The Book of Psalms

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  • Psalm 96

    * * * The most joyous of psalms, Psalm 96 builds in imagination until even the trees cry out, ki-va’, ki-va’, “oh he’s come he’s come” (13). Again and again it calls the whole earth (or “land”) to celebrate (1, 9, 11; “the skies… the sea | and its many / the field | and Read more

  • Psalm 95

    * * * The first fourteen lines of Psalm 95 are changed entirely by the last ten. Through the first two-thirds of verse 7, the psalm calls for collective praise. It is a celebration of the Lord’s face (2, 6) and hand (4, 5, 7), suffused with Davidic imagery (“the crag of our rescue,” 1; Read more

  • Psalm 94

    * * * It’s tempting when reading the Hebrew Bible— especially for those who read a little or not well at all— either to whitewash or to wallow in the violence of the Lord. The temptation may be most pronounced among Christians who (in my experience, at least) tend to default to the false binary Read more

  • Psalm 93

    * * * Psalm 93 differs dramatically from the psalms that precede it. It feels ancient, archaic, primarily because it repeats like an incantation and its terse clauses fly fast. There are six conjugated verbs in the first verse alone, each half-line its own statement. The first, middle, and last verses have all the psalm’s Read more

  • Psalm 92

    (lyric, a song for Shabbat) * * * The opening and closure of Psalm 92 celebrate the Lord. “To thank… to hymn… to tell” (1-2), says the first stanza; “to tell,” echoes the last (15). And what the psalm thanks, hymns, tells and tells are three divine virtues: “to tell / by dawn your care Read more

  • Psalm 91

    * * * Three distinct trajectories make Psalm 91 more compelling than it first appears. The first is the unfolding of a single extended metaphor: God as a raptor, God’s devotee the raptor’s fledgling. The scene is a mountain, and the vocabulary ornithological, most explicitly in verse 4: “with his feathers | he covers you Read more