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Why the Psalms Stand at the Center of Biblical Worship | Philip Schaff et al. · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. Hello.
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  This is the deep dive that takes complicated theological and
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  historical texts, puts them under scholarly investigation,
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  and pulls out the vital insights that matter for you.
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  Today we are getting into the book of Psalms, and this isn't
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  just about reading devotional poetry.
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  No, it's really an investigation into the historical and critical
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  questions around how this book, often called the Hymn Book of
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  Israel, was actually put together.
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  It's an editorial puzzle, really, that took centuries to
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  make. We're working today using the
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  detailed framework of critical scholarship, especially the
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  insights from sources like the Schaf Herzog Encyclopedia.
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  Our mission is very focused. We want to unpack the hard
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  evidence about the Psalters assembly, dissect the different
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  voices it contains, the individual, the collective, the
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  zealous, and figure out what those compilation choices tell
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  us about the core theological purpose of the collection.
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  We're offering you the detailed, comprehensive analysis you need
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  to be well informed about the critical scholarship concerning
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  the Psalms all. Right, let's start at the very
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  beginning with the identity of the collection itself.
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  We call it Psalms in English, but the titles used across
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  different traditions, Hebrew and Greek, they already suggest a
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  kind of subtle tension about what it's genre really is.
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  They absolutely do. The most common Hebrew title for
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  the whole collection is Tehillim.
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  Tehillim. And that means Songs of Praise.
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  But that name, you know, tells us more about the function of
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  the book, what it was used for in public worship, than it does
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  about its total content. Right.
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  If you just expected praise songs, you'd be in for a
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  surprise. A huge surprise.
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  Yeah, you'd find a very large portion is actually devoted to
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  lament, petition, and confession of sin.
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  Which is why the source points out there's another Hebrew title
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  to film. Yes, exactly.
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  Tefila means prayers. You can actually find this title
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  at the end of Psalm 72, marking a break in an early collection.
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  And critically, this word prayers fits the majority of the
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  subject matter much better, especially all those laments and
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  petitions for deliverance that make up the central core of the
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  Psalter. So this tension between praise
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  songs and prayers tells us that even the ancient editors knew
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  they were dealing with a mixed genre.
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  They did. They recognized it from the
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  start. Now connecting that tension back
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  to the name, we use Psalm. That comes from a third key
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  Hebrew term mismore. Mismore is a big one because it
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  locks the poetry into its ritual context.
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  It shows up in the titles the superscriptions of 57 separate
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  psalms. And the root of the word itself
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  is about music. It is.
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  It means to pluck or to trim, specifically in relation to
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  plucking the strings of an instrument, and by extension to
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  sing or play. This is the term the Greek
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  Septuagint translators rendered as psalmos.
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  What's key is that in the Old Testament, mismore is only used
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  for religious poems, not just any old song.
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  Correct. It signifies a sacred poem that
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  was intended for musical accompaniment.
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  So in the Greek translators use the term for the whole
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  collection. They called it Psalterian, which
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  was the name of the stringed instrument itself, the harp or
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  lyre. A case of metonymy where the
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  instrument stands for the songs. So for the earliest Greek
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  readers, the collections essential connection to formal
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  sacred musical worship was its defining feature, no matter if
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  the poem was a happy praise song or a personal prayer of
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  distress. Shifting from the names to the
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  physical structure, the Hebrew Psalter we study today contains
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  150 psalms, and it's divided into 5 distinct books.
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  Books one through 5. And this fivefold structure is
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  artificial and pretty late, which I know we'll get into when
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  we cover the history of the compilation.
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  We will, but structurally it's defined by the doxologies.
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  Each of those five books ends in a formal doxology, a little
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  burst of blessing and praise to God.
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  With Psalm 150 acting as the grand final doxology for the
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  entire collection. That's right, this fivefold
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  structure mirroring the Torah is a huge editorial signal.
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  But before before we get into that, we have to talk about the
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  difference in numbering, which has caused so many headaches for
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  students reading ancient commentaries or Septuagint.
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  Oh, it creates a lot of confusion, especially since the
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  Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation has some significant
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  variation. What are they?
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  1st The Septuagint contains 151 Psalms, though that last one is
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  recognized as a late composite edition that's drawn from
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  historical narratives like First Samuel.
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  And second, this is the bigger issue.
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  The numbering diverges almost right away.
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  It does. The Septuagint combines Hebrew
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  Psalms 9 and 10 into a single unit, and then later on it also
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  combines 114 and 1 and 15 into 1 Psalm.
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  So they start running behind the Hebrew numbering pretty quickly.
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  They do, creating a bit of a deficit.
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  But then to make it even more complicated, they divide 2 other
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  Hebrew Psalms. They split Psalm 116 into two
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  separate Psalms, and they do the same with Psalm 147.
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  So the end result is that the Septuagint numbering often lags
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  by one or two psalms compared to the Masoretic or Hebrew text in
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  the middle sections of the Psalter.
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  Yeah. A listener looking at a
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  commentary on the Greek tradition for, say, Psalm 50
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  might actually be reading about what the Hebrew text calls Psalm
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  51. You just have to know what
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  tradition your source is using. The sheer variety of content,
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  the history, the lament, the Thanksgiving, the instruction,
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  it must have made the job of the ancient cataloger just about
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  impossible. How do scholars today even
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  managed to classify such fluid shifting material?
