Latest / Reformed Thinking / Opening the Psalms: Themes, Worship, and Purpose | David S. Dockery

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Opening the Psalms: Themes, Worship, and Purpose | David S. Dockery · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the deep dive.
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  Today we're opening up the Book of Psalms for well, for
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  thousands of years, this collection has been the Prayer
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  Book and the Song Book for God's people.
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  It really has. It's often called the Hymnal of
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  Israel, but it functions for us as something more, maybe a
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  script for how to talk to God and, you know, every possible
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  situation. That's a great way to put it.
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  So our goal today is to look at the sources we have about the
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  Psalter's origins, its structure, all of that.
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  We want to get into how this collection, written over so many
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  centuries, holds together theologically and is still so
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  useful. Right.
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  And to do that, we have to start with the big questions, the ones
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  about dating and authorship. The idea here is to get an
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  informed view on why we can be so confident in the Psalter's
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  ancient authority. OK, let's unpack that, then that
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  issue of authority. We have to begin by facing some
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  of the skepticism, you know, from certain scholars who have
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  argued that these songs were written very late in Israel's
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  history. Yeah, some pushed them almost
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  right up to the New Testament period.
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  So for a long time in some academic circles the view was
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  that a lot of the songs were actually post Dixilic.
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  Written after the return from Babylon.
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  Right. Or even in some cases as late as
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  the Maccabean period, so around the 2nd century BC.
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  But our sources layout some really compelling arguments,
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  historical arguments that just pushed that whole timeline back.
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  Way back, there are two main lines of external evidence that
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  kind of act as bookends setting a very early floor and a hard
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  ceiling for the composition. So where do we start?
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  We can start with the linguistic science, specifically with text
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  from Ugarit. The first piece of evidence for
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  the Psalms being truly ancient comes from these big
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  similarities between the grammar and the poetic forms and the
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  Psalms and what we find in Ugaritic hymns.
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  Ugaritic. Now that sounds pretty
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  technical. What does that comparison
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  actually show us? It is technical, but the
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  conclusion is straightforward. In Hebrew poetry, you see these
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  specific patterns, right? The most common one is what's
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  called parallelism, where the second line of a couplet will
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  either restate or contrast with the first line.
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  OK, I've seen that the heavens declare the glory of God and the
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  firmament shoe with his handiwork, that kind of thing.
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  That's the one. Well, that poetic structure,
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  along with some really old grammatical forms and
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  vocabulary, is something the Psalms share with the Eucharitic
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  literary tradition. And here's the key part.
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  The city state of Lugarit, where these hymns were written, was
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  gone before the 12th century BC. Before 1200 BC.
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  So if the poetic style and the language have this common ground
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  with a tradition that died out that long ago, it strongly
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  suggests that many of the Psalms have their roots way, way back.
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  It does. It sets a remarkably early
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  boundary. It tells you the poetic style
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  itself is ancient to that part of the world.
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  It's not something that was invented in, say, the 3rd
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  century. So that's the floor, that's the
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  earliest boundary. What's the other bookend?
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  The other side of the argument, the ceiling that stops you from
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  dating the collection too late, comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls,
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  from the Qumran discoveries. Right, finding a physical copy
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  of the collection. That seems like absolute proof.
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  It's undeniable. The discoveries at Qumran
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  included a fragmentary copy of the biblical Psalter that dates
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  to the 2nd century BC, and it's already an organized collection.
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  This shows that the Psalms were composed, collected and seen as
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  authoritative Scripture well before 200 BC.
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  And the fact that it was a collection is maybe even more
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  telling than the date of that specific scroll.
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  I think so. The discovery suggests a stable
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  text. I mean, for a group of religious
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  writings to be standardized and accepted as scripture in a
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  community like Qumran, a long period of use and authentication
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  had to have already happened. Texts don't just become
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  canonical overnight. No, they don't.
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  It's a process that usually takes centuries.
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  So for the Psalter to exist as a recognizable book by the 2nd
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  century BC, most of its contents had to have been written
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  significantly earlier, centuries earlier.
