The Book of Psalms

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  • Psalm 29

    (lyric, of David) * * * In bright contrast with Psalm 28, this is a psalm of power. Where the prior psalm found roundabout ways of saying much the same thing, Psalm 29 explicitly repeats. The Lord’s name appears eighteen times, ten times in refrains: “Grant the Lord” three times (1-2), and “the Lord’s voice” Read more

  • Psalm 28

    (of David) * * * There has to be a least interesting psalm. Psalm 28 volunteers. Full of circumlocutions, abstractions, and cleverness, its petty moral sensibility leaves readers little to reward attention. It reads like a wordy elaboration on the first verses of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22: “my cliff” (28:1, 18:2), “my strength my shield” Read more

  • Psalm 27

    (of David) * * * All poems and hymns are composite, whether they seem the work of one hand or many. Lines and stanzas take different angles. New images complement or challenge old ones. Abstractions butt heads. It would be valuable to be able to know whose hands—whose eyes, whose ears—put which pieces where and Read more

  • Psalm 26

    (of David) * * * Psalm 26 choreographs a claim of innocence. But while the word choreography comes from the word chorus (χορός), the psalm is the performance of a singular speaker. The rarer word chorography, from the word for space or position (χώρα), refers to mapping territory, marking out space, which this psalm even Read more

  • Psalm 25

    (of David) * * * What is this? What holds it together? To call Psalm 25 an imperfect acrostic is to scratch the surface of its imperfections. As an acrostic, it lacks the letters bet, vav, and qof, but doubles the resh and adds a final peh. How did this happen? There are all kinds Read more

  • Psalm 24

    (lyric, of David) * * * A reader is a seismograph, marking tremors of experience. “Who climbs | the Lord’s hill / who rises | in his hallowed place.” When we read this near the beginning of Psalm 24, we register familiarity (24:3). Attentive, we remember the questions that started Psalm 15: “Lord, who camps Read more