Any piece of literature that has been cultivated, preserved, read and re-read, chanted, sung, said aloud and in quiet, taught, studied, memorized and proclaimed for millennia is worthy of the status of classic. But that word seems too mild for the book of Psalms.
The Psalms are expansive, reflecting the nearly 1000 year period in which they were composed or written and compiled. Some are as old as 1400 B.C. (in the time of Moses) and as new as 450 B.C. (the time of Nehemiah and Ezra bringing Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem to worship).
The Psalms are powerful, recounting the attributes of God and predicting the coming of a Messiah and the consummation of His kingdom. In whatever circumstances the writers faced, there was, in the periphery of their thoughts, a covenant keeping God who was more powerful than any circumstance, tribulation, or enemy. This is worth remembering in the year 2020.
The Psalms are raw, describing the inward thoughts and feelings of the people of God experiencing the ups and downs of life. The directness of the psalmists’ address to an all powerful God can startle even the most reverent and humble worshipper today. It would seem that our Lord, who knows us better than we know ourselves, welcomes our frank honesty.
The Psalms are personal, displaying the many personalities of the various writers, from Moses to David to Asaph, and many unknown authors. Like the other books of the Bible, the personalities and the authorial voices differed depending on who the Holy Spirit was working through at the time. Each of the psalmists has a style and vocabulary and a collection of lived experiences on which to pen their poems to God.
The personal nature of the book of Psalms is likely what draws us to them today. Though they were written over 2500 years ago, the Psalms reflect realities faced by the people of God from then until now and every year in between. The language of praise, of fear, of desperation, of anger, of hope, of comfort, of joy – these are all emotions we have felt in our own spirit. These are the experiences of Christians around the world in generations past and present.
Most of the Psalms in book 1 are written by David. As one of the characters upon whom many chapters of the Old Testament are focused, David’s inner life is revealed through his writing in the Psalms as a reflection of the events that occurred during his life. Many details of David’s story are central in the history books of I Samuel, II Samuel, and I Kings, but those historical books and details do not reveal the complex nature of David’s feelings and emotions. We can know David’s story from the history, but we can know him differently by seeing his thoughts on display in his psalms. In Psalm 142, we see the extent of David’s fear when he is running from Saul. In Psalm 51, we see the full effect of David’s sin with Bathsheba when we see his response to the death of his child. The human nature of David’s responses are displayed in the revelation of his inner thoughts in the Psalms.
When we approach the Psalms, we know that we are participating in a heavenly reality that has been experienced by the people of God for the entire breadth of human experience and existence. Those psalmists, those saints of old who have gone on before us – who have at times anxiously waited and hoped on God, have cried out to Him in desperation, have been moved to tears and grief over loss and worry, and have still uttered His praises and proclaimed that in Him was their joy – these have found their reward, and presently are experiencing the abiding presence of God. May we, in whatever circumstances we are in, allow the Psalms to move us. And let us, with the psalmists, rejoice in the Lord our God, pray for his deliverance and comfort, and wait in hope for the coming kingdom and for His peace which passes all understanding.
~ Micah A. Lovell, 7 July 2020