An Exposition of Psalm 50 Essay

There are 150 psalms in the Book of Psalms that were written over the span of 800 years. Most of the Psalms written were made to be sung. There are two main genres of Psalms, which are laments and hymns. David is know to have written 73 psalms, Asaph wrote 12, the sons of Korah wrote 11, Solomon wrote 2, Moses wrote 1 and 50 are anonymous . Although 50 were anonymous, David was certainly the author of the majority of the Psalms.

The prophets are difficult to interpret mainly due to misunderstandings about their function and form (Fee/Stuart p182). Most dictionaries define the word “prophecy”as ‘foretelling or prediction of what is to come. Using the prophets in this way is highly discerning, for less than 2% of OT prophecy is messianic; less than 5% describes the new covenant age and less than 1% concerns future events (Fee/Stuart p182). The prophets usually announced the immediate future of Judah, Israel and the surrounding nations, rather than our future. Those events were forthcoming for them but past for us (Fee/Stuart p182). The primary function of prophets as a spokesperson was to speak for God to their own contemporaries. Of the hundreds of prophets in

This paper provides a summary and an assessment of the approach for determining the relationship of a psalm to Jesus the Messiah proposed by Richard P. Belcher Jr. in his book The Messiah and the Psalms: Preaching Christ from all the Psalms . This paper also provides an analysis of Psalm 45 and whether Psalm 45 should be used to teach on the church as the bride of Christ. Lastly, this paper provides an analysis of Psalm 22 and whether Psalm 22 speaks of the Messiah.

What remains fascinating to me from this book is the Israelites ability to preserve these massive collections of psalms even after the destruction of the temple and subjection to a foreign religion in Babylon for a long time. Their discipline to pass on these psalms from one person to another through singing and reciting demonstrate how significant these psalms were to them. What adds value to this book more is the author’s ability not only to introduce the psalms, but offer tips to the readers on how to read the psalms better to understand them

The group of Prophetic Books are divided into the minor prophets and major prophets. The major prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are listed first, but not because their messages are more important but that they are longer. The twelve minor prophets are from Hosea through Malachi are writings shorter in length written in shorter in length and follow one by one. The main role for the prophets is to “speak for God” on the issues of the

In Psalms, we see a collection of lyrical poetry, songs and prayers. Many of these were written by King David himself. The book covers almost the entire gamut of human emotion, from sorrow to joy, from doubt to faith.

This psalm was written by David when he was in a distressful state, being chased by Saul who

Hebrew poetry is used to express various things in the Bible. Hebrew poetry is used to “express emotion, facilitate worship, and to instruct in wisdom” (Hindson, 2012). God uses Hebrew poetry to teach us how we can better live our lives. Within Hebrews the terms laziness, diligence, folly and wisdom are utilized. God’s plan for us to apply some of these terms and to give terminology to the way we should be living against.

Psalm 117 is both the shortest Psalm in the Psalter and the shortest chapter in the entire Bible. This psalm which is very little in its letter is exceedingly large in its spirit, for, bursting all bounds of race or nationality. Psalm 117 calls upon all mankind to praise the name of the Lord. Moreover, in this psalm 117 it deals with Israel’s Yahweh has uniquely displayed his covenant loyalty and in doing so his purpose for all nations has been disclosed. Psalm 117 has a part of a sextet of songs; we can see this pattern from Psalms 113 to 118 known as the “Egyptian Hallel” which was built around the emphasis of Psalm 114 the celebration of the Exodus. I seemed these six psalms songs were sung in the synagogue where Hebrews gathered to celebrate the Passover. God’s is a great act of salvation on their behalf. In Psalms 113 and 114 were sung before the memorial meal, and Psalms 115-118 were sung afterwards. I think Jesus and His disciples would have sung these very psalms on the night they celebrated the Passover, just before His betrayal and arrest (Matt 26:30; Mark 14:26).

This psalm is a difficult psalm to break down due to differences in structure but also in it’s nature. This psalm is about the creator of the

The Book of Psalms is the Book of Prayer. Whoever wants to learn to pray let him pray to David and whoever prays with the psalms, David shall be a teacher for him, how he should pray as a father that shall hold his son's hand to teach him how to write. In the Book of Psalms we know ourselves and the weaknesses and pitfalls that are in us and we find in this travel fall and the advancement of prayers of repentance and thanksgiving and praise. Psalms are filled with many prophecies concerning the incarnation, pain and resurrection of the Lord. It is the greatest witness to the life of the Lord Jesus, so Peter said that David is a prophet (Acts 30: 2).

The authorship of Psalm 119 remains unknown. Most scholars believe the author to be King David because of its Davidic tone and expression. It is also assumed that this Psalm is written over a period of someone’s life, as it shows maturity as the Psalm progresses (Bible hub). Regardless of the identity of the Psalmist, Psalm 119 has very special and unique qualities. Psalm 119 is not only the longest chapter in the book of Psalms, but of the entire Bible. Some believe that since Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible, it shows the priority of God’s Word to God. (bible.org) Although Psalm 119 is quite a long chapter, it is written in a format that allows the reader to study and follow the structure of the psalm with ease. This specific Psalm is written in the form of an acrostic poem, meaning each section begins with a letter from the alphabet. In this case, each section, made up of eight verses, begin with each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the first eight couplets begin with aleph (A), the next eight begin with beth (B), then so forth in the same suit. (bible.org)

In comparison to this, the section of the Hebrew Scriptures known as ‘prophecy’ is a far harder collection from which to discern common threads in the sense of genre or content. Set as a continuation of the greater biblical narrative, the Prophecy section is best understood when divided further into two parts, that of the former prophets and the later prophets . The former prophets consist of the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 kings and are generally referred to as ‘deutero-historical books’, expressing the role the theology of Deuteronomy plays in its

The last segment of the Psalm is Moses’ appeal to God for him to return his presence to his people: “Return, O LORD, how long? And let it repent thee concerning thy servants.” Not only should God return, but Moses asks for complete restoration and for God to bless the work of man: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

In the Old Testament, Heman the Ezrahite, the son of Joel and the grandson of Samuel the judge and prophet of Israel, wrote Psalm 88. This Psalm is a very unique one in that it is the only one that does not end with an assertion of comfort or joy. It is very sad and melancholy and you can tell that it was written by someone in a very depressive state: