Culture & Context: Psalms

Welcome to Culture and Context, a blog that will flesh out the context of the PATH journal and other content that we study here at True North.

As we’ve followed the PATH Journal this year, we periodically read and journal Psalms. I thought that we would take a detour into the Psalms, which are songs and poems written by God for Israel and for us, His adopted children. True confession- I have a degree in English lit but I never liked studying poetry. Give me Pride and Prejudice or The Canterbury Tales in Middle English, but no poetry, please! God, in His omniscience (which means He is all knowing), knew that I would one day encounter poetry in His Word. God has a sense of humor!

The Bible has five “poetry” books: Job (yup, Job is considered poetry, as well as wisdom literature), Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon (which is one of the most explicit love poems ever written!). Poetry is just one of the forms of literature in the Bible. There is a flow-chart in the Joshua, Part 2 blog that shows some of the historical and former prophet books.

There are major and minor prophets (not minor because they are less important but because the books are shorter). Hosea, Obadiah and Jonah are all minor prophetic books, while Isaiah with its 66 chapters is one of the major prophetical books. The New Testament has the gospels, epistles and one apocalyptic book- Revelation. Some books overlap the literary classifications- the book of Daniel is both historical, prophetic AND apocalyptic. Poetry can be found in many of the prophetic and history books. Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are also called wisdom literature.

Back to Psalms. The Bible Guide says that the psalms were written and collected over a 600 year period and include hymns of praise, songs for festivals, royal psalms, and prayers of sadness, joy and lament. The psalms are very personal, using the pronouns "I" and "we" but not always identifying the subject. Most of the psalms follow a regular literary pattern rather than “free verse.” This pattern is called parallelism because many of the verses in a psalm will relate to each other in a parallel pattern. Sometimes the pattern is related to the beginning Hebrew letters for each verse. Some psalms have a call and response, and Psalm 49 even poses a riddle and the responses to the riddle!

Most of the psalms were written by David. One psalm, Psalm 90, has the header A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God. Twelve psalms are ascribed to Asaph, a tabernacle musician during the reign of King David. Psalms 88 and 89 were written by Heman and Ethan, the Ezrahites. King Solomon is noted as the author of psalms 72 and 127. A large number of psalms do not have a named author, and some are noted as Songs of Ascent.

The longest psalm is Ps. 119, with 176 verses; every eight verses of this psalm begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It is a meditation on the Torah (the books of the Law). The shortest psalm is only a two psalms before; Psalm 117 has the opening and closing verses of a hymn but no actual hymn in between, and is only two verses long.

We will read Psalm 43 in between the two halves of the book of Joshua. The pattern for Psalm 43 is lament (vs.1-4) and refrain (v. 5). Many Bible scholars believe that Psalms 42 and 43 were written as a single psalm because of the similarity in their patterns. Psalm 42’s pattern is lament (vs. 1-4), refrain (v. 5), lament (vs. 6-10) and refrain (v. 11). Psalm 43 is also one of the few psalms without a heading such as A Psalm of David or To the Choirmaster, which lends weight to the theory of the two psalms being one unit, or at least to the two psalms being sung together.

Of course, there are Bible scholars who disagree because the psalmist/author of Psalm 42 is speaking personally of his own sorrows, while the author of Psalm 43 is speaking to God. Both psalms are attributed to the Sons of Korah, who were likely descendants of the Korah who led an insurrection against Moses in the wilderness (see Number 16). Korah was a Levite, and his descendants became mighty warriors as well as keepers of the threshold of the tabernacle (1 Chronicles 9). The Korahites were also known to be musicians and singers, and eleven psalms carry the attribution to the Sons of Korah in their subtitles.

The first four verses of Psalm 43 are a lament, a word that describes grief and mourning. The psalmist is asking God to “vindicate him, defend his cause against deceitful, unjust, ungodly people" (the Hebrew here is a negation of the word hesed, the word for God’s lovingkindness). The psalmist expresses confidence in God as his place of refuge, but also wonders why he is experiencing oppression at the hands of his enemy. In verses 3 and 4, he prays that the light and truth of God would lead him safely to God’s holy hill, a reference to Jerusalem and the place where God was said to dwell. His heart’s desire- to be with God-would be expressed at the altar with joy and song.

Verse 5 of Psalm 43 is the refrain, and it is identical to the refrains in Psalm 42:5 & 11 (which lends further weight to the two psalms actually being one). The psalmist finds comfort and strength in the confidence that he will return to Jerusalem and praise God as he did before.

Our journey along the PATH will take us next to the Book of Judges, the story of the twelve God-appointed people who led Israel from the time of Joshua’s death until the beginning of the Israelite monarchy. Without the strong leadership of Joshua, the Israelites began to worship other gods and, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” (Judges 17:6 and 21:25). Stay in the Word and we will cover Judges in the next blog post.

Works-cited and Resources

• Barnes, A. (1870–1872). Notes on the Old Testament: Psalms (Vol. 1). Blackie & Son.

• Berry, D. K. (1999). An introduction to wisdom and poetry of the old testament. B&H Academic.

• Broyles, C. C. (2016). Psalms, Book of. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.

• Campbell, D. K. (1991). Foreword. In C. Bubeck Sr. (Ed.), Basic Bible Interpretation: A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth. David C. Cook.

• deClaissÈ-Walford, N., & Tanner, B. (2014). Book Two of the Psalter: Psalms 42–72. In E. J. Young, R. K. Harrison, & R. L. Hubbard Jr. (Eds.), The Book of Psalms. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. [The New International Commentary on the Old Testament].

• Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). In Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale House Publishers.

• Got Questions Ministries. (2002–2013). Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered. Logos Bible Software.

• Hays, J. D., Duvall, J. S., & Pate, C. M. (2007). In Dictionary of biblical prophecy and end times. Zondervan Publishing House.

• Knowles, A. (2001). The Bible guide (1st Augsburg books ed.). Augsburg.

• Ross, A. P. (1985). Psalms. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Victor Books.

• Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: Psalms 27-57 (Vol. 2). Marshall Brothers.

• The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). Crossway Bibles.

• Walvoord, J. F., & Zuck, R. B., Dallas Theological Seminary. (1985). The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Victor Books.