Psalms Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics

Fore-words

In the first volume in this series, which seeks to read the Old Testament (OT) both forward (in its original contexts) and backwards (in light of the Christ event and of the use of the OT by the earliest Christians), we studied Isaiah at some length.[1] We are focusing in these studies on the portions of the OT most often quoted, alluded to, or echoed in the NT, and trying to understand why these particular texts were so important to the earliest Christians, especially as they proceeded to articulate their understanding of Christ, his person and work, and of his ekklēsia, Jew and gentiles united in Christ.

On the one hand, since all the earliest followers of Jesus were Jews, it is easy to understand why the OT was overwhelmingly the sacred source for their reflection on Christ, but why did their reflections often go beyond (and in different creative directions), what the original authors seem to have focused on? On the other hand, why only these texts? Why, for example, is there almost no mention of Job or any use of the rich material in the book of Job in the New Testament (NT), when the NT texts are so full of reflection on suffering, especially the suffering of Christ and his followers? Why is there so frequent a turning not only to Isaiah but to the Psalms, again and again and again? This in turn leads to the question, What exactly do the Psalms and Isaiah have in common that they were the go to texts for the earliest Christians as they tried to understand and articulate the Christ event and its impact?

In the first volume in this series I made the following suggestions: (1) the Psalter and Isaiah (especially Second and Third Isaiah) share in common the fact that they are poetry, exalted sacred poetry, and (2) as poetry their language partakes of all the characteristics of poetry: rhythm, rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and the creative use of metaphor, images, and the like. The language of analogy is to the fore, again and again and again, and not just any kinds of analogies but analogies, particularly in the Psalms, that draw on some of the most common human experiences‒‒trials, tribulations, suffering, rescue‒‒as experiences in both the present and the future. While historical context is all-important in understanding a good deal of Isaiah, more generic human context and experience are critical in understanding many of the Psalms. Yes, there are Psalms linked to specific experiences, such as those of David when he was confronted by Nathan about Bathsheba. But most of the Psalms are not like that, and most of the uses of the Psalms in the NT, especially to articulate the Christ event, draw on the broader sort of psalm material.

To be clear, Isaiah is prophecy in poetic form, whereas the Psalms are songs in poetic form. The Psalms, by genre, are not inherently prophecy, by which I mean, they are not oracular speech from God’s lips to the prophet’s ears; nor are they visionary speech, though occasionally there is a quoted oracle included in a song. This is not to say that the songs could not be interpreted prophetically, and indeed the Psalms were, because in fact the earliest Christians saw all of the OT as prophetic of the Christ event in the broad sense of the term prophetic. That is, it all foreshadowed, even if it did not all foretell, the coming of the Messiah, and in their view, like John the Baptist, it prepared the way for his coming in one way or another.

In fact, the Psalter is rather unique in the OT in its being a revelation of the human heart poured out to God in sung prayer. The Psalter is not just any kind of songbook, it is a sacred songbook of praise, thanksgiving, lament, celebration, and pilgrimage in which God is addressed again and again. St. Athanasius was on the right path in suggesting that while prophecy reveals the character of God as he speaks to us, the Psalms reveal the true character of humankind and of the human heart as we speak to God.

This explains one of the conundrums that has puzzled expositors of the Psalms over many ages, namely, why do we have things like the imprecatory psalms urging God to smash the heads of the Edomite babies on the rocks (Psalm 137)? The answer is, the Psalms are a true revelation of the human heart always, but the human heart is not always in accord with the character, nature, and plan of God. Yes, the Psalter does at times reveal God’s character and will as mirrored in the human heart, but it always reflects with transparency and clarity the intricacies of the human heart.[2] We must never forget this fact as we work through the Psalms and their use in the NT. If we use it and the insights already mentioned above in this study, we will be on the right path to understanding.

Furthermore, the Psalms are indeed songs, and as songs they speak to and from the affective side of human nature, showing forth the whole gamut of human emotions. Music reaches and speaks for the parts of human nature that are not merely cognitive. Studying the lyrics to songs as if they were literal theological treatises is a mistake, and yet many commentators on the Psalms over the ages have fallen into this trap.[3] This is not because there are no profound thoughts to be found in the Psalms. It is because too often we ignore the very genre or character of the Psalms, which are so full of dramatic hyperbole. Nothing is more discouraging and deadening than watching someone attempt a literal reading of figurative language. But that of course was not the intent of the psalmist in the first place, and fortunately the earliest Christians knew this. They do not ponder how exactly the hills might skip like rams when theophany happens, or whether literally God’s nose burned as the Hebrew suggests when he waxed wroth. The Psalms were read and spoken and sung, and must be approached with full sensitivity to the kind of literature they are: lyric poetry. So let us see if we can still hear the music, though we don’t know the tunes anymore. Let us see if we can still be caught up in love and wonder and praise, as were the original psalmists, and find out why these very texts transfixed and transfigured the earliest Christians.[4]

