An Introduction to the Psalms and a study of Psalm 1
- mww
- 2 days ago
- 19 min read
The Psalms are more than a hymnal; they are God's aid to us to speak about Him rightly and express ourselves to Him rightly.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Psalm 1
Psalm 1 is an apt introduction to the Book of Psalms, one of the most amazing divine-human compositions in history. Psalm 1 tells us that there are two ways to live -- by the wisdom of God's Word, and by the mockery of the wicked world. (There's one right choice.) By this, we are warned that the Psalms aren't just a book of poems but a picture of God's truth.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, (1:6)
When We Studied Psalm 1 in 2017
I'm pleased to say that most of the psalms we study this quarter are not what we studied in 2017! (Yes, that's a backhanded compliment.) But we did study Psalm 1 before:
There, I offer:
Our favorite songs
The company we keep
Trees in ancient Israel
Streams in the desert
Hebrew music and poetry
If you need more than what I give below, there's a source for you.
Getting Started: Things to Think About
Poetry Contest
We're starting the Book of Psalms, so let's show off how bad we are at writing! Keep it simple. Offer a basic prompt, then tell them to write a limerick, a haiku, or a poem to the tune of Amazing Grace. Then y'all judge one another's composition skills. What could go wrong?
Another possibility is the famous "Three-Headed Opera Star" from Whose Line Is It Anyway? Give your group a prompt, then have each person contribute one word to the poem about that prompt. If you don't give any rules about the kind of poem, it's much funnier because no one knows what anyone else is trying to do.
Famous Poems
To be more serious, bring in your favorite poem. Mine would be Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (which is breathtaking). Close behind it is The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. Here's a reference -- 20 Famous Poems That Everyone Should Read at Least Once -- if you need it. (Sadly, that list doesn't include Casey at the Bat by Earnest Lawrence Thayer.)
The point? Appreciate poetry! And to get you thinking like a reader of poetry, not history.
Translating Poetry
This last idea would take some preparation. Take one of your favorite poem stanzas and feed it through an online translation tool. For example, here is the last stanza of Casey at the Bat translated to Spanish and back to English:
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun shines brightly, Somewhere the band plays, and somewhere hearts are merry; And somewhere men laugh, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Mudville: the mighty Casey has failed.
So ... close. And yet so far ... (Did you guys ever watch the silly Don Knotts/Tim Conway movie Private Eyes? It's like that.)
And that would be the point -- no matter how good the translation, something of what makes poetry poetry is lost in translation. So, when we read the English translations of ancient Hebrew poetry, let's be sensitive that our translation has probably lost some of the linguistic beauty.
This Week's Big Idea: The Book of Psalms!
[Note: I'm going to be out of town next week, so I have packed way too much into this section with the idea that you can use some of it this week (if you want to) and some of it next week.]
Wow. The Book of Psalms. The biggest book in the Bible, and there's probably as much written about it as any other book in the Bible. Good luck introducing it!
Just kidding. I think the best resource I can give you is this video from the Bible Project:
If that's more than you want to get into, then this video ("How to read Psalms" rather than "What is the Book of Psalms?") might get it done for you.
The word "psalm" is a transliteration of the Greek psalmoi, which is a translation of the Hebrew mizmor, which is a song with stringed accompaniment. This does not mean that every psalm in the Book of Psalms was intended to be sung in corporate worship; a few psalms do not have that specific designation. Instead, we should think of the Book of Psalms as the ancient Jewish prayer book, many of which were intended to be used in personal and corporate worship as songs. (More about this below.)
(Note: I go back and forth on whether to capitalize "psalm" when referring to a specific psalm in the Bible. We don't capitalize the word "chapter", so I am inclined only to capitalize "Psalm" when referring to the Book of Psalms as a whole.)
The Book of Psalms has been called a uniquely divine-human effort. 100 psalms have "titles of authorship" -- 73 say "of David", and others have the same for Moses, Asaph, the Sons of Korah, and others. (Scholars point out that that Hebrew preposition can mean "by" or "for" or even "concerning", so there are occasional arguments about authorship.) But that leaves 50 fully anonymous psalms. How does that fit with our doctrine of inspiration?