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  It is extremely challenging because the classification
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  systems they often overlap. The source material notes that
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  many Psalms shift their characteristics right in the
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  middle, moving from deep distress to glorious praise in
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  just a few verses. Psalm 22 is the classic example
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  of that. It is.
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  It starts with that famous lament.
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  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  And yet, by the final verses, it has become this soaring hymn of
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  Thanksgiving and confidence in God's future reign.
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  So how do they approach it? What are the categories?
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  Scholars classify them in three main ways.
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  First, from a material standpoint, which is the most
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  common, we look for hymns, which are songs of praise, typically
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  celebrating God's action in creation or history.
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  Then there are prayers, which cover most of the laments and
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  petitions, often with a turn to Thanksgiving, and finally
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  didactic psalms focusing on moral instruction or theological
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  concepts like Psalm 1 or 73. Those didactic Psalms often feel
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  less like a song and more like philosophical reflection,
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  dealing with that fundamental struggle of the righteous man
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  against the prosperity of the wicked.
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  Absolutely. The second way is by thematic
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  varieties, classifying them based on whether the main
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  subject is the individual or the nation, or by the conception of
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  God that dominates the poem God as Creator, as Savior, or as the
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  guide of the Law. In the 3rd and 3rd we have
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  formal categories identifying them as liturgical pieces for a
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  service. Dithyrambic poems which are full
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  of wild, enthusiastic emotion. Epic narratives like Psalm 78 or
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  One O 5, or just simple moralistic and religious
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  philosophical poetry. That incredible breath from a
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  highly stylized epic to a simple ethical meditation.
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  It really confirms that the collection was built over a very
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  long and diverse history of writing and adaptation.
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  That distinction between epic history, philosophical poetry,
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  and liturgical song that leads us right into the heart of the
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  compilations purpose. Was the Psalter intended as a
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  unified hymnal from the start, or was it a general anthology of
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  Israelite religious expression that was only later adapted for
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  worship? Well, the initial data suggests
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  that its relation to formal worship was established
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  retroactively. For a lot of the pieces.
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  Only a small proportion of the songs originally had the
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  specific marks of being written for the public cultists.
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  And by cultists you mean the system of established religious
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  worship, the rights, the sacrifice, all centered in the
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  temple? That's right.
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  So what specific evidence do we have for designated usage?
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  You say it seems historically sparse.
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  It is sparse, and the evidence comes mostly from the
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  superscriptions, the titles. The Hebrew titles, for instance,
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  assigned Psalm 30 specifically for the dedication of the Temple
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  and Psalm 92 for the Sabbath day.
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  And that's about it from the earliest layer.
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  Pretty much, yeah. But when you move into the Greek
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  and later Talmudic traditions, you find a much more systematic
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  effort to assign psalms to the Temple schedule.
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  They gave them specific days of the week if I remember
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  correctly. Yes, the Traditions assigned
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  Psalms 2440880294 and 93 to specific days of the week from
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  Monday through Saturday. Psalm 29 was assigned for the
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  Feast of Tabernacles. But these assignments were often
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  made after the Psalter was compiled.
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  Much after, it shows how the community was trying to organize
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  its existing body of sacred song into a rigid liturgical
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  calendar. So if the original specific
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  assignments were few, what is the internal evidence that makes
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  scholars conclude the collection was ultimately intended for
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  community use? The proof is in the internal
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  liturgical character, which gets more intense as the collection
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  goes on, particularly in books four and five.
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  This includes the Hallelujah Psalms, which are clearly
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  community responses. And the psalms that are
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  structured for back and forth singing.
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  Yes, those structured for antiphonal singing or requiring
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  A choral response from the gathered people.
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  Like the calls to give thanks to Yahweh for He is good, and then
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  the whole congregation responds, for His steadfast love endures
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  forever. Exactly that.
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  We see this structure referenced historically in First Chronicles
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  in Psalm One O 6, showing that public confession and community
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  participation were integral to how these songs were used.
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  So the decisive conclusion from the scholarship is this.
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  Even if individual psalms were written by solitary people as
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  personal poetry, the act of assembling them into this five
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  book collection was an editorial decision.
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  A decision intended to make them available for the worship of the
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  whole community. That is a critical distinction,
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  the difference between original intent and adapted use.
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  For something like Psalm 119, that massive acrostic poem
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  focused on the law, the original intent seems entirely literary.
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  Right, for free recitation, maybe by a scholar rather than
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  being sung during a temple processional.
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  It's hard to imagine that being sung.
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  It's very hard. Many didactic or historical
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  psalms were adopted into liturgical service much later.
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  Furthermore, the strong individualizing feature of many
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  compositions, the eye of the Psalm, is confessing deep
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  private struggles that argues against the idea they were
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  written for public use from the start.
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  They were adopted and canonized because their intense personal
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  feelings were shared feelings. They were universalized
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  expressions that suited the inner experience of the
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  congregation. Yeah, and the revision process,
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  in fact, sometimes stripped away specific individualized details
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  to make the expressions more general for public reading.
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  Yet the Psalter also has pieces that were clearly written for
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  the temple. How do we distinguish those that
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  were cultist driven from the ones that were adapted later?
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  You have to look at the content, specifically the focus on
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  location and presence. Psalms that talk about appearing
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  in God's presence, abiding in His house, or ascending His holy
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  hill, like Psalm 15 or 24 or 27. They indicate a direct
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  motivation centered around the temple.
