Latest / Reformed Thinking / How the Psalms Teach God’s People to Pray and Praise | James Orr et al.

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How the Psalms Teach God’s People to Pray and Praise | James Orr et al. · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to The Deep Dive, the show where we take complex
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  source material and extract the vital knowledge.
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  This is reformed thinking. Today we're doing a detailed
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  analysis of one of the most cherished books in all of
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  Scripture. That's right, we've been handed
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  the Introduction to the Book of Psalms from the International
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  Standard Bible Encyclopedia, and we're going to give it a
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  thorough look. Our mission today is to really
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  dissect this scholarly introduction.
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  We want to get past the facts you might already know to give
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  you a real appreciation for the Psalter's origins.
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  It's surprising editorial history and it's, well, it's
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  expansive theological framework. And our focus is very clear.
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  We need to pull out the essential insights on the
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  Psalter's ancient title, the often messy debates around who
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  wrote it, its unique literary features, and what our source
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  calls the Gospel in the Psalter. It's this amazing intersection
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  of history, literary art, and divine revelation that makes the
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  book so unique. To even begin, we have to
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  appreciate how this gathering of individual songs became the
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  sacred canonical book we have today.
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  Let's start right there with the names themselves.
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  I think if you only know this collection as the Psalms, you're
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  already missing something fundamental about its purpose.
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  What did the original Hebrew title tell us?
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  Well, the original Hebrew name is Sofer Tohilim Tohilim, right?
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  And that literally means the Book of Praises and that title.
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  It really captures the overall feeling the the destination of
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  the entire collection. So even though there's a lot of
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  sorrow and complain in its pages, praise is the end goal.
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  It is the final destination is always adoration, and you can
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  see that sentiment, that movement toward praise,
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  structuring the entire book. How so?
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  Well, the book starts with a benediction, you know, focus on
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  the righteous man in Psalm one. But the collective spirit, it
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  just builds and builds. So the earlier parts feel
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  different from the later parts. Very different.
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  Lament and petition are all over the earlier sections, especially
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  books one and two. But by the time you get to the
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  final two sections, books for and V hymns of praise become
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  much more numerous, more enthusiastic.
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  It sounds like a deliberate arrangement.
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  It really does. It's as if the entire collection
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  is gathering itself, historically and emotionally,
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  into one huge Hallelujah chorus by the time you reach Psalm 150.
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  This suggests A theological movement from an individual
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  struggle to the whole community's worship.
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  Now, the names we use today, Psalms and Psalter, those come
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  from the Greek translation. What do those words tell us?
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  Our English titles come from the Greek Somoy or Saltarian, and
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  what's really revealing is the function behind these words,
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  the. Function.
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  Yes, the Greek word psalmos and the Hebrew term that corresponds
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  to it. Miss More, which you'll see
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  written before 57 of the poems. Both of them have to do with the
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  idea of performance. Performance, so not just
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  reading. Exactly.
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  They indicate a poem that was meant to be sung, and
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  specifically sung with the accompaniment of stringed
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  instruments. So from his earliest days, this
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  was never meant for silent, private contemplation.
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  It was designed for active musical devotion.
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  Precisely. The Psalter was the nation's
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  worship script. It was, you could say, a prayer
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  book, a tiffelaire giving words to the soul's private
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  conversation with God. But it was also a public hymnal.
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  At the same time, yes, it was a national hymnal for the big
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  public rituals at the temple, but also for the more intimate
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  setting at the home. This dual function, guiding both
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  private piety and public liturgy, is why its influence
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  has been so deep. It literally teaches you how to
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  pray when you don't have words of your own.
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  Let's talk about its place in the Canon.
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  Where does it sit in the Hebrew Scriptures, and what does that
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  position tell us? The Psalms are placed in the
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  Kithubim or the Writings. That's the third major division
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  of the Hebrew Scriptures, sometimes called the
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  Hajiographa. Was it status ever in doubt?
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  Not really. Unlike some other books in that
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  section, there was almost no serious question about the
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  Psalms canonical status. The consensus Our source sites
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  suggest the collection was complete and accepted as Sacred
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  Scripture by 100 BC, and probably much earlier than that.
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  There's a really striking observation in our source
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  material about the Psalter's unique place, especially for
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  Christians. Yes, it's a very compelling
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  statement. The source says that if
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  Christians were forced to keep only one Old Testament book,
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  they would almost certainly choose the Psalms.
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  That says a lot. It says everything about his
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  spiritual centrality. It's it's sort of transcends the
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  historical and political narratives of the rest of the
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  Old Testament and speaks directly in the language of the
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  human heart to the relational parts of the New Covenant.
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  It's a whole system of devotion in one book.
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  OK, before we go any further, we have to address the numbering
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  system. This causes so much confusion
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  depending on which Bible you're reading.
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  It's a classic trap for anyone new to serious study.
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  The standard Hebrew text, which is what our modern English
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  Bibles are based on, has 150 separate poems.
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  But the Greek and Latin versions are different.
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  That's right, the Greek translation, the Septuagint or
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  LXX, and the Latin Vulgate that followed it.
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  They have a different count and the differences come from two
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  things, combining psalms and dividing them.
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  Walk us through how they combine them.
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  OK, so the Greek tradition takes Psalm 9 and Psalm 10 and merges
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  them into a single Psalm. So right away, they're one
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  behind. Exactly, and later on they do
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  the same thing with Psalm 114 and Psalm 115.