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  Most likely this just shuts down the idea that the Psalter was
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  mainly a product of the Maccabean period.
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  So the external evidence gives us these wide chronological
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  boundaries, an ancient floor and a hard ceiling.
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  Right. And now we can move to the
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  internal evidence, which is in some ways even more detailed.
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  The most intricate arguments for the Psalms being ancient come
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  from the superscripts, the titles you see above, many of
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  them. The little headings, the song of
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  David, and so on. No, those headings.
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  There are clues in them that suggest they are genuine ancient
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  part of the text, not just some later editions by editors.
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  And one of the most interesting arguments is that these
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  superscripts contain things that later readers didn't even
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  understand. Let's talk about the lost
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  musical terms. This is a really strong argument
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  for just how old these traditions are.
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  Many of the Psalm titles have technical, musical, or
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  liturgical terms. You know, instructions for the
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  performance or what instrument to use.
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  Maybe the name of a tune? The critical point here is that
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  the meaning of a lot of these terms was already lost by the
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  time the Old Testament was translated into Greek.
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  I'm talking about the Septuagint.
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  So the translation happened in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.
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  Right. And that translation effort
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  shows that there was already a huge gap in understanding the
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  learned Jewish scholars doing the translation.
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  They just didn't know what these performance instructions meant
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  anymore. They had to guess.
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  They had to guess, or they translated them in a more
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  figurative way. Take the Tame La Manasia.
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  Based on context and other linguistic work.
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  We're pretty sure today that it means something like for the
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  choir leader or for the chief musician.
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  A simple performance note. A simple note, but the
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  Septuagint translators rendered it as to the end.
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  To the end. It's a huge leap.
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  How do you get from choir leader to to the end?
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  Well, it suggests they were trying to find a theological
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  meaning in it. They probably saw a root word
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  related to completion or perfection, and so they turned a
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  functional term into a theological 1, the final goal or
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  purpose. So the fact that they had to
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  resort to that kind of speculation shows the original
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  musical tradition was long gone. Centuries gone.
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  If the superscripts were late inventions from the post Ixilic
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  period, they'd have been written in plain, understandable Hebrew.
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  There would be no mystery. That's a very solid line of
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  reasoning. Now the second internal point
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  has to do with the historical references in those same titles,
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  some of which are found nowhere else in the Bible.
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  This is sometimes called the argument from obscurity.
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  It sounds a little counterintuitive, but it's very
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  compelling. Many of these superscripts claim
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  to refer to very specific, sometimes minor, incidents in
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  David's life that are not recorded in the books of Samuel
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  or Chronicles. Right.
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  If you were a later editor, a rabbi trying to make a Psalm
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  look like it was written by David, you'd pick a famous
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  story. Of course you'd pick David and
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  Goliath, or David Fleen from Saul, something everyone knows.
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  But that's not what we find, no. Instead, we find these obscure
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  events that only appear in the Psalm titles.
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  Let's look at Psalm 60. The superscript says it was
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  written quote when he fought with Aram Naharim and with Aram
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  Zoba, and when Joab returned and struck down 12,000 Edomites in
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  the Valley of Salt. That's incredibly specific.
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  Multiple locations, multiple enemy groups.
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  Highly specific. These are not simple, well known
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  stories. They point to a particular
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  moment in David's military campaigns.
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  But an even better example might be Psalm 7.
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  The title is Shigayon of David, which he sang to the Lord
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  concerning Cush a Benjamite. Cush the Benjamite.
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  I don't think I've ever heard that name anywhere.
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  Else, because he's not anywhere else.
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  He appears only in the title of Psalm 7 in the entire Old
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  Testament. And that obscurity is the proof.
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  Who was Cush? We don't know.
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  So why would a late editor invent an unknown enemy like
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  Cush when they could have just said it was about Shimei who
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  cursed David or some other famous opponent?
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  They wouldn't. It makes no sense.
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  The presence of these unique, otherwise unrecorded historical
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  details gives a lot of weight to the idea that the superscripts
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  carry genuine historical memory from the time of David himself.
