Table of Contents
Unlike other books of the Bible, the Books of Psalms and Proverbs are overtly and easily recognisable as compilations of material. Even if Proverbs is loosely 'of Solomon' and Psalms is 'of David', each book is nevertheless clear that there are several - or, indeed, many - authors.
So what is the Book of Psalms? Intriguingly, there is only one psalm in the entire psalter - which has 150 psalms - that addresses God consistently throughout (Psalm 8). Another way to say that is that only one Psalm is entirely a prayer. In all other 149 psalms, there is always at least some element of address towards someone else - whether a little or a lot.
In many ways, then, it is better to think of the psalms not so much as a prayer book, but as a poetry and song book: a lot of the psalms focus their attention on the 'congregation'. This is consistent with what we see enjoined upon the church in the New Testament: the songs we sing can both, and are to both, address God and each other, and sometimes in the same song.
The songs and poems in the Book of Psalms are incredibly diverse in genre, tone, and style. We have victory songs, love songs, teaching songs, history songs, songs made up entirely of quotes from other psalms, acrostics (each line beginning with a consecutive letter of the alphabet); we have grief and lament poems, curse poems, confession poems, and celebratory songs. The shortest psalm (Psalm 117, at two verses), is quickly followed by the longest (Psalm 119, at 176 verses).
The 'Book' of Psalms, further, is divided into five separate books, which may mean that Psalms is actually a compilation of five compilations! And whatever the efforts of scholars, there is no clear and persuasive overarching organisation to the Psalms. It's not organised by date, genre, tone, geography, topic, author, or audience. While some psalms are connected (20-21, 42-43, 104-106, 120-134) or show some degree of short-term inner cohesion (20-23, 95-100, or 145-150), these soon dissipate into the wider 'morass' of the book.
Generally, however, most agree that there is a logic and priority to the placement of Psalms 1 and 2 at the beginning of the book, and Psalms 145-150 at the end: the book begins with the disposition and desire before the word and the centrality of the Christ; it concludes with praise in the congregation.
Do the Psalms have any context, then? While our recognition of standard literary context is limited or absent (how does it build on what is before / how does it anticipate what is to come), quite often the content of the psalm itself may help understand what is being spoken of, or who is speaking / is being spoken to.
In this respect, as far as possible, we ought to try and pay attention to the author of the psalm, the time and place of writing, and the situation being spoken of, all the while exercising humility and conservatism to recognise what we cannot know.
And here we're helped in that many of the psalms actually give us a bit of context. But it is a little bit hidden in English translations. In our Bibles we have the text divided up into chapters and verses, and now also with headings in italics. None of these are part of the original text: they are later additions by translators. When it comes to the Book of Psalms, this practice obscures a part of Scripture that is part of the original text:
You've seen the short headings at the top of most Psalms. They'll say things like 'A Psalm of David', or 'A Psalm of Asaph; a song' or 'A song of ascents'. They aren't in italics because they are not additions to the text. But for some strange reason they aren't given a verse number either in English texts - even though in the Hebrew editions of the text they are given a verse number. These are part of the Psalm, and ought to be read as part of the psalm. And quite often they tell us something about the historical context, or at least an indication of when it was written or what it was written about, or who wrote it.
When we look at these headings, we begin to see the incredible range in date for authorship in the Book of Psalms. Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses. Psalms by 'the sons of Korah' or 'Asaph' are post-exilic temple songs some 1,000 years later. Sometimes psalms are authored in the moment (Psalm 51); sometimes the psalm is authored much later (Psalms 104-106, for instance, covers events spanning a millennia).
The Books of Psalms, at heart, is God's gift of song to his people, encompassing the full breadth of human affections (from grief to praise), and encompassing the full experience of God's people who are caught up under the Old Covenant: having received the promises of God, but not having received their fulfilment in Jesus. And so they are called to wait patiently. In this respect, their experience parallels our own, especially for those written in the post-exilic period when the book was compiled: they lived in a 'now but not yet' tension that is a shadow of our own. What they longed to see fulfilled, we've seen ushered in by Jesus, and from whom we look for the consummation of those promises. We sing the psalms as those under the New Covenant, with that fundamental shift, but nevertheless with that sense of waiting and eager longing for what is to come.
