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  • The Book of Psalms. It's a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and

  • prayers that come from all different periods in Israel's history. Many of

  • these poems are connected with King David-- 73, actually. And he was known as a

  • poet and a harp player. But there are many different authors behind these poems.

  • There's the poems of Asaph, or from the sons of Korah, and some from other

  • worship leaders in the temple. Even Solomon and Moses have their own poems and nearly

  • one third of these are anonymous.

  • Now many of these poems came to be used by the choirs that sang in Israel's

  • temple. But the Book of Psalms is actually not a hymn book. At some point in the

  • period after Israel's exile to Babylon, these ancient poems were gathered

  • together and intentionally arranged into the Book of Psalms before us. And it has

  • a very unique design and message that you're not gonna notice unless you read

  • it from beginning to end. Now to see how the Book of Psalms is designed, it's actually most

  • helpful to start at the end. The book concludes with five poems of praise to

  • the God of Israel and each one begins and ends with the word "hallelujah," which

  • is Hebrew for a command to tell a group of people to praise "Yah," which is short

  • for the divine name Yahweh. Now that's a really nice five-part

  • arrangement and it looks like someone's giving us a conclusion here to the book.

  • So it invites the question, "does the book have any other signs of intentional

  • design?" If you pay attention to the headings of the poems, you'll notice that at five

  • places your Bible translators have the heading "book one," "book two," "book three," "four,"

  • and "five" at various points and that these divide the book into five large

  • sections. Now the reason for this is that the final poem in each of those sections

  • have a very similar ending that looks like an editorial addition. It reads

  • something like, "May the LORD, the God of Israel, be blessed forever and ever, amen

  • and amen." So the book has a conclusion, it has an internal organization into

  • five main parts and so the natural place to go from here is now the beginning-- to

  • look for an introduction. And what do we find? Psalm 1 and 2,

  • which stand outside of Book One because most of the poems in Book One are linked

  • to David except Psalms 1 and 2, which are anonymous.

  • Psalm 1 celebrates how blessed the person is who meditates on the Torah,

  • prayerfully reading it day and night and then obeying it. Now the word "Torah," it simply

  • means "teaching" and more specifically it came to refer to the five books of Moses

  • that begin the Old Testament. And here actually, the word seems to be used with

  • both meanings in mind, which explains why it has five main parts. The Book of Psalms

  • is being offered as a new Torah that will teach God's people the lifelong

  • practice of prayer as they strive to obey God's commands given in the first

  • Torah. Psalm 2 is a poetic reflection on God's promise to King David from 2nd

  • Samuel chapter 7 that one day a Messianic King would come and establish

  • God's kingdom over the world, defeat evil and rebellion among the nations. Now Psalm 2

  • concludes by saying that all of those who take refuge in the Messianic King

  • will be blessed, precisely the word used to open Psalm 1. And so together these

  • two poems tell us that the Book of Psalms is designed to be the prayer book

  • of God's people as they strive to be faithful to the commands of the Torah as

  • they hope and wait for the future Messianic Kingdom. Now with these two

  • themes introduced, we can start to see how the smaller books have been designed

  • as well around these two ideas. So for example, Book One has, right at the center,

  • a collection of poems, Psalms 15 through 24, that opens and closes with a call to

  • covenant faithfulness. And then, in Psalms 16 to18, we find a depiction

  • of David as a model of this kind of faithfulness. So he calls out to God to

  • deliver him and God elevates him as King. Now in the corresponding set of poems

  • Psalms 20-23, the David of the past has become an image of the Messianic King of

  • the future, who will also call out to God, he will be delivered, and then given a

  • kingdom over the nations. And then right at the center of this collection is a poem,

  • Psalm 19, dedicated to praising God for the Torah. So here we go: the two themes

  • from Psalm 1 and 2 are bound together

  • tightly here. Book Two opens with two poems that are united in their hope for a future

  • return to the temple in Zion and this is the image closely associated with the

  • hope of the Messianic Kingdom. Then Book Two closes with a poem that

  • depicts the future reign of the Messianic King over all of the nations.

