After completing my annual speed-read of the Bible, I like to follow Joe Carter’s plan for how to change your mind. Carter’s plan is simply to select a book of the Bible, read it 20 times in a row, and then move on to another book and do the same. After following that plan for 3 years, I’ve covered 20 books of the Bible, alternating between shorter books and longer ones. This discipline has been the most effective practice I’ve ever followed to help me master these books.
And for most of 2020, I’ve decided to tackle the third-longest book of the Bible: Psalms. (I already covered the second-longest, Genesis, in 2017. The first-longest, Jeremiah, still glares at me threateningly from an undisclosed rendezvous in my future timeline.)
To help me grasp the book’s ebbs and flows, and to prevent too much sensation of swimming in molasses, I’ve decided to consume the book of Psalms according to its five subdivisions, called “books.” Most Bibles will put headings over those five books: Psalms 1-41, 42-73, 74-89, 90-106, and 107-150.
So for now, I’m reading only Psalms 1-41 repeatedly (about to finish my 11th repetition). After 20 times there, I’ll move on to Book II, and so on.
The Data I’m Collecting
I’m creating a spreadsheet to help me analyze the psalms and the book’s larger structure. You can find the fruit of my labors here. (I’ll also post it on the blog’s Resources page, so you can easily find it in the future.)
On the spreadsheet, I’m tracking every ascription and description given for a psalm. I’m also tracking every psalm that uses the term “psalm,” “choirmaster,” or “selah.”
But besides such trivia, I’m also tracking which psalms are acrostics (where each verse or stanza begins with a subsequent letter of the Hebrew alphabet), what sort of poem each psalm is, which NT verses directly quote from each psalm.
And above all, I’m recording what I believe to be the main point of each psalm. My purpose in doing this is not to erase or ignore the nature of the poetry, which is typically intended to be felt and pondered and not merely reduced to a logical proposition. My purpose is simply to recognize that each psalm is profitable for teaching, correcting, reproving, and/or training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). And when I’m feeling especially discouraged about a particular sin that doesn’t seem to go away—to give a practical example—I would like the spreadsheet to help me remember the psalm whose primary purpose is to ask God not to discipline me in anger as my sin deserves. (In case you’re wondering, it’s Psalm 38.)
What I’m Gleaning
The biggest lesson for me so far is that the Psalms are clearly arranged with intention. This is no random assortment of devotional poems. The five books of Psalms have been set in their order to communicate a number of overarching themes designed to infect the prayer and worship of God’s people. To give only one example of the purposeful arrangement, notice how Book I has four psalms with an acrostic structure (marked in column H of the spreadsheet). No other Book has an acrostic, until Book V, which also has exactly four. This can’t be a coincidence.
For a brief, yet brilliant, take on the book of Psalms see the Bible Project video below. While I differ with them on a few details, I find their broad insight into the book quite stimulating. These guys are the ones who set me down the path of seeing the intentionality behind the book’s arrangement.
With respect to Book I, I was intrigued by the proposal that Psalms 15-24 make up an extended chiasm (a structure where the second half is a mirror image in parallel to the first half). As I have dug into these psalms myself, I can’t help but wonder whether the chiasm extends out all the way to Psalms 3-35. I’ve color-coded the parallel pairs in the spreadsheet.
Many commentators, not only those at The Bible Project, agree that Psalms 1-2 provide an introduction to the entire book. This introductions establishes a blessing on those who 1) hold fast to God’s Word and 2) submit to God’s King. I find it unsurprising that the center of the Book I chiasm consists of Psalms 19 & 20, which have the same pair of themes.
Not all proposed pairings are self-evident. But many are uncanny. For example, in Psalm 4, David asks God to answer him when he calls (Psalm 4:1), and in Psalm 34, David praises God for hearing him when he called (Psalm 34:6).
This leads to another insight I’ve gleaned, which is that there is clear movement over the course of the book. Each psalm, and even subsets of verses of a psalm, could be read or prayed in isolation as an act of worship (here are two examples). But at the same time, there is a broad movement over the course of the book that is worth following.
For example, consider only Book I. After introducing the main themes of the book in Psalms 1-2 (blessing on the one who trusts God’s Word and God’s King), the editor presents 39 psalms connected—with only one exception—to David. And in these psalms, we see a high percentage of laments and requests for help from persecution (19 psalms). Intertwined throughout are occasional psalms of praise or blessing (13 psalms). But most of the “praise” psalms even focus on praise for the opportunity to request help when life is tough (Psalms 9-10, 18, 21, 30, 33, 34, 40).
The first praise psalm (Psalm 8) is about how God set a human to reign as king over creation against God’s enemies. And the last praise psalm (Psalm 40) gives thanks for past deliverance in order to request further deliverance in the future (Ps 40:13-17). The rejoicing over past deliverance flows right out of the requests in Psalms 36-39. And the request for future deliverance sets up the Book’s final psalm (Psalm 41), which is as much a confession of faith as a lament over poor circumstances. “Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble Yahweh delivers him” (Ps 41:1).
Putting it together, we see the following flow of thought through Book I:
- Blessed is the one who trusts God’s Word and God’s King – Pss 1-2
- David was a king who trusted God’s Word through all sorts of turmoil – Pss 3-18
- Center of chiasm: The king asks God to align his words with God’s words, and the people ask God to save the king – Pss 19-20
- But David is not the end of the story. He has yet to be freed from oppression, sickness, and personal sin. He is not yet vindicated as the true Son of God. There must be something more – Pss 21-41
This leaves us wondering whether Book II might suggest what is that “something more.”
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