Latest / Reformed Thinking / Understanding the Psalms: Themes and Purpose | R. Laird Harris

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Understanding the Psalms: Themes and Purpose | R. Laird Harris · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the deep dive, powered by reformed thinking.
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  It's great to be here. I think the source material
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  we're looking at today is just fascinating.
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  Our mission today is to open up what we call the song Book of
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  Zion, the book of Psalms. But we're trying to go beyond,
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  you know, just finding comfort or a verse for personal
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  devotion. We're using a scholarly resource
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  to really put the Psalter under a microscope, to grasp its
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  structure and its unified theological message.
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  The idea is to get past a surface level reading and see
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  how these ancient songs can be a kind of shortcut to deep
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  theological insight and spiritual refreshment.
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  Right. And the analysis we're
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  dissecting is very detailed. It covers the unique five book
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  division, the whole complex question of authorship over many
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  generations, the historical and archaeological context, its
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  literary style, and for us most centrally, the prophetic witness
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  to Christ that's just woven through the entire collection.
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  And for you, the diligent learner, if you want to
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  understand the stunning coherence of Scripture, how the
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  Old Testament prepares the stage for the new, this deep dive
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  really shows that divine guidance.
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  It reveals how the Holy Spirit moved on human authors to write
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  songs that were tailor made not just for our deepest joys and
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  sorrows, but songs that perfectly express the life,
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  suffering, and triumph of the Messiah himself.
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  It's a remarkable display of God's plan.
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  OK, so let's unpack this architecture first.
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  If you just open the Book of Songs and start reading, it can
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  feel like a glorious but, well, sort of random collection.
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  The structure doesn't seem to follow one author or 1 theme.
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  That's a common impression. But when scholars look closer,
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  they see it is definitely not just one big book.
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  It's intentionally organized into 5 distinct books.
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  You have book 1, which is Psalms one through 41, which 2 is 42 to
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  72. Book three goes from 73 to 89,
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  Book 4 is 90 to one O 6, and then the final book five runs
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  from one O 7 to 150. And that five part division is
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  extremely ancient. We know this because each of
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  those books ends with a doxology, a kind of formalized
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  short burst of praise, usually just verse or two, like a
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  concluding Amen. Pretty much.
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  For instance, Book 3 ends at Psalm 89, verse 52, with Blessed
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  be the Lord forevermore, Amen and Amen.
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  And we find clear evidence of these doxologies and the five
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  books split in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old
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  Testament that dates this structure back to at least 200
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  BC, so long before Christ. Knowing that it's intentional,
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  even if the Psalms inside each book seem a bit jumbled, you
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  have to ask the question, why 5? Why not three or seven?
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  Our source says the reason is, well, uncertain.
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  The most boring explanation is maybe just utility.
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  Right for handling scrolls. Yeah, maybe it was just
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  convenient for handling the different scroll sections since
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  the books are all different links.
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  That physical explanation is plausible for sure, that there's
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  a much more theologically compelling idea that a lot of
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  scholars hold to, and it connects right to the core
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  identity of Israel. The thought is that this five
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  book structure might have been arranged on purpose to mirror
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  the five books of Moses. The Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus,
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  Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The law, exactly.
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  So you're suggesting that Israel's hymn book, their core
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  spiritual response, was formally structured to parallel the
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  collection of their core instruction, the Law?
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  Precisely. And if that parallel holes, it
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  reinforces the link between devotion and revelation.
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  The Law gives us God's revealed character and commands, and the
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  Psalter gives us the inspired, faithful human response to that
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  praise, lament, repentance, trust.
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  It links the life of piety directly to the life defined by
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  God's statutes. And when we look at the
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  authorship spread across these five books, that reinforces the
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  idea that the Psalter grew over time, even if the final
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  arrangement was deliberate. Book one, for instance, is
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  almost all David. Overwhelmingly, David.
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  Only Psalms 1210 and 33 are anonymous.
