Today on our journey along Route 66 we are visiting the book of Psalms...
Author
The book of Psalms is a collection of Israelite poetic prayers written by numerous authors, brought together in a process that spanned centuries. An ancient and pervasive tradition, going back to the Bible itself, attributes the authorship of Psalms to David. Many of the psalms contain the superscription “a psalm of David”. Other superscriptions link various psalms with specific events from David’s life. (See Psalms 3, 18, 34, 51, and 56.) However, these superscriptions are not original to the psalms. Linguistic and contextual evidence has led many modern scholars to reject the idea of Davidic authorship of the psalms. Of course, not all the psalms are attributed to David. Some are attributed to the sons of Korah (Psalm 42), to Asaph (Psalm 50), to Ethan the Ezrahite (Psalm 89), to Heman the Ezrahite (Psalm 88), to Solomon (Psalm 72) and to Moses (Psalm 90). Other psalms bear no superscriptions at all.
Date
The origin of most of these poetic prayers is unknown, but the psalms that we have in the Bible were preserved because they were, most likely, used liturgically in ancient Israel, certainly in the Second Temple and possibly even in the First Temple. Dating the psalms is notoriously difficult, partly because they contain few explicit references to specific historical events or people. While many modern scholars believe that at least some, and perhaps many of the psalms, are preexilic (before 586 BCE), linguistic analysis suggests that none of the psalms are as old as the tenth century BCE, the time of David. Scholars think some psalms come from exilic or postexilic times because of references to specific historic events or due to the language used. (See Psalms 137 and 145.) Other psalms may have an ancient core that was reshaped after the exile. Many psalms lack any historical references, but this has resulted in one of the great virtues of the psalms—their timelessness. Through the centuries the psalms have been viewed as appropriate to the life of countless individuals and communities.
Themes
The Hebrew name of the book is Tehilim, which means “songs of praise”. This title is found often in rabbinic literature and is attested in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The English title “Psalms” derives from the Greek psalmos, which in turn is a translation of the Hebrew word mizmor which means “a song with the accompaniment of a stringed instrument”.
Because the Psalms are a collection of human prayers and praises written by many authors over hundreds of years there is no single message in the collection. However, the book of Psalms does contain many of the same themes found elsewhere in the Bible: creation, God’s power over the universe, the promise to Abraham of the land and descendants, the Exodus, the Exile, the Davidic monarchy, the centrality of Jerusalem, Zion, and the Temple. Striking in its absence is any reference to the giving of the Ten Commandments (or the law in general) at Mount Sinai. The psalms borrow mythological motifs found elsewhere in the ancient Near East such as the picture of God as warrior, the conquest of the primeval waters, and God as king enthroned in a heavenly court.
The psalms fall into three general categories: hymns of praise, laments, and thanksgiving. Other subcategories have been discerned. There are wisdom psalms (Psalm 1), royal psalms (Psalm 2), and Zion psalms. Some of the psalms do not address God at all and are difficult to classify as prayers. Some psalms are individual (written in the first-person singular) while others are communal (written in the first-person plural).
A great range of human emotions are expressed in the Psalms. There are no clichés here. The various authors honestly pour out their true feelings, often reflecting dynamic and life-changing relationships with God. Because of this honesty, men and women throughout history have come to the Psalms to find comfort in times of struggle and distress. The Psalmists, at times, help us to rise from our distress to new heights of joy and praise of our covenant Lord.
Structure
There are 150 psalms in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. Some chapters may contain two separate psalms. (See Psalms 19 and 40.) In other cases, a single psalm has been split into two chapters. (See Psalms 9-10 and 42-43.) The Septuagint contains an additional psalm (Psalm 151) and the Syriac Bible has five additional psalms. Some additional psalms are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This suggests that the early collection and arrangement of the psalms was fluid.
The book of Psalms as we now have it is subdivided into five books in imitation of the five books of Moses…
- Psalms 1-41—most of the “Psalms of David” are in this collection.
- Psalms 42-72—containing some psalms of Korah and Asaph
- Psalms 73-89—almost exclusively psalms of Korah and Asaph
- Psalms 90-106—mostly untitled psalms
- Psalms 107-150—mostly liturgical psalms for pilgrimages to the Temple and for festivals
There are doxologies, short hymnic praises of God, at the end of each book. Books I through IV all begin with the words “Blessed is the Lord.” The last psalm, 150, serves as the concluding doxology for Book V and for the book of Psalms as a whole. Similarly, Psalm 1 may be viewed as an Introduction to the book of Psalms as a whole.
The arrangement into five books is artificial and took place relatively late. For example, there are differences in arrangement of the Psalms between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text. Within the present five books there are also smaller collections like The Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) and the Elohist psalter (Psalms 42-83) in which God is referred to as Elohim rather than as Yahweh.
Key Concept—Worship
It is hard to choose just one key concept or even one favorite Psalm out of 150 psalms. But certainly, one of the key concepts in the book of Psalms is worship. And one of my favorite psalms is Psalm 100…
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his[a];
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
In this psalm we learn the whats and whys of worship. The first four verses give us the whats. These verses tell us what we need to worship the Lord with. First, we need to worship the Lord with gladness.
Our worship of the Lord ought not to be laborious. We should not have to drag ourselves up into the face of God. There should be an inner gladness every time we think about coming into the house of the Lord. We ought to look forward to it with keen anticipation.
Now, I have a supposal to put before you. I would suggest that if you were to stand in front of most congregations in America on Sunday morning, you probably would not see the kind of gladness which the psalmist is talking about on the faces of most churchgoers.
