A Crash Course Through The Old Testamen, Part 8 - The Psalms

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my name is Ty and I'm helping my dad. This is Something to Not On, a short podcast for the Christian, with a short attention span designed to give you something to mentally or spiritually chew on, or not on, throughout your day or week, and my dad, nate Vainio, is your host.

Speaker 2: 0:29

We've been working through a series called A Crash Course Through the Old Testament. The intention has been to give a broad and enticing picture of the Old Testament to those who see the book as a bit intimidating. Hopefully we can accomplish this by doing a quick overview of each book and seeing how they are interconnected to the rest of the Bible. Keep in mind this is not a doctoral level serve of the Old Testament class. It's a crash course. Think of it like the first punch to a bully's chin. He'll never be intimidating again.

Speaker 2: 1:02

This episode is part eight of the series and we'll be quickly covering the book of Psalms. Are you old enough to know what it means to make a mixtape? Maybe you didn't make a mixtape, but maybe you bought a Greatest Hits album. Or maybe you're tech savvy enough to have a simple playlist or a favorites on your iTunes account. I guess I'm getting a bit old, but I remember having cassette tapes queued up and ready to record a song off the radio. When it came on it involved talent and speed, but when it was over, you had a collection of your favorite songs on one tape no commercials, no delays, no DJ small talk, just your favorite tunes. And as we dive into our look at Psalms, this is one of the things that we find out pretty quickly. It's almost like a mixtape of different songs from different artists all mixed up on one tape and more on that in a minute.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Before we begin, let's back up for a quick overview of what we've covered so far. Section one was the law Lots of rules, lots of history, lots of events and even a guy named Lot. Section two covered history lots of stories, lots of people, lots of behavior recorded. Person A did B, person C reacted by doing D and God saw it all and acted in XYZ fashion. And while this is a gross generalization, it's just that the record of certain people behaving one way or another over a period of time and in different settings, under ranging contexts, and in the books of history and the law, what is happening in the hearts and minds of the people or certain people takes a back seat or is completely unseen and can only be inferred. This is not to say that it's completely absent, it's just to say it's not blatantly clear like it will be in Psalms.

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As we stepped into section three of the Old Testament, the poetry or wisdom books, we begin to see these writings become more about an outpouring of the heart, as we saw last week. Job is 42 chapters of a man's heart bleeding out before the Lord in every raw level you can imagine, both in the painful dealings with friends and family, but also very directly with the Lord. And now we see it again, coming from all those who wrote the Psalms, or Psalms or praises or prayers. They span the gamut of angst and anger to celebration and supplication, and even on occasion dip into the prophetic. But let's back up a bit more still and dig into some basic background factoids regarding the book of Psalms.

Speaker 2: 3:58

A simple mistake people make about this book is that it's written by King David. That's only part. True. The book is really a compilation tape, a playlist if you will, of songs or prayers or Psalms Most scholars believe to have been put together after the return of the exiles from Babylon. So it wouldn't surprise me now I can't prove this or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if our friend Ezra had a hand in it. Anyhow, while David is clearly responsible for 73 of the Psalms, moses is credited with one. Solomon is credited with two, a guy named He-Man and a guy named Ethan, the Ezraite Interesting name. Each of those guys had one Asaph and the Sons of Korah however many sons there may have been, I have no idea had several Psalms respectively. Additionally, there are about 30 that are what you would call orphan Psalms or having no clearly defined author. So for the sake of clarity and to avoid potential confusion, let me make a quick comment about the timeline here.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I made a pointed effort in the books of the law and history to highlight any glitches in the timeline. For instance, remember that Ruth is a parenthesis at the end of the timeline in Judges and that Esther is sandwiched chronologically between Ezra and Nehemiah, even though she shows up after Nehemiah. In the Bible we have now and on several occasions I pointed out how, from one chapter to the next, sometimes we can jump years, as is the case in the middle of Ezra, or from the end of Genesis to the beginning of Exodus. Additionally, you have Samuel, kings and Chronicles which, instead of having gaps, they overlap, writing about the same time frame but from clearly different points in history. Also, we touched on this timeline issue a bit when we covered Job last week, in the sense that we don't have a clear timeline but there's a thousand-year window in which they expect it was probably written.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Keep in mind, now that we head into Psalms, that we don't have a clear and consistent timeline through this book either, and if you try to find one, you'll drive yourself nuts. The reason for this is that when Psalms was compiled, they did so in a topical sense, not a chronological sense, and in fact there are within the Psalms what are labeled as five separate books. Now, the oddity of all of this is that, whatever the reason, a Psalm from the end of David's life may show up at the beginning of the book. A case in point is Psalm 3. For those of us who need the chronology to make sense, this will mess with us. Psalm 3 is a Psalm of David and relates to the time in which he had to run for his life from his son, absalom. And if you remember the series I did called Handling Conflict, king David Style, or if you've read the biography of David before, you'll recognize that this comes late in his life. And there are many other Psalms that chronologically happen before this and, as you would now expect, they're much later in the Psalms.