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  In that first section, he just dominates the opening.
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  And then that focus on David starts to broaden out.
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  Book 2 still has a lot of David, but it notably brings in the
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  corporate voice of the sons of Korra.
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  These were Levites who had roles in the temple service.
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  Then Book 3 shifts again relying heavily on Asaph, another temple
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  singer, and again the sons of Korra.
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  It really highlights the institutional formal worship
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  during the monarchy. Right.
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  And then you get to book four, and there's another surprise.
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  It's largely anonymous, suggesting it might be a
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  compilation of older, untitled sources.
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  But there is one hugely important attribution in there,
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  Psalm 90. Psalm 90, attributed to Moses
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  that places its origin way back in the wilderness generation,
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  long before David ever came on the scene.
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  That's a. Huge anchor showing just how old
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  Israelite poetry and piety really are.
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  It is. And finally, Book 5, the closing
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  section is mixed again. We get 13 Psalms from David, one
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  from Solomon, and the rest are anonymous.
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  So this diverse authorship spanning Moses, David, Solomon,
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  the Levites, and others, it all confirms that the arrangement
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  into five books is less about a neat timeline and more about a
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  canonical order. So the structure gives us
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  historical context in that possible link to the law.
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  But our sources conclude that to really get what the Psalter does
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  for us, classifying the Psalms by subject matter is much more
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  useful. That's the key.
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  Knowing the structure is good for study, but classifying by
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  subject, identifying the prayers of faith, the songs of praise,
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  the royal psalms, that gives us a much clearer picture of their
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  purpose and how we can apply them.
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  It helps you find the language you need for whatever your
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  current spiritual state is. Now the source material is very
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  clear that David, who lived around 1000 BC, is The
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  Fountainhead of somity. I mean, there was poetry before
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  him, Moses song at the Red Sea, Deborah's song, but God
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  providentially used David to really advance the art form.
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  His whole life seems designed for this purpose.
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  It covered the most intense human experiences, the high of a
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  shepherd boy chosen to be king, the low of being a fugitive
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  haunted by Saul, the success of building a Kingdom, and of
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  course, the terrible personal sin and his deep repentance
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  afterward. That personal history just
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  equipped him perfectly to write songs that have this universal,
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  raw emotional power. And what's crucial to notice
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  that many of these songs weren't written like diary entries in
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  the heat of the moment. They were often composed years
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  after the events happened. That reflective distance allowed
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  the Holy Spirit to turn a specific historical event into a
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  general, universally applicable spiritual truth.
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  Psalm 56 is a great example of that, isn't it?
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  It's a perfect example. The little note at the top
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  attributes it to the time when the Philistine seized him in
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  Gath. I mean, that was a terrifying
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  low point for him, but the Psalm itself never mentions Gath or
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  the Philistines by name. It's a general expression of
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  trust in a time of trouble in God.
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  I have put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can
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  do unto me. So the Spirit guided David to
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  reflect on his capture and write a song that speaks to you when
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  you feel captured by modern fears or pressures.
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  Right. And this biographical coherence
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  is so vital, especially when you think about the historical
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  critics who for a long time tried to date most of the Psalms
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  very late. They claimed they were post
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  exilic or even Mecca Bean. But archaeology, as our sources
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  point out, has really delivered a decisive blow to that
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  skepticism. Has the whole late dating theory
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  has been fundamentally refuted by two major discoveries.
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  The first was the Ugaritic tablets.
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  Let's spend a minute on those Where were they found and what
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  did they prove? They were dug up by French
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  excavators back in the 1920s and 30s at a place called Ras
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  Shamra, which was the ancient city of Ugarit in modern Syria.
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  Now, these tablets date to around 1400 BC, so centuries
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  older than David, and they're written in an ancient Canaanite
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  dialect that's very closely related to Hebrew.
