the Book of Psalms it's a collection of
150 ancient Hebrew poems songs and
prayers that come from all different
periods in Israel's history many of
these poems are connected with King
David 73 actually and he was known as a
poet and harp player but there are many
different authors behind these poems
there's the poems of a saw or from the
sons of korah and some from other
worship leaders in the temple even
Solomon and Moses have their own poems
and nearly one third of these are
anonymous now many of these poems came
to be used by the choirs that sang in
Israel's temple but the Book of Psalms
is actually not a hymn book at some
point in the period after Israel's exile
to babylon these ancient poems were
gathered together and intentionally
arranged into the Book of Psalms before
us and it has a very unique design and
message that you're not going to notice
unless you read it from beginning to end
now to see how the Book of Psalms is
designed it's actually most helpful to
start at the end the book concludes with
five poems of praise to the God of
Israel and each one begins and ends with
the word hallelujah which is Hebrew for
a command to tell a group of people to
praise yah which is short for the divine
name Yahweh now that's a really nice
five part arrangement and it looks like
someone's giving us a conclusion here to
the book so it invites the question does
the book have any other signs of
intentional design if you pay attention
to the headings of the poems you'll
notice that at five places your Bible
Translators have the heading book 1 book
2 book 3 4 & 5 at various points and
that these divide the book into five
large sections now the reason for this
is that the final poem in each of those
sections have a very similar ending that
looks like an editorial Edition it reads
something like may the Lord the God of
Israel be blessed for ever and ever amen
and amen so the book has a conclusion it
has an internal organization into five
main parts and so the natural place to
go from here is now the beginning to
look for an introduction and what we
find Psalms 1 & 2 which stand outside of
book 1 because most of the poems
in book 1 or linked to David except
Psalms 1 and 2 which are anonymous so um
one celebrates how blessed the person is
who meditates on the Torah prayerfully
reading it day and night and then
obeying now the word Torah simply means
teaching and more specifically it came
to refer to the five books of Moses that
began the Old Testament and here
actually the word seems to be used with
both meanings in mind which explains why
it has five main parts the Book of
Psalms is being offered as a new Torah
that will teach God's people the
lifelong practice of prayer as they
strive to obey God's commands given in
the first Torah Psalm 2 is a poetic
reflection on God's promised King David
from 2nd Samuel chapter 7 that one day a
messianic King would come and establish
God's kingdom over the world defeat evil
and rebellion among the nations
now Psalm 2 concludes by saying that all
those who take refuge in the Messianic
King will be blessed precisely the word
used to open Psalm 1 and so together
these two poems tell us that the Book of
Psalms is designed to be the prayer book
of God's people as they strive to be
faithful to the commands of the Torah as
they hope and wait for the future
Messianic Kingdom now with these two
themes introduced we can start to see
how the smaller books have been designed
as well around these two ideas so for
example book 1 has right at the center a
collection of poems Psalms 15 through 24
that opens and closes with a call to
covenant faithfulness and then Psalm 16
to 18 we find a depiction of David as a
model of this kind of faithfulness so he
calls out to God to deliver him and God
elevates him as king now in the
corresponding set of poem Psalms 22 23
the David of the past has become an
image of the Messianic King of the
future who will also call out to God he
will be delivered and then given a
kingdom over the nation's and then right
at the center of this collection is a
poem Psalm 19 dedicated to praising God
for the Torah so here we go
the two themes from Psalms 1 and 2 are
bound together tightly here book 2 opens
with two poems that are united in their
hope for a future return to the temple
in Zion and this is an image closely
associated with the hope of the
Messianic Kingdom then book 2 closes
with a poem that depicts the future
reign of the Messianic King over all of
the nation this poem is really amazing
because it echoes all these other
passages from the prophets about the
Messianic Kingdom and it concludes by
saying that this Kings reign will bring
about the fulfillment of God's ancient
promise to Abraham to bring God's
blessing to all of the nations book 3
also concludes with a poem reflecting on
God's promise to David but this time in
light of Israel's exile so the poet
remembers how God said he would never
abandon the line of David but now he's
looking at Israel's rebellion and its
result and destruction and exile and the
downfall of the line of David and so the
poet ends by asking God to never forget
his promise to David book 4 is designed
to respond to this crisis of exile so
the opening poem returns us back to
Israel's roots with a prayer of Moses
and he does what he did on Mount Sinai
after the Golden Calf incident which is
to call upon God to show mercy the
center of book 4 is dominated by a group
of poems that announce that the Lord the
God of Israel reigns as the true king of
the world and that all creation trees
mountains rivers are all summoned to
celebrate that future day when God will
bring his justice and Kingdom over all
the world book 5 opens with a series of
poems that affirm that God hears the
cries of his people and will one day
send the future King to defeat evil and
bring God's kingdom this book also
contains two larger collections one
called the hollow and the other called
the songs of a sense each one of these
collections concludes with a poem about
the future messianic kingdom and these
two collections together they sustain
the hope for a future
Exodus like act of God to redeem his
people and then right between them is
psalm 119 it's the longest poem in the
book it's an alphabet poem each line
begins with a new letter of the Hebrew
alphabet and it explores the Wonder and
the gift of the Torah as God's Word to
his people so here we go the themes from
Psalm 1 and to Torah and Messiah
combined all
gather here in book 5 which brings us
all the way back to that five poem
conclusion in the center poem Psalm 148
all creation is summoned to praise the
God of Israel because he has quote
raised up a horn for his people
now the horn here it's a metaphor of a
bull's horn raised in victory and this
image echoes back to the same image used
in Hannah's song for Samuel chapter 2
but also to the earlier Psalm 132 the
horn is a symbol for the future
Messianic King and his victory over evil
it's a fitting conclusion to this
amazing book now here's one more thing
that you are likely going to miss if you
don't read this book in order there's
lots of different kinds of poems in the
Book of Psalms but they all basically
fall into two big categories either
poems of lament or poems of praise poems
of lament express pain confusion and
anger about how horrible the world is
and how horrible the things are
happening to the poet and so these poems
draw attention to what's wrong in the
world and they ask God to do something
about it there's a lot of these in the
book which tells us something important
that lament is an appropriate response
to the evil that we see in our world but
what you'll notice is that lament poems
predominate earlier in the book in books
1 through 3 but pay attention because
you'll see praise poems occasionally to
praise poems are poems of joy and
celebration and they draw attention to
what's good in the world and they retell
stories of what God has done in our
lives and thank God for it in books 4
and 5 you'll notice that praise poems
come to outnumber lament poems and it
all culminates in that five part
hallelujah conclusion so this shift from
lament to praise this is profound and it
tells us something about the nature of
Prayer as we hope for the Messianic
Kingdom as the book teaches us to do
this will create tension for us as we
look out on the tragic state of our
world end of our lives
and so the psalms teach us not to ignore
the pain of our lives but at the same
time biblical faith is forward-looking
looking to the promise of God's future
messianic kingdom and so Torah and
Messiah lament and praise
faith and hope that's what the Book of
Psalms is all about