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  They merge those into one as well.
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  So they fall further behind the Hebrew count then you said they
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  make up the difference. They do by splitting 2 of the
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  longer psalms. They divide Psalm 116 into two
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  parts, and they also divide Psalm 147 into two parts.
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  What's the final result of all that?
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  The net result is that for most of the Psalter, the Hebrew
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  numbering is 1 number ahead of the Greek and Latin Bibles.
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  And that difference? It's a constant reminder that
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  the text has this long, complex editorial history that started
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  centuries before Christ. And that editorial history is
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  visible even inside the Hebrew tradition itself.
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  You see it in, say, Psalms 42 and 43.
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  That's a perfect example. Most scholars today agree that
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  those two should be read as one single unified poem.
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  The evidence for that is literary, not from manuscripts.
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  It's purely internal. They share an identical
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  recurring refrain. You find it in Psalm 42 verse 5,
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  again in verse 11, and then for a third time in Psalm 43 verse
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  5. That consistent refrain is a
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  strong marker. Very strong.
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  It strongly suggests they were originally one single extended
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  lament that got separated later for reasons.
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  We can. Well, we can only guess that.
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  And on the other hand, we have clear examples of psalms being
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  created by combining older material.
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  The prime example there is Psalm One O 8.
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  It's not an original piece, it's what's called a cento text
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  made-up of pieces from other works.
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  Where do the pieces of Psalm one O 8 come from?
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  Specifically, it's a collection of verses taken directly from
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  Psalm 57, verses 7 through 11, and from Psalm 60 versus 5 to
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  12. This kind of textual reuse and
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  restructuring just confirms that the Psalter was assembled very
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  deliberately, it wasn't just passively collected.
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  And that deliberate assembly brings us to the famous division
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  of the Psalms into five books. Yes, the whole collection is
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  clearly segmented into five major books.
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  Book 1 is Psalms 1 to 41, Book 2 is 42 to 72, book three goes
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  from 73 to 89, Book 4 is 90 to one O 6, and book 5 finishes it
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  out from one O 7 to 150. And this organization is very
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  old. Exceptional old It's commonly
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  thought that this five fold structure was completely
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  intentional. The idea is that it was meant to
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  be a conscious parallel to the five books of the Law of the
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  Pentateuch. That's a fascinating theological
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  decision to mirror the law like that.
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  Why link Israel's foundational history and law to its worship
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  book? It seems the editors were making
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  a powerful theological claim. Which is.
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  Just as the Torah provides the framework for Israel's identity
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  and its relationship with God, the soldier provides the
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  framework for Israel's response to God.
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  It's spiritual practice. So worship is the proper
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  response to the law. Exactly.
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  It suggests that true devotion, praise, confession, lament has
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  to be rooted in and guided by God's revealed law and our
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  source notes. This division might even predate
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  the Chronicler, pointing to 1st Chronicle 16.36, which quotes
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  the closing doxology of Psalm One O 6.
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  If the division is that early, it points to a very stable idea
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  of the Canon long before its final form.
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  It does now. The history of how it was all
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  compiled gets a very direct hint in a rather peculiar note at the
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  end of book 2. You're talking about Psalm 72,
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  verse 20. That's the one.
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  It's a classic piece of what you might call editorial
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  archaeology. The verse contains the statement
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  The prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended.
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  Which is strange for a couple of reasons.
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  Very strange. First, Psalm 72 itself is
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  ascribed to Solomon, not David, and second, while a lot of
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  Davidic Psalms come right before it, many more Psalms attributed
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  to David appear later in books 3-4 and V.
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  So what does that little note tell us about how the Psalter
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  was formed? It implies that at some point in
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  the editorial process there was a well defined collection called
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  the Prayers of David that ended right there after Psalm 72A.
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  Sort of proto psalter. Exactly.
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  And when later collections like those from the Sons of Korra or
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  Asaph were combined with this early Davidic scroll, the
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  editors chose to leave that ancient note in place, even
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  though the larger compilation continued on.
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  It's like finding the spine of an older book bound inside a
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  newer, larger one. That's a perfect analogy.
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  It reveals the layers of assembly and just how ancient
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  the core deck collections really are.
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  And this historical evidence leads us straight to those
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  labels on the individual songs, the superscriptions.
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  These titles, though often dismissed, can give us vital
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  clues. They can, and modern critics
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  often just dismiss them as worthless late additions by
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  scribes. But our source pushes back on
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  that. How does it counter that view?
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  It argues that dismissing them out of hand is, well,
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  unscientific. Yeah, these titles are
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  demonstrably very, very old. How do we know that?
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  We know because the Septuagint that the Greek translation from
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  the 2nd century BC already didn't understand many of the
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  technical Hebrew terms in the titles.
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  So if the translators in 200 BC were already confused by them,
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  they must be much older than that.
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  Precisely. If the titles were late
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  additions, the scribes wouldn't have inserted terms that they
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  themselves found obscure. They must have had a real,
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  original meaning, even if that meaning was lost over time as
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  temple practices changed. So the goal of the scribes
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  wasn't to invent, but to preserve something ancient.
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  Yes, exactly. We have to remember that ancient
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  editors had access to oral traditions and written sources
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  that are long gone now. That gives their views on
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  authorship and date a level of credibility that modern
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  speculation, working only with the final text, just doesn't
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  have. Now we aren't claiming the
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  titles are inspired text, are we?