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  And the key insight was. The key insight was that these
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  Pagan texts showed striking parallels in style and
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  vocabulary with biblical poetry. It proved that the sophisticated
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  Hebrew poetic forms David used were not late compositions from
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  after the exile. Instead, they were part of an
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  ancient established literary tradition in that whole region.
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  Do they help with interpretation at all?
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  Oh, very much so. For example, Hebrew poetry often
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  uses these common word rare word pairs.
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  The first line uses the common word and the parallel line uses
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  a synonymous but much rarer word.
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  We found many of these exact pairs in the Eucharitic
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  literature. So it's like having a dictionary
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  for the poetic language. In a way, yes.
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  It helps scholars clarify difficult phrases in the Psalms
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  and confirms the antiquity of the text itself.
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  The theology of Ugarit is Pagan, of course, but the poetic
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  apparatus is shared. So that discovery proved the
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  style was ancient, and the second big one, the Dead Sea
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  Scrolls, proved the status of the Psalter was ancient.
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  Absolutely monumental. The Dead Sea Scrolls, found
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  starting in the late 1940s, date from about 225 BC to 50 BC, and
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  the fragments of the Psalter found there confirm its high
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  esteem and early canonical status in the Jewish community.
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  And that's significant for dating because the critics
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  claimed many psalms reflected the Maccabean struggle.
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  Right, which happened much later, between 165 and 140 BC.
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  But since the Psalter was already established and revered
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  with copies in the caves before and during that period, it rules
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  out the idea that the text was written about that struggle.
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  The DSS confirmed that the traditional conservative datings
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  were correct all along. So this brings us to the
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  structure of the poetry itself. When we read English poetry,
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  we're looking for a rhyme and meter.
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  Hebrew poetry doesn't really rely on either of those.
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  It opts for parallelism. It's all about the balance.
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  The first line establishes a thought or an image, and the
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  second line either repeats it, contrasts it, or advances it.
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  That's the heart of the style. OK, let's breakdown the types
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  for the listener. The source mentions synonymous
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  parallelism first. That's repeating the same idea
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  with different but similar words.
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  Psalm 19.1 is the classic example.
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  The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament show of
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  his handiwork. Heavens and firmament are
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  parallel. Declare the glory and show with
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  his handiwork are parallel. Both lions say the same thing,
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  just amplifying. It.
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  And then there's antithetical parallelism, which you see a lot
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  in Proverbs. Right.
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  That uses a contrast of thought. It's a great teaching tool.
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  A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief
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  of his mother. The structure makes the point
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  stick by contrasting wisdom and folly.
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  And a third type is synthetic or staircase parallelism.
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  This is where the second line expands on or completes the
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  thought of the first. It adds new information.
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  Psalm 29.1 is a good one. Give unto the Lord, O you
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  mighty, give unto the Lord, glory and strength.
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  The second line builds on the 1st, specifying what should be
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  given glory and strength. It carries you forward.
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  Understanding the structure brings us back to that recurring
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  first person voice we read My God, my God, why has thou
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  forsaken me? Or I will lift up mine eyes into
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  the hills. And we assume it's just the
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  author's personal immediate feelings.
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  Is that the right way to see it? That assumption can be
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  misleading, especially when we get to the prophetic Psalms.
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  We have to remember that great poets often use the first person
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  as a literary convention to express the shared common
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  feelings of mankind. It's not always a simple diary
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  entry. The psalmist felt these
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  emotions, yes, but they were writing under the Spirit's
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  guidance for the collective experience of the faith
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  community across all time. And this is where the
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  distinction is so crucial for understanding the New Testament.
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  If David is writing in the first person about immense suffering,
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  something that didn't literally happen to him was the Spirit
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  using his life experiences as a background to describe the
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  ultimate higher experience of the Messiah.
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  That is the precise conclusion the New Testament writers
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  reached. David's suffering was the
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  providential backdrop, a type. But the words were written by
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  the Spirit to describe situations that far transcended
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  David's own life and pointed directly to Christ.