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  The cultist itself. Yes, the cultist domiciled
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  there. The poets understood that the
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  highest spiritual good, intimacy with God was achieved through
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  presence and participation in the established services.
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  The scholarship argues strongly that these Psalms were written
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  with the cultists is the primary motive.
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  The temple isn't just a casual backdrop, it's central to these
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  poems. It is.
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  OK, here is where the tension gets really interesting and
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  where the collection seems to challenge itself.
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  The prophetic voice on sacrifice, the Psalter, contains
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  Psalms that seem to push against the very temple cultists it
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  celebrates. This internal friction is a key
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  feature and it shows the sophistication of Israelite
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  thought. Psalms 4050 and 51 for example.
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  They echo the declaration of the pre exilic prophets like Samuel
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  and Hosea encapsulated in that famous line.
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  Obedience is better than sacrifice.
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  They recognize that ethical conduct, sincere repentance, and
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  a true intent to worship God are worth more than the external,
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  sometimes meaningless performance of ritual.
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  So if the Psalter was meant to be the hymn book for temple
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  worship, how did the later post exilic community, which was
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  deeply devoted to the sacrificial system, managed to
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  include material that questioned it?
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  This is a perfect window into the editorial challenge.
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  The source notes that this internal protest was so
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  distinct, the Jewish exegesis, rabbinical scholarship had to
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  systematically twist or reinterpret these passages to
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  make them friendly to the sacrificial system.
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  The fact that they had to reinterpret them proves they
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  were seen as difficult. It proves that these
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  compositions were seen as difficult and potentially
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  contrary to the established ritual system, but they were so
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  valued that they had to be received into the worship book
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  and then accommodated through interpretation.
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  So what does critical scholarship suggest is the true
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  meaning of that prophetic protest within the Psalms,
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  especially for the average worshipper?
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  The sentiment means that the exact performance at a
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  prescribed time is secondary to the condition of the heart.
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  The value of sacrifice is relativized.
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  It's subordinated to ethics. Take Psalm 51.
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  A perfect example. It's composed when the author is
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  crushed by guilt. The psalmist says the sacrifices
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  of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.
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  Oh God, you will not despise. This moves the focus entirely
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  inward. And we have to connect that back
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  to the historical context. When was this internal sacrifice
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  sufficient? It was sufficient when external
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  sacrifice was impossible. The source points out that Psalm
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  51 acknowledges the historical context of the exile or possibly
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  later, the Syrian persecution when the Temple cultists was
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  suspended. Right during those times God was
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  satisfied with internal repentance and the fulfillment
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  of the laws ethical requirements.
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  And the psalmist hope expressed in verses 1819 is that after God
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  renews their heart and favors Zion, then God will delight in
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  burg offerings. It shows that the prophetic
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  voice wasn't an absolute rejection of the system, but a
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  permanent ethical qualification of it.
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  So the collection holds both the ritual ideal and the ethical
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  critique in this dynamic tension.
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  It does. The synthesis is clear.
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  The Psalter is filled with temple references and was
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  accommodated for liturgical use by later editing, but it's true
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  genius lies in maintaining the theological superiority of heart
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  renewal over external ritual. To understand that complex
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  tension in the later adaptation, we have to turn to the
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  compilation history. We mentioned the division into
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  five books. The critique suggests this
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  structure is artificial and late.
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  What evidence points to this being an editorial decision
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  rather than an original design? Well, the artificiality is
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  suggested by its very design. The Five Book division appears
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  to be a conscious choice made by the final editors to mirror the
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  fivefold division of the Torah, the Law of Moses.
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  Which reflects the post exilic era when the law became the
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  absolute central authority for the Jewish community.
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  It frames the whole collection within that legal tradition.
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  That's the idea. But those five books weren't
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  created from nothing. They must have been formed by
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  joining smaller, independent hymn collections.
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  What physical evidence of those earlier breaks do we find in the
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  text? The most famous evidence is the
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  editorial break at Psalm 72, verse 20.
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  It's inserted right after a doxology, disrupting the flow of
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  the text. It says the prayers of David,
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  the son of Jesse are ended. That clearly marks an early end
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  point for a prominent initial Davidic collection.
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  It does. It included Psalms 3 through 41,
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  which is book 1, and Psalms 51 through 72, the first part of
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  book 2. It tells us that at one point
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  this collection was considered complete and.
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  Another undeniable piece of evidence from merging previously
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  separate works is the presence of doublets, identical Psalms
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  appearing twice. The doublets are, as critical
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  scholars call them, the smoking gun of the compilation process.
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  We find Psalm 14 is duplicated as Psalm 53.
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  And part of Psalm 40 is repeated as Psalm 70.
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  Right the closing section. This shows that 2 collections,
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  let's call them Collection A and Collection B, were largely
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  different but contain some identical pieces.
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  When the final editor united A&B, they retain both duplicates
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  instead of eliminating 1. Why would they keep the
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  duplicates? Wouldn't a careful editor remove
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  the redundancy? The goal wasn't literary
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  efficiency, it was reverence for existing sacred collections.
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  If Collection A was highly valued and had Psalm 14, and
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  collection B was also highly valued and had Psalm 53A,
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  conscientious editor would keep both versions.
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  Especially if they had already gained diversional authority in
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  different circles. And what's more, the duplication
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  helps prove the next crucial historical step.