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  It's. Almost like the more obscure the
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  detail, the more authentic the connection.
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  That's the logical Theo Queir, and beyond that, we see the use
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  of ancient terms for groups and guilds associated with worship.
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  The titles mention people like Asaf or the Sons of Korah.
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  Heman, the Ezra height. Ethan the Ezra Height.
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  These weren't just random names. No, these are names associated
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  with the Temple Music Guild. These were real, organized
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  groups that functioned in the ancient worship structure, going
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  back to the first Temple and probably even the Tabernacle.
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  So using this kind of specific archaic language again points to
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  the titles being very old. It does.
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  It shows they reflect the historical reality of early
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  Israelite worship. So when you put it all together,
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  the linguistic parallels, the archaeology, the lost musical
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  terms, the obscure history, you can approach these superscripts
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  with a good deal of confidence, OK.
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  So if we take the superscripts as reliable ancient components
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  of the text, they become our main source for authorship.
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  O Who are the named authors and what does that tell us about the
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  timeline of the whole collection?
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  Well, the title is named 5 specific individuals or groups.
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  The vast majority, not surprisingly, are attributed to
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  David. He's named as the author of 73
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  Psalms. 73 That's almost half the book.
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  It is after David we have the sons of Korra with 11 psalms and
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  Asaph with 12. Those are the music guilds we
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  just mentioned. And then we have Moses with one
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  Psalm and Solomon with two. The rest are anonymous.
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  That list of authors right there establishes a huge chronological
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  spread. A massive 1.
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  If we accept these attributions, the composition timeline spans
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  about 1000 years. Moses Psalm Psalm 90 would be
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  the oldest, dating back to the 15th century BC.
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  From the time of the wilderness wanderings.
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  Right then you have the huge block of Davidic Psalms from the
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  early 10th century BC, and then the guilds of Asaph and the sons
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  of Korra could have been writing from David's time all the way
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  into the postexilic period. You get a whole spiritual
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  history of Israel in song. Now a common objection that
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  comes up with David Psalms is the reference of the temple.
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  David died before Solomon built the temple, so how do we handle
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  psalms attributed to him like Psalm 27.4 that mentioned the
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  House of the Lord? That's a classic argument, but
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  it's one that's resolved pretty easily by looking at the
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  language in context. Critics will say that House of
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  the Lord or Holy Place has to be in the Jerusalem Temple, so
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  David couldn't have written it. But those terms had a broader
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  meaning. He did.
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  Our sources point out that those exact phrases, House of the
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  Lord, House of God, were used regularly in the Pentateuch and
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  the early historical books to refer to the tent of kneading
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  the Tabernacle. Which did exist in David's
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  lifetime. It was the central place of
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  worship. You see this in Joshua 6, for
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  instance, where the treasury is in the House of the Lord long
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  before any temple, or in Judges, which talks about the House of
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  God being at Shiloh. Again, the Tabernacle.
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  David himself brought the ark to Jerusalem and set up the
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  Tabernacle there. So when David in Psalm 27 talks
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  about dwelling in the House of the Lord, he's very likely
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  referring to the tent of meeting.
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  That's the most straightforward reading.
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  It removes the chronological conflict entirely and lets us
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  affirm the traditional authorship.
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  That brings us to a linguistic debate, though.
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  The Hebrew phrase ledowed, which is on all 73 of those psalms.
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  There's some ambiguity in that little preposition.
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  There is, and it's a genuine linguistic point.
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  The Hebrew preposition le, when it's attached to David's name to
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  make ledowed can have a few different meanings.
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  It could mean by David, which would clearly be authorship, but
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  it could also be what's called a dative meaning for David.
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  This could suggest the Psalm was dedicated to him, or maybe that
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  is just part of the Davidic collection.
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  So we have to weigh the the options.
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  Why do most scholars who accept the antiquity of the titles land
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  on by David on authorship? They generally do, because in
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  the context of ancient titles, the common function of naming a
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  person was to indicate the origin the author.
