Sola Survey: “How to Read the Psalms.”
When was the last time you sat down and enjoyed a collection of poetry? Most of us think we spend little-to-no time reading poems, yet the psalms remain a favorite section of Scripture for Christians everywhere—and they are, in fact, poetry. And despite the frequency with which we enter this beloved book, few of us have gained the skills needed to read the psalms effectively. Given our neglect of this literary form, it helps to learn from a seasoned guide such as Dr. Tremper Longman. In his book How to Read the Psalms, Longman provides us a compact introduction to approaching these transformative texts. Just shy of 150 pages, How to Read the Psalms will serve new and longtime Bible readers alike, providing new insights and quick reminders for those eager to embark into Israel’s hymnbook.
Principles of Bible Study.
Underlying any method of studying the Bible are fundamental beliefs that, when adopted, will guide a student’s study of Scripture. Here are several key principles we found in How to Read the Psalms.
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In discussions on the literary genre of biblical books, the Psalms often find themselves listed within the broad category of “poetry.” Dr. Longman, however, explains that there are at least seven different types, or “sub-genres,” of psalms in Scripture. The ones mentioned in How to Read the Psalms are: hymns; laments; thanksgivings; psalms of confidence; psalms of remembrance; wisdom psalms; and kingship psalms. Below are some of the key characteristics found in each of these sub-genres:
Hymns1. Call to worship
2. Reasons for praise
3. Additional calls to praise
Laments
1. Invocation
2. Plea to God for help
3. Complaint
4. Confession or sin (or assertion of innocence)
5. Curse of enemies
6. Confidence in God’s response
7. Blessing
Thanksgiving
1. Call to worship
2. Restatement of the lament
3. Account of God’s salvation
Psalms of confidence
1. Asserts trust in God
2. Uses striking metaphors
Psalms of remembrance
In these Psalms, God’s former acts are recounted, as Israel is invited to praise their true King for his mighty work.
Wisdom Psalms
These psalms focus on a contrast between two ways of life, each of which results in a different set of consequences.
Kingship psalms
There are two types of kingship psalms: those focused on Israel’s human king and those extolling God’s rule and reign.
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Exploring how the psalms originally showed up in Israel’s life, Longman claims “most of the evidence for their primary use points to public worship.” They were “sung as part of Israel’s formal worship,” the hymnal for God’s people to use together. This does not, however, relegate the psalms exclusively to public use. They were likely used, Longman adds, in the “private worship of devout Israelites.”
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Longman refers to the Psalms as a “Covenant Book,” noting that “the psalmists speak out of the context of covenant. These are people who speak to God and about God on the basis of being in a covenant relationship with him.” We misread the Psalms if we disconnect them from their relational context, in which God’s people speak to God on the basis of the covenant already established between them. Likewise, when we as contemporary readers open the psalms, we find that we’re only able to pray these prayers if we also participate in a covenant with God through Christ.
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Because Jesus is “the focus of the Bible as a whole,” Longman views all the psalms as ‘messianic,’ if that means they are “psalm[s] which anticipate the Messiah.” He does not think it’s particularly helpful, however, to classify particular psalms as ‘messianic’ in a narrower, technical sense. All the psalms, Longman believes, are messianic in their anticipation of a Messiah; none of the psalms are exclusively messianic in focusing solely on the Messiah and bearing no significance for their original audience.
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As poetry, the psalms function, Longman proposes, as a “mirror of the soul,” reflecting ourselves back to us in theological ways. Here we meet the entire range of human emotion, set within an Israelite’s prayers to God. The psalms “appeal to our intellects, wills, and emotions,” addressing every sphere of our personhood. Rightly understood, all of Scripture impacts these three domains, but Longman emphasizes the psalms’ particular ability to shape our whole person given their literary form. Poems, filled with vivid imagery and muscial cadence, enter our souls in ways prose normally won’t. God encounters us in the psalms, then, in a different way than in the books of Numbers or Romans.
Practices of Bible Study.
Alongside the principles and pitfalls of Bible Study explored in How to Read the Psalms, Dr. Longman also provides several skills we can develop to increase our Bible literacy. This goal of this list is not to be comprehensive but to identify the skills in the book we found most helpful.
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As mentioned earlier, the psalms contain at least seven different sub-genres, each of which bear their own unique literary features. Once we’ve classified the particular psalm we’re studying, we can ask one of the following questions to deepen our understanding, depending on the sub-genre within which it fits:
Hymns: What reasons for praising God does the psalmist provide?
Laments: What is the specific complaint brought before God by the psalmist?