I've heard it said like this -- we know that there were hundreds and thousands of psalms composed by Jews over the centuries, and we safely assume that many of them were from earnest hearts desiring to speak to and speak about God. That leads to a two-fold inspiration: the Holy Spirit helping some of those psalmists put words on paper, and the Holy Spirit helping the later editors identify which psalms should be included in the Book of Psalms and how it should be organized. In other words, the words of the Psalms are truly from the hearts of the authors, and the Holy Spirit helped guide the process of compiling the Book, ensuring that what was included not only reflected the peoples' hearts but also gave readers accurate insight into how God wants His people to express themselves to Him. Indeed, some of the personal psalms are so clearly intentionally vague that we immediately realize the author was giving us the form of a prayer we could use if we ever found ourselves of the same kind of emotion the psalmist was in.
Date: the earliest Psalm was composed by Moses after the Exodus, and the latest after the return from Exile. (This page contains an incredibly noble attempt to date each psalm: Probable Timeline of When Each Psalm Was Written - Study Resources)
Structure: everybody identifies "Five Books" of psalms (1-41 / 42-72 / 73-89 / 90-106 / 107-150) with Psalms 1 and 2 serving as an introduction and 146-150 as a conclusion. The Bible Project in particular does a clean job of helping us understand how 1 and 2 set the tone for the entire Book. The "Five Books" are a parallel to the Five Books of Moses, but I think the Bible Project is right in not trying to identify hard-and-fast delineating themes for each book.
Rather, when we note things like the similarities of Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, and that of Psalms 40 / 57 / 60 / 70 / 108, we can speculate that the Books may have been compiled independently and later edited together. Each Book has its own internal structure, and then the Five Books were fitted together into the whole.
Book 1 focuses on David as God's appointed king and his struggles.
Book 2 widens to more emphasis on the nation.
Book 3 emphasizes personal and national crisis and doubt.
Book 4 returns to the hope available when God is the King of His people.
Book 5 reminds of God's faithfulness to his covenant with David.
Titles: 116 psalms have some kind of "title". Some, like those identifying author or collection or use, we can mostly understand. Some are called a mizmor, shir, maskil, or miktam. We know those are musical terms; we don't know what they mean. The same goes for the musical instructions, but more on this in the next paragraph.
Note: No Music!
I've always found it extremely important that God did not have the Jews include music notation with the Psalms. (Yes, selah seems to be a musical term, but it is most likely something related to an introspective pause.) We know that some of the psalms were set to a specific tune, but we don't know what that tune is. I believe it is intentional -- every culture in history has the mandate to put the psalms into musical forms that make sense in their culture.
Types: I like what the Bible Project did in boiling the Psalms into either Praise or Lament. If you read studies of the Psalms, you'll find some very complicated categories, and I'm not always certain how helpful they are in helping us understand the Psalms themselves.
Hebrew Poetry: I'm summarizing a summary from a Zondervan introduction to the Psalms (because there is so much information out there). Basic elements of poetry in the Psalms:
two- or three-line groupings
terseness (short lines)
synonymous parallelism (second line playing off the first)
antithetical parallelism (second line contrasting the first)
chiasm (A B B' A')
figures of speech
emotional language
description of the "spiritual world"
plays on sound
This website describes basic elements of modern poetry: 12 Literary Devices in Poetry: Identifying Poetic Devices | Writers.com. I hope you realize that all of the "sound-based devices" are completely lost in translation. The Hebrew psalms are filled with alliteration, assonance, rhythm, rhyme, and more, but English readers have no hope of catching any of that. That doesn't mean we won't understand the psalm! It just means we won't appreciate it as much as the original Hebrew readers did. (I won't point out many examples of this because it's also above my head.)
They're Poetic: Just to cap off that last section, the Psalms are kinds of poems. If you don't remember your English Lit classes, here is a very brief overview of interpreting poetry:
The point is, just as that Bible Project video explains, we don't read poetry the same way we read prose. Just remember that.
Theology in the Psalms
Yes, the Psalms teach us about God. God is the great King over all nations. He is good, holy, just, and powerful. He defends the oppressed, punishes the wicked, and exposed false gods. He establishes His temple in Jerusalem and sends His people Israel to share His truth with the world. He keeps His promises and covenants and expects His people to do the same.
But the Psalms also teach us how God wants us to relate to Him. Yes, there is rejoicing and praise in the Psalms. But there is also confession, doubt, grief, anger, and supplication. God uses the Psalms to help us understand how to express grief and anger while still maintaining hope and trust (even in the midst of doubt). That's why it is important for us to consider entire psalms, not just individual verses.