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  And while you could argue a few psalms might be for David, maybe
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  a prayer about the king, the overwhelming tradition in Jewish
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  interpretation was that David was the source.
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  It seems consistent with his whole identity.
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  He's called the sweet Psalmist of Israel.
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  He is. He was known as a musician and a
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  singer. The sheer number of Psalms
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  attributed to him fits his historical context perfectly.
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  So while we can't rule out a dedicatory meaning for every
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  single one, the weight of the evidence supports by David as
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  the default interpretation. We have this collection composed
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  over centuries from Moses to post exilic authors.
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  It's a huge span of time, but the book feels like one thing.
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  So who finally put it all together?
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  When did it stop being just a pile of songs and become the
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  book of Psalms? That question moves us from the
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  origin of the individual songs to the structure of the whole
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  collection. And you're right, it is not a
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  random pile. The Psalter has a very clear
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  five part architecture. The five books.
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  This feels deliberate, like it was arranged for a reason.
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  Let's lay out those five sections.
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  Sure. The structure is this book 1 is
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  Psalms one through 41. This part is almost all Davidic
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  psalms. OK, book 1 is Davidic.
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  Book 2 is Psalms 42 through 72. This is more of a mix with
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  Psalms from David and from the Sons of Korra, and it ends with
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  a very interesting note we should come back to.
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  And book 3. Book three runs from Psalms 73
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  to 89. This is where you find most of
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  the ASAP psalms. A lot of these deal with
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  national issues, National laments and book 4.
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  That's Psalms 90 to one, O 6. This is where we find Moses's
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  Psalm, Psalm 90, and a group of Psalms that often focus on God's
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  sovereignty, his kingship. And finally, the last section.
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  Book 5 is the largest from Psalm One O 7 to 150.
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  It goes back to a focus on Davidic psalms and builds up to
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  that final crescendo of Hallelujah psalms at the end.
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  And there's a specific literary device that marks the divisions
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  between these five books, right? Yes, each of the first four
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  books is intentionally closed with a doxology, a formal
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  blessing or statement of praise, usually ending with Amen and
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  Amen. So at the end of Psalm 41, you
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  get blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to
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  everlasting, Amen and Amen. Exactly.
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  That's the signal that you're ending Book 1, and then the
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  whole structure is capped off by Psalm 150, which serves as this
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  grand final doxology for the entire collection.
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  This intentional structure implies that the compilation
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  process itself was long and careful.
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  What do we know about the timeline for putting it all
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  together? We can say with confidence that
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  the final form of the Psalter, the five book structure we have
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  today, was completed sometime in the post exilic period.
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  So after the return from Babylon, that's when the final
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  editors brought all the existing smaller collections into one
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  canonical book. But the process of collecting
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  started much, much earlier. Oh, absolutely.
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  The final editors were working with collections that already
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  existed. For example, that note I
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  mentioned at the end of Book 2, Psalm 72, verse 20 says the
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  prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
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  It sounds like an editorial note closing out a specific
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  collection. It does.
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  It implies that a major collection of David's psalms had
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  already been put together, maybe not long after he died.
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  And we know from other parts of the Old Testament that certain
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  collections were recognized during the monarchy.
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  Yes, in Hezekiah's time, so the 8th century BC, we know that
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  collections of Psalms by David and by Asaph were in use.
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  Second Chronicles tells us Hezekiah commanded the Levites
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  to sing praises with the words of David and of Asaph the seer.
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  So those earlier recognized collections probably make up the
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  bulk of the first three books. That's the general thinking.
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  The final post ixilic editing project then took these smaller
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  accepted hymnals and organized them into the larger five book
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  framework. It sounds almost like a sacred
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  reorganization project. That's a good way to look at it,
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  and you can even see little remnants of the process in some
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  of the the differences between ancient versions, like the
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  numbering of the songs. Numbering is different.
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  Slightly. The standard Hebrew text, the
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  one we use, has 150 psalms, but the Septuagint, the Greek
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  translation, counts them a bit differently.
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  It'll combine songs 9 and 10 into 1 Psalm, for instance, but
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  then it divides Psalm 147 into two.