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  We have to test the words. If the experience described like
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  having one's garments divided or one's body not seen, corruption
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  can't logically refer to David, then we have to conclude the
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  first person is a reference to the Messiah.
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  David spoke, but the Spirit provided the script for Christ.
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  All right, moving to the classifications by subject
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  matter, which gives the Psalter it's real spiritual utility.
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  The largest group, about half the Psalms, are the prayers of
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  faith and adversity, The Tefal F.
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  And over 50 of those are ascribed to David, which shows
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  you the trouble and the response of faith really dominated his
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  artistic output. It makes sense why the Psalter
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  has been so central to worship for so long.
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  It acknowledges that the life of faith is often lived in a world
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  full of trouble. And it provides the robust,
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  divinely inspired language for crying out to God when fear
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  grips us. Let's look at the language of
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  trust, starting with Psalm 18. This is a prayer of deliverance,
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  and he describes his trouble with these intense images.
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  The sorrows of death compassed me.
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  Floods of ungodly men. But then God's reaction, his
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  deliverance, is described with figures of speech that show
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  absolute cosmic control. You get phrases like the earth
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  shook and trembled and fire out of his mouth devoured.
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  We're not supposed to picture God as, you know, some
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  mythological dragon breathing literal fire.
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  So how should we read those dramatic, almost mythological
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  figures? They are hyperbolic expressions
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  designed to teach a specific truth, God's immense superiority
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  to and complete control over the forces of nature.
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  The message is that the God who commands earthquakes and wields
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  fire is the same God who has a personal, intimate regard for
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  his children and delivers them. It shows his unrivaled ability
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  to act for the righteous. Which brings us to Psalm 23, the
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  ultimate song of trust using that tender image of the
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  shepherd. That figure was so appropriate
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  for David, the man taken from following the flock to leading
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  Israel. It portrays God's eternal
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  personal care with such intimacy.
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  And of course that figures later claimed by Christ himself in
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  John 10.11. I am the Good Shepherd.
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  The second major group is the Psalms of Praise, the Tehillim,
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  about 40 of these, mostly in the later books.
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  The contrast here is so theologically necessary.
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  I mean, heathens had little cause to praise their demanding,
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  unpredictable gods. They were trying to placate
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  them, not celebrate them. But our faith celebrates the one
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  true God, who is, as the text says, worthy to be praised
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  because of his righteous acts and merciful character.
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  This group includes the Howl Psalms 113 to 118.
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  They were central to festival worship.
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  Yes, especially the Passover supper.
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  Historically, they sang psalms 113 to 114 before the meal and
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  1:15 through 118 after. It's a very moving thing to
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  realize that these were the specific hymns Christ sang with
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  his disciples in the upper room right before he went out to the
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  Mount of Olives and began his passion.
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  He concluded his final covenant meal with songs celebrating
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  God's deliverance. He did, and Psalm One O 3 is a
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  masterpiece of praise, calling on us to bless the Lord for His
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  goodness, forgiveness, healing, supply, mercy.
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  It declares God's mercy is quantifiable only in cosmic
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  terms. Higher than the skies, further
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  than E is from West. More tender than a father's
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  love. Now, in the context of praise,
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  Psalm 148 is interesting. It calls on all of creation,
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  heavens, earth, storms, beasts to praise God.
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  This forces us to address a common misconception about
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  biblical cosmology. This is an important
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  clarification. People often criticize the Bible
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  for having a supposedly simplistic or antiquated view of
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  the universe. But when the Bible uses
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  figurative language, we have to interpret it that way.
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  Terms like the windows of heaven are figures of speech for a
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  massive downpour, just like we might talk about raining cats
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  and dogs. What about waters under the
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  earth? That phrase from the second
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  commandment is just a comprehensive description of the
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  created order. Don't worship images of birds
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  above animals and the earth, or fish in the water below.
