also, you know, frankly, falls in line with this Jewish tradition of applying them to some other figure.
And of course, in the case of the New Testament, it's Jesus. And also by doing that, essentially redefining what Messiah even meant. A crucified and risen savior rather than a just and law-abiding king on the throne, which is the ideal in the Hebrew Bible.
I wanna turn now to a quick look at some notable Psalms and quick, I mean, just a few sentences each. And I have, I have 12. I, you know, I really tried to narrow myself down here and not talk about too many 'cause that would be the whole episode. But I, I, I picked 12 that I think are interesting and illustrative of certain things.
So the first Psalm 1, right, talked about it before, let me just reiterate. It is an exemplary wisdom poem. Why is it a wisdom poem? It's a wisdom poem because of its sort of black-and-white view that's very typical of wisdom literature. You know, there's the, the wise and the fool. There's the just and the unjust.
There's the wicked, and then there's the good, right? They have these black and white things, and the Book of Psalms opens up with the Psalm that portrays that very same way of thinking about God, and by contrasting two ways of life, the blessed person meditates on God's law, Torah, and that person is like a tree planted by streams while the wicked are like chaff that are blown away.
Psalm 1 thus functions as an introduction to the salter. It has a wisdom feel to it that casts the Psalms as a kind of new Torah for life and for prayer. And it's been influential in both Judaism and Christianity as a summary of righteousness and as a foundation for personal piety. Psalm 22, a classic lament psalm that moves from deep despair to unexpected praise.
It's, it's famously quoted in the Gospel by Jesus on the cross. You know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But the full arc of the Psalm is, I think oftentimes perhaps overlooked by readers because we're thinking too much of the New Testament context. The Psalm itself expresses intense suffering, both physical and social, before pivoting to renewed trust in God and communal celebration, and this journey from utter abandonment to restored confidence and praise, a full cycle of disorientation and reorientation, as Walter Brueggemann might put it.
That's what we see in this Psalm. Understandably, this Psalm of suffering is cited in the New Testament with respect to Jesus's suffering, but Jesus is not being predicted in Psalm 22, and that can trip up some readers. Rather, the New Testament writers seek to tie Jesus' life to Israel's tradition. For example, verse 18, they divided my clothes among themselves and for my clothing cast lots.
This is cited in Matthew's Gospel chapter 27. Now, on one level, frankly, I have no problem saying this could have happened to the historical Jesus. On the other hand, I also have no problem saying it didn't, and Matthew's just doing what he does so often, creatively connecting Jesus to Jewish tradition.
Likewise, verse 16 says, my hands and feet have been pierced, which sounds very Jesus-y, but that is a highly doubtful translation. The word rendered pierced in the Hebrew is unclear. Jewish tradition renders it very differently. Not my hands and my feet have been pierced, but, like lions, they have mauled my hands and my feet.
“They” being the pack of dogs mentioned in the previous line. In other words, the bad guys are after me. They surround me like a pack of dogs, like lions ready to maul. It is not a reference to the crucifixion. Psalm 23, perhaps the best known part of scripture for anyone who watches TV or goes to movies or whatever.
This beloved shepherd's psalm, which is attributed to David, depicts Yahweh as a caring shepherd who provides guides and protects the faithful. Its imagery has made it central to liturgy and literature on trust in God. You know, he makes me lie down in green pastures. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil.
Psalm 23 has often been used in worship and at funerals as a message of comfort. Now, one fun fact about this Psalm, which may ruin it for you, concerns the last line. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall what? I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now that's been understood to refer to, like, the afterlife, mercy, goodness, and mercy follows me all the days of my life.
And then when I die, I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's something said at funerals, for example. But the thing is that last bit there, I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, should probably be translated differently. Not I shall dwell, but I shall return to the house of the Lord and not forever, but for length of days.
In other words, all my life. See, this Psalm may not be talking about what happens after you die and give a word of comfort toward that. It's the Psalm saying that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and as a result, I'm gonna keep returning to worship God in the temple for the rest of my life, maybe on a yearly basis depending on where they live.
So the Psalm is not about afterlife, but pilgrimage to the temple. I'm pretty convinced of that myself. Okay, Psalm 51, another one that we know because of its being quoted in the New Testament, but this is a classic penitential Psalm that the superscription, again links to David's sin with Bathsheba.
