HOW TO READ THE PSALMS (SERIES): PART IV OF IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

You have now decided what level of reading you want to achieve as you come to the psalms. You have learned some of the basics of how to understand the main point of a given song. And you now realize that there are multiple levels at which your reading can be done. Now it is time for what I think is the most important aspect of reading the psalter. What is that?

 

You are to read the Psalter like a Christian.

 

Throughout the NT, the Psalms are quoted, alluded to, or echoed in the Gospels, the history, the letters, and the apocalypse—the whole thing. The vast majority of the time, the Apostles are quoting the psalms with Christ as their focus. In one way or another, be it through prophecy or typology or echoing terms such as Name, Wisdom, or Glory (see my series on Christ in the Old Testament), they read the psalms as a book about Christ.

Even many educated people fail to understand that the Apostles, much less Jesus (Luke 24:44; John 5:39-40; etc.), aren’t just making this up. Some, for example, are arguing that their “Christotelic” hermeneutic is justified, even though it was not part of the original meaning of the book. I strongly disagree with this view and believe that when taken to its logical end, it actually destroys the meaning, and thus objective confidence in the Bible. I do not believe that the Apostles or even Jesus himself could just invent new meaning (I dare say that would be sinful), even if it was for a good and justifiable end. Instead, I believe the Psalter itself was always “Christocentric.”[1]

The psalter itself begs to be read this way, beginning in Psalms 1-2 and ending in Psalms 144-145 (and the concluding Hallelujah songs—146-150) and everything in between. Here is where we need to put together several things we have learned. I will focus only on the first two songs of the Psalter and the last two.

Psalms 1-2 form a chiasm with the first and last verse being the beginning and ending. The chiasm forms around the word “blessed” and “the man” that both songs describe. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers … blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps 1:1, 2:12).

From the earliest days of the church, the Fathers understood both songs to be about Christ. They weren’t just making this up. Psalm 1 demands that someone perfectly obey the law; but no fallen person can do this. This strongly implies that someone must come who will. Psalm 2 is one of the most quoted OT songs, and it is about “the Son.” The “him” of the last verse is very clearly talking about the Son of God.

Now, one of the curious things about these two songs, besides this chiastic form, is that neither song has a superscription. This is extremely rare in the first “little book” where almost every song is “a song of David.” But the superscription is left off of these two songs, and scholars conclude (rightly so), that is it because these two songs act as an Introduction to the rest of the book. Put a little differently, these songs tell you how you are supposed to read the rest of the Psalter. And since they have as their focus the Son of God and the Man who obeys perfectly, they telegraph that the rest of the book is about Christ.

The last two songs of the Psalter, properly speaking, are Psalms 144-145. These are not the last songs of the book, but they are the last songs that do something other than praise the LORD (the last five songs act as concluding Postludes or Epilogues not only to the whole book, but to each of the five little collections). In an important recent study (it was his dissertation), Michael Snearly[2] stands on the shoulders of many who have come before him and argues in a new way that Book V (Psalms 107-150) is the climactic book of Psalter, because after all the suffering and doubt and prophecies and so on, it reaches the conclusion that the King introduced at the beginning of the book “Returns” at the end. Thus, Psalm 144 is about this coming King and Psalm 145 is about his coming Kingdom. This ends in a single verse doxology (145:21), which is then followed by five songs of Praise that conclude the Psalter.

Can you see how Psalms 1 and 2 introduce the need for a coming Man, a Son of God (the son of a King), and how Psalms 144 and 145 end on a prophetic note that a Messianic King is coming? This isn’t making stuff up. It’s the way the book was intentionally and knowingly put together. Everything in between is, in one way or another, about this (so also are the Hallelujah songs at the end).

This means, that at the most basic level of reading, the Psalms are not about you (though they are certainly for you). They aren’t even about David or the human author that wrote them. They are the songs of King Jesus. Yes, you, like the human author, can find hope and meaning in your own circumstances. But this is primarily because they are about Christ; they anticipate him and teach you about him.

This, then, is how you are to read the Psalms. When you read them first as the story of Christ put to music, then you will be able to understand your own situations in life better. As King, they teach you his rule over you. As Suffering-Servant they show you that he knows all your sufferings. As God they show you where thanksgiving and praise rightly belongs. And so on.

I hope that this brief series of posts has whet your appetite for diving in anew to one of the great books ever written and complied and that through it, your devotion and worship of the Triune God will be strengthened.

To dig deeper, feel free to go to my church’s website rbcnc.com/psalms and look around.

 

[1] The difference in “Christotelic” vs. “Christocentric” is, as I understand it, the difference between a re-reading of the original “purpose” (telos) in light of the Christ-event, a purpose that was foreign to the original context vs. understanding the original meaning of the text to have been about Christ (and the ways the authors quote the passages) all along, even if they didn’t understand everything about what that meant.

[2] Michael K. Snearly, The Return of the King: Messianic Expectation in Book V of the Psalter (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016).

