What are The Psalms?
The word “psalm” comes from the Greek word “psalmos”, which is translated from the Hebrew term “mizmor” or “song”. In Jesus’ day the Hebrew word for the book was “Tehillim” meaning “praises”. This is why many think of the 150 Psalms of “The Psalter” as a collection of songs, prayers and poems used for corporate worship in Israel. Pastor and Bible teacher Tim Keller calls it “the divinely inspired hymnbook for the public worship of God in ancient Israel”, and according to the editors of the ESV Study Bible — “the songbook of the people of God in their gathered worship” (ESV Study Bible).
In Israel’s gathered worship, The Psalms gave language to and taught the worshipper of God to express and shape his heart in relationship to God. They are the heart of the man and woman of God in joy, sorrow, delight, horror, pain, struggle, grief, thanksgiving, confession, and hope. This prompted John Calvin to call the psalms “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul”.
Bible scholars observe that The Psalter was compiled and divided into Five Books during the time of the Second Temple, with a “doxology” of praise added to the end of each section as a marker (Ps 72:18–19; 89:52; 106:48; 150:6). The hypothesis is that the five books mirror the five books of the Law or the Pentateuch to reflect the central role of praise to God’s people.
So how should we read the psalms? Four suggestions:
1. Faithfully - do your best to keep the original context in view.
As we study the Psalms, and all Scripture really, it is important for us to look to the context as best as we can. This includes both the historical context, by referring to the subscript of the psalms that often accompany the text (as in Psalm 3, “by David when he fled from Absalom his son”) as well as the biblical context. The biblical context may include both the place of the Psalm in the Psalter (as in Psalm 1, which invites us to be blessed men and women who meditate on Scripture day and night on page one of the Psalter), or its place in the Bible’s unfolding story (as in Ps 78, where Asaph the psalmist recounts Israel’s OT history of salvation up to the era of Kings). We should always resist just reading the Psalms as detached poetry without any connection to time, people or place, and instead, keep in view the question, “to what was the Psalmist directing his Israelite readers for praise and prayer”?
Getting hold of a good study Bible (like the ESV Study Bible or the MacArthur Study Bible), or looking up the cross-reference to the situation referred to in your Bible's margins or notes is one helpful step in this direction.
That said, we should not allow a lack of exact information or knowledge deter us from reading the Psalms, as many of the psalms are given with general and non-specific contexts. How kind of God to allow us to have general access through non-specific cases with just the emotional context of The Psalms! Of this, Charles Spurgeon wrote, “God permitted David to go through many experiences, not so much for himself as for the good of succeeding generations. Whenever we look into David’s psalms, we may somewhere or other see ourselves.”
2. Theologically - look towards how God is revealed
More important than just looking for words about our emotions, is how God is described. He is presented in such a staggering variety of ways — as a God of power, glory, might, wisdom, majesty, purpose, mercy, wrath, holiness, and He relates to His people in judgment, forgiveness, restoration, silence, protection, and preservation. The surest way to use the Psalms rightly is to read them mining the traits and portraits of God that the Psalmist lends us, and to utilise those in our prayers and praise of Him. A good question to ask is: “how is my God presented in this psalm?”
At Fellowship, this is what we have tried to do for many years, opening each week with a simple call to worship, asking the same question about the God described in each Psalm. Each week, the duty “psalmist’s” goal is not to teach every detail of the Psalm, but simply to point to how we are called to worship and respond to God presented here.
3. Devotionally - regardless of your soul’s season, open your heart to God
The Psalms have been beloved in every generation precisely because they express so well our heart before God in every season. This is what gives us permission to read them as individual units sometimes, and not just as whole chunks. Others have meditated and memorised the language of the psalms to be put to song or used in personal and corporate prayer — all of which are appropriate and deserving. The editors of the ESV Study Bible write: ”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.” As you read the Psalms, let your emotions be stirred to relate, empathise, and even explain to yourself why you feel what you feel, and enter into a dialogue with the living God. The Psalms can give words for a joyful heart to praise God, or for a repentant heart to find words of confession and forgiveness. When the heart is bruised and discouraged, the psalms help us find words of waiting and hope. The reader may find himself/herself asking, “what does this psalm speak of how I’m feeling before God right now?”
4. Christocentrically - yearn for Christ Jesus and look for Him
"Christocentrically" is a big word for saying "read it with Christ at the centre". It is sweet comfort to the Christian to remember that the Gospel does not just appear in the New Testament, but saturates all the Scripture the way that a beautiful marinate soaks through and permeates a glorious roast. How does the grace of God in Christ leak through The Psalms? Two threads are helpful to trace.
First, we share a common faith heritage with Israel as sinful people who cannot save ourselves and need a Savior. Throughout the Psalms, as we hear the people of Israel crying out for help, rescue and redemption, which we should recognise are gospel themes. Israel’s exodus, kingdom and exilic eras have their parallels with our own New Testament exodus, kingdom and exile. The consummation of their great Davidic kingdom looks forward to ours. While their enemies and adversaries were political and national, the people of the kingdom of God uses the same language of gospel deliverance and plead to be rescued from the enemies of the gospel, as well as the sin, the flesh and the devil. The church, grafted into Israel, can borrow the same pleas for gospel rescue.
Second, the diverse songs of God’s chosen King point us forward to David’s Greater Son. Looking at the life of David with all his ups and downs, from shepherd life to professional military life to being on the run as the anointed king to enthronement and war, to sin and temptation, to further glories, to family betrayal and idolatry -- the parallels of understanding this “man after God’s own heart” should draw us into understanding the greater King to come, Jesus Christ. David’s betrayals frame Christ’s betrayals in miniature and point us forward to greater fulfilment. His heartache, Christ’s. exile, Christ’s exile. His glory, Christ’s glory. This approach opens the Psalms up as an invitation to see Jesus with fresh eyes. As Tim Keller says, “Most of all the psalms, read in light of the entire Bible bring us to Jesus.” One insightful approach to the psalms is to ask, “how is the psalm transformed if I situate the words of the man of God on the lips of Christ Jesus?”
A practical suggestion
For the last two years or so, I have met with two brothers every other week to “pray the psalms”. What do we do? As a trio, we gather (or zoom) and share deeply about the circumstances of our lives. It’s a check-in of our situations, and also our emotions. Then we read the psalm out loud and discuss it (not having done any deep or detailed study of it beforehand) and look out for gaps in our understanding, and trying to quickly summarise what we see in the theological and emotional content of the psalm. We also try and figure out anything that we don’t understand with one another’s help. Then, we each take one line, or one sentence of the psalm, and pray its content out before God. If the sentence is thanksgiving, we borrow those words and add our context, our reasons for praise and thanksgiving, for ourselves, the church, our families, community and ministry to it. If the line describes God as mighty and powerful, we echo praise and ascribe glory to God for His mighty deeds. This could go on for anything between 30 to 90 minutes. Some tips we have learnt over time is not to pray lengthy, grand prayers, but succinct, clear ones, which communicate what we see, but also make it relevant to our lives. Initially it can be difficult to focus but you pick up steam as you go along especially after the first 15 minutes.
Further resources
If you'd like more resources on studying the Psalms, here're some good materials, you can read the ESV Study Bible Introduction to the Psalms is available here for free: https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-the-psalms/