Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Psalms as Prayer, Praise, and Theology | D. R. W. Wood & I. Howard Marshall

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The Psalms as Prayer, Praise, and Theology | D. R. W. Wood & I. Howard Marshall · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I'm your host and I am very glad
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  you joined us. We have a pretty significant
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  task ahead of us today. We do.
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  We're going to open the book of the Bible that, well, most of us
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  probably think we know the best. It's the book you turn to when
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  you're heartbroken or you know, when you need a quick verse for
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  a greeting card. But today we're going to
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  dismantle it, look at the engine and then put it all back
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  together. We are talking about the
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  Psalter. We are.
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  It's the hymnal of the church, of course, but it's also one of
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  the most intricate pieces of literature in human history.
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  It's good to be here to discuss it.
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  To guide us through this analysis, we're relying on a
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  heavyweight source. We are breaking down the
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  Introduction to the Psalms from the New Bible Dictionary, 3rd
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  Edition, specifically the scholarship of DRW Wood and I
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  Howard Marshall. It's solid, it's conservative,
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  yet it's still critical scholarship.
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  So yeah, it's a reliable place to start.
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  Our mission for this deep dive is specific.
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  We're not just reading poetry today.
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  We really want to understand how this book was formed over
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  centuries. We want to decode all that
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  technical fine print that, let's be honest, everyone usually
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  skips. Oh.
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  Absolutely. And we want to get to the
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  theological core. We're looking at this as the
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  historical hymn book of God's people, and all through a
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  Reformed lens. Which means we're looking for
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  the Covenant, we're looking for that redemptive thread that runs
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  from the first page all the way to the last.
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  So let's get started. The source material begins with
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  a claim that I think really sets the stage for everything else.
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  It calls the Psalter a mirror. A mirror of the soul.
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  It's a classic description, but one we should take very
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  seriously. It is, but the force argues it
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  mirrors every aspect of religious piety.
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  And I think sometimes in the modern church we have a habit of
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  cherry picking the encouragement.
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  Oh, for sure, we want the verses that make us feel safe.
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  But Wood and Marshall point out that this mirror reflects the
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  dark nights of the soul just as much as the mountaintops.
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  Exactly. It reflects sorrow for sin.
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  It reflects that terrifying experience of walking in
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  darkness, where God just feels absent.
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  And that's where the Psalms are so distinct from a lot of other
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  religious literature. They're just so honest.
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  They are honest, but notice the balance.
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  It's not just, you know, venting emotion.
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  It's emotion that's been processed through the lamp of
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  faith. It's the grind of obedience to
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  the law, the struggle for perfection, and the humility of
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  submitting to the chastening rod.
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  That phrase chastening rod really stands out to me.
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  It's powerful. It implies that the difficult
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  things happening to the psalmist are not just bad luck.
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  They're seen as part of God's parenting or or or God's
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  discipline. Precisely the Hebrew poets took
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  those raw, gritty experiences pain, fear, guilt, and they turn
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  them into themes for songs they actually sang about the rod that
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  corrected them which. Brings us to the first
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  interesting fact about the name. In Hebrew.
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  The title for the book is Tahilim.
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  Yes, Tahilim. Which translates to Songs of
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  Praise. Now I have to push back on this
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  a little bit. OK, if I open the Psalms, I see
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  a lot of complaining. I see laments, I see crying out
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  for help. So why is the overarching title
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  praise when so much of the content is pain?
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  That is the paradox of Israel's faith, and the source explains
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  this beautifully. Even the lament is a form of
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  praise because it's directed toward God.
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  It assumes God is there, that he hears, and that he can act.
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  So the lament itself is an act of trust, and the expectation is
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  always that God will act and that action will result in
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  praise. So the destination is praise,
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  even if the starting point is the pit.
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  That's right, and the source brings in CS Lewis.
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  Here from his 1958 work Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis
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  makes a vital distinction that prevents us from reading this
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  book incorrectly. What's up?
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  He reminds us that these are poems.
