This is God’s Word. As with all of Scripture, it is foundational and speaks with power to our faith. Maybe more powerfully if we have a deeper sense of what it is.
In this case, it, the Book of Psalms, is 150 chapters long, including both the longest and shortest chapters in the entire bible. The book was written by a bunch of folks, mostly David (at 73 psalms), but includes entries by Moses and Solomon. Some are anonymous. The longest chapter is Psalm 119, at 176 verses. What is interesting about this Psalm, aside from its length, is its focus. Every verse, except for 4, mentions the law and how it is to be celebrated (yes, it might be debatable that what I call 'interesting' actually qualifies).
To complete the thought, the shortest chapter is Psalm 117, all of two verses.
It is called the hymnbook of the Bible, as well as the Prayer book. It appears to be the deliberate gathering of liturgical elements for worship at the Temple and in the lives of the people. “Liturgical elements” in Christian worship include things like the Lord’s Prayer, our hymns, other elements that have a pre-written form. “Liturgy” is a fancy way of referring to the order in which things occur in a worship service.
In the Christian church, the book of Psalms falls into the first part of our Bible, what we call the “old” testament, the “old” covenant, which speaks to us of how God interacted with God’s people before the coming of Jesus. His tenure in our lives and its effects upon the world are in the “new” testament, the “new” covenant. We have 66 “books” in the library that we call the Bible of which the book of Psalms is one.
The “old” testament is the bible of our Lord Jesus and the early church. It might be better termed the “Hebrew” bible given its language and the cultural group that it emerges from. The bible often identifies Jews by the term “Hebrews” when they are being referred to by outsiders.
We divide the Old Testament into 39 books. We broadly categorize them as “law”, “history”, “poetry”, and “prophecy. The writers of the Hebrew Bible categorized it differently. They spoke of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The law is the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses. The Prophets are inclusive of what we call the ‘Histories’ as well as the ‘Prophets’. Then there are the ‘Writings’, one might consider this category to be ‘the rest that don’t fit our other categories’. This includes what we might designate the Poetry, Job, Proverbs, Psalms, and a few others.
For those who have the spiritual discipline of regular bible reading, the usual method is to start at the beginning of a book and read through. Most of the books of the Bible will flow with this system. Historical accounts, like the histories and the gospels, they work well with this. Others, like the named Prophets, their prophecies may be more individual units, not always following a ‘historic’ framework, but often chronological. Paul’s letters, again, not history, often track a progression of his thoughts.
For the Psalms, this kind of discipline is a little harder. Next time you are around a song book, pick it up and try to read it through. It could be a hymn book at the church or a song book of Disney favorites, the design of the book is not to be a chronology. The songs are to be drawn out as appropriate for given situations. So it is with the Psalms. To read them one after another can get redundant, because their structures and forms are of a type to stand alone or to be drawn into a systematized listing for worship.
It is 150 chapters, so daily for 5 months. Want a devotional reading idea? Pair a Psalm with another chapter from a chronological system of Bible reading. Prayer and Scripture, perfect together. Until you hit Psalm 119, all one hundred and seventy six verses of it. No worries, it comes two days after Psalm 117, 2 verses and out.
This is God’s Word. It speaks powerfully to us. I hope that having this thumbnail sketch of the Psalms will make them even more powerful in our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Peace,
Pastor Peter
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