What is a psalm?

The Book of Psalms is a collection of Meditations, Prayers, and Praises, uttered by various persons under various circumstances; all, surely, under the moving of the Holy Ghost. It bears this title, "The Book of Psalms," by inspired authority. (Acts 1:20)

The Psalms themselves are either commemorative or prophetic, or expressive of the present passage of the soul. They have all the variety of confession, supplication, and praise; of doctrine, history, and prophecy.

The book of the Psalms is probably the best known part of the Old Testament (OT). It is a collection of 150 poems or songs by various authors and it is divided into five books (similar to the Pentateuch).

David wrote 73 Psalms. They are mainly to be found in the first, second and fifth book. Twelve Psalms bear the name of Asaph, the conductor of David's choir of the temple (1 Chron. 16:7; 2 Chron. 29:30). Asaph's Psalms are Psalm 50 and 73-83. Ten Psalms are written by the sons of Korah (Ps. 42; 44-49; 84; 85; 87), two by Solomon (Ps. 72 and 127), one each by Moses (Ps. 90), Ethan (Ps. 89) and Heman (Ps. 88). The remaining 50 Psalms bear no author's name.

The second characteristic of the Psalms is just that they are "psalms." The Hebrew word means rather "hymns" or "praises" (tehillim) but everywhere the swell and harmony of poetry and music link themselves with this. The soul in its various moods and most opposite circumstances is controlled and harmonized by the felt presence of God. The one God over all, in all, brings all seeming discords into unity. Change and movement are but the rhythm of a central Life, pulsating in true heart-beats through the whole frame of nature. And thus even inanimate things are bidden to join in the song which heaven to earth sends forth, and earth to heaven. God dwells amid these praises, reigns in them: they are the witness of how stable His kingdom is "the world" too "is established that it cannot be moved."

But, as these meditations show us, the passions of the soul, uttered in this Book, are not descriptions merely, but the felt power of real circumstances. They are experiences in actual scenes of life, so that we learn events in the utterances. The passion of the soul is the principal thing, but the event or circumstance which had produced it is disclosed through it. In this way a Psalm is like a song. In a song the music is principal, the subject is only secondary, though it may have given occasion to it. So the passion of the soul is principal in a Psalm, though the event conveyed through it occasioned it. The Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Canticles of Solomon are of this kind — the one, the deep-toned sorrows of the Spirit in Jeremiah, or in the righteous Remnant in Israel, or of Christ Himself; the other, the joyous motions of that soul that has learnt to delight itself in the Beloved, and is longing for more of His presence. And the event being intimated through those utterances, gives us the historic or prophetic ministry of this Book.

This book evidently stood, and still stands in the Hebrew Bible at the head of the third great division of the Old Testament Scriptures, and so gave its name to it, as appears from the Lord's words summing up that revelation under the three heads of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44). As a book it is unique in character, being made up of compositions by different writers, and ranging over a period of nearly a thousand years ere its contents were all produced, the earliest writer mentioned being Moses (Ps. 90), and the latest certainly not anterior to the Babylonish captivity (Ps. 137). Faith in times of affliction, conflict, and declension, and the outpouring of the heart to God whether in prayer or praise under such circumstances, characterise the compositions. Fitly then may they begin chronologically with Moses, who, as Heb. 11:24-25 would teach us, had to choose whether he would take his part with God's people in affliction, or would enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

By whom, guided by the Spirit, the whole collection was arranged, each composition brought into its present place, and whether the work of one servant of God or of several, is hidden from us. Enough for us it is to know, and own, that the different authors wrote in words taught of the Spirit, as one of them has expressed it (Ps. 45:1), his tongue being the pen of a ready writer. And we may add our belief, that the arrangement of the different Psalms in the order in which they have come down to us is not of human origin, but is the carrying out of a Divine purpose. Hence there is a moral order in the arrangement of this book, as there is in other books of the inspired volume.

The Book of Psalms. This inspired collection of sacred songs, and of compositions of various character, has evidently the impress of God upon their arrangement. He selected them, gave them their present shape and form, gave one hundred and sixteen of them those untranslated headings or titles which are rarely read and still less understood. He gave to the whole collection its title, "The Book of Psalms" (Luke 20:42), and caused them to be numbered, too, for more easy reference, as "the Second Psalm" (Acts 13:33). The Psalms are inspired, and their arrangement is Divine. "Selah," that word of so frequent occurrence — about seventy times — signifies to pause or consider. Uniform tradition — Jewish and Christian — ascribes the compilation of the Psalms to Ezra on his return to Palestine after the Babylon-captivity. Human arrangement would have set the Psalms in chronological or historical order; but God has classified them in a manner befitting His glory. Whoever were the authors — and they are numerous (David, of course, principally) — the composition of the whole extended through a period of about a thousand years, commencing with Moses (Psalm 90) and ending with the return from Babylon (Psalm 137).

The book of Psalms is a collection of one hundred and fifty psalms, spiritually divided into five books, each of which has its own particular design. The first book of psalms, from psalm 1 to 41 answers to the book of Genesis, the second book of psalms, psalms 42 to 72 answers to the book of Exodus, the third book of psalms, psalms 73 to 89 answers to the book of Leviticus, the fourth book, psalms 90 to 106 answers to the book of Numbers, and the final book, psalms 107 to 150 answers to the book of Deuteronomy. You can search these things out for yourself. As Paul said to the young man, Timothy, "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them" (1 Tim.4:15), and, "Consider what I say; and the Lord [will] give thee understanding in all things" (2 Tim.2:7). If we give ourselves to these things the Lord will give His blessed response to our spiritual exercise. The psalms answer to the five books of the Pentateuch.

The Book of Psalms The book of Psalms has furnished comfort and praise for untold multitudes of the people of God from the beginning, but there is a fascinating completeness in its structure, a fulness of prophetic outline, above all, a marvelous unfolding of the nature of our Lord's sufferings, that makes the book of Psalms unique. It is not mere doctrine on one side, nor mere history on the other, but it is an actual enactment before the eyes of faith of the scenes through which the soul is passing.

But what makes them psalms gives them surely their character. They are heart-melodies addressed to God; so that in the saddest of them, still God reigns: amid all fears and questionings and darkness and difficulty, it is to Him ever that the soul turns; and thus there comes into its wildest outpourings a rhythm and tender sweetness which awakes nature around, as in the utterance of harp or other instrument, into responsive accompaniment. Thus the Psalms proclaim God sovereign, and the book of Psalms as such comes first among the experience books. With assurance of victory in all the strife of which these books are full, the singers are put in the forefront of the battle.

In the Psalms therefore, beyond every other part of the written word, we have the divinely inspired expression of the hopes and fears, of the dangers and falls, of the confessions and recoveries, of the self-judgment and the thanksgivings, of the praises and the blessings, of God's people. We have the outpouring even of the Lord Himself, alone in atoning for sin, associated with others in governmental affliction, and leading the praise where and when this could be. Who but God could have supplied all this with a vast deal more, and beforehand? Who could have combined the experience of man's trembling and agitated heart, with the consolations of divine grace suited to his state, in a form worthy of God and a bearing for all time, even for that when the groans of creation shall be changed into the joy of the earth in unison with the heavens, and the field shall exult, and all the trees of the forest sing for joy, when the floods shall clap hands and the mountains chant together? For Jehovah will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.