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  They're meant to be sung. They're not doctrinal treatises
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  like, say, the Book of Romans, and they're not sermons like the
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  book of Hebrews. Meaning we shouldn't try to
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  parse every line for systematic theology in the same way we
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  would a Pauline epistle. You have to read them as lyric
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  poetry. They use hyperbole, they use
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  imagery. They express the religion of
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  Israel from the inside out. OK, And because the psalmist
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  were heirs to a shared tradition, they weren't just
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  writing private diary the entries, they were writing for
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  the community. That is a key point.
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  This was not David just journaling for himself in a cave
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  somewhere. Not at all.
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  He was giving expression to the shared faith of the covenant
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  people. And because of that, the Psalms
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  belong to all believers. They were the property of the
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  Jew, and now, through Christ, they're the property of the
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  Gentile. It's a universal liturgy.
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  OK, let's talk about how we got this collection.
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  I grew up hearing that the Psalms were the hymn book of the
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  Second Temple. Basically the Psalms the Jews
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  sang after they came back from Babylon.
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  That's the common academic designation, yes.
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  But our source seems to think that's a bit reductive, or at
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  least potentially misleading. It is misleading.
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  If you take it to mean the songs were written, then the
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  collection might have been finalized for the second temple,
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  but the material itself is ancient.
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  The source is very firm on this. Psalmody did not just appear out
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  of nowhere in the 5th century BC.
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  He traced it all the way back to the Exodus.
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  All the way back, Exodus 15, the song of Moses, that's a Psalm.
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  You have the song of Deborah and Judges 5.
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  You have Hannah's prayer in First Samuel 2.
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  The source argues that the Psalm as a literary form was part of
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  Israel's DNA from the very beginning.
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  And not just Israel's DNA. This is the part of the deep
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  dive that really surprised me. The source brings in the Raj
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  Shamra tablets. The Ugaritic texts.
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  This is fascinating. It is.
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  We have archaeological evidence that the citizens of Ugarit and
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  the Babylonians were writing poetry with very, very similar
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  structures, The rhythm, the parallelism.
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  This was a standard cultural vessel in the ancient Near East.
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  So when God decided to give his people a hymn book, he didn't
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  invent a brand new, you know, alien style of music.
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  He used the pop culture or the high culture form that already
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  existed. You're right, He used a vessel.
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  They recognized the form was common to the culture.
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  The content was distinct revelation.
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  It's a great reminder that God speaks to us in ways we can
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  understand within our own cultural context.
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  So we have this ancient form spanning centuries.
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  But who held the pen? The authorship debate.
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  This is where the rubber meets the road for biblical authority.
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  We have the list. David is attributed with 73
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  psalms. Asaph has 50.
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  You've got the sons of Korra, Solomon, Heemon, Ethan.
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  Moses even gets. One Psalm 90, a great one.
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  But the source highlights a major controversy here.
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  Modern critical scholarship often denies Davidic authorship.
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  They look at the David of the history books, the warlords, the
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  general, the man of blood, and they say this guy could not have
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  written the sensitive, delicate poetry of Psalm 23.
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  Which, if you think about it, is a really shallow argument.
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  It assumes a soldier can't be a poet.
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  It just ignores the reality of human nature.
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  General Patton wrote poetry. It's not mutually exclusive.
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  But the source goes deeper than just psychoanalyzing David.
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  It looks at the text. Right, we have to look at the
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  historical record first. Samuel 16 explicitly describes
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  David as a skilled musician. 2 S Samuel One shows him composing a
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  high level lament for Saul and Jonathan, and the source points
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  to Amos 6.5. Remind us what that says.
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  Well, Amos, writing centuries later, references the musical
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  instruments of David. This proves that the tradition
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  of David as the founder of Israel's sacred music was not
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  some later invention. It was an established historical
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  fact in the minds of the Israelites.
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  And for us, coming from a reformed perspective, we have an
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  even bigger witness. The New Testament.
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  This is crucial. Jesus and the apostles build
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  theological arguments on the fact that David wrote these
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  psalms. In Mark 12, Jesus quotes Psalm
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  110 and says David himself said by the Holy Spirit.
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  If David didn't write it, Jesus's whole argument
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  collapses. So we can't just wave away those
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  little titles at the top of the Psalms as you know, editorial
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  mistakes. No, we treat the superscriptions
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  as historically reliable. So we have the authors.
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  Now let's look at the architecture.
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  The Psalter isn't just a random shuffle of songs, it's
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  organized. It is divided into 5.
