The Book of Psalms

Posts

  • Psalm 90

    (a prayer of Moses, man of God) * * * Ascribing Psalm 90 to Moses accentuates— or invents— its archaic feel. The psalm’s abiding interest in timelessness and transience comes to seem ancient, its voice and wisdom instructive, authoritative. More pointedly, however, the name of Moses invites readers to attend closely to the language of Read more

  • Psalm 89

    (a didactic of Ethan the Ezrahite) * * * The problem that Psalm 89 considers in its sort-of-dialogue— namely, how an unconditional promise that supposedly lasts forever could become both conditional and broken— is already present in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Kings 8-9, the passages on which the psalm is based. David, having just Read more

  • Psalm 88

    (a song, a lyric, of the Qorachites; director: to Mahalat, a didactic for humility, of Heman the Ezrahite) * * * It gets dark here near the end of Book Three (Pss 73-89) but honesty about darkness matters. Besides the biological fact that death comes for us all, acknowledgment of death’s finality is a condition Read more

  • Psalm 87

    (of the Qorachites, a lyric, a song) * * * Readers often miss the cohesion and singular pleasures of the taut Psalm 87. Its structure is meticulous and not, as many scholars have long proposed, a mess:  “badly injured… the half-verses have been torn apart and senselessly coordinated” (Kraus II 184). The psalm depends most Read more

  • Psalm 86

    (a prayer, of David) * * * There is a striking gap between the expectations Psalm 86 comes bearing, given its location near the culmination of the central book of the Psalter (73-89), and its inescapable lack of quality. Framed by two pairs of Qorachite psalms, the only Book Three psalm designated by superscription as Read more

  • Psalm 85

    (director: of the Qorachites, a lyric) * * * If the frequency of keywords matters to a psalm’s meaning, Psalm 85 cares most about “turning.” So do many biblical narratives– from Jacob and Joseph to Moses and Balaam, to Ruth and David– and poetry throughout the Prophets and Writings. The root shuv is used five Read more