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forget me for ever? How long will
you hide your face from me?” In this
case the psalmist’s troubles stem
from the activities of an enemy.
Having stated the complaint, the
psalmist then makes a petition:
“Look on me and answer, Lord my
God. Give light to my eyes”—the
light of restored vitality and joy.
To add persuasive power to the
petition, he gives reasons for God
to act: if God fails to help him,
his enemies will say they have
overcome the psalmist, which may
reflect badly on his God. Having
now unburdened himself, the
writer of Psalm 13, as in many of
the other lament Psalms, switches
somewhat abruptly to praise,
remarking, “But I trust in your
unfailing love; my heart rejoices
in your salvation.”
One possible reason for this
sudden change of tone may lie in
the context of temple worship. The
psalmist’s complaint and petitionmay have been part of a dialogue
with a priest or temple official
who, speaking in God’s name, then
pronounced an oracle telling him to
go in peace, assured that God had
heard his prayer. Whatever the
reason, the writer concludes that
God “has been good to me.”Historical laments
Other Psalms are of communal
lament, many arising out of the
humiliation of defeat. For the final
editors of the Psalms, no defeat was
more recent or searing than the
destruction of Jerusalem and its
temple by the Babylonians in
587 bce. Psalm 79, one of a small
number of Psalms emerging from
that experience, opens with a
description of the disaster: “O God,
the nations have invaded your
inheritance; they have defiled your
holy Temple, they have reduced
Jerusalem to rubble. They have left
the dead bodies of your servantsTHE PSALMS
Hymns are sung at the Sunday
celebration at the Celestial Church of
Christ, Missessinto, in Benin, Africa.
Psalms have been used in devotional
worship since the early Church.as food for the birds of the sky,
the flesh of your own people for the
animals of the wild.”
It continues with a mingling of
praise, repentance, and anguished
petitions for salvation, justice, even
vengeance: “Pay back into the laps
of our neighbors seven times the
contempt they have hurled at you,
Lord.” Elsewhere, the desire for
revenge burns most appallingly in
another psalm of the exile, Psalm- Its conclusion is a howl of
bloodthirsty rage: “Daughter
Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
for what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your
infants and dashes them against
t he rock s.”
Joyous Psalms
Psalms written in the light of
an answered prayer are usually
more jubilant. Typically, they
tell or suggest the whole story:By the rivers of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors
asked us for songs.
Psalm 137:1–3US_138-143_Psalms_of_David.indd 142 12/10/2017 15:02
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the trouble the psalmist was
suffering, how he made a lament
to God, and how God wonderfully
intervened. “I will exalt you, Lord,”
begins Psalm 30, “for you lifted me
out the depths and did not let my
enemies gloat over me.” Despite
the reference to his enemies, the
psalmist’s distress seems to have
been a sickness that brought him
close to death. He cried to God for
help, and God healed him, sparing
him “from going down into the pit.”
The conclusion here is a shout
of praise and thanksgiving: “You
turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and
clothed me with joy, that my
heart may sing your praises
and not be silent.”Songs of praise
Hymns of collective praise are
among the most majestic of the
Psalms. They tend to have the
simplest structures: a summons
to praise God, followed by reasons
for that praise. “Praise the Lord, allWISDOM AND PROPHETS
you nations; extol him, all you
peoples,” the shortest psalm of all,
Psalm 117, commands: “For great
is His love toward us, and the
faithfulness of the Lord endures
forever.” In other cases, the opening
summons leads to a list of God’s
interventions on Israel’s behalf.
Perhaps the most beautiful
Psalms are the songs of creation,
such as Psalm 104, which elicit
praise by extolling the creator-God.
He is the God who “makes the
clouds His chariot and rides on the
wings of the wind.” Not only does
creation reflect His splendor, but
also His provision for humankind:
“He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth.”
What is remarkable about the
Psalms is the energy and feeling
behind the words. Whether they
are praising or petitioning God, they
each show a very human side of the
Bible, where people are unafraid
to confess their multifaceted
emotions to a benevolent Lord. ■A shepherd and
his flockThe image of a leader as a
shepherd goes back to the
3rd millennium bce when
the kings of Sumer in
Mesopotamia described
themselves as shepherds
of their people. In societies
where herders were part
of everyday life, it was an
obvious comparison to make,
and other nations followed
this example.
For the Israelites, David
was the archetypal shepherd-
king, who literally started life
as a shepherd. But above him
was the one who fulfilled
that role supremely: God (as
stated in Psalm 23). In the
6th century bce, during the
Babylonian Exile, the prophet
Ezekiel used the imagery of a
shepherd in a furious tirade
against Israel’s leadership:
“Woe to the shepherds of
Israel who only take care of
themselves! ... you do not
take care of the flock.” Jesus
continued the tradition,
describing the crowds who
followed Him as “like sheep
without a shepherd,” and later
referring to himself as a “good
shepherd [who] lays down His
life for the sheep.” The image
lives on to this day in the word
“pastor,” Latin for “shepherd.”Psalms and their authors
Psalms 1, 2, 10, 33, 43, 66, 67, 71, 91–100, 102,
104–07, 111–18, 119, 120, 121, 123, 125, 126,
128–30, 132, 134–37, 146–50Psalms 3–9, 11–32, 34–41, 51–65, 68–70, 86, 101,
103, 108–10, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138–45Psalms 42, 44–49, 84–85, 87Psalms 50, 73–83Psalms 72, 127Psalm 88Psalm 89Psalm 90UnknownDavidSons of KorahAsaphSolomonSons of Korah
and HemanEthan the EzrahiteMosesUS_138-143_Psalms_of_David.indd 143 21/09/17 11:30 am