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  So the content is the same, but the chapter breaks were a little
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  different. Right.
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  And what that suggests is that while the content and the
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  overall five book structure were fixed long ago, there is still
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  some flexibility in how you counted certain Psalms.
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  It points to a gradual process of compilation, not one single
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  event. OK, so we've established the
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  antiquity in the structure. Let's get into the content
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  itself. The reason the Psalter is so
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  central to Christian life is because it covers the whole
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  range of human emotion, and to read it well, we need to
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  understand the different genres. Yes, the genre is key.
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  It helps you understand the context and the original
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  function of the Psalm. It tells you how it was meant to
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  be used. So let's start with the largest
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  category, the Psalms of lament or complaint.
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  This is the biggest genre and maybe the most useful.
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  A lament is basically a structured way to bring your
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  trouble to God, and we usually split them into two types based
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  on who is speaking. Let's start with the individual
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  complaints an. Individual complaint is voiced
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  by one person about their own personal problems.
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  It could be sickness or enemies, or, you know, confessing
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  personal sin. And the structure they follow is
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  really telling about how the ancients handled suffering.
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  It's not just random venting. Not at all.
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  It's a pattern. It often starts with an
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  invocation, a cry for God's attention, Like How long, O
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  Lord? Then comes the complaint where
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  they describe the trouble. But then it moves to a
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  confession of trust, where they stake their faith in God.
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  After that is the petition, the actual request for help, and it
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  often ends with a vow of praise, promising to thank God publicly
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  when he delivers them. So the lament is designed to
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  move the person from despair back toward faith.
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  Psalm 13 is great example of that quick turn.
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  It is. It's a kind of liturgical
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  wrestling match meant to bring the sufferer back into a right
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  perspective on God's sovereignty.
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  And within this category we also have the penitential Psalms.
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  Which are specifically about the problem of sin and guilt.
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  Yes, in a penitential Psalm, the main complaint isn't an external
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  enemy, it's the speaker's own sense of sin.
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  Psalm 51 David Psalm after his sin with Bathsheba is the
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  classic example. The whole focus is on the
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  offense against a holy God and the need for a clean heart.
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  And the other type of lament is the community complaint.
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  Right. These are voiced by the whole
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  nation. They're about a collective
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  disaster, a defeat in battle, a famine, the exile.
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  Psalm 74 is a good example. The psalmist is speaking for
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  everyone, asking God why he seems to have abandoned his
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  people. The structure is often similar
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  to the individual lament, but the problem is corporate.
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  OK, so from complaint we can move to the genres of praise and
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  instruction. Let's start with the hymns.
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  Hymns are pretty straightforward.
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  They're designed for the whole congregation to praise God for
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  who He is, His attributes, or for what He's done, like His
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  work in creation or in redemption.
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  Psalm 105, which recounts Israel's history, would be a
• 19:03
  good example. A perfect one.
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  And hymns have a structure too. Usually a call to worship like
• 19:08
  praise the Lord, then a motive clause that explains why we're
• 19:11
  praising him, and then a conclusion.
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  And there are subcategories here as well.
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  Like Zion songs? Right Zion songs which praise
• 19:18
  God for choosing Jerusalem, or processional hymns like Psalm 24
• 19:22
  which were sung as people approach the temple, and the
• 19:24
  Hallelujah hymns which are framed by that call, praise the
• 19:27
  Lord. Next we have the Torah or Wisdom
• 19:30
  Songs. The focus here shifts to
• 19:32
  instruction. These Psalms are designed to
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  teach. They offer moral instruction, a
• 19:37
  bit like Proverbs, but they anchor that wisdom in the
• 19:39
  written law of the Torah. Psalm 1 and Psalm 119 are the
• 19:43
  great examples here. And they often present a sharp
• 19:45
  contrast between the righteous and the wicked.
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  A. Very sharp contrast.
• 19:49
  The righteous person is described as secure, like a tree
• 19:52
  planted by water, because they are nourished by God's
• 19:55
  instruction. But the wicked are described as
• 19:57
  practical atheists. They ignore God's law and even
• 20:00
  if they look successful. For a while their prosperity is
• 20:03
  temporary, like chaff that the wind blows away.
