SUMMER OF PSALMS

JUMP IN WITH JESUS THIS SUMMER!

Psalms is a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers that come from all different eras in Israel’s history. While there are many different types of poems in these collections, they can all be sorted into two larger categories of either lament or praise. Poems of lament express the pain, confusion, and even anger of the poets about the horrible things happening around them or to them. They draw attention to what’s wrong in the world and ask God to do something about it. There are a lot of these lament poems in the book, which shoes that this is an appropriate response to the evil and tragedy we see in the world. Lamentation can play an important role in the journey of prayer.

While these lament poems make up much of Books 1-3, you can see that praise poems are occasionally woven in as well. These are poems of joy and celebration that draw attention to what’s good in the world. They retell stories of what God has done in the lives of his people, and they thank him for it. In Books 4-5, praise poems outnumber the laments, culminating in the 5-part hallelujah conclusion.

The shift from predominately lament psalms in the beginning of the book to predominately praise psalms in the last two sections of the book tell us something about the nature of prayer according to the Torah. Hoping for the Messianic Kingdom as the book teaches us to do will create a lot of tension as we look on the tragic state of our world or our own lives. The Psalms teach us to neither ignore pain, nor to let it determine the meaning of our lives. Biblical faith and prayers is always forward looking, anticipating the day when God will fulfill his promises and praising him for this ahead of time. The Torah and Messiah, lament and praise, faith and hope, this is what the book of Psalms is all about.

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