Jesus: It would be silly not to conclude with words about Jesus. In the Psalms, the kings and leaders and people always fall short and suffer for their failure. And yet God promised a righteous king through whom He would reconcile His people and bless the world. The people understood this to be a Messianic King. We know Him to be Jesus.
One of the guys I wrote my dissertation on, Benjamin Keach, wrote an entire book just describing how the poetic devices and figures of speech in the Bible work (and specifically how they help us learn about Jesus). Preaching from the Types and Metaphors of the Bible - Google Books
This Week's Bonus Big Idea: Songs for Worship
I had a discussion last week with a musician in another state who had a concern about a song his church had recently started singing corporately. It was song the worship leader had heard on the radio (natch) and was catchy. The problem was that song was not written for corporate worship. The songwriter was sharing a very personal testimony (and also showing off his incredible singing range). The song wasn't appropriate for corporate worship, but that wasn't the song's "fault". The song was fine.
In other words, just because you hear a cool song on the radio doesn't mean that your church should sing it together on a Sunday morning.
I think the Book of Psalms is an excellent illustration of that truism. Just because it's in the Book of Psalms doesn't mean that we should sing it together on a Sunday morning. Some of the psalms are instructional; some are intensely personal; some are expressing emotions that are not characteristic of followers of Jesus in public. Those psalms were meant to help God's people pray -- not necessarily to help them sing in corporate worship. We have to consider the purpose of the psalm. Does that make sense?
That points us back to the cool radio song. Just because it might not be appropriate for corporate worship doesn't mean that it shouldn't be helpful to you in your prayer life or lift your spirit or give you encouragement. It depends on the purpose of the song.
Introducing Psalm 1
I've not done a section like this before, but we have so much information on Psalm 1 that I may as well give an overview just of this psalm.
We're going to start with a reminder about Wisdom Literature. Psalm 1 is unique in the Book of Psalms in that it reads more like Proverbs. That's obviously intentional -- it lets us know that the Psalms are valuable for us in ways we might not appreciate at first glance. They will help us understand the difference between wisdom and foolishness, between righteousness and wickedness. Here's a short video:
We covered two lessons in Proverbs that directly apply to this week's lesson:
Well, Bible Project also has a video just about Psalm 1. It's great; I really don't know how much I have to add to it.
Analyzing the Poetry
I am not suggesting that you need to do this. But I have learned that "diagramming" psalms helps me appreciate their meaning and purpose. This guy (at drivennails.com) has done the fine basic work, and I don't feel the need to replicate it. It's not true "diagramming" (for you English nerds), but I think it works pretty well. It points out the parallels and makes two things clear: six characteristics of a "happy" man, and four descriptions of that "happiness".
If you are hard-core, here is a video that does a true diagramming of the Hebrew text.
It's intense.
Part 1: Option 1: Follow the Lord's Instruction (Psalm 1:1-2)
1 How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! 2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.
You'll notice that most Bible translations put lines breaks in Hebrew poetry at the attempt of "warning" us that the text is not standard prose. They usually make the two- or three-line groupings clear, and that would help you see the structure of the psalm.
The word translated "happy" is rather abstract. In modern English, "happy" refers to an emotion, and "blessed" (the other common translation) refers to an action by God. The Hebrew meaning is a combination of those. The person who lives according to God's designs will enjoy a kind of divine blessing (or security) that transcends human emotion. Perhaps the word "joyful" would be better here?
Note the progression of walk --> stand --> sit. We've gone from casual association to full identification. But it starts with that casual association. (Your leader guide suggests an object lesson of a "domino effect", which is a good one.)
You might remember last week that Peter ended his second letter with this warning:
be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position (3:17)
which led us back to
save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh (Jude 1:23)
This is the psalmist's warning as well -- don't get too comfortable around someone else's sin, or you may find yourself ensnared in it.
There's also a progression in wicked --> sinners --> mockers. "Wicked" refers to a general wrongdoing; "sinners" point to those who break God's law; "mockers" are those who deliberately reject God's wisdom. (They're all bad; the psalmist is not suggesting that it's better to be wicked than a mocker.)
If you want to be happy/blessed/joyful, you must reject that path and instead choose to follow the Lord and listen to His wisdom.
"The Lord's instruction" would have referred to the five books of Moses, and probably specifically the laws given in Exodus through Deuteronomy. Today, we see the wisdom in the entire Bible in how it points us to Jesus. The person who wants to be "happy" will delight in that instruction and meditate on it.
