Video Transcript: Introduction to Psalms

We begin our study of Wisdom literature taking a look at some of the key ways in which  Hebrew poetry expresses ideas, and also a thorough look at the book of Job. Probably the  most popular expression of Wisdom literature is found in the Psalms. The Psalms are dear to  the hearts of many around the world. And so many have been memorized and used in a  variety of settings. Today, we're going to take a closer look at the Psalms, first of all, going  through an overview of what the psalms are all about. The Psalms are 150 poems, originally,  they were meant to be sung. And you can see that in a variety of ways in the titles to the  Psalms, where there are instructions regarding the performance of these or what tunes to use  or the manner in which the instrumentation is to take place. Now, there are more Psalms than just those that we find in the 150 of the psalter, in the Old Testament, there are some Psalms  that have been found among the dead sea scrolls there, in addition to the ones that we have  found, have had for years, and of course, centuries in the Psalms. And there are even some  psalms that we can find in other places of the Bible. For instance, there are some Psalms of  David found in the books of Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, notes and expressions of  poetry and worship Psalms that are listed there. There are even some in other parts of the  wisdom literature, some of the writings of in Job can be considered Psalms, and some of the  expressions in Ecclesiastes might well be considered Psalms. But that doesn't make any  difference with regard to the psalms that we have in the 150 that are collected into the  Psalter of the Old Testament. This is the collection that's been used for worship throughout  Israel's history, the history of the Jews, and also the history of the Christian church. And the  collection as it's been received, the way we have it today has been stable since the first  century AD since the time of Jesus. Now, the Psalms themselves are divided into five books,  we're not entirely sure why that's the case. But it is clear that it is the case, Psalms one  through 41, for form the first book, Psalms 42, through 70, to form the second book, Psalm 73, through 89, form the third book, Psalms 90 through 106th, form the fourth book, and then  Psalms 107, through 150, form the last or the fifth book, each of these collections, ends with a doxology. And that's very important to think about, especially when we look at Psalm 89.  Because Psalm 89, is a psalm at the end of the third book, but it's a very somber Psalm, it's  written in response to the death of a king, to young he was too young to have died,  something must have happened, either a disease or battle or something like that. And so the  whole Psalm reflects the somberness. And then suddenly, at the last part, we have this note,  praise the Lord. Well, we should understand that the note praise the Lord is not really part of  Psalm 89. But it's the end of the collection. It's the end of the book, the third book, and each  of the books ends with a similar kind of doxology. So pay attention to that, of course, the  doxology. And the final book, the fifth book is actually Psalm 150, which is the most  expressive Psalm of praise of them all. doxology simply means a Psalm of praise, and, of  course, all of the praises to God. Most of the Psalms of David occur early in the Psalter, and  most of them are in the first collection. And that may reflect the manner in which the Psalms  came to gather, and were formed and shaped. If you think through the history of Christianity,  and the changing styles of music, and the development or growth or writing of new Psalms,  something of the same seems to have been taking place in the Psalms, that maybe the  Psalms began with a small collection of David's Psalms, and to these later were added other  Psalms as they became popular or were written. And so we have the sense of development  through the Psalms. There are also some collections for instance, the Psalms of Asaph and the sons of Korah. Those psalms that are given that by the title occur somewhere in the middle,  which would make sense because they were born long after David and became chief  musicians or worship leaders in the time of the temple. So there's a sense in which the  progression of the Psalms as we have them in the book of Psalms seems to reflect that At  least in part some of the historical development of the Psalms themselves. There's even a  psalm that occurs late in Israel's history. found late in the collection. I'm thinking of Psalm  137, which is a Psalm written by the exiles in Babylon after the temple has been destroyed.  During the transition time between the first and second temple periods. Most of the Psalms  were likely to have been written by that time. But here's a psalm that was written very late,  and it occurs quite late in the Psalms collection as well, psalm 137, just 13 from the end of the book, there are also other collections. For instance, the Psalms of Ascent, or pilgrims Psalms 

occur in the last section, and these were likely a separated collection of Psalms that were  used by pilgrims who are going up to the three great pilgrim festivals in Jerusalem three times a year during three of the festivals, all of the Israelites from all over the land were invited or  encouraged or expected to go up to Jerusalem. And this was sort of like a collection of Psalms  to sing along the way. There are a number of Psalms that have titles, the titles aren't really  considered part of the Psalms themselves. They may or may not reflect the original  circumstances. There's some very interesting ones. We don't know if positively that the  Psalms were necessarily collected or written in those contexts. But there are some very  interesting things that we learned. For instance, Psalm three is called a Psalm of David when  he fled from his son, Absalom. This would have been when his son, Absalom tried to take over the kingdom. And there are certainly some notes of concern and expressions of frustration in  Psalm three that reflects such circumstances. Psalm 18, is a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord who addressed the words of the Psalm to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered  him from the hand of all of his enemies, and the hand of Saul. This would be the pre King  David, during the times he was running from Saul who was seeking to take his life. Psalm 34,  is called a Psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him  out and he went away. Now we actually read that story. In the book of Samuel, we read about  a time when David was living among the Philistines, and Abimelech was trying to go to war  against Saul and David didn't want to go to war against Saul, because he believed that Saul  was the Lord's anointed. And so he actually feigned madness in order not to have to  participate in this and to get away from circumstances. There's a powerful psalm, Psalm 51.  