Old Testament · Wisdom & Poetry
תְּהִלִּים
Israel's songbook, 150 prayers of praise, protest, tears, and trust, for every weather of the soul.
The prayer book of Israel and of the church, a hundred and fifty poems covering every register a human being has. What surprises people who arrive expecting comfort is how much of it is complaint: lament is the single largest category, and several psalms end without resolution, one of them simply with the word darkness. Others ask God to do frightening things to enemies, and the church has never fully agreed what to do with those. It is a shaped collection rather than an anthology, in five books each ending in praise, moving from the anguish of the early psalms to the pure doxology of the last five. Jesus prays Psalm 22 from the cross, and the New Testament quotes this book more than any other.
If you remember one thing
Roughly a third of the Psalms are complaints. The book's great gift is permission: it puts words in your mouth for the days when you cannot find your own, including the angry ones.
“Yahweh is my shepherd; I shall lack nothing.”
Psalm 23:1
Psalm 137:9
The imprecatory psalms, and this line about dashing infants on rocks, are prayers of the traumatized rather than instructions. Christians have handled them by reading them as honest rage brought to God rather than sanctioned action.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
Israel's first king, given when the people demanded one 'like the nations.' Tall and promising, Saul started well but unraveled, offering an unlawful sacrifice, sparing what God had devoted to destruction, and hunting David out of jealousy. Rejected by God through Samuel, he ended by consulting a medium and falling on his own sword at Gilboa.
The shepherd-poet who killed Goliath, outlasted Saul's jealousy, and united the tribes with Jerusalem as his capital. A man after God's own heart, yet his adultery with Bathsheba and its cover-up cost him dearly. God promised his throne would endure forever, the covenant the Messiah would fulfill.
The prophet who brought David both the covenant promise of an everlasting throne and, later, the parable of the poor man's lamb that trapped the king into condemning himself.
Eleazar's son, who ended a plague at Peor by driving a spear through an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, and was granted a covenant of lasting priesthood. A second Phinehas, son of Eli, was a corrupt priest who died carrying the ark into battle.
A Levite who led two hundred and fifty leaders in challenging Moses and Aaron, arguing that the whole congregation was holy and the two of them had exalted themselves. The ground opened and swallowed the ringleaders.
The four Midianite leaders Gideon's campaign brought down. Oreb and Zeeb, whose names mean raven and wolf, were killed at the rock and the winepress that afterward carried their names. Zebah and Zalmunna were pursued far east and taken.
A Philistine king of Gerar, in the Negev, who took Sarah into his household after Abraham passed her off as his sister, and was warned in a dream before he touched her. He confronted Abraham about it with a fairness that puts the patriarch in a poor light.
Two Amorite kings, of Heshbon and of Bashan, who refused Israel passage and were defeated. Their names become a fixed pair in Israel's memory, recited in psalms and speeches for centuries as the standard example of what God did.
David's advisor, whose counsel was regarded as if a man had inquired of the word of God, and who went over to Absalom's revolt. When his advice to strike immediately was set aside for worse advice, he went home, set his house in order, and hanged himself.
The men David appointed to lead music before the ark, and the guilds descended from them who ran worship in the temple for centuries. Twelve psalms carry Asaph's name, and others carry Heman's and Ethan's.
The whole book, with the people and places explained as you read. Available in WEB and KJV. Chapters marked ✦ carry a verse the New Testament takes up.
A quiz for Psalms is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