Both "delight" and "meditate" are figures of speech -- a metonymy. The psalmist is not suggesting that reading the Bible, however intently, gives joy. Rather, they represent the larger process of studying, learning, applying, and obeying the Bible. Does that make sense?
The word for "meditate" refers to intense reflection. The verb tense suggests an ongoing process. You are not emptying your mind; you are filling it with God's Word.
You can fill your mind with the mockery from the world, or
you can fill your mind with the truth in God's Word.
Which is true of you right now? Which would you rather be true? What steps do you need to take to get there?
Part 2: Outcome 1 and Option 2 (Psalm 1:3-4)
3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
4 The wicked are not like this; instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.
You see the shift between 3 and 4. Indeed, Psalm 1 is a chiasm. It would do my heart so much good if you wanted to learn more about chiasms and how it applies to Psalm 1. (Note, if you do this research on the internet, you'll find lots of different interpretations of Psalms 1 and 2. Instead, just take the content of the psalm and see how/where it repeats.) Understanding the poetic devices does not change the meaning of the psalm; it just helps us appreciate it as a poetic achievement.
Here, the person is poetically likened to a tree. (Note about gender: Hebrew authors generally used male pronouns in their writing; most of the time, that was generic. In other words, these words could rightly be translated as "the man or woman" or "he or she". Sometimes, English gives a simple solution, like "the person or one". Today, the pronouns "they" and "them", which are gender-neutral by design, are increasingly being used as the generic substitute. And yes, official language gatekeepers are accepting this, even though they are supposed to be plural pronouns.)
Note: trees don't plant themselves. Nor do they water themselves.
The word for "flowing streams" is actually a "channel", which often referred to what we would call an irrigation ditch. In other words, some farmer irrigated for this tree. The poetry makes it clear that the farmer is God, and we are the tree. If we learn and live by God's Word, God will ensure that we receive consistent water, which is yet another poetic device. I'll let you answer this one: in this poetry, what does "water" and "fruit" and "leaf" represent? How about "season" and "wither"?
You should remember that rain is extremely seasonal in Israel. What we would call a creek bed (a wadi) would often be dry, only to flood unpredictably during a storm. But a good farmer could irrigate his land to bring a safe and consistent supply of water to his crops / trees. (And in the background, God controls the rain in the first place.)
The imagery does not extend to the phrase about prospering. Rather, that seems to be a callback to Joshua's words in 1:8
This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.
"Prosper" is a good translation into modern English for the idea.
And then the psalmist gives us the alternative -- the person who rejects God's Word. They do not have access to life-giving water, and thus they wither and die and become lifeless husks. You might remember the different times Jesus referred to chaff (like Matt 3:12) -- representing those with an empty or dead faith. Farmers would sift or winnow harvests by tossing it into the air; the heavy good seed would fall back, and the light dead chaff would drift in the wind. Farmers would gather the seed and the chaff into different piles.
I hate to spark any PTSD from the hurricane, but it makes for a powerful image.
We had some monstrous trees come down in the hurricane (this is not a picture from my backyard; it's just a royalty-free image). I'm still cleaning up around the root balls. And I'm routinely shocked at how un-impressive the roots of those giant trees are. A strong wind (a very strong wind) took them out. God is saying that a person who knows and applies His Word will be like a tree whose roots grow so deep as to protect them through even the strongest storm (or drought). These coastal palms are amazing.
The wicked will not be able to survive such a storm (or drought).
Does the "tree" poetic device help you understand the psalmist's point? If not, what image might work better for you?
Part 3: Outcome 2 and God's Judgment (Psalm 1:5-6)
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.
(Yes, I might have structured this lesson a little differently.)
Now the tables are turned on the wicked mockers -- they are excluded from God's protected assembly in judgment. They seem bold and brash and powerful in their mockery, but they will still suffer ruin.
There are two ways of looking at this. As Christians, we can't help but think of the image of "final judgment", God's divine courtroom and the Great White Throne. There, obviously the righteous (those right with God) will be preserved, and the wicked will be condemned. That's a strong image in the New Testament, so we can't help but apply it here.
But in the Old Testament (think particularly of the Proverbs), the more prevalent attitude was that people will reap rewards and punishments in this life for their good and wicked deeds. As we learned when we studied Proverbs, this is generally true. Even today, we observe that sinners often face consequences for their actions, and "good" people often receive a kind of reward.