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  Which is the prominence of the Temple Singers guilds in Books
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  Two and three, the Korra Heights and the Acephites?
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  Exactly. Books two and three feature
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  numerous psalms attributed to ASAF, 12 of them, and the Sons
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  of Korra, which is 11. These superscriptions likely
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  signify possession or adaptation to the music of the specific
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  temple singing guilds, not necessarily that they were the
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  original authors of every piece. They were the ones responsible
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  for the liturgical performance. They were.
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  OK, this brings us to the most defining feature of the
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  collection history, which gives us a concrete timeline, the
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  shift between Elohistic and Jehovistic redactions.
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  This is essential for understanding the editors
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  conscious work. Books two and three, the ones
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  dominated by the Asaphite and quarter height material, are
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  prevailingly elohistic. Meaning they systematically use
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  the generic term Elohim for God. Yes, and conversely, books 1/4
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  and five are prevailingly Jahavistic, using the divine
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  personal name Yahweh or Jehovah. And the big deal about the
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  doublets is that they show this preference for the divine name
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  was not original to the poem, but was actively changed by the
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  editors. That's the key.
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  When you compare Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, they are virtually
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  identical poems. But where Psalm 14 in the
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  Javistic Book 1 uses Yahweh, Psalm 53 and the Yellowhistic
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  Book 2 substitutes Elohim, this is a conscious, systematic
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  editorial change. Hold on, if they were willing to
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  change the very name of God in a sacred text, how can we possibly
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  trust the originality of any of the language?
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  That's a fair question. The change wasn't seen as
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  disrespect. It was an act of reverence
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  driven by religious custom. During the postexilic period,
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  particularly leading up to the chroniclers time, there was a
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  growing tendency, driven by piety, to avoid pronouncing the
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  Tetragrammaton the secret name Yahweh out of fear of misusing
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  it. So the generic term Elohim
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  became the preferred substitute in certain religious circles.
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  It did. And this trend is visible
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  outside the Psalter, too. You see in the Chronicler's
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  retelling of history where passages from Samuel or kings
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  that were Jehovistic become Elohistic.
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  So this preference helps us define the stages of
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  compilation. If we trace the final union,
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  we're basically seeing three primary collections being
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  brought together, Yes. The three main aggregations were
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  first, the earliest Davidic collection, which was Jehovistic
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  in book one, OK, second the later Eloistic collections,
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  Davidic, Corey Hiddick and a Sapphic, which make up books two
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  and three, and third, the final mixed and strongly Joe Vista
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  collection that forms books four and five which incorporated
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  things like the Hallelujah and Pilgrim Psalms.
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  And once these massive aggregations were united, the
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  whole compilation was framed by Psalms one and two, setting the
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  programmatic statement for the whole volume.
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  That framing is the final piece of editorial genius.
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  Psalm 1 establishes the ideal life as centered on meditation
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  and obedience to the law. Psalm 2 establishes the
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  Messianic ideal, the ultimate triumph of God's appointed King.
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  So these two theological pillars, Law and Messiah,
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  preface the entire work, instructing the reader how to
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  approach the collection. The structure of five books
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  framed by Law and Messiah gives us a date for the finished
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  product. How close can we get?
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  Well, we know the final Psalter existed before the Septuagint
• 19:50
  translation and the writing of Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, so
• 19:54
  that places the completion before the 2nd century BC.
• 19:57
  More precise dating relies on tying the Elohistic and
• 20:01
  Jehovistic cycles to known historical periods.
• 20:03
  And we link the Elohistic collections to the time of the
• 20:06
  Temple, singing guilds and the Chronicler.
• 20:08
  Right. William Robertson Smiths
• 20:10
  hypothesis, which is supported by the critical analysis, argues
• 20:13
  that the Elohistic books 2 and 3 originated between the time of
• 20:17
  Nehemiah and the Chronicler, roughly 430 to 300 BC.
• 20:21
  That period favored the general use of Elohim and aligns with
• 20:24
  the professionalization of the Temple Singers.
• 20:26
  It does. It suggests a specific organized
• 20:28
  period of editing. And then the strongly Javistic
• 20:31
  character of books four and five shows a later reversal of that
• 20:34
  trend. Yes, after the chroniclers time,
• 20:37
  maybe into the third or second century BC, the earlier
• 20:40
  reluctance to use the Tetragrammatons emerged and the
• 20:43
  editors of the final two books reverted to using the divine
• 20:46
  name Yahweh frequently. So this shift from Jehovistic to
• 20:49
  Elohistic and back to Javistic over 150 to 200 years gives us a
• 20:54
  detailed snapshot of evolving post exilic piety and the
• 20:58
  meticulous those systematic editorial hand it.
• 21:01
  Really does. Let's shift our attention to the
• 21:03
  speaker in the Psalter. When the author cries out, I who
• 21:07
  is truly speaking? The traditional natural
• 21:10
  assumption is the author, an individual poet relating a
• 21:13
  personal experience. But critical scholarship
• 21:16
  introduced A competing, very powerful idea, the collective
• 21:20
  voice. The debate began a long time
• 21:23
  ago, even in the 5th century, with figures like Fedor of Mops
• 21:26
  Westia suggesting that David was expressing the soul of the
• 21:29
  people. But it gained real traction with
• 21:31
  19th century scholars like Olshausen and particularly
• 21:34
  Smind. And Smind argued for the
• 21:36
  collective view almost without exception, didn't he?
