The Book of Psalms

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  • Psalm 11

    (director: of David) * * * This short psalm is swift, with a cascade of movement. In the first two verses, the speaker imagines herself a bird not yet in flight, which suggests the near-flight of threatening arrows. To this threat, the Lord responds by shooting glances from above, raining his elevated response: “coals | Read more

  • Psalms 9 & 10

    * * * * * * With Psalm 10, Psalm 9 is a broken acrostic, its contents shaped by both the form and its obvious ruptures. To take the second point first, this is not a well-preserved acrostic. Readers disagree about whether it is a single psalm or two, underemphasizing the more important point that Read more

  • Psalm 8

    (director: on the Gath harp, lyric, of David) * * * Among the strongest of all psalms, Psalm 8 is a tightly constructed poetic commentary on the beginning of Genesis. It starts and ends with a refrain that includes God’s personal name, yod-hey-vav-hey, a renaming of him as adonai, our lord, and an exclamation that Read more

  • Psalm 7

    (rendition of David, which he sang to the Lord with the words of Kush the Benjamite) * * * While both can be classed as individual laments, Psalm 7 is a study in contrasts with Psalm 6. There’s less turning in this psalm, and no pleading for a change of heart or diversion of enemies. Read more

  • Psalm 6

    (director: with strings, in eighths, lyric, of David) * * * The sharp-eyed critic Bernhard Duhm, who allegedly quipped that “commentaries make one stupid,” wrote of Psalm 6 in his 1899 commentary on the Psalms, “as a reading at a Christian sickbed this psalm is not suitable.” Two thoughts arise. First, the modifier “Christian” seems Read more

  • Psalm 5

    (director: with flutes; lyric, of David) * * * Though its opening pairs well with the closing of Psalm 4— as reclining to sleep in peace is followed by readying at dawn— Psalm 5’s closer parallels are with Psalm 1 (see Botha 2018, Barbiero 1999). Both starkly contrast the paths walked by the good and Read more