A final word of caution is in order before we begin, since most of my readers are Christians. Walter Brueggemann has rightly warned about certain tendencies on the part of Christians to gloss over or ignore the darkness in the Psalms, and other parts of the Bible. He stresses:

Much Christian piety and spirituality is romantic and unreal in its positiveness. As children of the Enlightenment, we have censored and selected around the voice of darkness and disorientation, seeking to go from strength to strength, from victory to victory. But such a way not only ignores the Psalms; it is a lie in terms of our experience. Brevard S. Childs is no doubt right in seeing that the Psalms as a canonical book is finally an act of hope. But the hope is rooted precisely in the midst of loss and darkness, where God is surprisingly present. The Jewish reality of exile, the Christian confession of crucifixion and cross, the honest recognition that there is untamed darkness in our life that must be embraced—all of that is fundamental to the gift of new life.[5]

Brueggemann is warning us that our rather gnostic and all too postmodern approach to the Psalms as Christians is in danger of glossing over the most prevalent theme in the Psalms, namely, lament, which comes out of crisis. But if we do that we will not understand, for example, why Jesus said, My God, my God why have you forsaken me, quoting the beginning of Psalm 22, and not any of the rest of it. Too much of Christian piety today ignores the old warning of William Penn, written when he was suffering in the Tower of London in 1682: No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.[6]

A detailed study of the Psalms, old and new, can help us not only by correcting for our blind spots, but by reminding us that life, including devout Christian life, involves both tragedy and triumph, and the Psalms again and again tell us that we must go through, not around the darkness, in order to reach the dawn. In the end, even Psalm 23, so beloved by Christians, would not be able to help us much had the psalmist never walked through the valley of deep darkness before he dwelt in the house of the Lord forever.

No one knew better that the Psalms were honest about both the darkness and light of life than an English soldier who was incarcerated during World War II in a Nazi concentration camp. This soldier had been praying fervently, with the help of the Psalms, for direction and help from God. He had prayed that God would show him how he might get beyond his current situation so that he might serve him fulltime in some sort of ministry. He had been reading one of the rescue psalms, in this case Psalm 91, and asked God to show him what to do to get out of prison. In prayer, he says, he heard God tell him, you live under the protection of the Most High (Ps 91:1). He felt led to use that phrase to extricate himself from the horrors of the death camp.

One day he walked up to the guard at the inner gate and was asked where he was going. He replied: I am under the protection of the Most High. Unbeknownst to most of the prisoners, Hitler was regularly called by the title the Most High, so when the guard heard the prisoner say this, he stood to attention and let the man pass. The man arrived at the outer gate to the prison and followed the same routine, saying, I am under the protection of the Most High, and again the guards came to attention and let the man pass. For a long time he wandered through the countryside of Germany until he finally made his way back to England. The recitation of Psalm 91 had set him free.[7]

My hope is that those who read this book will arrive at new or renewed appreciation for the power and beauty of the Psalms, and perhaps, by studying and ruminating on the Psalms, even something liberating will happen.

Eastertide 2017

Ben Witherington III, Isaiah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017). ↵

This is precisely why Calvin, in the first paragraph of his Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms, says, I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, ‘An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul’ for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated. The other parts of Scripture contain the commandments that God enjoined his servants to announce to us. But here the prophets themselves, seeing they are exhibited to us as speaking to God, and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particulars in order that none of the many infirmities to which we are subject, and of the many vices with which we abound, may remain concealed. It is certainly a rare and singular advantage, when all lurking places are discovered, and the heart is brought into the light, purged from that most baneful infection, hypocrisy. John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, vol. 1, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.vi.html. ↵

Notice the warning of even so conservative a commentator as Tremper Longman III, Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 9: It is crucial to note that the book of Psalms is not a theological textbook, but rather the libretto of the most vibrant worship imaginable. ↵

In fact the followers of Jesus seem to have been some of the first to speak of a Book of Psalms as a distinct entity; see Luke 20:42 and Acts 1:20. ↵

Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms, Facets (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), xii. ↵

William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (London, 1682). ↵

This is a story that Corrie Ten Boom often told in her speaking tours. I was fortunate enough to hear her in North Carolina in the 1960s and in New England in the 1970s when she was on one of her last tours. As for Psalm 91, see ch. 6, below. ↵

1

Tuning Up

An Introduction to the Psalter

We now have before us one of the choicest parts of the Old Testament, wherein there is so much of Christ and his Gospel, as well as of God and his Law, that it has been called the summary of both Testaments . . . this book brings us into the sanctuary, draws us off from converse with men, with the philosophers or disputers of this world, and directs us into communion with God.