• 20:06
  So these Psalms set a clear standard for a blessed life
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  which is found in devotion to God's Word.
• 20:12
  That's the central message. And that leads to another key
• 20:14
  category, the royal psalms. These all have to do with the
• 20:18
  king. The Lord's anointed the Messiah.
• 20:20
  Yes, the royal psalms focus specifically on the King and the
• 20:25
  Davidic covenant. They cover the whole life and
• 20:27
  job of the king. There are wedding songs like
• 20:30
  Psalm 45. There are coronation songs like
• 20:33
  Psalm 72, which is a prayer for the new king to rule justly.
• 20:37
  They're also prayers for the king in battle.
• 20:39
  Right Prayers for victory like Psalm 20, and votive psalms like
• 20:43
  Psalm 101, where the King makes a vow to rule with integrity.
• 20:47
  These songs are critical because they really set the stage for
• 20:50
  the messianic readings that become so central later on.
• 20:53
  And there's one more genre we should touch on the taunt songs.
• 20:56
  The Kant songs. These sometimes overlap with the
• 20:59
  laments, but their function is a little different.
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  They are a public declaration of God's certain judgement.
• 21:05
  So a lament is a cry for help, but a taunt is a declaration of
• 21:09
  judgement. That's a good way to put it.
• 21:11
  The taunt song reproaches the wicked for their arrogance and
• 21:14
  behavior and promises that their doom is coming soon.
• 21:18
  Psalm 52 is a taunt against a cruel, deceitful man, and it
• 21:22
  just asserts that God will destroy him.
• 21:25
  This genre fits perfectly with the larger theme that God is the
• 21:29
  just judge of the world. And that theme of judgement
• 21:32
  brings us to some of the most difficult material in the
• 21:34
  Psalter, the imprecatory psalms, the cursed psalms.
• 21:38
  We have to address these. They are very easily
• 21:41
  misunderstood if you take them out of their covenantal context.
• 21:44
  People read passages that call for God to smash the teeth of
• 21:47
  the wicked and they ask, you know, how can this be in the
• 21:50
  Bible? It sounds so sub Christian.
• 21:52
  The reaction is totally understandable, and the common
• 21:54
  explanation you hear that this is just a lower morality from
• 21:57
  the Old Testament is really insufficient.
• 21:59
  It's just not right. It creates a false divide
• 22:01
  between the Old and New Testament.
• 22:03
  It does, and more than that, it ignores what the Old Testament
• 22:06
  itself clearly teaches. The Torah explicitly forbids
• 22:09
  personal revenge. Leviticus 19.12 You shall not
• 22:13
  take vengeance. Exactly that command was given
• 22:16
  long before these psalms were written.
• 22:18
  So whatever is happening in these curse psalms, it cannot be
• 22:22
  a call for personal, selfish revenge.
• 22:24
  If it were, the psalmist would be breaking the law himself.
• 22:28
  So the context has to be found in the unique role of the person
• 22:31
  speaking. That is the essential framework.
• 22:34
  The psalmist writing these vengeance psalms was almost
• 22:37
  always the King, the Lord's anointed, the Messiah, or
• 22:41
  someone representing him in an official capacity.
• 22:43
  He wasn't just a political. Ruler.
• 22:45
  He was God's appointed guardian of the covenant people, right?
• 22:47
  He was supposed to administer justice and protect the future
• 22:50
  of Israel, so any attack on the king or the people was seen as a
• 22:54
  rebellion against God's plan, a threat to the covenant promise
• 22:58
  through which Christ would eventually come.
• 23:00
  So the prayer isn't personal, it's official.
• 23:01
  It's governmental. Yes, the prayer for judgment,
• 23:05
  the curse, is a judicial appeal to the divine judge.
• 23:08
  It's a request for God to step in and vindicate his own work on
• 23:12
  earth against those trying to destroy it.
