"Only a Philistine could fail to love the Psalms."
Ronald B. Allen
"Only a Philistine could fail to love the Psalms," says Ronald Allen.1 If the Philistines are still around, the statement would sound racist, but no less off the mark. Few books (or parts of the book) of the Bible have claimed the devotion of Jews and Christians as the book of Psalms. Almost no Christian, e.g., would be unable to recite parts of Psm 23 or Psm 51. An important reason for this is due to the unique nature of the psalms:
The book of Psalms is unique in the Bible because it is a collection of literature of prayer, praise, and meditation. If the Bible's narrative materials relate what God has done and the prophetic literature reports what God has said, the Psalms present the response of the people to the acts and words of God.2
We can put it another way: while the rest of the Bible spakes to us, the Psalms speak for us, so that, as Ambrose put it, "everyone can use its words as if they were his own."3 How aptly appropriate that William Holladay should entitle his exposition The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses.4
Yes, they do speak for us, but they remain prayers and songs of praise. In what sense then are they the Word of God?
Here is one way of looking at the psalms. They are the prayers that God had chosen and made His own to serve as samples of how we may pray and praise in His presence. They show us—by way of specific examples—the kind of emotions permitted to us when we are with the Father, the liberty we have to be authentic in His presence.
This helps to explain why we find a number of what are generally called 'imprecatory psalms,' psalms such as Psm 137 that proclaims, "happy is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." These are, by any measure, rather mean things to pray. In choosing to include this prayer in His collection, God says in effect to us, "No, such men are not the blessed. But I understand what you are going through, why you are so angry, why you wish that such men might be happy. I, your God, will not be one of those who want to be so 'happy.' But I want you to know, I am here. I understand what you are going through. Even though what you have uttered is not what I would like, I am with you through your struggle to come to terms with what you have gone through. You are not alone. I will journey with you."
The imprecatory psalms show us, therefore, that God is big and gracious enough to tolerate our bad manners when we hurt and gracious enough to remain with us still. The psalms are the prayers of men chosen by God to become His Word to remind us of the breath of His embracing love; yes, even the prayers of those who wander off the path of acceptable behaviour.
The psalms are the prayers and songs that God had chosen—
they then become His Word—
to serve as samples of how we may pray and praise in His presence.
They show us the kind of emotions permitted to us
when we are with the Father,
the liberty we have to be authentic in His presence.
As result, the book of Psalms has had quite a unique impact on the life of the Synagogue and the Church. Robert Davidson notes:
It is almost impossible to overestimate the influence of the psalms on Jewish and Christian tradition, both in terms of the worship of the community and the spiritual experience of countless individuals. Some of the Psalms had a fixed place in the great festivals of the Jewish religious year from an early date. The Gospels tell us that Jesus and his disciples say "hymns" as they left the upper room in Jerusalem to go out to the Mount of Olive [sic] (Mark 14:26). Almost certainly they were singing the hallel psalms, each of them containing the echoing phrase "hallelu-yah," praise the Lord. Psalms 115-118 were normally sung at the end of the Passover meal, Psalms 113-114 at its beginning. Jewish liturgical use of the Psalms has continued across the centuries. In the Daily Morning Service in the Synagogue today there is introductory praise, including Psalms 145-150, since the praise of God should always precede any request we make of him. The Sabbath Morning Service contains a sequence of psalms culminating in the psalms associated with the Sabbath from an early period, Psalms 92 and 93 . . . Within Christian tradition, worship in many different churches has been nurtured by the Psalms whether spoken or sung in prose or metrical form. Many of the finest Christian hymns are based on the Psalms: witness Luther's "Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott," (Video/YouTubeN) in its vigorous English rendering by Thomas Carlyle, "A safe stronghold our God is still" (Psalm 46); John Milton's "Let us with a gladsome mind" (Psalm 136); Isaac Watt's "O God our help in ages past" (Psalm 90); Joseph Addison's "The spacious firmament on high" (Psalm 19); and Ian Pitt-Watson's "Thou art before me, Lord, thou art behind" (Psalm 139).
But it is not only in the liturgies of Synagogue and Church that the Psalms have exercised a profound and lasting influence. They are woven into the richly varied experience of countless men and women across the centuries. In the early Church, Theodore of Mopsuestia is on record as saying, "Of other Scriptures most men know nothing. But the Psalms are repeated in private houses, in streets and in market places, by those who have learned them by heart and feel the soothing power of their divine melodies" . . . This is hardly surprising since the Psalms cover the whole gamut of human experience from praise to penitence, from quietly confident faith to agonized confusion, from joy at the wonder of life in God's world to the struggle to reach out to a God who seemed remote or silent, from bowing humbly before the mystery of life to bitter and urgent questioning. It is all there, and because it is all there we are there in our ever changing moods and needs.5
Nor is it only our worship, whether private or corporate, and spirituality that has been shaped by the Psalms. The Psalms has impacted Christian theology more than most of us are aware of. David Wallace opines, "Among the writings of the Hebrew canon exerting the most influence on the NT are the Psalms. The ubiquitous citations, allusions, and echoes from the Psalms suggest the observation that finds near consensus among those who study the phenomenon of the NT's use of the Hebrew Bible." Henry Shires' conclusion is that "The New Testament has been influenced by Psalms more than any other book of the OT."6
There seems at least seventy cases in the NT where a portion of a psalm is quoted with an introductory formula, sixty more quotations with no introduction, and an additional two hundred twenty instances of an identifiable reference to a psalm. Quotations from at least forty psalms appear in the NT with some eighty-four different verses cited. Added to these numerous citations are hundreds of NT allusions and verbal parallels to characteristic psalmic words or phrases. "Anyone who explores the nuances of the ways in which the OT Psalms are used in the NT," says H. J Kraus, "will be amazed at the ways in which Israel's songs of prayer and praise were alive and present in the early church."7 All this is hardly surprising, given that fact that the Psalms "contain more direct statements about God than any other book in the two testaments of the Christian canon . . . The works of God and the attributes of God are the constant agenda of the Psalms."8
"The Psalms contain more direct statements about God than any other book in the two testaments of the Christian canon . . . The works of God and the attributes of God are the constant agenda of the Psalms."
James Luther Mays
Precisely because the Psalms have such powers to shape our worship and theology they need — not only to be sung — but also be preached and taught in our churches, for nowhere else in the Bible is life and theology so closely and practically woven into one another. Nowhere else is grace so clearly dyed into the warp and weft of human brokenness and struggle as well as joys and exhilaration. Nowhere else is biblical truths and divine grace more keenly felt. Nowhere is the whole person so deeply engaged; hence John Calvin's observation that the Psalter is "an anatomy of all parts of the soul, for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror."
Given their power to speak so immediately and intimately to so broad a spectrum of human needs, it is a shame that we tend to hear the Psalms preached only so infrequently, and usually at funerals (and, even then, it is usually Psm 23). Added to their power, the psalms are so 'self-contained,' they provide some of the best preaching-texts. Especially for a lay-preacher fresh to preaching, there are few places in the Bible better to begin.
Nowhere else in the Bible
is life and theology so closely and practically woven into one another.
Nowhere else is grace so clearly dyed into the warp and weft of human brokenness and struggle as well as joys and exhilaration.
Nowhere else is biblical truths and divine grace more keenly felt.
Nowhere is the whole person so deeply engaged,
so dearly embraced,
as they are in the Psalms.
If you find this material heavy going (or even if you don't), you may find the following introduction to the Psalms helpful: J. Gordon McConville, "The Psalms: Introduction and Theology," Evangel 11:2 (1993): 43-54. Pdf N 6 (Open on Phone)
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2022