‒‒John Wesley[1]

For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

‒‒C. S. Lewis[2]

It is an interesting fact that while the study of prophecy, for instance of the book of Isaiah, has involved all sorts of scholarly debates and disagreements about the nature of prophecy (e.g., debates about the character of the oracles, whether they are in any sense predictive of the future or not, whether pseudonymous prophecy should really be considered prophecy or just history masked as prophecy), when it comes to the study of the Psalter, there has in fact been a rather clear consensus of most scholars as to what kind or genre of material the Psalms are. Ever since the landmark studies of Hermann Gunkel, who analyzed the psalms according to literary type or genre, and then Sigmund Mowinckel, who tied the types of psalms to their various uses in worship, scholars have been in agreement that we are dealing with the poetic lyrics to songs. This is Hebrew poetry that was used in Israelite worship, and particularly in worship in the temple in Jerusalem as well as elsewhere.[3] In short, we are dealing with a form of literature, some would say wisdom literature, that is different in kind and function from prophecy, even though it shares a poetic character with prophecy such as we find in most of Isaiah. It is thus important that we set up our discussion of particular texts with a general orientation to the kind of material we will be examining.[4]

The Recital: Reviewing the Sheet Music

The Greek term ψαλμός refers to a striking of instrumental strings, and in fact the Latin term psalter refers to the stringed instrument itself in the first instance. The Hebrew term, however, that is translated by that Greek word in the LXX, namely מִזְמוֹר (mizmôr), means praises, specifically melodic sung praises. The traditional title for the book in Hebrew was sepher tehellim, book of praises. Both terms make quite clear that we are not simply dealing with ordinary prayers; rather we are dealing with music, which in various cases involves sung prayers. But we ignore the musical side of the equation at our peril.[5] That we are dealing with music should be evident from the musical directions and cues we find from time to time as parts of the prescripts to various psalms.

Some 116 of the 150 psalms in the book contain some sort of prescript and various of them are directions given to the choir director or musician in charge of performing the psalm. For example, Psalm 67 says to the leader, with stringed instruments, or Psalm 69 says to the leader, according to the lilies (which presumably is a particular tune). Some of the psalms are of course connected with a famous figure, usually a king, such as David or Solomon (Psalms 72, 127), but since the Hebrew construction "le Dawid can mean for David, by David, or about David," we cannot always be sure which of these are being attributed to David as the composer of the psalm, though it is probable that several of them were originally composed by him (e.g., Psalm 23, Psalms 51–53?).[6]

Probably, Longman is right in suggesting that there are sufficient reasons to believe that the [final] editors did intend . . . to attribute authorship.[7] Certainly, the historical titles indicate that the early editors took the phrase that way. There are thirteen psalms, all connected to David, that have a historical title (Psalms 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63, and 142). The title of Psalm 18 is particularly noteworthy, since it speaks explicitly of David’s writing activity.[8] This is not quite correct, because what that prescript actually says is that David sang the words of this song to the Lord when he was delivered from his enemies.

There is indeed a considerable body of evidence that David was a musician (cf. 1 Sam 16:15–23; 2 Sam 1:17–27; 23:1–7; 1 Chr 6:31; 15:16; 16:7–36; 25:1; 2 Chr 29:30; Ezra 3:10; Neh 12:24–27; Psalm 18; 2 Samuel 22; Amos 6:5). What this suggests is that David is the one who started the tradition of writing sacred songs, and some of his original ones were kept and included in the book of Psalms, and presumably others added to this Davidic tradition later. (For example, some of the psalms that have David’s name in the prescript also speak of temple worship, which happened after his time.)