That happened in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. Now, the Psalmist urgently seeks mercy and forgiveness. Have mercy on me, oh God. According to your steadfast, your unfailing love, wash me thoroughly for my iniquity. It emphasizes inward repentance and a transformed heart. You know, create in me a clean heart. Oh God. Verse 10.
Now, Psalm 51 has been extremely influential in Jewish and Christian repentance traditions like liturgies for Yom Kippur or Ash Wednesday and is often cited as the archetype of true confession. Now, one point worth mentioning here concerns verse 5, indeed I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
This is not a lone proof text for the Christian Augustinian doctrine of original sin. It is hyperbole, which is common in the Hebrew Bible and the Psalms. The psalmist is sorrowful for his own sin and venting about how deeply ingrained it is. You know, I've always been this way even before birth. There's no hope for me. Again, folks, as, as difficult as it may be to hear this, there is no doctrine of original sin in that Christian sense, at least anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, and that includes this verse.
Psalm 88. Ah, this is one of my favorite Psalms because of its raw honesty and just bleakness from beginning to end. It doesn't try to soften the blow. Of a state of misery that, you know, God could come easily to rescue and save, but doesn't, despite pleading. God just is firm and doesn't do anything. And what's so powerful about the Psalm is that the writer relentlessly blames God for all his troubles without flinching, without apology, and that the Psalm ends rather abruptly.
You have caused, you meaning God, you Lord have caused friend and neighbor to shun me. My companions are in darkness. Now here, the Hebrew actually simply says, my companions are darkness. No “in,” which is a powerful image. Or it might mean my companions are nowhere to be seen. They're hidden by darkness. Either way, this Psalm does not end on an up note of praise, and likely for that reason, doesn't get much airtime in church.
Psalm 89, speaking of not ending up on an up note, Psalm 89 is the one where the writer basically calls God a liar. This is one of the most upfront Psalms in the entire Bible. He's saying that God is to blame for not being steadfast in his love for Israel. In other words, God is breaking a covenant. He's breaking a promise, and he reminds God that one of his great promises is that a son of David will never cease sitting on the throne in Jerusalem.
That's what the psalmist reminds God of. Remember that promise you made that a son of David will never cease sitting on the throne of Jerusalem? Yeah, that was awesome. We love that promise. But with that, we get to the Psalmist point of contention that he has with God: the exile, right? Think about it. The exile destroyed that promise.
God promised one thing, a forever kingship. But God did another. He allowed exile to happen, which is a loss of kingship. They had no king for all that time in Babylon, and they wouldn't have a king again until about the second century. A lot of time passed. That's just the way the Psalm is, and it's worth noting too that Psalm 89 is the final Psalm of Book three, and therefore ends with one of those doxologies.
Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and amen. The books that follow, 4 and 5, they will pivot to reclaiming God's praise, worthiness, and the hope of true renewal, but you have to experience the trauma of Psalms 88 and 89, which end that third book in order to really get the magnanimity of that rescue, of that renewal from God.
Psalm 100. This is a short, jubilant call to worship. And verse one opens up, make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. And the verses extort the people to enter the temple courts with thanksgiving and to know that the Lord, meaning Yahweh, is God. And it's, it's, it's only five verses. These crisp verses cover joy, gratitude, God's goodness, and God's enduring love.
And Psalm 100 has a wide cultural impact. For example, the famous tune, old 100th, which maybe you've heard of, actually I miss singing this. It's, it's really a beautiful hymn. The tune right you, you know, the tune all people that on earth to dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serve with mirth is praise forth tell, call me before him and rejoice.
That's the last time you'll ever hear me singing on a podcast episode. But still, I miss singing that when I was in Calvinist spaces, this was a favorite and it's a beautiful song based on Psalm 100, it was originally arranged, apparently for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. But the Psalm, you know, you have these imperatives throughout the Psalm that have long been used to summon congregations to praise, and it remains a staple in liturgical settings as an anthem of thanks and of praise.
Psalm 110. We're getting there folks. This is a royal enthronement Psalm of David, and it is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. It pictures the Lord, Yahweh, right God inviting someone referred to as my Lord. Who is this My Lord? Well, it's the psalmist talking about his king. So God said to my king, the, the Psalm pictures the Lord Yahweh inviting the psalmist's king to sit at God's right hand until the enemies are subdued.
So the psalmist is talking about the king's coronation, and this is cited in Mark chapter 12 as applying to Jesus specifically, which is why this is considered a key proof text for Christ's eternal kingship, although that is not what the meaning of the Psalm is in its original context. This is a Christian use of this Psalm.