• 21:38
  Smind's position was quite radical.
• 21:40
  He argued that the I is the personified community and that
• 21:43
  only under direct explicit proof should a Psalm be considered the
• 21:46
  expression of an individual. He believed individual
• 21:49
  experience was only adequate for public use if it reflected the
• 21:52
  universal situation of the entire people.
• 21:54
  And this perspective was often wrongly tied to the idea that
• 21:57
  all the Psalms must be late, reflecting the dominant force of
• 22:01
  the centralized post exilic community.
• 22:03
  It was, but the source material is careful to separate those
• 22:07
  questions. You can have an early collective
• 22:09
  Psalm or a late individual Psalm.
• 22:12
  The solution is finding the specific context for the eye.
• 22:15
  The clarity comes from recognizing that the Psalter is
• 22:18
  a mosaic of three distinct voices, all using the first
• 22:21
  person eye. You just have to determine which
• 22:23
  context applies to the specific Psalm you're reading.
• 22:26
  That's the key. So let's start with the first
• 22:28
  group, the clear community voice.
• 22:30
  This group includes psalms designed explicitly for temple
• 22:33
  use. The liturgical pieces here.
• 22:37
  The I functions as a stand in for we the whole congregation.
• 22:40
  It's like how the Pentateuch uses thou to address the
• 22:43
  individual worshipper, but the precept is always intended for
• 22:46
  the entire people of Israel. A perfect analogy.
• 22:49
  The nature of these songs, often involving processions or coral
• 22:52
  responses, give the collective interpretation a high
• 22:55
  probability. The second group represents the
• 22:57
  undeniable individual voice. This is where the sheer emotion
• 23:01
  and specificity of the experience push back hard
• 23:04
  against that collective theory. Yes, critical scholarship
• 23:07
  insists that a large number of Psalms express such a deep,
• 23:10
  unique personal crises, confessions, and theological
• 23:14
  wrestling that they cannot be anything but the authentic voice
• 23:17
  of an individual author. 3251 and especially 73 fall into this
• 23:22
  category. Why is?
• 23:23
  Psalm 73, such a powerful example of the individual
• 23:27
  experience. Well, it recounts the author.
• 23:29
  'S near total spiritual collapse and crisis of faith.
• 23:31
  His feet almost slipped when he saw the prosperity of the
• 23:34
  wicked. This isn't the national crisis.
• 23:36
  It is an internal existential breakdown, and it's resolved
• 23:39
  only. When he enters the sanctuary and
• 23:41
  gains A singular personal perspective on their destiny,
• 23:44
  the source notes that. This literature gains its
• 23:46
  spiritual worth because it is the personal expression of the
• 23:49
  author's intense theological conviction, the feeling that
• 23:52
  heaven itself will be worthless if God were not present.
• 23:56
  While we can universalize this experience for the congregation,
• 23:59
  it arose from a singular private struggle.
• 24:01
  And what about the third? Voice, the pious nucleus.
• 24:04
  This seems to be a specific social group within the
• 24:07
  community, this voice. Speaks for a narrow, self
• 24:10
  identified group of the righteous, often referred to by
• 24:13
  specific, almost technical terms.
• 24:15
  The poor, the wretched, the feeble, and they're defined by
• 24:20
  their. Opposition to the godless and
• 24:22
  worldly elements within Israel itself.
• 24:25
  I often hear that these terms, the poor or the needy, just
• 24:28
  refer to the entire downtrodden nation after the exile, while
• 24:32
  that's possible in some. Contexts.
• 24:34
  The opposition is clearly internal in psalms like 16 and
• 24:37
  22. These Psalms arose within a
• 24:39
  smaller, dedicated circle of the upright who were zealous for the
• 24:43
  law and who expected God's imminent judgment against their
• 24:45
  wicked counterparts in Jerusalem.
• 24:47
  This group foreshadows. The Esodom or the pious ones who
• 24:51
  arose in the post exilic era and who later developed into the
• 24:54
  Pharisees? That's the line of thinking.
• 24:57
  Their voice is characterized by a zealous adherence to the law
• 25:00
  and a strong separation from the perceived moral compromises of
• 25:03
  the rest of society. Their eye is the representative
• 25:06
  voice of this dedicated righteous remnant.
• 25:08
  So understanding. The Psalter requires listening
• 25:11
  for those shifts from the universal we of the temple to
• 25:15
  the agonizing eye of the solitary worshipper to the
• 25:18
  zealous eye of the pious minority.
• 25:21
  You have to listen for all. Three, let's confront the
• 25:23
  authorship. Question.
• 25:25
  The entire tradition links the Psalter to King David.
• 25:28
  How reliable are the 73 Psalms attributed to him or the few
• 25:32
  attributed to Moses, Solomon, Asaph, or the Koraks?
• 25:36
  While tradition is. Powerful.
• 25:38
  The Critical view finds the historical reliability of these
• 25:41
  titles to be highly suspect. The attributions to David,
• 25:45
  Solomon, Moses, Asaph, and the Korah Heights were not original
• 25:49
  to the text. They are the work of later.
• 25:51
  Collectors. Yes, based on.
• 25:53
  Late, often fluctuating traditions, they hold only the
• 25:56
  value of an early scholarly supposition.
• 25:59
  What concrete evidence do we? Have that the tradition was
• 26:01
  unreliable even back in antiquity.
