The Psalms Essay examples

The book of Psalms contains some of the most beloved pieces of scripture across centuries and cultures of this world. Psalms have been frequently cited is sermons, devotionals, movies, poetry, and songs. Most often, Psalms are attributed to King David of the 10th century BCE. But regardless of the authorship of the different psalms, each seem to carry a special place in describing human relationships to God, to country, to friends, to enemies and more. As time has progressed, certain psalms have become favorites because of their encouraging and uplifting messages, such as the timeless Psalm 23.

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 word psalm is originated of the Greek word Psalms, which is a striking of pious song, according to www.biblestudytoll.com. The psalms are spiritual, hymn and the melody of the heart. They were originally composed to be accompanied by a musical instrument. David for example used the harp to go with them. The writing of the psalm took many centuries, going from the period where Moses was living through Salomon, the son of David. In fact, according to Chuck on his audio message, “Individual psalms were written as far back in history as Moses’s time, through the time of David, Asaph, and Solomon, to the time of the Ezrahites who most likely lived after the Babylonian captivity, meaning the writing of the book spans one thousand years. According to the fact that the psalms were written during a thousand years, that means

Construct an outline of the psalm that shows its literary structure. Psalm 34:1-3 is an introductory summons to praise (Bosma, n.d.). It was then followed by David's testimonial in verse 4 until verse 6. Further, verses 8-14 is all about the poet’s exhortations, which consisted of 10 imperatives and seven poetic lines, with emphasis on verse 11 (Bosma, n.d.).

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 author is identified on all but thirty-four of the book of Psalms. The authors include, David; Asaph, David's choir leader; Sons of Korah, a family of Levitical musicians; Jeduthun; a Levitical choir leader; Solomon; Moses; The Ezrahite Ethan; Heman. Jewish tradition says Adam wrote Psalm one hundred thirty nine, Melchizedek wrote Psalm one hundred ten, Abraham wrote Psalm eighty-nine, Moses wrote Psalm ninety. The praise Psalms opens up with a call to praise and then has a reason to praise God. Finally, it has a concluding praise.

This book also discusses the connection to David and the Psalms. It is mostly assumed that David was the author of the majority of the Psalms . During the 19th century it was common to question that assumption, and wonder who the authors were . The Psalms are not only considered avenues of prayer, but also instruction on how to lead a godly life . The Psalms are prayers to be utilized during times of distress . The Psalter is considered holy, and memorization was encouraged . This book also stresses the importance of the scribes, and how their traditions were handed down from one generation to the next. The primary purpose of the scribes was to continue the Mesopotamian culture, and to show its lifestyle .

Spurgeon, Charles H. "Commentary on Psalms 23." "C.H. Spurgeons's The Treasury of David." http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tod/view.cgi?bk=18&ch=23." 1865-1885, http://spurgeon.org/treasury/ps023.htm.

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

Genre: The genre of Psalm 139 is Hebrew poetry, simply because the psalms were written in Hebrew and are a collection of poems and laments. The first principle of interoperation is that the psalms blend experience, emotion, and theology. This should be taken into account while reading the poem in order that the reader does not simply skip over the theology by only focusing on experience and emotion. The second interoperation principle is that each psalm should be read as a whole. Verses of psalms should not be taken out of context, in doing this the reader may distort the meaning of the psalm. Another interpretation principle to take into consideration is the different genres of psalms such as: laments, thanksgiving, hymns of praise, wisdom, and songs of trust. With that being said, Psalm 139 not only falls under the Hebrew poetry genre, but is also classified as a psalm of trust. Lastly, the fourth interpretation principle is that parallelisms are used. In other words, ideas correlate in many different ways such as: synonymously, antithesis, intensifying, specifying, and synthetically.

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)

5Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.