Okay, next is Psalm 119, which is the longest Psalm, 176 verses. It is another acrostic Psalm, meaning there are 22 stanzas because there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and each stanza has eight verses. So eight times 22 gives you 176, and its theme is the exaltation of God's Torah, which is God's word, and the psalmist repeatedly praises God's law, decrees and statutes.
You know, like your word is a lamp to my feet, which by the way doesn't mean like the whole Bible. It means the Torah. Psalm 119 has been influential in both Jewish and Christian devotion as an ode to scripture rather than just a Torah, right? Which is an expansion of its original meaning. It's not, there is no whole Bible at this point in time.
We have Torah though, so it's been expanded in meaning to refer to all of scripture. That's fine if you wanna say that. I'm just saying that's not what the psalm is actually saying. But one thing that's really fascinating about the Psalm is its long, repetitive style. It seems to create a meditative posture when reading it.
Just going over the rhythm of it, you know, uh, 22 stanzas, eight verses in each stanza, a very repetitive, coming back to the law, to decrees, to statues. And my professor John Levinson at Harvard, he said that, uh, this, this repetitiveness does reinforce a meditative feel to this Psalm. And, uh, I, that's always stuck with me.
But bottom line, this, this Psalm exemplifies how meditation on God's law leads to spiritual insight and moral guidance, which is very similar to Psalm 1, and its length and its poetic structure make it unique among the Psalms. Boy folks, you're really hanging in there. Three more to go and then we're gonna wrap it up with a few final comments.
So let's get to Psalm 121. This is one of the 15 Psalms that go from 120 to 134, that refer to as the songs of ascents. And these were traditionally sung by pilgrims going up to the temple. See the temple? Wherever you're standing, it's always up 'cause it's on a hill and it begins. I lift my eyes to the hills.
Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. The Psalm assures that God, creator of heaven and earth is the ultimate guardian and explicitly states that God watches over Israel at all times. That's verses five to eight. As a result, Psalm 121 is famous for its message of God's constant protection over life's journeys.
It's frequently recited in contexts of travel, marriage, and community worship as a blessing of God's care and vigilance. Although we must remember that praising God for being ever vigilant flies in the face of human experience and the Book of Psalms itself with its lament tradition. We just have to keep that in mind.
Not to make this one Psalm the most important one. It's part of these multiple voices we hear in the Psalter, and rest assured the editors knew that. I think these editors of the Psalter are forcing that covenant dialogue that Brueggemann talks about. Okay, two more. Psalm 137 is a powerful exile lament set to a haunting opening verse.
By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion, which is another word saying Jerusalem. It expresses the anguish of the Judean exiles, longing for Jerusalem, and the pain of having to sing hymns under foreign oppression. Verses 5-6, thou never to forget Jerusalem will never forget it. You know, I, if I forget you, let my right hand wither.
It's sort of like speaking a curse onto yourself. And the Psalm ends with a violent implication, a curse as we've already seen against Babylon's children. And that reflects the raw grief and the desire for justice. And again, whatever misgivings I might have about saying things like this, dashing baby's heads against the rocks, I'm not sure how I would react if I were in the same situation.
Because of its poignant imagery, Psalm 137 is regularly featured in Jewish and Christian worship as the embodiment of communal lament and the hope of return. Psalm 150, the final doxology of the Psalter. That's what we have here. This is the last one, and it ends on a real high note. It calls on everything that has breath to praise God.
Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him with sounding symbols. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, verses 1-6, with his explosive exhortation and numerous musical instruments listed like trumpet, harp strings, simple spike, also dancing. Psalm 150 epitomizes the culmination of praise in the Book of Psalms.
Its placement as the books close underscores the focal point of where the Psalter is going as a book. It's going to praise of God and letting everything that has breath, after all the stuff the Psalms have talked about. All the dumb stuff, all the bad stuff, all the theodicy, all the, you know what's God up to.
It ends with this unwavering tone of praise. This hymn has been embraced by virtually all liturgical traditions as a final anthem of praise, often used to conclude services or festivals. It encapsulates the Psalter's ultimate theological message. The whole creation is summoned to bless the creator and the redeemer.
Alright, let's move now to the last topic of discussion here for the Book of Psalms, which is, let's call it the afterlife of the Book of Psalms. And this is such a fascinating area, folks. Honestly, I love talking about this, how the Psalms were transformed even in very early Judaism and in the New Testament.
And it's, it really is a couple of podcasts all to itself. And who knows, maybe one day I'll come back to it, but just not here. I wanna be a bit briefer. We've all heard of the Psalms, we've probably read Psalms. We probably read Psalms more than anything else in the Bible. They remain one of the most relatable books of the Hebrew Bible for Christians.
You can even go to Christian bookstores and you know this, you can buy New Testament with psalms, right? You don't have New Testament with Ecclesiastes or New Testament with Leviticus, you have New Testament with the Psalms because it's, it's that part that I think people of faith keep coming back to.
Now, one abiding use of the Psalms is in both prayer and liturgy. So in Second Temple Judaism, right, they continued to revere the Psalms. This is Judaism after the temple, the second temple was built, which is around 515 BCE. The Psalms continued to be revered. The Dead Sea Scrolls, they contained, at least think about this, they at least three different Psalms collections, which shows among other things that yeah, they're popular, but also that their final canonical form, their final shape wasn't entirely fixed in the first second centuries BCE.
One scroll, for you nerds out there, this is 11 Q Psalms, even has extra Psalms in it, like the famous Psalm 151, which I have a copy of the Bible in English, the new revised standard version, one of the study bibles that, uh, that use that, and they have Psalm 151 included in the apocryphal material, which I think is fantastic.
These discoveries in the Dead Sea scroll suggest the community there used Psalms extensively combining them with their own Hebrew word is hodayot, which are Thanksgiving hymns that are similar to Psalms. The common nickname of the Psalter, which is, you know, the hymn book of the second temple, it tells us how central the Psalms were to Jewish prayer and life before the time of Jesus.
Now, in the early Christian era, the Psalms were Justice. Central Jewish converts kept praying them. For example, Acts says that Jesus and his friends recited hymns, likely Psalms after the Lord's Supper, the New Testament, as I mentioned, quote Psalms and applies them to Jesus, especially his suffering. And in much of the Christian tradition, historically, the Psalms in general have been read Christologically.
In other words, how can we see Jesus in the Psalms? And then early monasteries and churches inherited Jewish practices. So Psalms ended up being sort of a backbone of the hours of prayer like Vespers or Matans or monastic chanting. The Psalms endure. They are the gift they keep on giving for they are, as John Calvin, I think rightly put it, a mirror to the soul.
The whole range of emotions of life are reflected and celebrated in the Psalms. From praise to the darkest laments, and that's just a lesson for all of us. If you can't connect with a happy clappy Psalm, there are plenty of Psalms that will capture your mood and help you process. And the fact that the Psalms are largely devoid of any historical markers, forget the superscriptions, just the content of the Psalms themselves, their devoid of historical markers.
That's actually a wonderful thing because that means that they are ripe for being adapted by people of faith throughout centuries to address their own particular circumstances. And this is sometimes referred to as the democratization of the Psalms. The Psalms have been democratized. They've been sort of made available to everyone, not just to people who happen to be in a war against the Amalekites or something.
The Psalms are the heartbeat of Christian worship. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic church, Anglicans reformed traditions, they all schedule the Psalms in service. Even today, some churches sing only the Psalms as hymns, and that's true in some Calvinist reformed traditions. For example, in my Episcopal church and in others like it, the liturgy always includes a Psalm sung by the choir in sort of a chant form with the congregation joining in to sing the brief refrain called The Antiphon.
And over the years, I have to tell you folks, that has become perhaps my favorite part of the liturgy. It used to bore me to death, like chanting. And then we say a few words, but I get into the rhythm of it and the chant feels very meditative to me, and I really look forward to that. Those few minutes in the service when we can do that.
In summary, the Psalms didn't stop with the Old Testament, Christians have continued reading, quoting, and singing them for two millennia. The early church fathers talked about the Psalters for its Christology, medieval monks chanted it daily, and Reformation Era scholars wrote whole books on the gospel in the Psalms. And today, from synagogue to megachurch, from homes, to concerts, to Psalms endure regardless of how they first functioned, and despite the modern scholarly focus on their sitz im laben, the Psalms endure because its readers have refused to keep this collection of songs in the past.
Instead, they have been repurposed by communities and individuals for reasons that are as diverse as human experience itself. The Psalms have been reimagined for every era. Folks. Well, that was a long one. Thanks for listening to this still all-too-short deep dive into Psalms and I will see you next time.
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Outro: You've just made it through another episode of The Bible for Normal People. Don't forget you can catch our other show, Faith for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Joel Limbauan, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O'Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.