• 26:03
  First, we see contradictory. Evidence in the ancient versions
• 26:06
  themselves, for example the Septuagint attribute Psalms to
• 26:09
  David that the Hebrew Masoretic text does not, and vice versa
• 26:13
  that of uniformity. Shows the tradition was still
• 26:15
  fluid, and I'm sure it was. And 2nd and more definitive is
• 26:19
  the internal evidence that contradicts Davidic authorship
• 26:22
  give us the most striking. Examples of contradiction the
• 26:25
  conditions described in. Many Davidic Psalms simply point
• 26:28
  away from the 10th century BC. Psalms 5.7 and 69.9 presuppose
• 26:33
  the existence of the Temple, which David only made
• 26:35
  preparations for. Solomon built it, and more
• 26:38
  forcefully. Psalm 51.
• 26:40
  Psalm 51 verses. 18 and 19 speaks of rebuilding the walls
• 26:43
  of Jerusalem and taking pleasure in sacrifices after that.
• 26:46
  Rebuilding that presupposes the destruction and the exile
• 26:49
  placing its final form centuries after David's death.
• 26:52
  So if the titles are. Unreliable for authorship.
• 26:55
  How did David become the figurehead for the entire
• 26:57
  collection? The explanation is the.
• 26:59
  Concept of corporate attribution.
• 27:02
  The title of David often reflects possession or an entire
• 27:05
  collection named after him rather than composition.
• 27:08
  David was universally celebrated as the sweet psalmist of Israel
• 27:12
  and the great organizer of Temple worship.
• 27:15
  So it was. Natural that a massive
• 27:16
  collection of hymns would be collectively linked to his name
• 27:19
  during the compilation process. Entirely natural.
• 27:22
  The titles in many instances are an index of possession, not
• 27:26
  provenance. This critical assessment.
• 27:28
  Shifts the entire modern debate. It's no longer about tallying
• 27:32
  how many psalms were pre exilic, but whether there are any pre
• 27:35
  exilic psalms at all. That's the question now.
• 27:38
  Given the intense. Compilation and editing.
• 27:40
  Is it possible that every single song was composed after the
• 27:44
  exile while some radical? Theories have proposed this.
• 27:47
  The overall scholarly conclusion is that it's highly improbable.
• 27:51
  We know that sacred song existed in early Israel.
• 27:54
  Amos 5.23 and Psalm 137 confirm that Yahweh songs with stringed
• 28:00
  accompaniment were central to official worship in both
• 28:03
  kingdoms during the early prophetic days.
• 28:05
  So given David's. Strong tradition as a hymnist
• 28:07
  and the prominence of song in the First Temple.
• 28:10
  It strains credibility to suggest no Psalm survived the
• 28:13
  6th century destruction. It does if.
• 28:15
  They survived, however they were certainly worked over and edited
• 28:18
  to fit the needs of the post Excel community.
• 28:20
  So if we look beyond the. Titles What is the strongest
• 28:22
  internal evidence for early dating we have several lines of
• 28:25
  evidence. 1st the royal Psalms like Psalms 20 and 21, these
• 28:30
  pieces which glorify the historic king of Israel.
• 28:32
  They make the most sense when referring to the historic
• 28:34
  Kingdom before 105 BC, prior to the later politically complex
• 28:38
  has money in monarchy. Their tone speaks.
• 28:41
  Of an established dynastic kingship it does. 2nd the
• 28:45
  prophetic protest psalms we talked about like 40-50 and 51
• 28:49
  while they could function later, they're questioning of the worth
• 28:51
  of sacrifice fits seamlessly with the pre exilic prophetic
• 28:54
  movement when figures like Isaiah and Jeremiah were active
• 28:57
  and the third line of. Evidence relates to the poetry
• 29:00
  itself, the primitive tone of certain pieces.
• 29:03
  Yes. Look at Psalm 29.
• 29:05
  It has this majestic, almost mythological coloring,
• 29:08
  describing God's voices, power over the waters in the forest,
• 29:11
  almost portraying God as a storm deity.
• 29:14
  This poetic strength, along with the mythological picture of the
• 29:16
  sun in Psalm 19, suggests A primitive conception, a
• 29:20
  freshness and vigor that is difficult to ascribe to the
• 29:22
  sophisticated, often legalistic environment of the late
• 29:26
  postexilic period. It feels older it.
• 29:28
  Feels older Let's. Return to David.
• 29:30
  Himself. What do we know about his
• 29:32
  religious character that makes his tradition as a psalmist so
• 29:35
  plausible, even if the attributions are often late?
• 29:39
  Well, David was unequivocally. A poet and a master of the liar.
• 29:42
  We have his masterful elegy for Saul and Jonathan in Second
• 29:45
  Samuel 1 as proof. And he was a deeply religious
• 29:48
  man, but his piety was different from the later types.
• 29:52
  You mentioned his piety. Was of a more undeveloped and
• 29:55
  primitive type externally. What does that mean in practical
• 29:58
  terms? It means it was highly.
• 29:59
  Personal, intense and spontaneous, but not yet defined
• 30:03
  by the strict legalism with scholars called gnomism that
• 30:06
  characterized the post dexilic period.
• 30:08
  For example, his actions. Like assuming he must serve
• 30:11
  other gods when living in a heathen land, or his raw
• 30:14
  reaction to the death of his child.
