The power of the Psalms

A look at the power of the Psalms

Title

The Psalms served as a devotional guide and temple hymnbook for the Jewish people. They were set to accompaniment of musical instruments and came to be known as the "Book of Praises".

The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) used the title Psalmoi which means "poems sung to instruments". The English title Psalms, of course, comes from this word.

Authorship

The Palms are authored by various people as follows;

1. David (75 Psalms - 1/2 of the book)

2. Solomon (2 Psalms)

3. Asaph (12 Psalms)

4. Moses (1 Psalm - the oldest one being Psalm 90)

5. Sons of Korah (10 Psalms)

6. Other unnamed (25 Psalms)

Date

At least one-half of the Psalms were written at the time of David. The rest were written after the Exile.

It is thought that the Psalms were brought together in a book around 450-400 B.C.

Content Overview / Literary Structure

The book of Psalms is a collection of prayers, poems and hymns that focus the worshiper's thoughts on God in praise and adoration. The Psalter is really five books in one and each book ends with a doxology.

The collection as a whole explores the full range of human experience and emotion in a very personal and practical way. A number of different classification systems have been developed to analyze this collection but certainly there are psalms of lament, thanksgiving and praise, messianic and royal psalms.

There are also psalms of wisdom and there are the different imprecatory Psalms.

The common genre in this book is poetry. Scholars feel that the quality of poetry is unsurpassed.

Division in the Psalms

Book One - Psalms 1-41

Book Two - Psalms 41-72

Book Three - Psalms 73-89

Book Four - Psalms 90-106

Book Five - Psalms 107-150

Purpose and Message

Used among the Jewish People as a worship manual, prayer book and hymn book.

Used to express praise to God, exhortation and encouragement to others and confession, sorrow and even anger to both God and man.

Used to honor God with adoration, commitment renewal and exclamations of love and thanksgiving.

Return to Old Testament from The power of the Psalms