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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 304. The Psalms
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The Psalms
It was “out of the depths” that the psalmists cried to God, and the deep of our experience answers to the deep of theirs. In their words we find our own emotions expressed and see our own experience reflected. They knew what was in man; and that is why they “find” us. They knew the strangeness and the sorrow of life, but amidst it all they also knew God to be their shelter and their strength. Never have there been men who faced more honestly the problems of life, or felt its pathos more keenly. Life was a mystery, and they knew that by searching they could never fully find its meaning out; but they searched like the brave men they were, till sometimes their hearts grew bitter and throbbed with pain (Psa_63:2). They voice that “sense of tears in mortal things” which is felt by all who look with fearless and unconventional eyes at the pain and surprises of life.1 [Note: J. E. McFadyen, The Messages of the Psalmists, 4.]
2. More persistently than any other book in the Bible does the Psalter bring home to us the overwhelming sense of the reality and personality of God. The sight of His gracious face was better to the psalmists than abundance of corn and wine, and His presence by the side of the spirit that was perplexed soothed it into peace again. The “strangers and pilgrims” are yet in some strange sense the guests of God, daily gathering around His hospitable table in a world that is full of His goodness. From every storm there is a refuge in the shadow of His wings, and there the weary soul can lie in peace and look up with a smile, like a weaned child on the bosom of his mother. The psalms were written and sung by men who counted God their friend.
The Psalter is always serious and sometimes sad; yet it is sad only to transform sadness into joy, and its main characteristic is gladness. In no direction does this appear more clearly than in its delight in nature. This delight is not the simply, innocently sensuous delight of the Song of Songs. What the poet there did unconsciously is done consciously by the psalmists. They glorify nature as the vision and language of God. Sometimes they are content to give a picture in a few lines, like that of the strong sun running his course in Psa_19:1-14. No application is made; the poet trusts the sacramental power of the mere natural beauty of the thing. Psa_19:1-14 does indeed end with a moral reflection. It is a beautiful one, but surely forms a separate piece from the first half of the poem. The juncture of the two is just what would be approved in a popular hymn-book; the artist and the sacramentalist (if the twain be not one) might wish the two psalms were still given separately. Sometimes there is a magnificent theophany-the Lord manifesting Himself in the thunderstorm, as in 18, 29, and the conclusion of 77. Sometimes the theophany is rather suggested than described, as in 96, where the coming of spring is the advent of the Lord to judge. There is a famous addition in some copies of the Septuagint of this psalm: “Say among the nations, The Lord reigneth from the tree.” This is thought to have been added in Christian times, but as far as the context comes into the argument, the words may be taken in a sense which is quite in harmony with the psalmist's sacramental vision of the awakening forest. Sometimes, as in 104, we have an elaborate description of all the dædal life of nature in which ascription of praise to the Creator, Guide, and Provider is continually interwoven; through and over all runs the melody of simple joy.1 [Note: A. Nairne, The Faith of the Old Testament, 199.]
3. Most of the psalms are direct addresses to God. The rest of them are devout meditations upon the Divine word, and the blessedness of those who receive it into their hearts, or varied expressions of spiritual life arising from the most intimate and inspiring relations with God, and suitable to the sanctuary. The central and ruling idea of the whole is worship in its most comprehensive sense, and is embodied in a single impressive sentence in Psa_95:1-11 :
“Oh come, bowing down let us worship,
Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker;
For he is our God,
And we are the people of his care,
The flock of his hand.”