• 30:16
  Yes, those show a direct. Passionate connection to God
• 30:18
  that operates outside the detailed, codified legal system
• 30:21
  that would later dominate Jewish life.
• 30:23
  Well, he was zealous in worship. Very much so.
• 30:26
  His preparations for the Temple and his zealous participation in
• 30:29
  the Ark's removal show he was willing to go to extremes in his
• 30:32
  devotion. Therefore, all critical
• 30:35
  probabilities support the idea that David contributed
• 30:38
  significantly to the genesis of Israel's sacred song and by
• 30:42
  testing poems. Against the known style of that
• 30:44
  Two Samuel Elegy, the source material suggests that poems
• 30:48
  like Psalms 34818 A 24 and 29 May reasonably contain a davidic
• 30:54
  nucleus, even if they were edited later.
• 30:56
  That's a fair assessment. Now for the lower.
• 30:58
  Limit the possibility of Mccabean psalms.
• 31:01
  This would place composition as late as the second or even 1st
• 31:04
  century BC. This is a crucial point for the
• 31:07
  canonical status of the book. The possibility was admitted.
• 31:09
  Even by early church fathers and by Calvin, the main difficulty
• 31:13
  isn't that literature was being written that late.
• 31:15
  We have Daniel and Ecclesiasticus as examples, but
• 31:17
  how these late compositions could have gained entry into the
• 31:20
  Canon, which the chronicler around 300 BC seems to imply was
• 31:24
  largely closed. And yet, scholars like.
• 31:26
  Dumm argued for extremely late dating, suggesting psalms were
• 31:29
  written as late as 70 BC, with some being sedution and others
• 31:33
  pharisaic. Dum's theory?
• 31:34
  Really. Pushed the boundary.
• 31:36
  However, the critical consensus generally rejects this extreme
• 31:40
  late gating based on a very specific comparative analysis.
• 31:44
  The key differentiation comes from comparing the canonical
• 31:47
  Psalter to the Psalms of Solomon, which were definitely
• 31:50
  written around. 70 BC and detail the conflicts of the Hasmonian
• 31:54
  period right, So if the canonical.
• 31:56
  Songs were written in that same time frame.
• 31:58
  Shouldn't they sound the same? Logically, yes.
• 32:00
  But they do not. The Psalms of Solomon possess a
• 32:02
  clear contemporary critical historical ring.
• 32:06
  They specifically condemn the characteristic sins of the
• 32:08
  Hasmonean dynasty, incest, the pollution of holy things,
• 32:12
  general sedution, wickedness. They hail Pompey's conquest as
• 32:16
  divine judgment against this corruption and the canonical
• 32:18
  songs. That dumb selected as Pharisaic
• 32:20
  answers Psalms 9/10/14 and so on.
• 32:23
  They just lack this damning, specific accusatory historical
• 32:27
  detail. They speak of general wickedness
• 32:29
  and. Oppression.
• 32:30
  But they don't single out the royal house or the priesthood
• 32:32
  for clear contemporary corruption like the Psalms of
• 32:34
  Solomon do. That's the essential.
• 32:36
  Conclusion The canonical Psalter retains a timeless quality,
• 32:40
  ensuring its continued relevance beyond a specific political
• 32:43
  contest, a feature the very late McCabe and poems do not share
• 32:47
  since we've established. That the Psalter is a collection
• 32:50
  spanning centuries, compiled from different circles,
• 32:52
  individual community, pre exilic, post exilic.
• 32:56
  It's impossible to construct a single unified strict theology
• 32:59
  for the entire book. The theology is a.
• 33:01
  Dynamic reflection of all the religious presentations found in
• 33:04
  the Old Testament. We see a spectrum of thought on
• 33:07
  the nature of God, ranging from the early view of God as a
• 33:10
  localized war deity or a storm God, which you see in Psalms 18
• 33:14
  and 29, to the later, more philosophical conception of God
• 33:17
  as an eternal, omnipresent being whose spirit fills creation, as
• 33:21
  in Psalms 90 and 139. That coexistence.
• 33:24
  Of concepts is vital to grasp it is and when we look at the ideal
• 33:27
  of piety, the book presents 3 coexisting, sometimes competing
• 33:31
  focuses for the righteous life, the 1st and arguably most.
• 33:34
  Prominent because of its place is law centered piety.
• 33:38
  Psalm 1, which acts as the programmatic statement for the
• 33:40
  whole collection, establishes the ideal.
• 33:43
  True piety consists in deep meditation on the law day and
• 33:47
  night. This reflects the ideal.
• 33:49
  Of the learning scholar and the post exilic Jewish focus on
• 33:51
  nomism. The life lived meticulously
• 33:54
  according to the legal code. Psalm 119 expands this concept
• 33:58
  tremendously. The second.
• 34:00
  Focus is cultist centered piety, which seems to be the older,
• 34:03
  more emotional ideal tied directly to the temple this
• 34:06
  ideal expresses. Ecstatic joy in the temple
• 34:08
  presence exemplified by the sentiment a day in your courts
• 34:12
  is better than 1000 right here the.
• 34:14
  Highest good is achieved through participation in temple
• 34:17
  services, the physical nearness to God, and the experience of
• 34:20
  ritual closeness and the third, the.
• 34:22
  Simpler, ethical, centered ideal.