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  No, not at all, and we acknowledge that sometimes
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  internal evidence suggests they might be incorrect, but they
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  have to be tested by critical processes, not just ignored as
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  if they're fiction. The weight of the evidence makes
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  it highly improbable that the earliest titles don't go all the
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  way back to pre exilic times. Let's look at a really helpful
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  scholarly idea for sorting out some of the confusion Thurtle's
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  hypothesis. This is a crucial tool for
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  understanding why some of these superscriptions seem so
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  mismatched. JW Thurtle proposed a very
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  elegant solution. It's rooted in the simple
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  mechanics of how ancient documents were copied.
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  What was his idea? He suggested that the original
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  scrolls had both literary superscriptions, like a Psalm of
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  David, and musical subscriptions at the end, like for the chief
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  musician. OK titles at the top, musical
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  notes at the bottom. Right, but during the manual
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  copying process, the subscription from the end of 1
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  Psalm was often mistakenly attached to the beginning of the
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  next Psalm, incorrectly becoming its new superscription.
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  Can you give us a concrete example?
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  Psalm 88 is a classic headache. It is.
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  Psalm 88 is often attributed to dual authors, the sons of Korra
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  and human, the Ezraite. It seems like an editorial mess.
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  How does Thirdel's idea clean that up?
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  Well, third will suggest that the opening phrases for the
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  chief musician and the song of the funds of Kora were actually
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  the musical and collective subscriptions intended for Psalm
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  87, the one right before it. So you move those notes back to
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  the end of Psalm 87. What does that leave for Psalm
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  88? It leaves Psalm 88 with the
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  simple, consistent title Mashil of human, the Ezraite.
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  The confusion just vanishes. And you see this principle
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  elsewhere, for instance with the subscript to Psalm 55.
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  Yunath, Alan. Reshukum.
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  Which means the dove of the distant terabytes.
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  That seems completely cryptic as a title for a Psalm.
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  It does, but if you treat it as a subscription to Psalm 55, it
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  becomes a beautiful pictorial title that refers directly to
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  verses 6 through 8 of that very poem.
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  Where the psalmist wishes he could fly away like a dove to
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  escape his troubles. Exactly.
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  The mechanism works. Musical notes or evocative
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  phrases from the end of one song got accidentally pasted onto the
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  front of the next. This really transforms what
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  seems like random jargon into important historical data.
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  Let's decode a few more of these opaque Hebrew terms.
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  What about moot? Laban moot.
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  Laban is in the title of Psalm 9.
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  It's usually translated literally as Death of the Sun
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  and people often think it's just the night of an old tune.
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  But Thirdel has a different idea.
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  He does. He proposed a specific
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  historical connection, translating it as the death of
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  the champion. He suggests it was a
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  subscription to Psalm 8, thereby linking it to David's victory
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  over Goliath, the champion of the Philistines.
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  So it shifts from a vague melody to a specific historical marker
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  of victory. OK, now for the most famous and
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  least understood one, Sela. It appears 71 times in the
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  songs. Sela is without a doubt a
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  technical instruction for the temple presenter, the musical
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  director. It's exact meaning is lost, but
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  scholars have three main theories and each one points to
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  a specific action during worship.
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  What's the first theory? The 1st and most widely held
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  view is that it marks an instrumental interlude the
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  Septuagint translators often rendered at dip sama.
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  Which probably means that the fingers would pause and the
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  instruments, liars, harps, symbols would come in, maybe
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  with a louder, more dramatic sound.
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  So it's a musical climax or a transition.
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  That's the idea. The second theory comes from a
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  root word meaning to raise. This suggests it was a signal
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  for the musicians to strike up with a louder accompaniment, or
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  maybe for the singing to stop altogether for a moment of quiet
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  reflection. And the third view.
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  The third is more liturgical. It suggests it might have been a
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  direction for the whole congregation to lift up their
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  voices together in a benediction or some kind of affirmation.
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  Whatever it meant precisely, we know it forced a deliberate
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  pause and a change of dynamic in the temple worship.
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  What about terms that seem to indicate the tempo or the rhythm
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  of a poem? Well, you have shagai in in
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  Psalm 7, that's thought to be a musical note indicating a a
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  dithyrambic poem in wild, ecstatic, wandering rhythms.
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  And that's very different from Higuain.
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  Very different. Higuain, which you find in Psalm
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  9 near Assaila, is likely the equivalent of Largo, a slow,
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  solemn sound. These terms just show the
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  incredible variety of musical styles that were already
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  codified in ancient Israel's worship.
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  We also find terms that tell us who is supposed to be singing,
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  which points to a pretty sophisticated choir system.
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  This is really compelling evidence for organized and even
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  gender based singing. The term 11th in Psalm 46 means
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  maidens. So a female choir.
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  It's commonly understood to mean the song was for soprano voices
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  or a female choir, and this is contrasted with semiteth found
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  in Psalms 6 and 12. That means the 8th, and it
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  probably denotes the male choir singing in the bass register or
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  a lower octave. So the pairing of those two
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  terms confirms A2 part octave based musical arrangement in the
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  temple. It does.
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  It shows a high level of musical.
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  And the dedication for the chief musician, which appears so
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  often, also points to institutionalized worship.
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  Yes, appearing before 55 psalms, That's a clear marker.