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  It's not a literal diagram of a subterranean ocean holding up
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  the world. The Bible doesn't offer a
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  detailed scientific cosmology. But the modern objection comes
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  in here with our enlarged view of the universe.
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  Billions of galaxies. Doesn't that make humanity
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  insignificant? That argument makes a huge
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  mistake. It assumes that value is
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  computed by size. If that were true, a blue whale
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  would be worth more than a human child.
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  The psalmist knew better. Man, created in God's image as a
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  thinking, moral, religious being, is the peculiar subject
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  of the almighty spiritual Kingdom.
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  Psalm 148 ends by saying God has drawn Israel near, calling them
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  people near unto Him. That intimate covenantal
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  relationship overrides any calculation of physical size.
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  Let's transition to the penitential songs focusing on
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  confession and restoration, especially Psalms 32 and 51.
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  Psalm 51 is David's response after Nathan confronted him
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  about Bathsheba and Uriah. Psalm 51 is the classical model
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  of penitence. David shows immense spiritual
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  insight. He recognized the ultimate
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  breach was not against Uriah or the state, but primarily against
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  God himself. He says against the the only
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  have I sinned? That's the core of true
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  repentance. And he also generalizes it,
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  acknowledging our shared human condition.
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  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my
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  mother conceive me. That is a clear, unvarnished
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  acknowledgement of inherited depravity, a cornerstone of
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  Reformed thought. David understood that the very
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  spring of human life is clouded by sin from the moment of
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  existence. Now there's a verse in Psalm 51
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  that often causes confusion, especially for those of us who
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  hold to the preservation of the Saints.
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  David prays. Cast me not away from thy
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  presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
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  What was he fearing here? Losing his salvation?
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  We have to view this through the lens of history and anointing
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  for service. It's much better to see this as
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  a fear of losing his privileged status as the Lord's anointed
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  king. He had already been regenerated,
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  but the Spirit came upon him with special gifting for
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  kingship, and he had seen the sad case of Saul, whom the
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  Spirit had left after he was rejected as king.
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  So his fear was not about eternal life, but about losing
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  his effectiveness and his office.
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  Exactly. His deepest fear was that his
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  terrible thin would cause God to reject him from his Kingdom to
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  put him on the shelf. Just the soul was he prays for
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  the restoration of the joy of thy salvation, which confirms
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  salvation was something he already had.
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  The worry was about the loss of communion and the special
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  anointing for service. Finally, we have to touch on the
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  most controversial category, the imprecatory psalms, the cursed
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  psalms like 69 and 109. To a modern ear, they can sound
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  like they contradict Christ's command to love your enemies.
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  The first mistake people make is assuming the Old Testament
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  allowed personal vengeance. That's just not true.
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  Both Testaments strictly forbid it.
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  Paul quotes Deuteronomy in Romans 12 to tell believers not
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  to avenge themselves, and Proverbs is explicit.
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  Wait on the Lord and He shall save thee.
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  So if they aren't prayers for personal revenge, what are they
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  asking for? Their prayers for God's putative
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  justice against those who are actively hindering the triumph
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  of His Kingdom. The psalmist identifies his
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  cause with God's cause. The prayer is not let me harm my
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  enemy, but let God's proper judgments fall.
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  And we see this kind of prayer endorsed even after Christ.
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  We do. In Revelation 6.
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  The redeemed Saints in heaven pray for God's judgment on
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  sinners. It confirms that when God's
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  Kingdom is opposed, a prayer for justice is justified.
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  And Peter and Acts chapter 1 applies Psalm 109 directly to
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  Judas Iscariot, showing that these general implications can
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  be directed towards specific historical enemies of Christ.
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  This whole analysis of structure, dating and subject
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  matter has been building towards this final section.