• 34:24
  This is the simple course. Of religious and ethical
• 34:26
  conduct, focusing on basic morality and purity, like the
• 34:30
  requirements listed in Psalm 24.4.
• 34:32
  Focusing on pure hands and a clean heart.
• 34:35
  The fact that these three ideals, law, ritual, and ethics
• 34:39
  are all presented as paths to righteousness shows the
• 34:42
  compilation's ability to hold diverse theological viewpoints
• 34:45
  without resolving the tension between them.
• 34:47
  This tension also. Permeates the consciousness of
• 34:50
  sin and forgiveness. Some Psalms seem almost
• 34:52
  superficial in their understanding of sin.
• 34:54
  They do some. Express strong confidence in
• 34:57
  personal integrity, like Psalm 26.11, seeking salvation through
• 35:01
  mere rectitude. Others focus on sin primarily
• 35:04
  from the standpoint of ceremonial piety, worrying only
• 35:06
  about sins of ignorance or pride that might pollute the
• 35:09
  worshipper but the collection. Reserves its real spiritual
• 35:12
  intensity for the deep consciousness of sin.
• 35:14
  This is the crucial. Counterpoint and the source of
• 35:17
  the Psalter's power in Psalms 32 and 51.
• 35:21
  These compositions reveal a consciousness of sin felt in the
• 35:24
  inmost being, a sense of guilt and alienation that goes beyond
• 35:28
  a mere external act. Here sin is treated as a
• 35:32
  profound internal breakage independent of sacrifice or
• 35:35
  priestly ritual, and it is here in.
• 35:37
  Psalm 51 that we find the condition for forgiveness that
• 35:40
  resonates so strongly with Reformed theological tradition.
• 35:44
  Absolutely. In Psalm 51, the forgiveness of
• 35:46
  sin is explicitly correlated not with the outward act of offering
• 35:50
  a bull or goat, but with the renewal of heart.
• 35:53
  The requirement is for a new clean heart and a restored
• 35:55
  spirit, and this gets right to the heart.
• 35:57
  Of what the prophets and later the Reformation would say
• 36:00
  regeneration, the renewal of the heart, is the main thing the our
• 36:03
  performance of the. Cultists is secondary to the
• 36:06
  inward work of God in the conscience finally, let's look
• 36:08
  at how the. Soldier portrays the future.
• 36:10
  It's eschatology and messianic hope.
• 36:12
  Does that also evolve? It evolves markedly.
• 36:15
  The earliest focus is a simple glorification of the historic
• 36:18
  king of Israel, the hope for victory over foes in the
• 36:22
  immediate context of the Kingdom.
• 36:23
  Like in Psalm 2 and 110, this is an earthbound political
• 36:26
  expectation, but as worldly. Expectations diminished,
• 36:30
  particularly after the exile and under foreign domination.
• 36:33
  The hope became transcendental, the expectations assumed.
• 36:36
  Eternal proportions. They shifted from a simple
• 36:39
  triumph over local foes to the hope for world judgment by
• 36:42
  Yahweh, the establishment of His eternal Kingdom, and the
• 36:45
  restoration of justice across the cosmos.
• 36:48
  You see this transition in psalms like 97 and 82.
• 36:51
  The collection progresses. From the historical king to the
• 36:53
  cosmic King and this internal. Progression is yet another
• 36:57
  reason why the canonical Psalter is distinct from the later
• 37:00
  Psalms of Solomon, whose messianic hope remain tied to
• 37:03
  the specific political defeat of contemporary enemies.
• 37:06
  This has been a truly. Comprehensive look at the
• 37:09
  editorial and historical life of the Psalter.
• 37:11
  We've seen that it's not a single book, but a compilation
• 37:14
  of traditions shaped by editors who made conscious choices like
• 37:17
  systematically alternating between Elohistic and Jehovistic
• 37:21
  divine names to unite collections that had centuries
• 37:24
  of separate existence. And we've learned that reading.
• 37:27
  The Psalter requires listening for those different strata of
• 37:30
  voices, the formal collective voice of the Temple, the
• 37:33
  intimate personal cry of the struggling individual, and the
• 37:36
  expectant zeal of the pious nucleus, the acetim.
• 37:40
  Understanding these different origins allows us to appreciate
• 37:43
  the true breadth of Israel's religious life, even under.
• 37:47
  This historical critical scrutiny, the spiritual value,
• 37:50
  remains fixed. The diverse voices reinforce the
• 37:53
  central theological focus, the framework of God's law in Psalm
• 37:56
  One, combined with the absolute necessity of a renewed heart.
• 38:00
  Independent external performance in Psalms 32 and 51 indeed.
• 38:04
  We noted that the final editorial decision was to divide
• 38:07
  the Psalter into five books, consciously mirroring the five
• 38:10
  fold structure of the Torah. And we saw that this final
• 38:13
  collection was prefaced by Psalm One, which is about the Law, and
• 38:17
  Psalm 2 about the Messiah. So if the collection was.
• 38:20
  Deliberately structured as a library of devotion, framed by
• 38:23
  the ideals of the Law and the ultimate reign of the Messiah.
• 38:26
  What implications does that specific structured ordering
• 38:30
  have for how we approach and pray through the entire Psalter
• 38:33
  today, viewing it not as a random collection, but as a
• 38:36
  deliberate guide to piety that progresses toward Christ?
• 38:39
  That is certainly something for you to consider as you reflect
• 38:41
  on this collection.