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  Books and the source suggests this was not an accident.
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  Why 5? The prevailing theory is that it
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  mimics the Torah, the Pentateuch.
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  Oh, interesting. Moses gave five books of law to
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  the people, so David, represented as the sweet
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  psalmist of Israel, provides 5 books of response to that law.
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  The law and the praise. That structure really helps you
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  see the intent behind the editing.
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  It does, and you can see the divisions clearly if you look
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  for the doxologies at the end of Psalm 4172, 289, and 106,
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  there's a formal closing statement of praise.
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  OK. And then Psalm 150 functions as
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  the doxology for the entire collection.
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  It's a beautiful structure. There's also a strange pattern
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  with the names of God that the source mentions.
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  This is something I never noticed until I read this
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  breakdown. The illahistic Psalter.
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  Right in book 1 the name Yahweh, the Lord is dominant.
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  But then you hit books 2 and 3, specifically Psalms 42 through
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  83 and suddenly it switches. Everyone is saying Elohim God.
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  It's a very stark statistical shift.
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  What this tells us is that the Psalter was likely compiled from
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  smaller pre-existing collections.
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  It's like smaller EPS that were collected into a big album.
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  That's a great way to put it. Someone gathered the Yahweh
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  songs, someone gathered the Elohim songs, and eventually an
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  editor stitched them together into the masterpiece we have
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  today. It makes you realize the
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  Providence of God in the editing process, not just the writing
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  process. That is a very reformed way to
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  look at it. Inspiration covers the
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  compilation as well. I want to move to what I think
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  is the most intriguing part of this deep dive.
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  The small print, the technical terms sela, mictum.
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  Get it? The source admits that even the
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  guys translating the Old Testament into Greek in the 3rd
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  century BC, the Septuagint, they were guessing at what these
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  meant. It adds to the mystery.
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  We're dealing with musical terminology from 3000 years ago.
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  It's like someone finding a sheet of music in the year 5000
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  that says distorted guitar solo and trying to figure out what
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  religious ritual that refers to. So let's decode a few of these.
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  Miz Moore. We see that everywhere.
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  That's the technical word for a song with instrumental
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  accompaniment. It implies structure.
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  These weren't chanted a Capella in a cave.
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  There were strings, percussion, flutes.
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  It was a production. OK, then there's Mashil.
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  Mashil comes from a root meaning to make wise or skillful.
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  The source notes that psalms with this title, like Psalm 32
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  or 78, are usually didactic. They are teaching songs, and
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  often they teach through the lens of a chastening experience.
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  So a Mashil is a song that says I went through something hard
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  and here is the wisdom I gained from it.
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  Yes, it's wisdom literature set to music.
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  Now mictim. This one blew my mind.
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  The source connects it to an Akkadian word katamu.
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  Which means to cover. Right now in theology, when we
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  hear cover, we immediately think of atonement covering sin.
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  We do, but the source argues against that here.
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  In this context, it's not about covering sin.
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  It's about being covered protection.
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  It's a plea for defense. The source uses a very modern
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  analogy. It calls a victim an SOS.
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  That changes how you read Psalm 16 or Psalm 56.
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  A victim of David. It's not just a poem.
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  It's David tapping out an SOS signal because he's in danger.
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  It. Brings the orgency right to the
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  surface. What about the most famous one,
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  Ciala? It's in there 71 times.
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  And we still debate it, but the route implies lifting up.
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  Lifting up what? Most likely the sound.
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  It's a musical direction. It probably signals an
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  instrumental interlude where the choir stops and the orchestra
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  lifts up the volume of crescendo.
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  It's a pause for the mind, but an explosion for the ears.
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  And finally, the two names. I love these because they just
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  give us the flavor of the culture.
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  You have a Psalm set to the tune of the Hind of the Dawn.
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  Which is Psalm 22, a big one. Or the doves on far off
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  terrabins. Mom, 56.
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  And then do not destroy. That one is fascinating.
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  The source links it to Isaiah 65.8 regarding the new wine in
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  the cluster. The theory is that Do Not
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  Destroy was a popular vintage song, a song the grape treaders
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  sang during the harvest. So David takes a folk song, a
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  work song that everybody knows, and he sits a heavy theological
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  prayer to that melody. It shows that their worship
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  wasn't cordoned off from their daily life.