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  The Messianic Witness. The Psalms contain some
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  astonishingly specific prophecies about the life, death
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  and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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  This really is the climax of our deep dive, and we have to hold
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  on to that distinction we made earlier between direct Messianic
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  Psalms which speak only of Christ, and typical messianic
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  Psalms which referred primarily to a righteous sufferer or king
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  whose experiences were a type A foreshadowing of Christ's
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  greater reality. Let's start with the royal
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  Messianic Psalms. Psalm 110 seems like the
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  clearest declaration of Christ's preeminence.
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  It opens with David addressing someone superior.
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  The Lord said unto my Lord. And David was the supreme human
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  Lord in Israel. He had no human superior He
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  would call my Lord. In that sense, it's contextually
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  impossible for this to be about David or any of his successors.
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  He's addressing the Messiah. And the subject is further
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  identified as a priest king after the order of Melchizedek
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  in verse 4. And why was that impossible for
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  a Davidic king? Because of the strict division
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  of tribal roles, kings came from Judah, priest came from Levi.
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  Any king who tried to intrude on the priest's office, like Saul
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  or Uzziah, was condemned by God. So a prophecy of a priest king
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  must be a direct prediction of the Messiah who fulfills both
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  roles perfectly. And Christ himself confirmed
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  this application. He did.
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  In the Gospels, he uses Psalm 110 to silence the Pharisees,
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  making it clear the Psalm refers to him.
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  And then the Book of Hebrews builds heavily on this, using
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  Psalm 110 over and over to establish the superiority of
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  Christ's unique priesthood. Let's turn to Psalm 45.
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  It's about a royal wedding, but it has a striking verse about
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  the King's divinity. Verse 6 Thy throne, O God, is
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  forever and ever. This verse is highly debated
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  because some scholars try to avoid accepting Christ's deity
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  in the Old Testament. They try to translate it as your
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  divine throne or something similar.
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  But the most natural reading, thy throne, O God, is supported
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  by the earliest versions, the Greek Septuagint, the Syriac,
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  the Latin, the Hebrew says Thy throne, elohim, God is forever
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  and ever. But the word Elohim can
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  sometimes be used for human judges.
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  Can it? It can, but the New Testament
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  settles the issue for us. That exact translation, Thy
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  throne, O God, is forever and ever, is quoted verbatim and
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  applied directly to Christ in Hebrews 1.8 in a passage
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  dedicated to proving Christ's superiority to all created
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  beings. So we must conclude the psalmist
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  wasn't writing about Solomon, but about the King Messiah, who
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  is himself called God. OK, then, Psalm 2, the third of
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  these crucial royal psalms, it talks about the Lord's anointed
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  king and has that powerful admonition in verse 12, Kiss the
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  son. That verse has been debated
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  because the word for son is the Aramaic bar, not the usual
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  Hebrew band. But that shouldn't throw us.
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  Aramaic was a parallel language spoken in the broader Kingdom.
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  There's no good reason to discard the natural meaning over
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  a known linguistic variant. And what does that natural
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  meaning demand? The context requires the sun to
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  be the object of worship and saving trust.
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  The verse says blessed are all they that put their trust in
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  him. Only a divine figure can be the
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  object of saving trust like that.
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  The New Testament confirms this, citing Psalm 2IN Acts and
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  Hebrews. But what about verse 7?
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  This day I have begotten thee. Does that suggest a specific
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  time Christ came into being? That is a common
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  misunderstanding we hold to the Nicene Creed.
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  Begotten, not made. The phrase This day I have
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  begotten thee refers to the eternal relationship between the
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  Father and the Son, not a moment of origination and time.
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  The New Testament writers apply this phrase to Christ's
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  resurrection as the proof that He is the eternally begotten Son
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  of God. Now let's move to the suffering
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  Messianic Psalms, starting with Psalm 22, the vivid prophecy of
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  the crucifixion. The specificity here is just
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  breathtaking. The description of suffering is
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  more detailed than what we get in the Gospels.
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  Enemies are described as fierce bulls, dogs, roaring lions.
