Book 1, Psalms 1-41
Prepared for Psalms Group for Sunday, March 14, 2021
Psalm 25 is an alphabetic acrostic psalm that is notable for its brokenness. It is missing one Hebrew letter, repeats another Hebrew letter twice, and includes a final verse that doesn’t fit the acrostic pattern at all. “This brokenness reflects the way troubles break the pattern of life itself,” one commentator observes about Psalm 25. (Motyer, New Bible Commentary, 501)
Prepared for Psalms Group, March 7, 2021
One benefit of praying the psalms is how they keep reminding us of our own and every other person’s limited humanity. Seeing and/or experiencing human limitation can open our hearts to God’s ways of living:
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy (hesed), and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
Psalms Group, for January 17, 2020
In Psalm 32, the psalmist happily thanks God for forgiving his sin which had led to intense physical and emotional duress. This forgiveness came in response to his confession and repentance. Psalm 32 is a penitential psalm (along with Psalms 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143), but it is not sorrowful because it is a prayer of thanks for God’s grace of forgiveness. It also contains elements of wisdom teaching, using this psalmist’s experience of confession, repentance and forgiveness to teach others.
Email to the Psalms Group preparing for Sunday, January 17, 2021
Dear Psalms friends,
The “way” we have been traveling the past 2 weeks—with Psalms 1 and 2 and then Psalms 15 and 24, plus hearing Fr. Paul’s sermon last Sunday calling us to repentance from contempt—makes a focus on Psalm 32 seem timely. Of course, it’s a well-known psalm of thanksgiving and wisdom instruction that poetically contemplates the joy of forgiveness. It teaches us about our sin’s destructiveness and how God awakens us to repentance and to confession of sin.
Prepared for Psalms Group, January 10, 2021
Psalms 15 and 24 are liturgical psalms “of David” from Book 1 of the Psalms that were probably used as “entrance liturgies” to Israel’s worship of YHWH. Perhaps they were used by priests to teach ancient Israelites about preparation for authentic worship of YHWH, probably first in the earlier “tent” setting after David moved the Ark of the Covenant onto Mount Zion, the hill in Jerusalem, and then later in the Temple built in that same place after David’s death. (Ross, Psalms, Volume I, pp. 385-395 and pp. 573-589)
Prepared for Psalms Group meeting on January 3, 2021
Unlike the culture’s predominant view of the calendar year of 2020, our just-concluded journey through the Psalter ended this week with rounds of increasing praise—singing, instruments, dancing and lots of bragging and boasting about YHWH’s ultimate power over creation and nations, and His love for His people…His pleasure in us (147:11, 149:4). (See Psalms 146-150.)
Prepared for Psalms Group, November 15, 2020
Psalm 34 is an individual song of thanksgiving written as an imperfect alphabetic acrostic (easier to memorize and learn) to encourage and teach wise living. The New Bible Commentary entitles Psalm 34, “An ABC for a Crisis.” The psalmist uses his personal experience of God’s rescue as an opportunity not only to give thanks (todah=a thank offering) to God, but also to offer wisdom for living to his hearers.
Psalms Group, November 8, 2020
In his short chapter, “The End,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes that our hope as Christians is directed to Jesus’ return and the resurrection of the dead. Bonhoeffer also observes that “life in fellowship with the God of revelation, the final victory of God in the world, and the setting up of the messianic kingdom are objects of prayer in the psalms.” The Psalter reminds us to pray for, find comfort in, and praise God for his rescue plan for all his creation and our part in it. Here’s how Bonhoeffer describes psalms like Psalms 2 and 149 in “The End”:
Prepared for Psalms Group, 9/20/20
Our current lectionary readings in I Kings, the minor prophets, and Hebrews, coupled with Judaism’s high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur triggered my curiosity about actual worship in the tabernacle and temple (original and second). How do the Psalms, eventually the hymnbook of the Second Temple, inform us about and lead us in God-focused worship?