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  They brought the vineyard right into the sanctuary.
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  We have to shift gears now to the the academic battlefield.
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  The source brings up two German giants, Berman Gunkel and
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  Sigmund Movengol. Now normally I might say we skip
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  the German scholars, but the source insists their influence
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  is unavoidable. You really can't understand
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  modern Psalm study without Gunkel.
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  He changed the question before him.
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  Everyone asked who wrote this. Gunkel asked.
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  How is this used? This is the Sits and Laban.
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  The setting in life Gunkel developed the system of
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  gonnigan, or classes. He grouped them hymns, community
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  laments, royal psalms. And honestly, this is helpful.
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  In what way? Well, if you know a Psalm is a
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  community lament, you understand why it switches between singular
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  and plural pronouns. It helps you track the flow.
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  But then MO Winkle came along and maybe took it too far.
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  MO Winkle is associated with the cultic approach.
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  He became obsessed with the idea of a new year festival.
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  He believed Israel had this massive festival just like the
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  Babylonians where they celebrated Yahweh becoming king
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  or ascending the throne. And he tried to force dozens of
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  psalms into this hypothetical festival liturgy, right?
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  And the source pushes back hard on this.
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  It says, sure, the Psalms were used in worship the cultists,
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  but if you push Moinkle's theory too far, you strip the Psalms of
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  their historical reality. This is the danger.
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  You end up saying Psalm 51 is not really David crying over his
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  sin with Bathsheba. You say Oh no, this is just a
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  generic confession form that a priest would read during the New
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  Year festival. And that just sterilizes the
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  Bible. It turns real blood and guts
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  history into mere ritual. As reformed thinkers, we have to
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  agree with the source's critique.
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  We have to balance Gunkel's insights on form with the
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  scriptural titles. The source uses Peter's sermon
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  in Acts 2 to nail this down. Yes, Peter quotes David, but he
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  says David spoke as a prophet. David was not just reciting A
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  liturgy for a festival. He was, as the source says,
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  foreseeing things beyond his own horizon.
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  He was seeing the resurrection of Christ.
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  Exactly. If we reduce the Psalms to just
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  generic ritual texts, we lose that prophetic edge completely.
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  So we keep the history. Now let's get to the theology.
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  The source outlines the doctrine of God in the Psalter.
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  It's majestic. God is Creator, ruler of
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  history, but specifically he is the God of the Covenant, the God
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  of Abraham and Moses. But we have to address the
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  elephant in the room, the imprecatory psalms, the curses.
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  The problem of the curses. I think every Christian has had
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  this moment. You're reading a Psalm.
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  It's beautiful. And then suddenly the writer
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  says I hate them with a perfect hatred.
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  Or, you know, blessed is he who dashes your little ones against
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  the rocks, and you just. It is jarring, no question.
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  How does the source explain this?
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  Because love your enemies is our command.
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  The source offers a three-part explanation that I found
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  incredibly helpful. First, it's about zeal.
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  These curses are not petty personal vendettas.
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  The psalmist is aligning himself with God's 'cause he's saying,
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  God, I love what you love, so I must hate what you hate.
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  So it's a plea for justice, not just personal revenge.
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  Right second, there's a historical limitation.
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  They lived under the law. They did not have the full
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  revelation of grace that comes with the cross.
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  And the Third Point. This is the one that really
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  stopped me in my tracks. The source states that the
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  Psalter has no assured belief in a future life or resurrection.
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  That sounds almost heretical to say.
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  It does, but look at the text. There are flashes of hope, Psalm
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  16, Psalm 73, where they expect to be with God, but they didn't
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  have a settled doctrine of heaven and hell yet that
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  revelation was progressive. So if you don't have a guarantee
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  that the bad guy is going to face judgement day after he
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  dies. Then he has to face judgement
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  now. If justice doesn't happen in
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  this life, it might not happen at all.
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  Precisely that explains the desperation, that explains the
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  violence of the prayer. They are screaming.
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  God, if you are just, you have to destroy this wickedness right
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  here. Because this is the only stage I
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  know of. And they couldn't distinguish
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  the Sinner from the sin. To destroy the wickedness meant
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  destroying the wicked man. That's right.