• 23:14
  The psalmist is basically asking for God's justice to be made
• 23:17
  visible. That changes the whole feel of
• 23:19
  it. It's not about personal hatred,
• 23:21
  it's about aligning with divine justice.
• 23:23
  It is. It's about covenant prosecution,
• 23:25
  not personal payback. And this also explains why
• 23:28
  believers today are instructed not to pray this way.
• 23:31
  Our position is different. We are not the anointed king of
• 23:34
  Israel. Correct.
• 23:35
  We aren't In that same ancient covenantal office.
• 23:39
  Under the New Covenant, that judicial role is fulfilled
• 23:41
  perfectly. And finally, in the true King
• 23:44
  Jesus Christ, we're told to pray for our enemies and leave
• 23:47
  vengeance to God, because the office of judge now belongs
• 23:50
  fully to Christ. And this role of the Davidic
• 23:53
  king as God's representative is what gives the royal psalms
• 23:57
  their ultimate meaning, pointing to Christ.
• 23:59
  That's the heart of it. The royal Psalms find their
• 24:02
  complete fulfillment in the Messiah.
• 24:04
  While the original reader saw them as being about the human
• 24:06
  King David or Solomon, these figures were also designed by
• 24:10
  God to function as a type. A foreshadowing of the ideal
• 24:13
  king. Exactly.
• 24:14
  The human king was imperfect, but his office was divinely set
• 24:17
  up to point forward to the perfect King, the true Son of
• 24:20
  David, Jesus Christ. Psalm 2 is a powerful example of
• 24:24
  that, isn't it? It's one of the clearest.
• 24:26
  It describes the king receiving the nations as his inheritance.
• 24:30
  No human king of Israel ever ruled the whole world.
• 24:34
  The only way the Psalm makes full sense is if it points
• 24:37
  beyond the earthly king to Christ, who is sovereign over
• 24:40
  all nations. But maybe the most crucial text
• 24:43
  for this is Psalm 110, where David himself speaks of someone
• 24:47
  greater. Psalm 110 is foundational for
• 24:49
  the New Testament's understanding of Christ.
• 24:51
  The title says it's a Psalm of David, yet the first verse says
• 24:55
  the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand.
• 24:58
  David is calling his own descendant my Lord.
• 25:00
  He is for David the Great King, to call his successor his
• 25:04
  superior. His Adonai confirms that this
• 25:06
  was understood from very early on as a prophecy that went
• 25:09
  beyond any normal human. King and Jesus himself used this
• 25:12
  Psalm to challenge the Pharisees.
• 25:14
  He did. He asked them how the Messiah
• 25:17
  could be David's son if David, speaking by the Spirit, calls
• 25:20
  him Lord. Jesus confirms that the King in
• 25:23
  this Psalm isn't just David's air, but his divine superior.
• 25:27
  This shows the ultimate function of the royal Psalms is to
• 25:30
  establish the identity and authority of the Messiah.
• 25:34
  So given this vast scope from Moses to the post exilic era,
• 25:38
  what holds it all together theologically?
• 25:40
  What's the glue? The unity comes from a
• 25:43
  consistent and comprehensive view of God's character.
• 25:46
  Even though the human experiences in the Psalms are
• 25:49
  all over the map, the nature of the God they're addressed to
• 25:52
  never changes. First, God is the Creator.
• 25:54
  He's always the Creator, and His power in creation is often used
• 25:58
  as the reason to trust Him for rescue.
• 26:00
  The same power that made the heavens is the power that can
• 26:02
  redeem His people, and He is. Also the just judge.
• 26:04
  Always. He's the impartial judge of the
• 26:06
  whole world. He opposes the wicked.
• 26:08
  He rewards the righteous for anyone who is oppressed.
• 26:11
  This is a comforting thought because it guarantees that
• 26:13
  justice will, in the end, be done.
• 26:15
  But that justice is always held in tension with his love and
• 26:18
  mercy. It is, and that tension is maybe
• 26:21
  the greatest spiritual insight of the Psalter.