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  It mentions the piercing of the hands and feet, dividing
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  garments, casting lots for his clothes, debilitating thirst.
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  This is wholly inapplicable to David's own life.
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  We have to pause on that cry of abandonment.
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  My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?
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  Some people suggest this was a momentary break in the unity of
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  the Godhead. That's an untenable view within
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  an orthodox understanding of the Trinity.
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  The unity of the Godhead could not be broken.
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  The key is to see the distinction between separation
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  of essence and abandonment to judgement.
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  The Father abandoned the Son, not by breaking their essential
• 23:40
  unity, but by withdrawing the comfort of His presence,
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  delivering Him entirely over to the spiritual judgement of the
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  Cross. It was the fulfillment of the
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  Father's will for atonement. Next, Psalm 40, which speaks
• 23:53
  directly of the Incarnation and the end of the sacrificial
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  system. Right.
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  Verses 6 to 8 are quoted in Hebrews 10.
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  We see a variance there between the Hebrew text which says Mine
• 24:01
  ears has thou opened, and the Greek Septuagint which Hebrews
• 24:04
  quotes A body has thou prepared me.
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  We accept the Hebrews reading is giving the true divinely
• 24:10
  intended sense. Christ entered the world to
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  present his body as the perfect once for all sacrifice, ending
• 24:17
  the Levitical types. But Psalm 40 verse 12 seems to
• 24:20
  present a hurdle. It includes what looks like a
• 24:23
  confession of sin. Mine iniquities have taken hold
• 24:26
  upon me. How can that refer to the
• 24:27
  sinless Christ? This is a linguistic issue.
• 24:30
  The Hebrew word here for iniquity, Avon, can mean moral
• 24:34
  wrongdoing, but it can also mean the consequences or punishment
• 24:38
  for iniquity or just troubles. We see this in Genesis when Cain
• 24:42
  says his punishment is greater than he can bear.
• 24:45
  So in this context, the required sense is that troubles and
• 24:47
  afflictions, the consequences of the sins he bore, have
• 24:50
  surrounded him. This preserves his sinless
• 24:53
  nature while acknowledging his suffering.
• 24:55
  And then Psalm 16, which speaks directly to the resurrection,
• 24:59
  verse 10 is key. Thou wilt not leave my soul in
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  hell, neither wilt thou suffle thy Holy one to see corruption.
• 25:05
  That verse is vital, and the King James translation of hell
• 25:08
  is unfortunate for a modern reader.
• 25:10
  The original word is shul, which should be understood here as
• 25:13
  grave or pit, not the place of the wicked dead.
• 25:16
  If we translate it as Thou will not abandon me to the grave, nor
• 25:19
  permit thy Holy One to see corruption, the meaning is
• 25:22
  perfectly clear. And Peter famously uses this
• 25:24
  verse on the day of Pentecost. He does.
• 25:27
  In Acts 2, Peter argues that David, as a prophet was speaking
• 25:31
  specifically of Christ's resurrection.
• 25:33
  He says emphatically that the verse couldn't apply to David,
• 25:37
  whose tomb was still occupied and whose body had seen
• 25:39
  corruption. Christ's flesh, however, saw no
• 25:42
  corruption. The Psalm speaks of death
• 25:44
  followed by resurrection glory. It's a direct supernatural
• 25:47
  prediction. Let's conclude the Messianic
• 25:49
  focus with Psalm 118, the Psalm of Triumph.
• 25:52
  This is so significant because Christ deliberately fulfilled
• 25:56
  the ritual of this Psalm during the triumphal entry.
• 25:59
  He entered Jerusalem on a cult, went to the temple, aligning his
• 26:02
  actions perfectly with the processional customs of this
• 26:05
  Psalm. And the crowds cry.
• 26:07
  Hosanna to the son of David. That phrase is crucial.
• 26:10
  The Hebrew verb yasha to save gives us the imperative hoshiana
• 26:13
  or hosanna, meaning save now, I beseech thee.