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  Now we standing on the other side of New Testament, we know
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  about the final judgement. We know about the possibility of
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  redemption for the worst Sinner. So we don't pray those curses.
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  But, and here's the challenge, the source reminds us that these
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  Psalms testify to the reality of moral judgement.
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  They remind us that God does hate sin.
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  We can't get so great focused that we become indifferent to
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  evil. That is a heavy balance to
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  strike and that leads us to the Messiah, because if their view
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  of the afterlife was a bit dim, their hope for a Messiah was
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  burning bright. It was the focus and the Psalter
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  gives us 2 very different portraits of this Messiah and
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  for centuries no one could figure out how they fit
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  together. What are the 2 portraits?
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  First you have the reigning king.
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  Psalm 2, Psalm 110, the son of David, who crushes the nations
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  with a rod of iron. He's victorious, powerful,
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  political. And the second.
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  The suffering servant, the priest king who is abandoned.
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  Psalm 22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  Psalm 69. He's mocked, beaten, rejected.
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  You can see why the Jewish scholars were confused.
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  Is he a conqueror or a victim? They seemed irreconcilable until
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  Christ. The source points us to Luke 24.
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  After the resurrection, Jesus walks with the disciples to
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  Emmaus, and what does he do? He opens the scriptures.
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  He opens the Psalms. He shows them that the Christ
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  had to suffer first and then enter His glory.
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  He's the key that unlocks the whole library.
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  He is without Jesus. The Psalms are a book of
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  contradictions with Jesus. They are a coherent prophecy.
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  This brings us to our final section, the Christian and the
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  Psalter. The source makes a beautiful
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  point that I think we often overlook.
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  This was not just a book about Jesus, it was the book Jesus
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  used. It was his prayer book.
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  Think about the humanity of that for a moment.
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  Jesus learned to read with these texts.
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  He memorized them in the synagogue when he was in the
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  wilderness fight of Satan. He used scripture when he
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  celebrated the Last Supper. They sang the halal psalms 113
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  through 118 18. And on the cross.
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  On the cross, in his moment of greatest agony, he didn't
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  improvise. He went to the text that had
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  formed him. Into your hands I commit my
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  spirit. He died with the Psalms on his
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  lips. That changes everything.
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  If it was good enough for the master, it must be essential for
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  the disciple. That's why the Church has always
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  claimed the Psalter. The source mentions Martin
• 18:57
  Luther's famous description. He called the Psalter a Bible in
• 19:01
  miniature. It really is the whole story.
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  Creation, fall, redemption, glory.
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  Packed into 150 songs. And as the source concludes,
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  even though it originated in the Jewish church, it is illuminated
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  by the gospel. It is fully the property of the
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  Christian Church for worship and adoration.
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  We have covered a lot of ground today.
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  We've gone from the ancient clay tablets of Ugarit to the SOS
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  signals of David, through the arguments of German scholars,
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  all the way to the theology of the cross.
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  It's an incredible continuity. It shows us that our faith is
• 19:35
  not a novelty. We're not making this up as we
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  go. When we sing the Psalms, we're
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  joining a choir that has been singing for 3000 years.
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  I want to leave you with a thought that's been nagging at
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  me since we discussed the imprecatory psalms.
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  OK? We said that the psalmists
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  prayed for immediate, sometimes violent justice because they
• 19:52
  didn't have a clear guarantee of the future judgement.
• 19:54
  They were desperate for God to act now.
• 19:56
  They had a holy impatience. So here's the question for you
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  listening today. Does our better theology make us
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  lazy? We know there was a final
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  judgement. We know God will settle the
• 20:07
  score in the end. Does that knowledge make us more
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  patient with injustice than the psalmist were?
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  Or does it just make us indifferent?
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  That is a haunting question. Do we have that same burning
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  zeal for righteousness in the here and now?
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  Or do we just kind of shrug and say, well, God will sort it out
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  later? The psalmist would not let God
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  off the hook that easily. Maybe we shouldn't either.
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  Something to think about. Thank you for joining us on this
• 20:31
  deep dive into the Psalms. I hope you open your Bible and
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  see those ancient songs in a completely new light.
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  Deep reading. We'll see you next time on
• 20:39
  reformed thinking.