An ancient Christian writing in the fourth century observed that, while most of the Bible speaks to us, the Book of Psalms speaks for us. While most of the Bible is read as God’s word spoken to us, the psalms are human responses to that word. The psalms are prayers; they are human responses to God who speaks, who is made known to us. For centuries before Christ and for those centuries since, the Book of Psalms has been Israel’s prayer book and for those centuries since, it has been the prayer book of the church. It is hoped that, through this brief introductory study, the Psalms will begin to speak for you, too, and that the Psalms can become your prayer book.

When we set about understanding the Bible, it is helpful to place the particular part we are trying to understand in its historical setting. It is helpful to ask concerning the time and place of writing and what life was like in that place and at that time. It is also helpful to ask what kind of writing it is we are studying and how that writing might have been used, or how it spoke, in its historical setting. But this is not always possible. It is not possible with the Psalms. Only a very few of the individual psalms offer any clues to their date and place of composition. And only a very few of the individual psalms offer any hints regarding how exactly they were used. These very few clues and hints are too vague to be of any real help. The individual psalms cannot be tied to any one historical time and place. It is impossible to understand and interpret the individual psalms in their original historical settings.

On the one hand, our inability to place any of the individual psalms in an original setting gives us great freedom. Indeed, a highly esteemed scholar of the Old Testament suggests that the Psalms are best understood and interpreted in the broad setting of human prayer, in the life of prayer. Perhaps we best understand them in the setting of our own prayer lives as we respond, in our place and time, to God made known. We are free to make the Psalms our own prayer book. The Book of Psalms can speak for us.

On the other hand, there is a very real danger that comes with this freedom. If the individual psalms, unhinged from any original setting, can be used in any setting, what keeps them from meaning just whatever we wish them to mean? What would keep us from using them to justify our wants and desires as being the will of God? I can imagine Psalm 105, which will be discussed shortly, being prayed by an Israeli Jew in way that I would not wish to pray. Indeed, some scholars speculate that Psalm 105 might have been written after the return of the Hebrew people from Babylonian exile, which, if it were so, would make the original setting very similar to that of an Israeli Jew of today. Even still, I would not wish to use Psalm 105 as a justification of the ways of Israel with the Palestinians. Just the same, I must be careful how I use the Psalms, that I do not use them to justify my own wishes and desires.

With this freedom and always aware of the great danger that comes with this freedom, I pray with the Psalms as a Christian. With the Psalms I respond to what has been given to me to know about God through Jesus Christ. The earliest of Christians did so, as well; there are allusions to, and direct quotations of, the Psalms throughout the New Testament. Reading Psalm 105 alongside of Mary’s magnificat or Jesus’ Beatitudes or at the foot of the cross, it becomes a different sort of prayer perhaps than what an Israeli Jew might pray. We will have more to say about this in the other sessions.

There is a rhythm to the Psalms. Much scholarly ink has been spilt trying to classify the individual psalms, to squeeze them into certain categories. No one seems happy with the results. The best we can say is that there are two basic types of psalms: hymns of praise and prayers of lament. Individual psalms will fall somewhere in between these two types and the whole of the Psalms swings from praise to lament and back to praise. This is the rhythm of the Psalms, the rhythm of prayer, of human response to God made known.

Psalm 105 is most definitely a hymn of praise. It opens with a call to praise in its first six verses:

The call goes out to the "chosen ones" to "sing praises" and to seek the Lord’s presence and strength. They are to remember the "wonderful works" of the Lord and to "make known his deeds among the peoples." And in the remainder of the psalm, those deeds and works are recounted beginning with the covenant promises made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in verses 7-11. Verses 12-15 are of special note. There the "chosen ones" are described as "few in number, of little account". They are strangers wandering from nation to nation. The psalm goes on to recount the life Joseph and of the sojourn in Egypt in verses 16-25. The exodus from Egypt and the wilderness wandering are remembered in verses 26-42. The psalm then ends with these verses:

Notice how the ending of Psalm 105 is linked with its opening. The chosen ones called to praise and to sing in the opening verses are the chosen ones brought singing into the promised land of the closing verses. We cannot date the composition of the Psalm. All that we can say is that, since it depends upon the traditions preserved in Genesis and Exodus, it was probably written after those traditions received some kind of stable form, this having occurred long after the generation of Joshua had passed from the scene. But the later generations called to praise with this psalm become those earlier generations. The events recounted are made contemporary; the events of the distant past are made to seem to have also happened to and for whatever generation uses this psalm. Whoever uses this psalm belongs to a people "few in number, of little account" whom God has brought into a promised land.