  • This poem's really amazing because it echoes all these other passages from

  • the prophets about the Messianic Kingdom and it concludes by saying that this

  • king's reign will bring about the fulfillment of God's ancient promise to Abraham to

  • bring God's blessing to all of the nation's. Book Three also concludes with a

  • poem reflecting on God's promise to David, but this time in light of Israel's

  • exile. So the poet remembers how God said he would never abandon the line of David

  • but now he's looking at Israel's rebellion in its result and destruction

  • and exile and the downfall of the line of David. And so the poet ends by asking God

  • to never forget his promise to David. Book Four is designed to respond to this

  • crisis of exile. So the opening poem returns us back to Israel's roots with a

  • prayer of Moses and he does what he did on Mount Sinai after the Golden Calf

  • incident, which is to call upon God to show mercy. The center of Book Four is

  • dominated by a group of poems that announced that the LORD, the God of

  • Israel, reigns as the true king of the world and all creation-- trees, mountains,

  • rivers-- are all summoned to celebrate that future day when God will bring his

  • justice and kingdom over all the world. Book Five opens with a series of poems

  • that affirmed that God hears the cries of his people and will one day send the

  • future king to defeat evil and bring God's kingdom.This book also contains

  • two larger collections, one called the "hallel", the other called "the songs of

  • ascent." Each one of these collections concludes with a poem about the future

  • Messianic Kingdom. And these two collections together, they sustain the

  • hope for a future exodus-like act of God to redeem his people. And then, right

  • between them is Psalm 119. It's the longest poem in the book. It's an alphabet poem, each

  • line begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it explores the

  • wonder and the

  • gift of the Torah as God's Word to his people. So here we go.

  • The themes from Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 and Torah and Messiah combined all together here in

  • Book Five. Which brings us all the way back to that five-poem conclusion. In

  • the center poem, Psalm 148, all creation is summoned to praise the God of Israel

  • because he has "raised up a horn for his people." Now the horn here, is a

  • metaphor of a bull's horn raised in victory. And this image

  • echoes back to the same image used in Hannah's song, 1Samuel chapter 2, but

  • also to the earlier Psalm 132. The horn is a symbol for the

  • future Messianic King and his victory over evil. It's a fitting conclusion to this

  • amazing book. Now here's one more thing that you are likely going to miss if you

  • don't read this book in order.

  • There's lots of different kinds of poems in the book of Psalms but they all

  • basically fall into two big categories-- either poems of lament or poems of

  • praise. Poems of lament expressed pain, confusion, and anger about how horrible

  • the world is and how horrible things are happening to the poet and so these poems

  • draw attention to what's wrong in the world and they ask God to do something

  • about it. There's a lot of these in the book, which tells us something important--

  • that lament is an appropriate response to the evil that we see in our world. But

  • what you'll notice is that lament poems predominate earlier in the book, in books

  • 1 through 3. Pay attention because you'll see praise poems occasionally too. Praise

  • poems are poems of joy and celebration and they draw attention to what's good

  • in the world. They retell stories of what God has done in our lives and thank God

  • for it. In Books Four and Five you'll notice that praise poems come to

  • outnumber lament poems and it all culminates in that five-part hallelujah conclusion.

  • So this shift from lament to praise, this is profound, and it tells us something

  • about the nature of prayer. As we hoped for the Messianic Kingdom, as the book

  • teaches us to do, this will create tension for us as we look out on the

  • tragic state of our world and of our lives. And so the psalms teach us not to

  • ignore the pain of our lives but at the same time,

  • Biblical faith is forward-looking-- looking to the promise of God's future

  • Messianic Kingdom. And so Torah and Messiah, lament and praise, faith and

  • hope. That's what the Book of Psalms is all about.

The Book of Psalms. It's a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and

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