We know that's not always the case. The Israelites knew that wasn't always the case! That's why we have to consider the entire Book of Psalms (and that's why the Bible Project put out that series explaining the connection between Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job). That's what makes the psalms of anger and anguish so powerful -- "I have lived according to Your Word, and yet I suffer and my enemies prosper. Why, God?"
And again, that's why the New Testament calls on us to extend our perspective through to the other side of death. No one escapes God's justice forever.
So there you go! An introduction to the Psalms! You have so much you could cover. I also noticed that Lifeway chose not to cover Psalm 2, so there's another Psalm you could talk about this week if you had time.
In your group time, I would recommend explaining how Psalm 1 sets up the rest of the book, a little bit about how we must read poetry different from prose, and a little about how we can use the psalms for worship and prayer both personally and corporately. We will have the next three months to look at more psalms that give us that range of how that works.
In studying Psalm 1 in particular, I would point out the parallelism and chiasm as the representative poetic devices.
The Lifeway material emphasizes "praying the Scriptures", and that's absolutely an indispensable skill. However, remember that Psalm 1 is more about preparing us for the rest of the psalms. It declares God's general approach to responding to human behavior, and those things are truths we can depend on. Later psalms are encapsulations of human prayers which we are encouraged to make our own when we need help finding words to say. Does that distinction make sense?
Closing Thoughts: The First Hymn Project
I'm sure you've heard this by now. Archeologists discovered an early Christian hymn that included musical notation. Very interesting!
[Sadly, the host turned this into A Thing that has been very overproduced and monetized. I'm not really worried about that. (And at some point, when they release the music at a reasonable price, I'm sure my church will sing this song, too!)]
Here's the only thing I want to point out about this project -- you'll learn that even though they found musical notation for the "first hymn", they completely threw it out! Instead, they hired Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding to compose entirely original music for it. (Original and repetitive.) Why? Because our musical tastes have completely changed over the centuries. Music is cultural.
In other words, the experience of the First Hymn Project just reinforces to me why God did not include musical notation in the Psalms.
Bonus Closing Thoughts: Hymnals
Some of you would be incredulous to know that I believe that all Christian music leaders should be "fluent" in the use of hymnals. Here, I just want to summarize ways in which the Book of Psalms is and is not like a hymnal.
[Note: I'll be using the '91 Baptist Hymnal as reference; it's what we have in our sanctuary.]
Most hymnals have a topical structure. The '91 hymnal has a Table of Contents listing it (The Glory of God, The Love of God, The People of God, The Witness of the People of God). In that way, the Book of Psalms is not like a hymnal -- it does not have a structure like that.
Most hymnals also include multiple indexes. The '91 hymnal has an index for Scriptural Bases for Hymns, Authors, Composers, and Sources, Alphabetical and Metrical Index of Tunes, Topical Index, and First Lines and Titles. Those indexes are included in the hymnal to make it easier for a person to find a particular hymn.
The Bible does not include such a thing for the Book of Psalms. However, people have put together a whole bunch of Indexes (some of which are more helpful than others) -- most of them are in book form that you have to purchase. But some people have put in the work for the purpose of making their effort freely available, like this guy:
Most hymnals include a text and tune, along with lyrics author, music composer, and date of composition, plus tune name and meter. The Book of Psalms tells us some of that information. (Note that hymnals will say "Anonymous" or "Traditional" when necessary.)
All of those indexes are designed to help you find a hymn quickly and also to find a different tune for that hymn (if you want that). Useful!
I do think it's valuable to have an "Index of the Psalms" if you want to find psalms quickly. However, whereas there are more than 650 songs in the hymnal, there are "only" 150 psalms. I think it would be even more valuable to get familiar with the Psalms well enough that you could find a particular psalm on your own in relative short order.
Psalters
One last thing on this topic. You should know the name Isaac Watts. (If you don't, look him up.) He pioneered the "English metrical psalter" -- taking all of the psalms and setting them to a standard English meter and rhyme. Some of them work better than others. His psalter is freely available all over.
I want to call attention to another resource I have used for our choir -- the Seedbed Psalter. This passion project includes not only the psalms set to meter but also multiple tune options with a recording of that tune! This is a true labor of love.
And if you don't care about any of that, here is their setting of Psalm 1:
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