Welcome to our study of the book of the Psalms, which is sometimes called the Psalter in English. We will start with just a few basic questions and answers about the Psalms to give us a framework for further study.

What is a Psalm?

The first question we must ask is, “what is a Psalm?” The Psalms are poetry, though they don’t necessarily rhyme they do have a poetic structure that we will illuminate a bit later. They were sung or chanted accompanied by what we called a lyre, and what in Greek was called a psalterio. And it is from that Greek word that we get the English word Psalter and Psalm. As you can see from the picture, the lyre is a stringed instrument that is plucked. It’s sort of like a portable harp. It has a pleasant sound: remember how David as a boy would play the lyre to soothe King Saul when he was distressed.

So the Psalms are poetic verses intended to be sung or chanted with musical accompaniment. They can be read without music, and they can be prayed by individuals. It is more common to see them prayed in community, like at a monastery and in some form of reciprocal participation.

How many Psalms are there?

There are 150. There is a difference in the numbering between how it is numbered in the Greek Old Testament, which is called the Septuagint, and how it is numbered in Protestant and modern Bibles. Protestants and Anglicans (Episcopalians) tend to use the Hebrew numbering. Catholics and Orthodox tend to use the Septuagint numbering. The numbering we see in the Catholic Church today uses the Hebrew numbering.

• Psalms 1-8 are the same in Hebrew and the Septuagint.
• Psalms 9 and 10 in Hebrew are combined as Psalm 9 in the Septuagint.
• Psalms 11-113 in Hebrew are Psalms 10-112 in the Septuagint (Hebrew-1 = Greek).
• Psalms 114 and 115 in Hebrew are combined as Psalm 113 in the Septuagint.
• Psalm 116 in Hebrew is divided into Psalms 114 and 115 in the Septuagint.
• Psalms 117-146 in Hebrew are Psalms 116-145 in the Septuagint (Hebrew-1 = Greek).
• Psalm 147 in Hebrew is divided into Psalms 146 and 147 in the Septuagint.
• Psalms 148-150 are the same in Hebrew and the Septuagint.

The numbering begins to be different at some number nine and only returns at Psalm number 148. This is why you will sometimes be confused when a song you know as some 51 for example is referred to as Psalm 50. The other person is probably using the numbering from the Vulgate, which took its numbering from the Septuagint.

Some of the Psalms are very long, while others are very short. Psalm 117 (116) is only two verses. Almost right after it is Psalm 119 (118), which is 176 verses. That long one has 22 stanzas of 8 verses, one stanza for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Only 8 of the 150 have more than 40 verses. 45 Psalms are fewer than 10 verses. The entire Psalter is 2,526 verses, and that means an average of 17 verses per Psalm. At 2,526 verses, the Psalter is the longest book in the Old Testament, about twice as long as Isaiah or Jeremiah.

Who wrote the Psalms?

About half of them are attributed to David, the king of Israel. About a dozen of them are attributed to an ancient Israelite choir known as the Sons of Korah. Another dozen are attributed to Asaph, a choir leader that David appointed. A couple of Psalms are attributed to Solomon, the son of David. And one Psalm is attributed to Moses, who lived hundreds of years before David. Many of the Psalms are anonymous, and many of these were written long after David. So we should take the authorship with a grain of salt. Remember that in ancient times, and even somewhat today, authorship might mean more that the composition was done in the style of a person rather than by the hand of that person. Or it could be that the author is the one who gave the writer the initial idea or vision, and the various details or verses were fleshed out by a scribe.

How were the Psalms written? The Psalms were written in Hebrew. Words written in Hebrew did not include the vowels in the words, and one sort of figures that out by context. Even in the time of the Israelites, the common language was Aramaic while the liturgical and religious language was Hebrew. We do, therefore, see here and there some bits of Aramaic slip into the Hebrew Psalms.

What is the structure of a Psalm?

While there isn’t much rhyming as we understand it in English, Hebrew poetry has a rhythm. It is most commonly a two-line verse. Usually the two lines say basically the same thing in two different ways. Remember that in Hebrew, as in other ancient languages, they did not have the progression that we have from good to better to best, so they communicated that through repetition. Think of the times when Jesus says something important, and he begins his teaching with amen amen, I say to you:… That repetition was the linguistic technique for stressing the importance of the idea being presented. Most times, therefore, the two lines confirm each other, but sometimes the two lines will oppose each other.

See in the very first Psalm these two patterns: in verse 5, the two lines are basically saying the same thing. The wicked will not be able to stand in the judgment – they will be cast out into Gehenna – which also means they (the sinners) won’t be found among the congregation of the righteous (because they will have been cast out into Gehenna). The idea that bad things ultimately happen to bad people is important enough to repeat.

In the next verse, we see the two lines making a contrast instead of a confirmation.

The way of the righteous leads to the LORD, but the way of the wicked leads to Gehenna.