HOW TO READ THE PSALMS (SERIES): PART III OF IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

In this third installment of “How to Read the Psalms,” we want to understand something very important about this book. What would that be? Psalms is a book. This virtual tautology is something I think many do not understand to the level that it can be helpful. Why is this the case?

I believe that the default way of reading the Psalms is to pick a song and just read it. This is how we often listen to music in this day of “shuffling the iPod.” We ask ourselves, “What psalm do I want to hear this time,” and we become our own D. J. I actually don’t want to poo-poo this too much, as it is true that each song is its own self-contained unit. That is, after all, the way all songs work. So, this is certainly a fine and good way to read the Psalms.

But you can think of the Psalter like you might think of an old-fashioned record. Back in the day, we had to listen to vinyl. That meant, you had to put the needle on the record and let it play until Side A was finished. (Yeah, I know, you can play D. J. even on a record. But it’s a LOT more work, and really only fun when you are scratching!) When you turned it over, you started Side B.

Thing is, a good artist always put the songs on the album in some kind of meaningful way. It might start with a fast song and the side might end with a slow song. Sometimes, as in “concept albums,” the tracks all had a larger meaning and purpose collectively than they did individually. Only by listening to them together and in the order the artist wanted, did you get that message. My personal favorite example of this is Boston’s Third Stage. Concept albums are like symphonies with their various movements that often trade on a basic set of notes, or jazz compositions that improvise a riff for fifteen minutes. Listen to the first and last songs on the Third Stage, and you realize that Amanda and Hollyann are not only the only two girl-named songs on the record, but they have the same basic tune! The songs form a kind of chiasm!

The Psalter is basically the greatest concept album ever written. Here I want to tell you how it works. There are four levels.

1. Level 1: An Individual Song. As mentioned above, each song is its own self-contained unit. As such, each song can and should be read by itself. Scholars have labeled the various songs in subjects, including but not limited to songs of lament, praise, thanksgiving, trust, and royal Look for a basic theme like this and it will help you read the psalm better.
2. Level 2: Units of songs. As I’ve been preaching through the psalter, I’ve discovered that certain sets of songs are related such that reading them together is very helpful. Some of these are obvious (such as the Hallel song units of Psalm 113-118 or 146-150). Others take more work. For example, quite often, you can pick out and “evening” idea that is followed in the next song as a “morning” idea, and as such were intended to be sung liturgically by Israel, often during feast weeks. When read together this way, the songs complement and deepen the meaning of one another. In the way our church has uploaded our Psalm series, you can see many of these units simply in the way I decided to preach the psalms here. If you are looking for help, just read that list for an introduction (and for more in depth study, click on any of those sermons).
3. Level 3: The Five Books. The editor-scribe (perhaps Ezra and his associates) who put the Psalter into its final form wrote the collection on five scrolls, even though it was short enough to fit on just one.[1] Each scroll ended in doxology, thus creating the five “little books” of the Psalter. The Rabbis said that these five books parallel the Torah (the five books of Moses), and their purpose was, like Genesis-Deuteronomy, for different forms of instruction. Thus, each of these five books can be read as their own kind of self-contained unit. Some focus more on suffering. Others on covenant. Still others on life after exile.
4. Level 4: The One Psalter. The final level of reading is the psalter as a whole. Much good work has been done on this in the last few decades among scholars, and the idea is that the individual units, the mini-sets, and the five-books all work together to form an almost incomprehensible single story-line that is the Psalter. To me, this is as important a reading activity as any of the other three. Perhaps more so. For, you do not say that you have read a book unless you have finished that book. So also, you can’t really understand the Psalter until you have read it from beginning to end. It is to this last point that we will focus our final installment of this series.

[1] See Nahum Sarna, Songs of the Heart (New York: Schocken Books, 1993), 17.

How to Read the Psalms (Series): Part II of IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

In this series, we are asking the specific question, “How do I read the Psalms?” After figuring out the level of reading you want to achieve, you need to move into specifics. Here are some of my thoughts as I’ve been studying the Psalms. I believe they are simple enough for a second level of reading (“chewing”), but profound enough to take you all the way to the highest level you want to go.

1. Psalms is not a book about life-verses. Growing up in the 80s, singing the Psalms was becoming popular again. But this wasn’t a singing of the whole psalm. It was often a wrenching out of context of one or two “happy verses” to create a sentimental ditty. As the Deer is an interesting example. Taking its cue from Psalm 42:1, the song is a series of cheerful lines that fit a simple, welcoming tune. Many of those lines are taken from other parts of Scripture, which is well and good. But, this isn’t singing the psalm. Rather, the context of Psalm 42 is very, very different from anything you actually hear in that contemporary chorus. In fact, there actually is a chorus in Psalm 42 (it has one idea repeated three times). It isn’t “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you.” Rather, it is, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Ps 42:5, 11, 43:5). That’s quite a different idea from “As the Deer…” So, as you read the Psalms, don’t go looking for a verse here or there. Read the whole thing and come to understand its main point.
2. The Main Point. How do you find the main point of a psalm? There are several ways of doing this. Understanding the kind of literature that you are in is the place to start. Psalms are songs. These songs are written in Hebrew poetry. As such, you will find at least one of the following elements in each song:

 

• Chiasm. A chiasm is the most basic and common technique employed by the psalmists (they are actually found throughout the Bible, not just the Psalms). In its most basic form, it is a repetition of ideas that form a giant arrow pointing you to the main point. They used chiasms to help in memorization and to highlight various parts of the text. Most psalms are chiastic,[1] so look for repeating ideas near the ends of the song and inbetween. When you find a chiasm, the center is the main point. Once you become practiced at it, finding chiasms isn’t really all the difficult, even when you are simply sitting down and reading the psalm. In the paragraph I have provided an example from the most recent Psalm I preached.
• Repetition. When you notice a line repeated in a psalm (like we saw in Psalm 42-43), this acts like an English chorus (a line repeated throughout the song). This is rarer than chiasm, but many psalms have them. This is a main idea of the song.
• Superscription. The superscription is the first line of a psalm that was added later and is not, properly speaking, part of the text of the song. I believe the superscriptions are inspired. I also believe they are important for identifying the background of a song. Some are quite detailed (like Psalm 57’s, “To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave”). Others are very basic (like Psalm 143’s “A Psalm of David”). Both help put the song in a context, and sometimes that context means you need to go to other places in the Bible to better understand what’s going on. In the case of Psalm 57, you need to read 1 Samuel 24. In the case of a simple Davidic song, just remember that this means the song is coming from the hand of the king.
• First and last verses. Since every Psalm has a first and last verse, look at these for clues as to the what the rest of the psalm will answer. A good and simple example of this is the Hallelujah psalms at the end of the book (Ps 146-150). Each of these psalms begins and ends with the word “Hallelujah” (in Hebrew). In between, you learn the reasons why you are to “praise the LORD.” Another example is a song we just looked at. “As the Deer…” (cited in the previous post) begins Psalm 42. This is its first verse. It is actually a very meaningful verse, integral to the song as a whole. The last verse also happens to be the chorus. So here we have two of our ideas in understanding the point of a song. When put together, suddenly, it is clear that this isn’t a mere sentiment the psalmist is giving you, but a deep act of faith that becomes the longing of his heart during great trials and suffering.

After looking for the main point(s) of a song, it is time to move onto the next phase of reading the Psalms, which is learning to read them beyond a rag-tag collection of randomly jumbled together songs. We will look at this in the next installment.

[1] I’ve used three main online resources in my preaching through the Psalms here. First, Robert Alden’s three-part series on chiasms in the psalms published several decades ago in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (Psalms 1-50, Psalms 51-100, Psalms 101-150). Second, a blogger named Christine who has done some tremendous work on chiastic psalms. Third, the Biblical Chiasm Exchange.

How to Read the Psalms (Series): Part I of IV

 

(by: Doug Van Dorn)

The other day, someone asked me, “How should I read the Psalms?” I thought, that’s a good question, and given that I’m wrapping up a two-year series in them, it’s one that I think I’m able to answer better than I was before. This will be a four part series, and I’ll keep each post fairly short. This shouldn’t be rocket science.

So how should you read the Psalms? The first thought that came to my mind is that this is a different question than, “How should I study the Psalms?” Reading something vs. studying it are very different activities. In their famous 1940 book, How to Read a Book, Adler and Van Doren (no relation), following a quote from Francis Bacon, explain that there are four levels of reading any book. Using the illustration of eating, they suggest you can taste, swallow, chew, and digest it.[1] Each stage commits you to a more thorough reading such that by the end you really are studying more than reading.

Thus, if you want to read the Psalms, you have to first decide what level of reading you are committing yourself to.

• Do you want to merely taste it? This includes recognizing words, scanning the sentences, etc.? This is the most basic level of reading.
• Do you want to chew it? Here we do things like inspecting, skimming, pre-reading, learning the structure, taking notes, even memorizing. This is the level of starting to make the words your own.
• Do you want to swallow it? Now you begin to analyze, thoroughly read, figure out the plot, the unity, the author’s intent, the author’s message, and read the author fairly instead of importing your own “meaning.” This level begins to include other aids such as commentaries, journals, dictionaries, etc.
• Do you want to digest it? This kind of reading is where you get into the nitty gritty of the heavy demands of trying to understand the context, the culture, the language, how it fits in with other related texts in the Bible, and so on.

My suggestion is, at the very least, you want to commit to the second level of reading (“chewing”), where you are ruminating on the words rather than just letting your eyes glaze blurry over the text. (For more on this, I highly recommend Adler and Van Doren’s book, as the art of even basic reading is something that has been lost in our day to many people.)

In the next installment, we’ll begin to look at some specifics I’ve used when going through the psalms.

 

[1] I’ve rearranged the middle two.

In Praise of Old Guys: Coming Soon!

Readers of the Decablog probably assume we just forgot about the blog altogether, but we’ve actually been busy writing a book. In Praise of Old Guys will be released on April 20th at wrathandgrace.com or amazon.com.