Do you remember when we used to go to movie theaters? Do you remember back in the day going to see a big summer blockbuster where you had to wait in line to get into the theater? I remember waiting in line one particular summer for one blockbuster movie. When we saw people coming out of the theater, they were lively, they were chatting to one another, they were smiling. I wonder if we ever look like that when we leave church. Sometimes I think that if we are glad as Christians, somebody needs to inform our faces of the fact.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the kind of gladness that the psalmist is talking about can be manufactured. I don’t think God wants us to plaster smiles on our faces. I think God wants the gladness to well up from inside of us and overflow.
This gladness is a gift of God. It is an inner gladness that is not incompatible with hard times. This gladness is not the same as happiness. Happiness is dependent upon circumstances. Happiness comes from happenings. But gladness, the joy of the Lord, is not dependent upon circumstances. It is dependent upon God. Gladness can be ours. It is a gift from the Lord. Why not ask him for it?
The second what of worship is joyful songs. We need to start with an inner gladness, but then we need to express that gladness in joyful song. Do we have a joyful song to sing before the Lord when we come to worship?
Oh, I know we orchestrate certain joyful songs to sing in our services. But do we enter into worship with joy when we sing them? Have we offered our song to the Lord? The Lord wants us to come up into his face with a joyful song. He wants to embrace us today and draw us near, and that ought to be an occasion for joy. Many years ago, Henry Ward Beecher related this incident concerning Charles Smith, a black laborer on his father’s farm in Litchfield, Connecticut…
He had a little room, in one corner of which I had a small cot, and as a boy I used to lie there and wonder at the enthusiasm with which he engaged in his devotions. It was a regular thing. First, he would read the New Testament, hardly aware that I was in the room. Then he would alternately pray and sing and laugh. I never saw the Bible enjoyed like that! But I want to bear record that his praying made a profound impression on me. It never entered my mind whether or not his actions were appropriate. I only thought, “How that man does enjoy it!” I gained from him more of an idea of the desirableness of rejoicing prayer than I ever did from my father or mother. He led me to see that there should be real overflowing gladness and thanksgiving in it all.
We need to have the same joyful attitude when we come to worship the Lord in his house.
The third WHAT we need to bring to our worship of the Lord is theological truth. I’m not talking about sophisticated, deep theology. The first theological truth which the psalmist mentions is: “Know that the Lord is God.”
When I was in seminary, one of my fellow students had a poster in his room. It said: “There are two principles of enlightenment: (1) There is a God. (2) You are not him.” We need to come to worship with that basic theological truth in mind. There is a God, and we are not him.
A second theological truth mentioned by the psalmist is this: “It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” We need to recognize that the Lord is both our Creator and our Redeemer. We need to recognize that we belong to him.
The first question of the Heidelberg Catechism is: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” The answer given is…
That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
There was once a man who said, “I am a self-made man.”
Someone responded by saying, “Well, that certainly relieves God of the responsibility, doesn’t it?”
There really is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. The Lord has made each one of us, and he has redeemed us through Christ. We belong to him.
The fourth WHAT we need to bring to our worship of the Lord is thanksgiving… “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”
The psalmist doesn’t tell us how to give thanks; he just invites us to do it. We can give thanks with a hymn, and we can give thanks with a praise chorus. We can give thanks with a shout, and we can give thanks in the quiet of our own minds and hearts. I think God is pleased any way we do it so long as we bring him the thanksgiving of our hearts.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Sometimes we go through circumstances where it is difficult to give thanks. Nonetheless, we can always give thanks to God by the power of the Holy Spirit because we know the truth of Romans 8:28… “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Not all things are good. But God works for our good in all things, so we can give him thanks for that in every situation.
The fifth WHAT we need to bring to our worship of the Lord is praise for his name. The Lord’s name represents his character. Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks for what the Lord has done and is doing for us. Praise and adoration are all about giving thanks for who God is.
C. S. Lewis once wrote,
Gratitude exclaims... ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.”
Psalm 100 also gives us three WHYS for worship. The first WHY is because the Lord is good!
There are some great lines from the prayers of various African American churches. One of those lines is: “Lord, I thank you that the blood is running warm in my veins this morning and that my bed was not my cooling board.” A cooling board is a slab of concrete or marble on which a dead body lies in a mortuary. The Lord is good, and he has given us one more day on earth to praise him.
Another African American prayer is this one: “Lord, I want to thank you that you’ve allowed my golden moments to roll on.” I love that!
The second WHY of worship is because God’s love endures forever. That is a refrain we hear repeatedly in the Psalms. The Hebrew word here for love is hesed. It is the word for God’s covenant love.
Many years ago, there was a man named Sam Duncannon who loved to frame beautiful photos and put them together with words from Scripture or a hymn. He had a great photo of Niagara Falls and he paired it with these words from a hymn: “More to follow.” With God and his love, there is always more to follow.
The final WHY of worship is because God’s faithfulness continues through all generations. The word for faithfulness can also be translated as firmness, security, or fidelity. The Lord is faithful to his children, and to his children’s children.
The thought is put this way in Psalm 108:4, “For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” In other words, there is no limit to God’s faithfulness to his children.
During the first part of the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, no safety devices were used, and 23 men fell to their deaths. For the last part of the project a large net costing $100,000 was employed. Ten construction workers fell into it and were saved. But even more interesting is the fact that the workers accomplished more work, more quickly, when they were assured of their safety.
Deuteronomy 33:27 says, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
I wonder: “What great thing would you do for the Lord beginning today if you knew you could not fail?” My father used to encourage me to “Attempt something so great for God that it is bound to fail unless God is in it.”
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