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  It suggests these songs belong to an official curated
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  collection of hymns that was compiled by or for the Monazi,
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  the Temple choir master. He was in charge of performance
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  standards, which confirms the Psalter was the official service
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  book. Lastly, let's touch on the Song
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  of a Sense Psalms 120 to 134. What's the context for the
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  specific collection? These 15 Psalms form a very
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  cohesive unit. The most accepted view is that
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  there were some by bands of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem
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  for the great yearly feasts, Passover, Pentecost and
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  Tabernacles. And a sense refers to the
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  literal journey up to Jerusalem. Exactly.
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  The ascent up to the Holy City and the Temple Mount.
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  Psalm 122 even references the tribes going up to Jerusalem.
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  They were travelers, hymns designed to turn a physical
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  journey into a spiritual one. So if we just summarize the
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  authorship claims from all these titles, it's clear this is not
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  the work of one man. No, not at all.
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  The ancient tradition saw the Psalter as a multi authored
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  collection spanning centuries. You have Moses with Psalm 90,
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  David with 73 Psalms, Solomon with two, Asaph with 12, the
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  sons of Korah with 11, and then Heman and Ethan with one each.
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  That summary is significant in itself.
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  The collection starts with Moses the Lawgiver and goes right
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  through the monarchy with David and Solomon into the organized
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  Temple guilds. It places the Psalter right at
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  the center of Israel's historical identity.
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  It does, and that sheer volume of ascription to David demands
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  that we focus on him as the primary figure.
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  We need to look at the historical context to see why
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  his era was so, so fertile for this kind of religious poetry.
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  David's time wasn't just about military victory.
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  It was a period of intense religious organization,
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  especially under Samuel's influence.
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  It was Samuel's reforms created an environment where music was
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  integral to prophecy. We see it in the prophetic
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  guilds in First Samuel. Combine that with David's
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  military victories and the expansion of the Kingdom, and
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  you had a national stimulus for poetic and religious expression.
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  And David himself organized the Levitical choirs on a massive
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  scale. And he had the personal
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  qualifications to lead this new era of worship.
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  He certainly did. He was a known, skillful
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  musician, the prophet Amos even notes.
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  He invented instruments. And, crucially, he was a
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  recognized poet. Even skeptical critics accept
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  the authenticity of his beautiful elegy over Saul and
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  Jonathan. That elegy gives us a vital
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  window into the kind of spiritual character who could
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  write the Psalms. It really does.
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  It shows a magnanimity, a tenderness that completely
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  refutes the radical, critical view of David as just a rude
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  king or a simple mercenary. The moral elevation in his
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  lament over his own persecutor argue strongly for an author
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  with exceptional spiritual favor.
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  So if David could write so tenderly about Saul, it's not a
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  huge leap to the spiritual fervor we find in the psalms of
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  praise and confession. It isn't.
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  And this is where we hit the main objection from critics.
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  They look at David's complex character, the general, the
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  poet, the adulterer, the man after God's own heart, and they
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  try to break that personality apart.
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  They suggest the pious psalmist couldn't be the same person as
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  the rough Chieftain. But that feels like a flawed way
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  to look at historical. Figures it is.
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  It's intellectually flawed to disintegrate a personality
• 19:13
  because of its contradictions. David was a man of immense
• 19:16
  feeling. His love for Jonathan, his grief
• 19:19
  over Absalom, his passionate repentance.
• 19:21
  He was above all an enthusiastic worshiper of Jehovah.
• 19:25
  Even when facing danger, he strengthened himself.
• 19:28
  And Jim is God. So his varied and often
• 19:31
  traumatic life didn't negate his gifts, they actually accelerated
• 19:34
  them. Exactly.
• 19:35
  The victories, the persecutions, the political failures, the
• 19:37
  personal moral failings, all of it made such a deep impression
• 19:41
  on his emotional and spiritual nature that his feelings would
• 19:43
  spontaneously burst forth in the form of a Psalm or song or
• 19:46
  prayer. As one scholar put it, the
• 19:49
  breadth of his life matches the breadth of the Psalter.
• 19:51
  And the ultimate qualification which the historical books
• 19:54
  affirm is the divine inspiration that rested on him for this
• 19:58
  service. The Scripture is consistent on
• 20:00
  this point. The spirit of Jehovah rested on
• 20:02
  David, empowering him not just for kingship, but for the
• 20:06
  highest spiritual and literary service.
• 20:08
  He was gifted with prophetic inspiration, which explains his
• 20:12
  role as the sweet psalmist of Israel and why his words speak
• 20:15
  so far beyond his own personal context.
• 20:18
  The external evidence for David's role is also
• 20:20
  substantial, starting right in the New Testament.
• 20:23
  The New Testament is a robust historical witness to this.
• 20:26
  Jesus himself, in a debate with the Pharisees, ascribe Psalm 110
• 20:30
  directly to David. And the apostles followed his
• 20:33
  lead. They did.
• 20:34
  Peter, in his sermon at Pentecost, attributes Psalm 16
• 20:37
  and 110 to David, and the disciples as a group attribute
• 20:40
  Psalm 2 to him in Acts chapter 4.
• 20:42
  So in the 1st century it was universally accepted that David
• 20:45
  was the chief author and spiritual authority behind the
• 20:47
  Psalter. It was, and that acceptance is
• 20:50
  echoed in earlier Jewish writings too.
