Welcome to the Reformed Pavilion blog. In this space we plan to republish individual articles from past issues of Reformed Pavilion. After a few months or years go by from the first time an article appeared, it can be profitable to see the article again. We hope that this space will be valuable for our readers, under God’s blessing. With that in mind, we launch the blog with a reprint of an article on the Psalms from the first issue of Reformed Pavilion. May our faithful covenant God prosper the publication of his word.
- Rubric: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs
- Title: The Wonderful Book of Psalms
- Publication: Volume 1 Issue 1 (April 15, 2023)
In this space it will be our privilege to open up the psalms, God being gracious.
And what a privilege it is! Consider for a moment the wonderful book of psalms.
God gave the psalms to his church over the course of the entire thousand-year period of revelation in the Old Testament.[1] From the first inspired writer, Moses (Ps. 90), all the way to the return of Israel from Babylon (Pss. 126, 137), God wrote the psalms. Alone among all the books of scripture, the psalms span all the sundry times and divers manners in time past in which God spake unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. 1:1). The Holy Ghost moved many holy men of old to write the psalms: David, the man after his own heart, but also Moses, Solomon, Asaph, Ethan, Heman, the sons of Korah, and others who are not named.
The book of psalms is the longest book in scripture by a wide margin, its 150 songs comprising the 150 chapters of the book. The shortest chapter in the Bible is a psalm (117), as is the longest chapter (119). The book of psalms is divided into five sections, or books: Psalms 1–41, Psalms 42–72, Psalms 73–89, Psalms 90–106, and Psalms 107–150. Within these books there are further divisions, such as the hallel hymns (Pss. 113–118), which Jesus and his disciples sang at the institution of the Lord’s supper (Matt. 26:30), and the songs of degrees or ascent (Pss. 120–134), which God’s people sang as they ascended Mount Zion to worship in God’s house.
Psalms were prominent in the Old Testament worship of the church. When David brought the ark up to the tabernacle in Jerusalem, it was accompanied with psalms (I Chron. 15). When the ark was settled in Jerusalem, David appointed the singing of psalms before the ark of the Lord (compare I Chron. 16 with Pss. 96, 105, 106:47–48). When David’s house was dedicated in Jerusalem, Psalm 30 was sung. When Solomon’s temple was dedicated, Psalm 136 was sung (II Chron. 5:13). At the morning sacrifices and at the evening sacrifices, at the weekly sabbaths, at the monthly new moons, and at the yearly festival sacrifices, as the people came to Jerusalem and as they stayed in Jerusalem, psalms were sung (I Chron. 16, 23; Ps. 92). Morning by morning, evening by evening, week by week, month by month, year by year, psalms arose out of Zion.
The great reformations of the Old Testament kingdom of Israel were marked by the singing of psalms. Joash and Jehoiada’s reformation returned Israel to the singing of psalms as appointed by David (II Chron. 23:18). Hezekiah’s reformation restored the psalms as appointed by David, and all the Levites sang “praise unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshipped” (II Chron. 29:30). Josiah’s reformation restored such a passover feast as had not been seen since the days of Samuel, “and the singers the sons of Asaph were in their places, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer” (II Chron. 35:15).
So much did the singing of psalms characterize Israel that her enemies identified her by it. The people of Israel were known as psalm-singers. Their Babylonian captors turned this fact into a particularly cruel taunt when they demanded of their Israelite captives “one of the songs of Zion” (Ps. 137:3). How could these psalm-singers sing one of the psalms of their mirth while they were being wasted by their enemies in a strange land? By the rivers of Babylon these psalm-singers sat down, they wept, they hanged their harps upon the willows, they remembered Zion.
The prominence of psalms did not disappear with the Old Testament but carried into the new. At the institution of the Lord’s supper, Jesus and his disciples sang the hallel hymns, Psalms 113–118 (Matt. 26:30). This is particularly significant, for by the institution of the Lord’s supper, Jesus put an end to the form of Old Testament worship and instituted the New Testament form. And belonging to the New Testament form of worship, by Jesus’ institution, is the singing of psalms.
When Jesus hung upon the cross, he gave his life’s blood for our redemption with psalms upon his lips. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1). “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Ps. 31:5). And when he arose from the dead the third day, he did so according to his own song. “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10).
God’s people as a body in Ephesus and in Colossae, according to the apostles’ injunction, taught and admonished one another in psalms, hymns (psalms like the hallel hymns), and spiritual songs (psalms like the songs of degrees) (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:15–16). By their singing the psalms together with grace in their hearts to the Lord, the whole word of Christ dwelt in them richly in all wisdom, for the psalms are the little Bible.
When Paul and Silas sat in the discomfort and misery of prison at midnight, they prayed and sang praises to God (Acts 16:25), with the word for “sang” in the passage indicating the sound made by psalm-singing.
Some have observed that the New Testament is so full of quotations of the psalms and allusions to the psalms that it averages one reference to the psalms every 19 verses.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the psalms sit at the heart of the scriptures. The psalms contain the sum and substance of all the other books. The entire Bible is found in the psalms: from Genesis and creation (Ps. 104) to Revelation and the great day of the Lord (Ps. 1). Athanasius called the psalms “the epitome of the whole scripture.” Luther called the psalms “a little Bible.” Because the psalms sit at the heart of the scriptures and because the psalms are the church’s songbook, the psalms also sit in the hearts of God’s people. Zion’s heart yearns for the psalms. Her children speak to each other with eager anticipation thus: “O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms!” (Ps. 95:1–2).
Go from end to end in the scriptures. Go from desert wanderings to dingy prisons. Go from Babel’s streams to Zion’s heights. Go from the upper room to Calvary to the empty tomb. Go from David to Paul, from Moses to Asaph. Go from the church in the wilderness to the church at Ephesus. Go from the lips of God’s people to their hearts. Wherever you go in all the scriptures, there you will find the psalms. What a remarkable book is this book of psalms!
It will be our privilege, indeed, to open up this book. “God be merciful unto us, and bless us” (Ps. 67:1).
—AL
[1] For much of the information in this consideration of the psalms, I am indebted to Rev. Angus Stewart in his debate with Rev. Ivan Foster on psalm singing. The debate can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYYlgZR3XK4.