Thanksgivings: What specific lament is the psalmist giving thanks
Psalms of confidence: What metaphors does the psalmist use to display his trust in God?
Psalms of remembrance: Which of God’s redemptive acts are recounted by the psalmist?
Wisdom psalms: How does the psalmist describe the two contrasting ways of life?
Kingship psalms: How does the psalmist speak of the king (human or divine)?
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Many psalms feature authorship and historical titles, brief introductions to the author or event-specific setting for the psalm. These titles, however, should be seen as “noncanonical, but reliable early tradition” according to Longman. Because he considers these later additions to the text, Longman advises that we let the title “initially inform the reading of a psalm” without ever “bend[ing] the interpretation of a psalm unnaturally to make it conform to the title.” One of the unique features of the psalms are their historic ambiguity, stripped of any details that would indicate the time of their writing, allowing them to be sung by any of God’s people in a variety of circumstances.
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Longman refers to The ‘I Wills’ of the Psalms, a book in which Philip Power identifies the numerous times when various psalmists declare “I will.” From these statements, Longman suggests we might learn “how we should behave toward God by [the psalmists’] example.” While Longman reminds us to consider the psalm’s context before taking up any “I will” on our lips, he offers this practice as a way the psalms might shape how we relate to God, ourselves, and others.
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A major feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism. A complete parallelism is called a “line,” and each line contains between one and four “poetic phrases.” The layout of most English Bibles make it easy to visualize these “phrases,” as they’re often set on separate lines and indented. When studying Hebrew poetry, it can be helpful to classify the type of parallelism used, since doing so forces us to wrestle with the words more. Listed below are the seven types of parallelism mentioned by Longman.
Synonymous: the same thought repeated with slightly different words
Antithetic: the same thought expressed from opposite perspectives
Synthetic: the completion of the first phrase by the second phrase
Emblematic: a simile that uses an image from life to make a didactic or theological comparison
Repetitive: a phrase is partially repeated, but the idea is carried further than in synonymous parallelism
Pivot pattern: two phrases are connected by a central word or clause
Chiasm: symmetrical pattern where AB is followed by BA (AB, BA)
Identifying which category best fits a given line of Hebrew poetry isn’t necessary in and of itself. The task of classifying a parallelism’s type makes us more attuned to the line’s features, helping us better answer the important question: What does this line mean?
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Within the Psalms we find at least three types of images: personifications in which human features and actions are ascribed to God or inanimate objects; similes in which two or more things are compared using the words like or as; and metaphors in which an image stands in for a subject. When we come across such images in the psalms, we want to find both the dissimilarity and similarity between the image and its subject. Asking these three questions can help us do so:
1. What subject does the image represent?
2. In what ways is the image dissimilar to the subject it represents?
3. In what ways is the image similar to the subject it represents?
Take Psalm 18:2 as an example. Here we find several moving images, such as a “rock,” “fortress,” “shield,” and “horn of salvation.” We see that God is the subject these images represent (”The LORD is my rock”; etc.). These images are dissimilar from their subject in that they are all physical, while God is spirit. In what ways, then, do they accurately represent God; how are they similar? Each of the images can be associated with the idea of protection and deliverance, themes the psalmist attributes to God throughout the song. These images lend their poetic, imaginative power to intensify the idea—God is Israel’s place of protection, her source of deliverance.
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While Dr. Longman doesn’t mention this practice explicitly, it naturally flows from the Psalms’ role in Israel’s public worship. Together with your children, spouse, roommate, or neighbor, try reading the psalms out loud on a regular basis. Filling our homes and communities with these God inspired poems will teach us and those in our lives the rich and diverse language of prayer modeled by the psalmists. Meals and bedtime are excellent opportunities to incorporate this practice into a daily rhythm.
Singing to Jesus with Israel.
The psalms are a songbook for God’s people, the inspired guide for communing with our covenant-keeping King. Dr. Longman encourages us to take these prayers on our lips, singing them with Israel’s faithful, echoing the choruses with newfound insight—looking back, rather than ahead, to our Messiah’s arrival. Jesus sang the psalms; now we sing them, not just with him, but to him. David’s Son is both the subject and object of these prayers, voices lifting to enthrone and entrust themselves to this singing Savior. Studying the psalms rigorously empowers us to pray them more faithfully, more fully. As our understanding expands so do our hearts, opening the door of intimacy and faith, drawing our souls into the invisible sanctuary where God’s people never stop praising their praise-deserving Rock (Ps. 18:2), Shepherd (Ps. 23:1) and Healer (Ps. 30:2).