• 26:16
  The crowd described this cry, which in the Psalm was addressed
• 26:19
  to Jehovah himself, directly to Jesus.
• 26:22
  His acceptance of this divine homage is precisely why the
• 26:25
  Pharisees were so displeased. Before we wrap up, we should
• 26:28
  briefly address the skeptical challenges, particularly the
• 26:31
  idea from the Scandinavian or Swedish school.
• 26:33
  Right. Their theory tried to deny the
• 26:35
  prophetic quality of these psalms altogether.
• 26:37
  They claimed they were just annual coronation songs or
• 26:40
  rituals celebrating a king who vicariously bore the people's
• 26:43
  sins, a concept they tried to import from Babylonian festival.
• 26:47
  What's the main problem with that theory?
• 26:48
  It completely contradicts what we know about Israelite worship.
• 26:52
  Israel had the day of Atonement where sins were dealt with by
• 26:55
  the priest using goats, not by the king.
• 26:58
  There's zero historical evidence in the Old Testament of a king
• 27:02
  being ritually humbled or re crowned annually to bear sin.
• 27:06
  The whole idea is foreign to the Mosaic system.
• 27:08
  And it also fails to account for what's actually in the Psalms.
• 27:11
  Completely. The messianic Psalms contain
• 27:13
  elements that go far beyond any annual ritual or human king.
• 27:18
  How does the ritual celebration account for a resurrection in
• 27:20
  Psalm 16, or the divinity of the king in Psalm 45, or the
• 27:24
  impossible combination of the priest king in Psalm 110?
• 27:27
  The denial of genuine predictive prophecy is just inconsistent
• 27:31
  with the testimony of Christ and the apostles.
• 27:33
  So what does this all mean for you, the listener?
• 27:36
  Our deep dive confirms that the Psalter isn't a random
• 27:39
  collection of old poems, but a divinely inspired, structurally
• 27:43
  unified witness. It spans the entire emotional,
• 27:46
  historical, and theological spectrum of God's relationship
• 27:49
  with humanity. Through its magnificent poetry,
• 27:52
  we gain insight into the demands of God's law, the depth of human
• 27:55
  weakness, and the immense extent of His mercy.
• 27:59
  The psalmists, writing from their own real experiences, were
• 28:01
  guided to create words that perfectly articulate the life
• 28:05
  and ultimate triumph of the Savior.
• 28:06
  And the practical application of this prophetic structure gives
• 28:09
  us tremendous assurance when we see that every righteous
• 28:12
  suffering, every covenant promise, and every regal
• 28:14
  expectation in the Old Testament was pointing forward, finding
• 28:18
  its singular completion in Jesus Christ.
• 28:20
  It confirms that God's plan was fixed, sovereign and executed
• 28:23
  just as it was written centuries before.
• 28:25
  And that fixed plan should move us beyond just intellectual
• 28:27
  agreement. We often prioritize knowledge,
• 28:30
  which is good, but the Psalms forces to recognize that our
• 28:33
  emotions are equally vital instruments for worship.
• 28:37
  The Spirit of God intentionally used this poetry, this language
• 28:40
  of the heart, to reach the deepest parts of human
• 28:43
  experience where sin is rooted and where restoration begins.
• 28:46
  So here's a final thought for you to consider as you reflect
• 28:49
  on all this. The Spirit of God guided the
• 28:51
  psalmists to write songs that Florida State express the life,
• 28:55
  suffering, and triumph of a Messiah they had not yet seen.
• 28:59
  Since Scripture gives us this perfect sacred song book, what
• 29:03
  specific song of today is God using to prepare our hearts for
• 29:06
  the next stage of His work in history?
• 29:08
  Think about the words you use for petition and praise.
• 29:11
  They are part of a continuous sacred song that stretches from
• 29:13
  David's day right to the very throne of eternity.