• 20:53
  Ben Sera, riding around Nay Head, 80 BC, describes David
• 20:57
  singing praises and organizing the sanctuary choirs.
• 21:01
  Even later, to Maccabees, mentions the books of David
• 21:04
  being gathered by Nehemiah. This cumulative evidence makes
• 21:07
  it very unlikely that David's role was some late fictional
• 21:10
  invention. And the internal evidence where
• 21:12
  the titles link specific psalms to events in David's life, that
• 21:16
  reinforces the tradition too. It does.
• 21:19
  There are 13 such titles. Think of Psalm 18, which is also
• 21:23
  recorded in a different version in Second Samuel 22, a song
• 21:26
  David spoke after God delivered him, or Psalm 7, which fits the
• 21:30
  period of Saul's persecution perfectly, and Psalm 32 is a
• 21:33
  classic expression of confession and relief after his great sin.
• 21:36
  So while we can't prove the dating of every single one of
• 21:39
  those 73 Psalms, the correspondence in tone and
• 21:42
  illusions strongly supports the tradition.
• 21:44
  Absolutely. When critics try to reduce
• 21:46
  David's personal authorship to almost nothing, they have to
• 21:49
  contend with both a strong historical witness and the
• 21:51
  internal resonance of the poems with the known facts of his
• 21:54
  life. Of course, psalmody didn't end
• 21:56
  with David. The collection captures
• 21:58
  centuries of Israel's worship. Who were the other main
• 22:01
  contributors? After David, the most recognized
• 22:05
  contributions come from the organized Levitical guilds.
• 22:08
  You have Asaph, who is credited with 12 Psalms.
• 22:12
  His poetry often has this prophetic spirit to it.
• 22:15
  What's the focus of the asophyte Psalms?
• 22:17
  They tend to focus less on the Temple's beauty and more on God
• 22:21
  as a righteous judge in the shepherd of Israel.
• 22:24
  Psalm 73 is the masterpiece of this group, wrestling with that
• 22:27
  timeless problem of why the wicked prosper.
• 22:30
  And then there are the sons of Korra.
• 22:32
  Their Psalms have a very different feel.
• 22:33
  They do. The Sons of Korra, with their 11
• 22:36
  songs, were really devoted to the sanctuary experience.
• 22:39
  They produce masterpieces like Psalms 42 and 43, The Soul
• 22:42
  Crying Out for God in Psalm 84, which magnifies the privilege of
• 22:45
  just being in the temple courts. Their poetry is filled with a
• 22:48
  deep yearning for the holy place.
• 22:50
  Solomon's contribution seems pretty minor by comparison.
• 22:53
  It does. Only two songs are attributed to
• 22:56
  him, 72 and 127, and even conservative scholars doubt his
• 23:00
  direct authorship, suggesting Psalm 72 might be a prayer for
• 23:04
  Solomon, not by him. It's often observed that under
• 23:07
  Solomon, the spirit of Psalm and he seems to have shifted away
• 23:09
  from that intense, direct feeling of David's time to
• 23:13
  something more, well, contemplative.
• 23:15
  We can also trace the historical context for later Psalms right
• 23:18
  through the trauma of the exile. Yes, the exilic period generated
• 23:22
  poems marked by intense national and personal distress.
• 23:26
  Psalm One, O 2, for example, was clearly written while Jerusalem
• 23:29
  was in ruins. It's a plea for Jehovah to pity
• 23:31
  Zion. And then there's Psalm 137, with
• 23:34
  its famous imagery of weeping by the rivers of Babylon.
• 23:37
  And after the return from exile, the tone shifts again, doesn't
• 23:40
  it? Dramatically, you see joyous
• 23:42
  hymns written in the post exilic period expressing relief and
• 23:45
  national restoration. Psalms 85 and 126 are great
• 23:49
  examples. Many liturgical hymns were
• 23:51
  probably written specifically for the new worship in the
• 23:53
  Second Temple. It shows the Psalter was a
• 23:55
  living collection that evolved with Israel's history.
• 23:58
  Finally, we have to touch on the debate about Maccabean's songs.
• 24:01
  This is still a contentious area.
• 24:04
  Calvin, back in the 17th century suggested that Psalms 4474 and
• 24:09
  79 might belong to the Maccabean period around 170 BC.
• 24:13
  Because their themes of national desecration fit that period of
• 24:17
  persecution. Exactly, but major skulls of the
• 24:20
  past like Jacinius and Ewald strongly opposed that view on
• 24:24
  literary grounds. So the scholarly door is still
• 24:26
  slightly ajar, but the vast majority of the collection is
• 24:29
  clearly pre exilic. So what we take away is that the
• 24:32
  Psalter's compilation spanned hundreds, hundreds of years from
• 24:35
  Moses to the Second Temple era. That's right, and that ensures
• 24:38
  it's comprehensive spiritual perspective.
• 24:41
  But before we get to the theological heart, we have to
• 24:43
  appreciate the sophisticated poetic structure of these songs.
• 24:46
  The form itself actually aids the devotion.
• 24:49
  The primary feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism.
• 24:52
  What defines the rhythm and structure here?
• 24:54
  Unlike Western poetry, which often relies on rhyme, Hebrew
• 24:57
  poetry relies on the parallelism of thought.
• 25:00
  The rhythm is generally set by the number of accented syllables
• 25:03
  in a line, but the real beauty isn't how the phrases are
• 25:05
  arranged, either reinforcing or contrasting ideas.
