Perusing the Psalms

When I was in bible college, certain parts of the bible were marginalized in the curriculum.

Most of the Old Testament, primarily. It wasn’t deemed New Covenant enough, even though most of the early church writers relied on it as the basis of their commands, suggestions, and doctrine. Deuteronomy being the exception, of course. Apparently, no book better encapsulates an ideal Christian life than one which is one part history, one part prophecy, and one part commandments^[1].

The Psalms showed up on occasion, mainly for apologetic purposes, but they were never really dealt with. I presume this is because it’s a book of so many separate thoughts and intentions weaved together in a single collection. It's easy to consider the whole book as incredibly difficult to comprehend without devoting an entirely separate course to it.

Despite the absence of an in-depth look in my formal studies, I've always enjoyed the collection. I enjoyed the Psalms for the same reason I like Bovril: there’s a certain meatiness to it that makes it satisfying, even if the aftertaste is often confusing. In both cases, for whatever reason, I come back for more.

Part of it could be my temperament. The Psalms are often intense songs of joy and lament, blessing God for his goodness or cursing enemies for their evil. And while I’m usually fairly calm, I have moments where my emotions have control of the wheel^[2], and consequently, I may relate a little too well to certain psalms at certain times. It's easy enough to wallow in a given emotion, but it's all the more fulfilling when you can point to an example of a priest doing the same thing and having their work canonized for all of history to read and recite.

But even those songs usually go through the full circuit of emotions. Sure, there's a lengthy airing of grievances, but the writers almost always end with a doxology of some sorts, formal or informal.

I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked... But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God... I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. Excerpts from Psalm 73 (ESV)

Some time in college, I remember hearing a sermon where the speaker asserted that Eastern storytelling tends to have a different structure than Western storytelling, and the Bible follows the Eastern paradigm. In the West, we love beginning, middle, and end. In the East, the pattern follows beginning, middle, and new beginning. Even in the Christian canon, you see this with the creation of the earth and universe in Genesis, sixty-four books in the middle, and a new^[3] earth and universe in John's Revelation. I'm not enough of an expert to be assured in the accuracy that explanation, but it's at the very least a beautiful concept, and one that seems to be common throughout the Psalms.

Each song is a small slice of the human condition: some full of praise and dancing, and others filled with fear, grief, and loss. But there's always a salvation at the end, whether Messianic and universal or intimate and personal. It's as if there are 150 fractals in the middle of the book, putting forth new beginnings for singers touched by the Spirit of God, creating new beginnings for the readers and listeners then and thereafter.

[1] Pardon the sardonic tone; I grew tired of prosperity gospel proof-texts shoe-horned into what could have been valuable educational time.

[2] I'd like to blame John Donne, J.D. Salinger, and e.e. cummings for overstimulating some section of my brain as a teenager. Realistically, those teenage hormones probably unlocked something latent in my biochemistry and/or psyche. It'd be nice to get early access to some 26th century diagnostics to find out exactly why. I'm sure my wife would appreciate that knowledge as well.

[3] Or renewed, depending on your eschatology.

Originally published in September 2013 and last updated in August 2021.