Bernhard W. Anderson is worth quoting at this juncture:

Even on critical grounds . . . the association of David with the Psalter is substantially valid. There was an ancient tradition to which the prophet Amos appealed in the eight century B.C. (Amos 6.5) that David was skillful with the lyre. It was this skill which brought him into the court of Saul, according to a well-known story (1 Samuel 16.14-23). Moreover, David gave great impetus to Israel’s worship by bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6) and by laying plans for the building of the temple (2 Samuel 7). Further, there must be some truth in the view expressed in the relatively late Chronicler’s history that David sponsored the composition of psalms and was active in organizing the music and liturgy of Israel’s worship (1 Chronicles 13-29). In light of all this it may be assumed that embedded in the Psalter are poems or poetic fragments actually composed by David or by those in his court.[9]

But clearly, there are many other contributors to this hymnbook, noting the psalms associated with Jeduthun (Psalms 39, 62, 77), Moses (Psalm 90), the sons of Korah (Psalms 42–49, 84, 85, 87, 88), Asaph (Psalms 50, 73–83), Heman the Ezrahite (Psalm 88), and Ethan the Ezrahite (Psalm 89). These latter three names are the names of musicians, and they are listed first among the musicians in 1 Chronicles 15:17 who presented sacred music when the ark of the covenant was brought up to Jerusalem. According to 1 Chronicles 6:31–47, these three were in charge of music first at the tabernacle and then at the temple once Solomon built it (1 Chr 6:31–47).

First Chronicles 16:7 also implies that Asaph was in charge of temple music, and the one who accepted a psalm of David for use in worship. Asaph would later be remembered in Hezekiah’s day as more than a musician (as a seer; see 2 Chr 29:30), and in fact some of his psalms include divine oracles (Psalms 50, 75, 81–82). Note as well that his descendants were apparently involved in Second Temple worship (Ezra 2:41; 3:10; Neh 11:22; 12:46). Possibly that family became the keepers and passers-on of the psalms from the preexilic period to the postexilic period. It may have been a family tradition.[10]

It is important to bear in mind that the Psalms, unlike various other parts of the OT, served four functions at once: (1) as material for singing in the temple and elsewhere; (2) as Scripture to be read in the temple and later in the synagogue (and memorized); (3) as prayers that could be recited privately or in corporate worship; and (4) as a source for teaching and preaching. Neither the Pentateuch nor the Prophets could serve as many different purposes as the Psalms did.[11] Furthermore, none of the material in the NT seems to have been as multifunctional as the Psalms either, with the possible exception of the christological hymns such as we find in Philippians 2:5–11.[12] In their current forms, however, all these psalms, whatever their origins, have been adopted and adapted for worship. Furthermore, there is evidence of their having been edited into several collections, and then finally into one large compilation of these collections.

The final form of the canonical book of Psalms involves five books:

Book 1: Psalms 1–41;

Book 2: Psalms 42–72;

Book 3: Psalms 73–89;

Book 4: Psalms 90–106; and

Book 5: Psalms 107–150.

It is not clear whether the material was divided into five books based on the precedent of the Pentateuch, but it is possible. That there is overlap in these collections (cf. Psalms 14 and 53, though with different Hebrew terms for God in each) has made clear to scholars that originally there were several separate collections that got combined at some late stage, probably in the postexilic period, into one large hymnbook. In this regard, the process that produced the Psalms is much like the process that has produced denominational hymnbooks in the modern era as well.

Of the collections within the Psalms, scholars have identified the following:

Davidic psalms: Psalms 3–41; 51–72; 138–45;

Korahite psalms: Psalms 42–49; 84–85; 87–88;

Elohistic psalms (i.e., psalms in which God is called Elohim): Psalms 42–83;

Asaph (a choir director and/or major composer of songs) collection: Psalms 73–83; and

the Songs of Ascents, or Pilgrimage Psalms for traveling to Jerusalem: Psalms 120–134.

The conclusion of Walter Brueggemann and W. H. Bellinger about all this is worth quoting: It is fair to say that the Davidic collections form the core of the book of Psalms, and these psalms are primarily the prayers of individuals. The psalms of the Korahites and of Asaph add community prayers and begin the move toward more psalms of praise, a move that continues in books IV–V (probably the later books added to the collection).[13] Anderson rightly points out that the notice at the end of Psalm 72—the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended—probably means that at some early stage this was the original end of a particular collection of psalms. It is interesting that this notice was left in the collection when more materials from a Davidic collection were added after this notice (e.g., Psalms 108–10 and 138–45).[14] The evidence of compilations of songs in various stages is rather clear. This process may have been brought to some sort of closure well before the Herodian temple was built, because otherwise it is hard to account for the overall similarity of content and order between the MT and the LXX, save of course for Psalm 151 in the LXX.[15]