That's called a Psalm of David when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone into  Bathsheba. Of course, that's when he committed adultery with Bathsheba. And the psalm is  certainly a penitential Psalm, a psalm that reflects the idea of seeking forgiveness for having  done a great wrong. And it's a powerful and beautiful Psalm made even more powerful and  beautiful when we connect it to that incident in David's own life. And Psalm 52 is called a  masculine David, when Doeg the Edomite came to Saul and said to him, David has gone has  come to the house of Ahimelech. So there are a variety of ways in which the Psalms actually  reflect or have the possibility of reflecting some real life situations. Now, that's not true of  most of the Psalms, but it is true of a number of the Psalms. Sometimes the titles appear to  be dedications or the, they indicate those to whom these psalms are written or in whose  honor they are intended. Many of them are to the leader, who is the leader, it may well mean  to the leader of the people, it may even refer to God as leader of the people. But more than  likely, these were Psalms that were originally created in the context of Israel's worship. And  were devoted to the one who was the chief musician or worship leader in the tabernacle first  and later on in the temple. We're not quite certain about those things, but we have quite a  few that are to the leader. There's even one two, a person called Jeduthun and we don't know  who Jeduthun is, but obviously he was an important person, and the dedication is made to  him. There are some titles that appear to give instructions about tunes or performance cues.  So of course, we don't have a full understanding of this because some of these performance  cues or tune seem, are tunes that we don't don't know. They were probably quite popular in  the days of ancient Israel. If we think for instance, Psalm 22 is supposed to be according to  the deer of the dawn, probably a wonderful lilting melody or in Psalm 22's case, maybe even  a dirge because the first two thirds of it are pretty negative and, and the pain that David is  experiencing as people torment him. I think some of the others might have more dancing like  characters according to the Lily's two Psalms actually 45 and 69, maybe both to the same  tune, according to Alamoth 46, according to the lilies of the Covenant, 60 and possibly 80.  There are different instructions with regard to what tunes to use for these words. In Hebrew  also, there's a slight differentiation between two words that are very much similar they look  alike when you see them except for the placement of the pronunciation dot above one of the  letters there's seer and their sheer. A seer is a Psalm without instrumental accompaniment  and their sheer isn't a Psalm which is with instrumental accompaniment. In other words,  Psalms were intended to be sung as solos, or not necessarily solos, but unaccompanied,  acapella and shear Psalms were intended to be Psalms to Psalms that had Lotso, or at least  some accompaniment musical instruments going along with that. There are other things we 

find in the instructions found in the titles, some masculine Michtam, or Miktam are two words  that were not entirely certain what the meaning is, but they're found in a number of the  Psalms. We do know that Miktam seems to occur in Psalms where David is in a situation of  dire distress. So it may be something like a kind of foreboding note about the Psalm. We have  a couple of other hints at things with stringed instruments, or for the memorial offering, or  even a psalm that's a two psalms that are written and dedicated according to the gittith and  we don't really know what the gittith is all about. There are a number of titles that identify the author or the presumed author. And again, most of those are David if we have 150. Psalms,  David is attributed with at least 73 of them. And of course, as I said earlier, before, most of  those psalms are toward the beginning of the psalter, in other words, likely to be the original,  or at least part of the original collection that was forming what we know as book one. There  are two that are attributed to Solomon, Psalm 72, and 127. Interestingly, both of those are  related to themes associated with with royalty and the ruler reign of kings. A lot of the sunset  psalms are to the sons of Korah 12 of them, which is a high percentage as well as Asaph,  another 12 of them. And in each case, those collections are right around the middle of the  Psalter. There are two very interesting Psalms one attributed to Heman the Ezrahite and  another to Ethan the Ezrahite. Now, if this Ezra designation is the Ezra that we have, as part  of the leadership following the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem, once again,  these would make the Psalms quite late in Israel's existence. And in fact, both the psalms are  quite dark in tone, certainly the one 88 attributed to Heman the Ezrahite, the one to Ethan  the Ezrahite, that becomes a bit of a problem because the psalm reflects on the death, the  young death of a king, and there were no kings during the time of Ezra, precisely because the kings had been carried away and the line of David, although it still existed in the genealogical  records, from family to family, that line of David was no longer allowed to rule because now  the Persians were ruling. Interestingly, there's also one psalm of Moses. It's Psalm 90, a very  powerful Psalm, one that says, Sung quite often, oh God are helping ages past that's  attributed to Moses. So it might have been a praise Psalm that Moses carried along the way  and may be used as his own devotional activities and then passed along to others and it  became part of the collection of the psalms that we have as the permanent collection of  Psalms. Most of the Psalms of David as I said before occur early in the Psalter. Most praise  Psalms occur late in the Psalter. And then there's that collection Psalms 120 through 134. The  Psalms of ascent that appear to have been a separated collection of one time that was used  by those who are traveling up to Jerusalem for one of the three pilgrim festivals each year,  they begin at a distance from Jerusalem