• 25:09
  Can you walk us through the main types of parallelism?
• 25:12
  Sure, The first is synonymous parallelism.
• 25:15
  This is where the second line reinforces or repeats the
• 25:18
  thought of the first line using different words.
• 25:20
  Think of Psalm 24.1. The earth is Jehovah's, and the
• 25:24
  fullness thereof the world, and leave it dwell therein.
• 25:28
  The second line just restates the first.
• 25:30
  Simple enough. What about the opposite of that?
• 25:32
  That would be antithetic parallelism.
• 25:35
  This is where the second line provides a sharp contrast,
• 25:37
  usually to highlight the difference between the righteous
• 25:39
  and the wicked. Psalm 37.21 is a classic.
• 25:43
  The wicked borrow and pay, if not again, but the righteous
• 25:47
  deal with graciously and giveth. The contrast defines their
• 25:50
  character. And the third type, synthetic
• 25:52
  parallelism, builds on the first thought.
• 25:54
  Yes, in synthetic parallelism, the second line advances or
• 25:57
  completes the thought from the first, often adding a
• 26:00
  consequence. Psalm 1.3 is a perfect example.
• 26:03
  And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water
• 26:06
  that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does
• 26:09
  not wither. The second-half details the
• 26:11
  consequences of the metaphor. The acrostic psalms seem to
• 26:14
  represent the height of this kind of deliberate structural
• 26:17
  artistry. They are a hallmark of poetic
• 26:20
  discipline. 9 Psalms are alphabetical poems.
• 26:23
  But the most extraordinary, of course, is Psalm 119.
• 26:26
  Which is just massive. It's an entire system built on
• 26:28
  the alphabet. It's a remarkable achievement.
• 26:31
  It's divided into 22 sections, one for each letter of the
• 26:34
  Hebrew alphabet, and each of those sections has 8 verses, and
• 26:38
  all 8 verses in that section begin with the same letter.
• 26:41
  And that structure isn't just for show.
• 26:43
  Not at all. It functions as a comprehensive
• 26:46
  statement by ordering the praise of God's law from LF to Tau from
• 26:50
  A-Z. Basically, the poet is
• 26:52
  signifying that he is exhaustively covered the
• 26:55
  subject. It's a complete declaration of
• 26:57
  the words beauty and utility. We also see evidence of larger
• 27:00
  stanza structures or strophies, often marked by refrains.
• 27:05
  Yes, you see that clearly in Psalms 42 and 43 with their
• 27:08
  shared refrain. And this organization even hints
• 27:10
  at performance. There's substantial evidence of
• 27:13
  antiphonal singing, which suggests responsive choirs.
• 27:16
  How would that have worked in the temple?
• 27:17
  Well, in psalms like 2021 and especially 24, you can easily
• 27:21
  imagine a division, a priest's voice, a King's voice, or two
• 27:25
  separate choirs. Psalm 24 seems designed for a
• 27:28
  procession with a question from the approaching group who shall
• 27:31
  ascend into the hill of Jehovah, and an answer for the waiting
• 27:35
  priests. It's very dramatic.
• 27:37
  Now let's revisit that debate about the identity of the I in
• 27:40
  the Psalms. Smen's thesis argued it was
• 27:42
  always the nation speaking. He did.
• 27:44
  He argued in the late 19th century that the I is never an
• 27:47
  individual, but always a personification of the Jewish
• 27:50
  nation. And if that were true, it would
• 27:53
  basically wipe out individual religious experience from the
• 27:56
  whole book. But that view has been largely
• 27:58
  refuted. It has.
• 27:59
  Most critics have rejected it. Well, personification definitely
• 28:02
  happened. Psalms 124 and 129 are clear
• 28:04
  examples. The reader usually has no
• 28:07
  trouble telling when the eye is a specific Israelite crying out
• 28:10
  in pain or joy. The source argues, and I think
• 28:13
  rightly, that the Psalter refuses to be confined to a
• 28:16
  rigid nationalism. It protects the place of the
• 28:19
  individual's faith. So it's a book for the person
• 28:21
  and the people of God. Exactly.
• 28:23
  And that brings us to the most vital section, the theological
• 28:26
  core. Why do Christians gravitate to
• 28:29
  this book so much? Our source says the spiritual
• 28:32
  life in the Psalms runs parallel to New Testament standards.
• 28:36
  That's a key observation, the idea that an experienced
• 28:38
  Christian can move from the Gospels back to the Psalms
• 28:41
  without feeling a change in spiritual altitude.
• 28:43
  It's true. The spiritual conversation is so
• 28:46
  complete that no Christian manual of devotion has ever
• 28:49
  displaced it. It contains the very language of
• 28:52
  the souls converse with God. And that conversation starts
• 28:55
  with reverence for God's holiness.
• 28:57
  Always reverence is non negotiable.
• 29:00
  The psalmist always acknowledged Jehovah's infinite holiness.
• 29:03
  This sense of awe then spills over into an intense personal
• 29:06
  longing or thirsting for God. Articulated in some of the most
• 29:10
  moving poetry ever written. Psalms 42 and 43 are the classic
• 29:13
  examples. The soul is separated from the
• 29:16
  sanctuary and crying out for the living God like a deer panting
• 29:19
  for water. Psalm 63 is a companion piece to
• 29:22
  that. This is the heartbeat of piety,
• 29:25
  not just Dewey, but passionate affection for God.
