The Psalms - A Short Introduction to get us rolling

’They found another tumor.‘  The words sit in the air, refusing to make sense, to enter you.  You can’t accept them.  Your hands suddenly feel numb, and the dread that is so familiar begins to tie your stomach into a slow knot.  

It’s been a year since the last tumor, and your family has been happily lulled into a sense of relief, of safety, of reprieve.  Of course, you’ve known it wasn’t over; you knew it would be back.  Yes, dad has cancer.  Yes, it’s incurable.  But right now he’s doing well; he’s thinking, working, talking, living.  Let’s enjoy him and visit him and let him see his grandchildren.  

Until now.  “They found another tumor.” The words are poison, black ink that stains the bright day, shocking you out of the simplicity of the evening.  And after the baths are finished for the day, the children in bed, the dishes done, the only words you have for God are these, ‘How long? How long, God?‘  It’s the refrain of sadness, a cry for mercy.  How long will we wonder and will he linger? How long will we watch him slowly lose function, lose ability, lose life? How long will we fear the next phone call, the next discovery, the next bit of news? 

The words of the Psalm roll over you as you close your eyes for sleep that won’t come. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

Psalm 13 was written by David, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.  He wrote it as he fled from Saul, hiking in the mountains, hiding in caves, fearing for his life.  Saul had taken a vow in his jealousy to kill David, and David sings his song of longing while hidden in those mountains, “How long, O LORD?” 

It was written by David, but untold numbers of God’s people have used David’s words to  give voice to their emotion, crying out to God in their own waiting, their own pain, their own injustice, “How long, O LORD?”

And so was and has been the use of the Bible’s songbook - the Psalms - what John Calvin called “An Anatomy of all Parts of the Soul”.  They were sung at the temple daily and for special festival days by Levites hired by David - at one time 400 of them! They were taught to children by Israelite families. They were learned at the local synagogue and sung all the week long, burned into the memories of God’s people, repeated over and over until they were like old friends, familiar and comforting, words for every occasion, every emotion.

Almost half of the Psalms were written by David himself, the orchestrator of so much music.  They are complete with musical notes such as ‘selah’, which occurs 71 times and is probably the signal for an interlude or a change of musical accompaniment.  ‘Higgaion’, related to the Hebrew verb meaning ‘murmur‘ or ‘meditate‘, was also used, among many other musical instructions.  It prescribed the use of quiet, meditative instruments.  Though we don’t often sing them anymore, the Psalms really are a songbook, written by David, Solomon, Asaph and others, over a period of as much as 1,000 years.  

The Psalms are grouped in with Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Lamentations in a section of the Bible called the Poetic Books.  The Psalms themselves can be put into different categories like hymns, community laments, and thanksgiving songs.  But how did all of these different types of songs, written over hundreds of years, come to be the book we know and use in our Bible?

The book of Psalms is unique in its composition.  Songs written by individuals were placed in mini-collections over time.  Editorial hands shaped the final form of the book into five ‘collections’ or ‘books’.  The books in our Bible begin at Psalm 1, 42, 73, 90 and 107.   

The fingerprint of certain communities who used the Psalm has been left on them.  Just as the wording of a hymn will very from one collection to another to suit the needs of a certain Christian group, like changing ‘thou’ to ‘you’ in the next generation, so the Psalms contain signs that they were used over large spans of time by different groups.  In early Psalms, the word ‘Yahweh’ or ‘the LORD’ is largely used to speak of the creator.  But as time went on and in later Psalms, ‘Elohim’ or ‘God’ replaced the name ‘Yahweh’.  These changes reflect changes in use of language over time, just as much other change happens over long swaths of history.

The structure of the Psalms has been compared with that of a cathedral built and perfected over a matter of centuries, in a harmonious variety of styles, rather than a palace displaying the formal symmetry of a single and all-embracing plan.  

The English designation ‘psalm’ comes from the Latin ‘psalmi’ and the Greek ‘psalmoi’ (songs with musical accompaniment) which is a translation of the Hebrew ‘mizmor’.  The Hebrew title of the book signifies the contents of the book, ‘songs of praise’.  But if the editors and compilers of the Bible call these songs of praise, how are we to account for those angry Psalms, those asking God to judge and destroy?  And what about the laments - the largest category - making up as much as one third of the Psalter? The primary function of a lament was to lay a troubled situation before the Lord, asking him for help.  In the Psalter we find community laments, dealing with trouble faced by the people of God as a whole, such as Psalm 12.  But there are also individual laments, such as Psalm 13, mentioned earlier with David’s cry of “How long?”

Perhaps we have too narrowly defined our worship. What if worship is not only the naming of God’s glory and might, majesty and power?  What if worship is not limited to singing of the stars and heavenly beings of Psalm 8 and the perfect law of God of Psalm 19? What if worship is also the longing cry of Psalm 13, the waiting, broken, heart- rending sigh of desperation? What if it includes the moments of anger and confusion, sadness and loss?  And what do we make of the sudden change of tone at the end of some of the sad, angry Psalms - where suddenly the Psalmist seems to be, even if in a small way, trusting or hoping again?

The Psalter is the songbook of the people of God, both in their gathered worship and individually.  These songs cover a wide range of experiences and emotions, and give God’s people the words to express these emotions and to bring these experiences before God.  At the same time, the psalms do not simply express emotions: when sung in faith, they actually shape the emotions of the godly.  The emotions are therefore not a problem to be solved but are a part of the raw material of now-fallen humanity that can be shaped to good and noble ends.  

The psalms, as songs, act deeply on the emotions, for the good of God’s people.  It is not ‘natural’ to trust God in hardship, and yet the Psalms provide a way of doing just that, and enable the singers to trust better as a result of singing them.  A person staring at the night sky might not know know what to do with the mixed fear and wonder he finds in himself.  Singing Psalm 8 will enrich his ability to respond.  Singing Psalm 13 helps give voice to the feeling of desperation, but also to the real hope that we have as believers.  

Studying the Psalms is studying all of life, all of the roller coaster of emotions, the width and depth of human experience.  In them God once again condescends and gives words to his finite and helpless sheep, that they might hear the voice of their shepherd.  

SOURCES

Intro to the Psalms, ESV Study Bible

Types and Original Uses of Psalms, Article for Unit 2

Alex Varughese, professor of Biblical literature at Mount Vernon Nazarene University 

Psalms by Derek Kidner

Expositor’s Bible Commentary by Willem A VanGermeren, Edited by Tremper Longman and David Garland

Enter the Bible - enterthebible.org - Fred Gaiser, Luther Seminary Professor of Old Testament