Psalm 120. And in distress, they move into Psalms  which anticipate seeing Jerusalem 122, 125, 132 they speak of traveling 121 and 126. And  they end in worship at the temple 134. So there's this wonderful collection of those who are  traveling, anticipating coming to Jerusalem building in an excitement and trusting God for  safety. Along the way, we should also mention the idea of acrostic. An acrostic is a poem in  which the first letter of each successive section is the letter of each successive letter of the  Hebrew alphabet. From aleph all the way to the end of the Hebrew alphabet tau. There's a  sense in which we might say this is an attempt to show things about a particular topic from A  to Z. Most expressive in this manner, a psalm that obviously took a long time to create and to  form is Psalm 119. In this case, there are eight parallel couplets, two lines, you know,  synonymous parallelism, usually sometimes antithetic, parallelism, and the first letter of each  of eight couplets begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In the first case, the first eight  begin with Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And then the second grouping of  eight begin with the letter beth the second letter of the Hebrew Hebrew alphabet. In fact,  that's where we get our, our term alphabet from the languages which emerge out of the  Middle East, including Hebrew. And then the third grouping of eight couplets is begins each,  each time with a letter gimel, which is the third letter in the Hebrew alphabet, all the way to  Tao. Now what's going on here, if you read Psalm 119, in our English Bibles, we have it as 176  verses Well, there are 22 verses in the Hebrew alphabet. And if you have each verse  representing one of the couplets, two lines of parallelism of some kind, what you have is 22  letters times eight couplets for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, resulting in 176 verses, it's really a very well structured Psalm, which doesn't necessarily come across in our English 

language or any other language. But if you look in your Bibles, there's a good chance that  each grouping of eight verses will be preceded by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And that's  the reason for that. And that's what we call an acrostic, where the successive sections,  sometimes as short as just a line or two begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In this case, it's very well developed so that you have actually eight groupings of couplets for  each successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Again, as I had mentioned before, when we  looked at a Job and got our introduction to the wisdom literature, the most obvious literary  device device in all of Hebrew poetry is that of parallelism. And parallelism occurs in two  major forms synonymous where two or more lines say the same thing using different words  like Psalm 88, verse three, My soul is full of troubles my whole life draws nearer to sheol,  sheol means death. Or Psalm 78, verse five, he established a decree and Jacob and appointed a law in Israel. There are a number of antithetic parallelism, expressions, two lines that  declare opposite ideas in order to support the same conclusion. I hate you double minded, but I love your loss, Psalm 119 Verse 113, or Psalm 78, verse 50, He did not spare them from  death, but gave their lives over to the plague two opposite ideas that then in turn, build a  single theme, and not as frequent but still quite prominent in all of the poetry of Hebrew of  the wisdom literature is the parallelism of stair like where an idea begins to develop into other thoughts along the way. For instance, in Psalm 103, Bless the Lord, oh my soul and do not  forget all this benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases who  redeemed your life from the pit? Who crowns you a steadfast love and mercy who satisfies  you with good things as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles and you can see the building there? As I mentioned another time there are literary devices in Hebrew,  very important in Hebrew that don't translate well into our other languages rhyme and meter  kind of a cadence for recitation. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds or consonants,  the repetition of consonant sounds or alliteration, the repetition of word beginning letters or  sounds. Then there are some subtle and complex literary devices like enveloping, where the  beginning and ending of a Psalm has the same refrain. Psalm 118, is a good example where  Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, his steadfast love endures forever, occurs at the  beginning. And the ending of the Psalm is sort of like an envelope into which the rest of the  Psalm is tucked, meaning that idea but explaining it more fully. There's also chiasm, which is  more complex, it's a reflective repetition of lines or phrases or ideas in clear parallelism. And  one of the examples of that, that I could bring to your attention to Psalm 114, where the first  two verses and the last two verses, Echo one another, and then the interior verses three and  four, and five and six, reflect one another. In some reverse way, we'll have a chance to talk  about this kind of chiasm in other places. But take a look at this and you'll begin to  understand what's, what's going on there. There's more about this in my book, Covenant  Documents, Reading the Bible Again For the First Time. If we understand and use the Psalms  correctly, we can see that there are a variety of different forms or meanings to the Psalms. My own categorization of the Psalms includes at least eight different kinds individual laments,  which are cries of individuals in times of distress, communal laments, which are similar but  now cries of the whole community, hymns of praise which celebrate God's goodness and  character, Psalms of confidence which express confidence or trust in God during difficult  times. Royal Psalms, which express praise to Yahweh as the true king and also praise the  monarch who rules on Yahweh's behalf psalms of Zion, which are sort of like national anthems thank Psalms expressing specifically thanks to God using the word toda in Hebrew, and then  wisdom or peace, priestly instruction Psalms, which are actually tools for passing along  wisdom from one generation to the next. We'll be exploring each of those in series in the next  sessions, but if you'd like more on these things, check out my book on the Psalms, Hear Me  Oh God meditations and all 150 Psalms, or more for the background Covenant Documents,  Reading the Bible Again For the First Time.