• 29:28
  And along with that longing, there's the satisfaction of
• 29:30
  dwelling in God's presence and protection.
• 29:32
  Yes, the worshipping St. delights in God's direct,
• 29:35
  protecting presence. You have Psalm 23 with Jehovah
• 29:40
  as the tender shepherd, and Psalm 91 where the almighty
• 29:43
  shadow covers the Saint. This belief in special
• 29:46
  Providence is all over the Psalter.
• 29:47
  The psalmist finds God everywhere, not just in the
• 29:50
  temple but imminent in creation itself.
• 29:52
  They don't need to argue their way to God through philosophy.
• 29:55
  They find Him already there. Psalm One O 4 is a hymn to
• 29:58
  creation. Psalm 29 hears God's voice in
• 30:00
  the Thunder, and Psalm 19 says the heavens are constantly
• 30:03
  declaring His glory. And that conversation with God
• 30:06
  is centered not just on nature, but on the written word.
• 30:09
  Yes, Psalm 119 is the supreme monument to a love for God's
• 30:12
  Word. An older commentator called it a
• 30:15
  holy alphabet for Zion's scholars.
• 30:18
  It talks about the words beauty, its ability to guide, to keep
• 30:20
  the path pure, and to provide comfort.
• 30:23
  This strong commitment to Scripture resonates deeply with
• 30:26
  the Reformed tradition. Moving to the central theme of
• 30:28
  our faith, the Messiah, Christ himself validated the prophetic
• 30:32
  nature of the Psalms. Our Lord Jesus treated the
• 30:34
  Psalter as a reservoir of prophecies about Himself on the
• 30:38
  cross. His mind turned to this book
• 30:40
  again and again. He voiced his anguish with the
• 30:43
  opening words of Psalm 22, and he breathed his last with the
• 30:46
  words of trust from Psalm 31. And Psalm 22 is often seen as a
• 30:50
  perfect pre narration of the crucifixion.
• 30:53
  It's astonishing, the description in Psalm 22.
• 30:55
  The casting of lots, the mockery, the physical pain.
• 30:59
  It fits Christ's suffering so precisely, only Isaiah 53
• 31:03
  surpasses it in detail. The Spirit of God clearly guided
• 31:06
  the language toward the sufferings of the Savior.
• 31:08
  This brings us to the concept of the double sense, the idea that
• 31:12
  the Holy Spirit intended a meaning for a later time that
• 31:15
  the original human author may not have fully grasped.
• 31:18
  Right and rationalistic critics often ridicule this.
• 31:21
  They insist the language refers only to the psalmist and media
• 31:23
  experience. But this disregards the divine
• 31:25
  authorship of Scripture. The apostles themselves affirm
• 31:28
  this idea. They did.
• 31:30
  They affirm that the Old Testament writers didn't always
• 31:32
  fully comprehend their own predictions about Christ.
• 31:35
  The fact that we can't fully explain the method of the
• 31:38
  Spirit's activity doesn't negate the evidence that they were
• 31:41
  guided. And alongside the suffering
• 31:43
  savior, the Psalter presents the conquering king.
• 31:45
  Yes, Psalms 2 and A 110 are the primary Messianic royalty
• 31:50
  Psalms. They describe the Messiah as
• 31:52
  Jehovah's Son, a mighty conqueror who inherits the
• 31:55
  nations and overthrows all his foes.
• 31:58
  The message is 1 of triumphant sovereignty.
• 32:00
  And this messianic vision isn't limited to Israel.
• 32:03
  It has a clear missionary outlook.
• 32:05
  It looks outward, constantly exhorting all nations to forsake
• 32:08
  idols and worship Jehovah. Psalms 476796 They're all major
• 32:13
  missionary psalms. They picture the entire world
• 32:15
  united in the worship of the one true God.
• 32:18
  Shifting to the human condition, the Psalms deal fundamentally
• 32:21
  with sin and the path to forgiveness.
• 32:23
  They provide the most sincere language of penitence ever
• 32:26
  written. The seven penitential Psalms are
• 32:29
  charged with an acute sense of personal failure.
• 32:32
  Psalm 51, written after David's great sin, is the classic
• 32:36
  example of individual confession and a plea for a new heart.
• 32:40
  They also offer a path to victory over sin in the
• 32:42
  believers life. They do.
• 32:44
  They move from the anguish of confession to the hope of
• 32:46
  redemption. Psalm 130 starts with a cry out
• 32:49
  of the depths, but ends with joy over redemption.
• 32:53
  As Psalm 84 says, the worshippers go from strength to
• 32:56
  strength. One of the biggest intellectual
• 32:58
  hurdles for the ancient Hebrews was reconciling God's justice
• 33:01
  with the prosperity of the wicked.
• 33:03
  This was a persistent theological problem.
• 33:05
  If God is just, why do those who defy Him flourish while the
• 33:09
  righteous suffer? Psalm 37 offers a partial
• 33:11
  solution. The success of the Wicked is
• 33:14
  brief and fleeting. But Psalm 73 provides a more
• 33:16
  complete and more eternal solution.
• 33:19
  It does. Psalm 73 finds its rest and
• 33:22
  assurance when the psalmist entered the sanctuary and
• 33:24
  understands the final destination of the wicked sudden
• 33:27
  overthrow. But more than that, he grasps
• 33:30
  that the righteous enjoy and eternal communion with God that
• 33:33
  even death cannot break. That future reality resolves the
• 33:37
  present injustice. OK, we have to address the
• 33:40
  elephant in the room, the imprecatory psalms, the curses.