In just these two verses, you can see how important it is to read the Psalms as poetry rather than as prose. This is not an intellectual treatise, with logical statements and clear terms building a compelling argument. These are songs and poems that use imagery and ellipses to point at eternal things really beyond our intellect. A great deal of the Psalter is wisdom literature; wisdom is the gift of the Holy Spirit to see things with God’s eyes. Since we are not God, this will always be an approximation or a hint; we will only see clearly as He does when we get to Heaven and behold the Beatific Vision.

And at other times the second line will finish the idea of the first line. You can see from the verse from Psalm 2 that we could have easily had a single line to convey the thought. But it’s poetry and so we get to do it differently.

And finally, some Psalms will use the second line to add another thought to the first line. The opening line of Psalm 29 expands in the second line the kinds of things we should ascribe to the LORD. This pattern really fits the Psalms of praise to God: since we don’t have sufficient words, we just keep throwing more out there to convey our praises.

How do we use the Psalms?

Being religious poetry, the Psalms were written for prayer worship and instruction. There are categories that scholars have grouped them in.

Many are called laments.

These are prayers of a person who is suffering and he is crying to God for help. Sometimes the cry is of or by an individual, and sometimes it is from the community or nation.

Many of the Psalms are prayers of thanksgiving.

Others are hymns of praise to God for his general goodness and greatness.

Others are wisdom Psalms,

that offer God’s ways as instruction for how to live a good life.

There are Royal Psalms

that glorify the King or praise God for putting the king in place. And somewhat related are Zion Psalms that glorify Zion, which is another name for Jerusalem. Jerusalem of course is the royal capital and it is also the site of the temple.

There are messianic Psalms

that prophesy the coming of the Savior, which we know to be Jesus. All of the royal psalms are messianic, but there are some other messianic Psalms as well.

And there are even a few Psalms that call down curses upon the enemy. These are known as imprecatory Psalms.

A person who reads the entire Psalter, therefore, will see pretty much every human emotion expressed in religious poetry. This includes all the good types of emotions that we have been taught to express, but it admits that we get frustrated and angry and cry out for vengeance against those who have harmed us in some way. It is a good confirmation that in our relationship with God we are not precluded from being honest with him. God really can hear whatever it is we have to say to him, even if it’s something our mother wouldn’t approve of. In fact, Jesus declares the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. This is another way of saying that the only forgivable sin is to turn one’s back on God entirely. The Psalter shows us that even if we seethed with resentful memory of bad things that were done to us years and years ago, we still have access to our loving father in heaven. So while there are clearly happy and glorious Psalms, and these are the ones we tend to hear at mass, all 150 Psalms have something to say to us to help us grow closer to God.

Two Major Psalm Themes

There are two major themes that we will find appearing and reappearing throughout the book of the Psalms. The first is the theme of wisdom, and the second is the messianic theme.

The Psalms are grouped by Bible scholars into the collection known as wisdom literature because it shares so many characteristics with the other books classified that way. The Psalter, the Book of Job, and the Song of Solomon, are all poetic books in the sense that they employ an artistic use of language. They are not written to convey technical information, rather they are written to convey deeper and more profound truths, and they use poetic techniques to do that. Many of the wisdom books were written later than some of the historical books, and they tend in general to deal with God’s revelation to Israel with an eye toward its practical application in daily life. The wisdom literature can be somewhat philosophical and speculative, as it considers the various ways a person can live in the world. These books are attentive to the question of how to live as God’s people. They are somewhat the life application part of the Old Testament.

The other great theme found in the Psalter is the prophecy of the coming Messiah. And the Psalms that we could classify as messianic share many features with other prophetic writings such as the book of the prophet Isaiah and the book of Daniel and the book of Ezekiel. You may recall that it was the scroll of Isaiah that was handed to Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth when he was asked to read and then declared that the Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing in Luke Chapter 4. That was a messianic prophecy from Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

We see similar prophetic language about the anointed one – for that is what both Messiah and Christ mean – in many of the Psalms.

The Messiah will be a descendant of David, and it is the Davidic covenant that will be extended to eternity rather than the Mosaic covenant. We will see that the anointed One is a priest of the order of Melchizedek rather than of the order of Aaron. This distinction is part of why the Apostles understood eventually that one did not have to be under the Mosaic Law to be a good Christian.

While the anointed One will be Son of David, his kingdom will somehow be eternal. The messianic Psalms are clearly meant to lift one’s gaze upward to eternal realities rather than guide one’s life through temporal conditions.

So the themes of wisdom and messiah are in many ways complementary. One theme examines how to live a good life while the other examines what life we are living for. Think about how these complementary themes are found in the Mass: we offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that connects to the eternal banquet in Heaven where we all hope to be, and we hear scriptures and homilies on how to live as gospel people in the fallen world where we find ourselves.

The first two Psalms of the Psalter might be thought of as introductions to those two great themes. For the first Psalm is very much in the tradition of wisdom literature while the second Psalm is very much in the tradition of messianic prophecy. We will look at both in more detail.