• 26:23
  God is merciful and gracious. He is quick to forgive his
• 26:26
  children. The psalmist say over and over
• 26:29
  that his anger is for a moment, but his favor is for a lifetime.
• 26:33
  So certain justice for the defiant, but reliable mercy for
• 26:37
  the repentant. That's the theological anchor
• 26:39
  for the whole book. And finally, God is the
• 26:41
  protector and shepherd, a refuge, a rock, a deliverer for
• 26:45
  those who trust in him. This consistent, multifaceted
• 26:48
  picture of God is what ensures every Psalm is addressed to the
• 26:52
  same faithful being. The Psalter also seems to
• 26:55
  describe God revealing himself in two specific ways.
• 26:59
  Yes, through two primary complementary means.
• 27:02
  Psalm 19 lays this out beautifully.
• 27:03
  The first is through nature, or what we'd call general
• 27:06
  revelation, the. Heavens declare his glory.
• 27:08
  Right the heavens, the sun, the whole of creation displays God's
• 27:12
  majesty. Everyone can see it and it
• 27:14
  should lead to praise. But general revelation isn't
• 27:17
  enough for salvation, so the second means is scripture.
• 27:20
  The written law, The Torah. That's special revelation.
• 27:23
  It does something nature can't. Nature shows God's glory, but
• 27:26
  the law revives the human heart. Psalm 19 makes that pivot.
• 27:31
  The sun is glorious, but the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving
• 27:35
  the soul. So the Psalter encourages a
• 27:38
  movement from seeing God's glory in creation to a specific
• 27:42
  reliance on his written word. That's it.
• 27:45
  Special revelation gives the clear path to forgiveness and
• 27:48
  obedience, and this is what separates those who are blessed
• 27:51
  from those who are practical atheists.
• 27:53
  So that theological coherence explains the book's unity, but
• 27:56
  what about its ongoing relevance for us today?
• 27:59
  It's relevance comes from its function as a mirror of human
• 28:02
  experience. It is the Bible's book of
• 28:03
  personal devotions. It gives sanctioned language to
• 28:06
  the full range of what we feel. It shows us how to feel and how
• 28:09
  to express those feelings of God.
• 28:11
  Yes. It validates our joy, our
• 28:13
  despair, our guilt, our gratitude.
• 28:15
  It helps us understand our relationship with God by giving
• 28:18
  us the words. When you read a lament, do you
• 28:20
  realize it's OK to come to God with honest questions like why
• 28:23
  and how long? It reminds us that all of life,
• 28:26
  not just the good parts, is lived under God's Lordship.
• 28:29
  That's the final point. The variety of Psalm types
• 28:32
  covers every possible human need.
• 28:35
  The Psalter assures the believer that true security is found only
• 28:38
  in trusting the one true God and that worship is the right
• 28:41
  posture for all of life, no matter the circumstances.
• 28:44
  OK, so summarize this deep dive. The historical evidence from
• 28:49
  Ugaritic texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls give strong support to
• 28:52
  the ancient composition of the Psalter.
• 28:55
  The internal clues, like the obscure historical details and
• 28:58
  lost musical terms in the titles, back that up.
• 29:01
  We've seen that it's five book structure is deliberate, and
• 29:04
  understanding the genres is key to reading it correctly,
• 29:07
  especially when we come to those difficult imprecatory psalms
• 29:10
  which have to be seen through the lens of the King's unique
• 29:13
  judicial role. Right?
• 29:15
  And as you think about this amazing collection, here's a
• 29:17
  final thought to consider. Since that five book structure
• 29:19
  was finalized in the postexilic period, do you think it might be
• 29:23
  an intentional parallel to the five Books of Moses, the
• 29:26
  Pentateuch? So the Psalter would be like a
• 29:28
  second Torah. Perhaps a second source of
• 29:31
  instruction and reflection, a kind of Worshipful response to
• 29:35
  the law designed to guide the spiritual life of the restored
• 29:39
  community. That's a great thought to end
• 29:41
  on. It encourages us to look at the
• 29:43
  very architecture of Scripture with the same attention we give
• 29:45
  to the words. Thank you for joining us today.