• 33:44
  This is maybe the biggest hurdle for modern readers.
• 33:47
  It is more than 20 Psalms. Pray for the defeat and
• 33:50
  overthrow of the wicked, with the most severe language in
• 33:53
  Psalms 3569 and one O 9. This requires very careful
• 33:57
  contextual understanding. What context helps us read these
• 34:00
  without feeling they contradict Christian ethics?
• 34:03
  Well, first we have to remember this is poetry and not prose.
• 34:06
  It often uses the language of exaggerated passion pulsing with
• 34:09
  the feel of actual battle against moral lawlessness.
• 34:12
  And critically, the psalmist identifies his hatred not with a
• 34:15
  personal feud, but with Jehovah's cause.
• 34:17
  So the hatred is directed at the enemies of God's righteousness,
• 34:20
  not just personal adversaries. Exactly.
• 34:24
  The psalmist sees himself as an agent of the moral government of
• 34:26
  God. He's praying for justice and the
• 34:29
  destruction of evil itself. Psalm 139 says it perfectly.
• 34:34
  Do not I hate them, O Jehovah that hate thee, I hate them with
• 34:37
  perfect hatred. So how does our source suggest a
• 34:40
  Christian should use this heavenly artillery as it's
• 34:42
  called? The source is clear.
• 34:44
  A Christian cannot pronounce curses on personal enemies.
• 34:47
  That violates Christ's teaching to love and pray for those who
• 34:50
  persecute us. However, the substance of that
• 34:53
  imprecatory impulse, the zeal for the destruction of evil
• 34:56
  itself, that is part of Christian perfection.
• 34:58
  So we can turn that heavenly artillery on systemic
• 35:01
  wickedness. Exactly.
• 35:03
  The source uses the examples of praying against institutions of
• 35:06
  sin, like the saloon or the brothel in its day.
• 35:09
  We can pray for their destruction while still praying
• 35:10
  for the conversion of the people involved in them.
• 35:12
  It's a righteous seal against sin itself.
• 35:14
  Our final major theme is the hope beyond this life, the
• 35:18
  question of immortality. Yes, and while some passages
• 35:21
  seem to limit hope to this life, the psalmist did not settle on a
• 35:25
  final denial of immortality. In moments of intense spiritual
• 35:29
  clarity, they grasped the assurance of an everlasting
• 35:32
  fellowship with God. Which Psalms really show this
• 35:35
  high watermark of Old Testament faith?
• 35:37
  The author of Psalm refreshes himself with the prospect of
• 35:41
  life everlasting in Jehovah's presence.
• 35:43
  He trusts his soul will not be left in Sheol.
• 35:46
  Psalm 17 says that seeing God's face after death is the true
• 35:49
  satisfaction, far better than any worldly prosperity.
• 35:53
  And as we noted, Psalm 73 finds its rest in a fellowship with
• 35:56
  God that even death can't break. Yes, and finally, Psalm 49 makes
• 36:00
  the boldest statement of all. God redeems the righteous from
• 36:03
  the power of Sheol and takes the believing soul to himself.
• 36:07
  This confirms that the highest hope of the ancient St. was
• 36:10
  eternal communion with the Sovereign God.
• 36:13
  So to synthesize everything, we've discussed the Psalter's
• 36:15
  formation, it's ancient titles, it's five book structure
• 36:18
  mirroring the law, it's diverse authorship, it all reinforces
• 36:21
  its spiritual magnitude. It is both a historical document
• 36:24
  summarizing the public devotion of the Jewish nation and at the
• 36:27
  same time a living manual for the individual spiritual walk.
• 36:32
  It teaches us how to approach our King in every possible mood
• 36:35
  of the soul. And that unity, both structural
• 36:38
  and spiritual, is so vital to grasp.
• 36:40
  The great gift of the Psalter is its relational language.
• 36:44
  It's why an aged Christian St. can move so effortlessly from
• 36:47
  reading the New Testament back to the Psalms without feeling
• 36:50
  any drop in spiritual level. That consistency shows that the
• 36:53
  religious experience portrayed by the ancient psalmists already
• 36:56
  attained the highest standards of piety, and that's what
• 36:59
  ensures its continued relevance for every generation that
• 37:02
  cherishes God's self revelation. As you go back to the sacred
• 37:05
  text, we'll leave you with this final provocative thought.
• 37:08
  The internal evidence for Davidic authorship is constantly
• 37:11
  challenged by critics who want to assign these poems to later
• 37:14
  anonymous periods. But consider this if we accept
• 37:17
  the full historical depiction of David as a varied, gifted and
• 37:21
  often contradictory character, a military strategist, A musician,
• 37:25
  an inspired poet, a passionate worshipper, and a profoundly
• 37:29
  flawed man who sinned grievously but also repented sincerely.
• 37:33
  If we accept all that, why should we be surprised that he
• 37:36
  had the capacity to write such diverse and emotionally
• 37:39
  expensive poems with both tender liments and fiery demands for
• 37:42
  justice? The weight of proof may not rest
• 37:45
  on those who accept the historical tradition, but on
• 37:47
  those who try to diminish the historical character of the
• 37:49
  sweet psalmist of Israel, making him smaller than he appears to
• 37:52
  be in the record.