Psalm 105 is a hymn of praise; it is a human response, a prayer, to God made known in the history of ancient Israel. God is praised for other reasons in other psalms. Psalm 104, for instance, is in praise of God’s power in creation, not history. Other psalms of praise—Psalm 105 being one of these—seem to address human beings, not God. These are still hymns of praise, however, insofar as their exhortations are rooted in the character of God. Other psalms seem addressed to a king but, again, whatever is said about the king in these psalms is rooted in the character of God.

Psalm 44 is also a human response to God made known in the history of Israel, but it is a different kind of prayer. While Psalm 105 is most definitely a hymn of praise, Psalm 44 is most definitely a prayer of lament. Psalm 44, like Psalm 105, remembers the "wonderful works" of the Lord. It does so in its opening verses:

In this psalm and unlike Psalm 105, the deeds and the wonderful works of the Lord remain in the distant past. Those who use Psalm 44 have heard with their ears their ancestors tell of the deeds the Lord performed in the days of old. But those deeds are not contemporized as they are in Psalm 105. Something has gone wrong.

The Psalmist expresses trust and confidence in God (verses 4-8) and claims unerring faithfulness to God (verses 17-22). But something has gone terribly wrong; the people have experienced some kind of defeat, which the Psalmist cannot understand or explain. The defeat sounds like a military defeat, but there is no way of knowing what historical battle is being described. The people being scattered among the nations could be a reference to exile, but we cannot be for sure. In any case, this defeat is described with these excruciating words:

Despite this inexplicable and crushing defeat, the Psalmist remains faithful and continues to trust in God whose praises are elsewhere sung. Why else would the Psalmist complain and why would the words that follow be written unless trust in, and faithfulness to, God remain?

Such words as these can only be prayed to the same God elsewhere praised. They arise in circumstances that contradict what has been made known concerning God, but faith in that God is not abandoned, not even in the most bitter of laments. Psalm 44 is among the most bitter. There are other kinds of laments in the Psalms. Some are penitential, are confessions of sin. Some include a promise to praise God once God responds. Others include a report of God’s response and a hymn of praise.

The psalms are prayers. They are also poetry. The most obvious and prevalent poetic characteristic of the Psalms is called parallelism. You will notice the strange indenting used to arrange and print the Psalms in your Bible. This indenting is meant to highlight the parallelism of the verses. Usually, each verse of a psalm consists of two lines. The second line is indented beneath the first. This second line in one way or another expands upon what is said in the first. This is done, in some cases, by echoing that line. In other cases, the meaning is intensified. In still other cases, the second line will draw a contrast with the first.

The first verse of Psalm 105 can be used to illustrate. It consists of two lines, the second one indented beneath the first:

The first line is a call to give thanks to the Lord and to call on his name. The second line parallels this first line by saying what it means to give thanks and to call on his name, how it is one goes about that. To give thanks and call upon the name of the Lord is to make known the Lord’s deeds among the peoples. In this case, the second line expands and enhances the meaning of the first. Later in Psalm 105, the lines will simply echo each other. Verses 34 and 35 consist of four lines that describe the plague of locusts sent upon Egypt:

All four lines above are not only parallel to the line with which they are paired, but the second pair of lines are parallel to the first pair. Indeed, sometimes the connections and parallelism between paired lines become even more complicated and more interesting. The first six verses of Psalm 105 provide a good example.

Notice how the two pairs of lines I have marked C and C’ parallel each other, the word seek linking them. The paired lines marked B and B’ are parallels and are linked by the phrase wonderful works. The paired lines A and A’ are linked by the exclamation O with A’ serving to identify more clearly those being called to praise. Also, remember how the end of Psalm 105 is linked with the beginning; those who are called to praise, the chosen ones, are those who enter the promised land with singing.