Speaker 2: 7:19

So the lesson here is that what was important to those who compiled this final book of Psalms is not the timeline. What determined the organization of the five books is the combination of the themes and the point in history which they were added to the collection. Keep in mind that these scribes did not have the benefit of Microsoft Word and cut and paste technology. I would add here that I have a bit of a split opinion on the book. On the one hand, there's definite value in reading it from first chapter to last. Just keep in mind that the Psalms of David correspond to a completely erratic timeline. But nonetheless you can see how the compilation is done in an artistic fashion. On the other hand, this is one of those books that reading a Psalm in a hit and miss fashion can really work for a person. It's not completely out of line to read Psalm 91 and then to go back and read Psalm 4 and then to go back and read Psalm 127 and then to go back. You won't mess yourself up completely with that. You can totally do that.

Speaker 2: 8:29

Great encouragement, among other things, can be found in the Psalms. 1 Samuel 30, verses 6 through 8, for example, speaks of how David was distressed amid a situation where his family and, quite frankly, the families of his fighting men, had been kidnapped. And in addition to that angst, his men began to discuss stoning David. But 1 Samuel 30 records that David quote encouraged himself in the Lord. And that is something that every Christian at some point in time needs to learn how to do. But the question from 1 Samuel 30 is how did he do it? Yeah, he did it, but how did he do it? What does it look like? Well, the answer to that is not in 1 Samuel 30 or 31. It's in the Psalms. When you hit that rock bottom point in life, the Psalms are a great place to bounce back from and that's where you'll find how it was that David encouraged himself in the Lord.

Speaker 2: 9:33

And I'd like to digress and take a moment here to address a topic I mentioned in the intro to this NAA initiative but, as you have yet I have not addressed At its core. The goal of this crash course has been to inspire and motivate listeners to get into the Scriptures for themselves at least four times a week. That's a super important number and you can check out the intro episode to catch that if you're not up to speed on the importance of that four times per week deal. But the goal of the crash course portion is to help mitigate the potentially intimidating perceptions of the Old Testament and try to offer some insights or tools that might help listeners process these books more simply. Up until now, I've mostly just given some cliff notes, versions of the stories and some basics of biblical interpretation to help make it make sense. Now, as we dive into Psalms, though, it'll be more important when we get to the books of the prophets as well, but I want to take a moment and discuss what Bible version you read and maybe a few things to look for.

Speaker 2: 10:40

I would call this a two or three step suggestion. First and foremost, get a Bible version that you can understand. There's no sense reading an Old King James version if you're unable to track with its English usage. A real, simple and authoritative version is the NLT, and again, you can get away with reading it hit and miss. I'm a great believer in the power of the scriptures being sharper than a two-edged sword and that if God wants to speak to you, he can do so through a simple version and basic Bible reading through the text. More than half the battle is just getting into the word and giving God the opportunity to speak to you through it. Secondly, if you're wanting to take your Bible reading game up a notch or two without enrolling in some online doctoral program. Look at these options.

Speaker 2: 11:33

When studying through the Psalms, I would really recommend getting what is referred to as a study Bible. A study Bible will offer some of the basic outlines of the books and each individual Psalm or chapter whatever you want to call it. Generally, you're going to find some basic background information that simply helps to make the text make sense. Additionally, there are sometimes verse-by-verse commentaries that may clear up any questions that arise, or it'll make what is being said not just make sense, but make more sense or make it clear. So why is all that important? The answer is quite simple, really, in my opinion at least.

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Hebrew is a tough language that doesn't always translate clearly into English or with the depth that the author intended, especially in the Psalms and especially with David. Again I'll say it I believe that the word is powerful and effective and it can pierce hearts and minds with basic reading. At the same time, there are passages where the author is clearly taking the word deeper. This book is poetry, it's artistic, it's full of skillfully chosen words and cleverly arranged phrases. The Psalms are full of these kind of literary tools and cleverly recorded prose, and if you just translate the word that means jump, for instance, you might miss the depth of the word that the author intended. What if the word that we translate, jump in the Hebrew, conveys a specific kind of panicked jump by an animal over a trap, as opposed to simply standing in one place and exerting enough energy to lift your body weight five inches off the ground? Granted, I'm being a bit obnoxious here and there's not really a word I know of that's jumped like this, but this is the nature of the way that these words are translated and the way that they were intended, and sometimes we miss the clarity and the depth and by using a study Bible or other versions, possibly like the message or the amplified, to try to capture it, we get a deeper and more clear understanding of what's being said. Consequently, reading some of these Psalms in a different version will help ferret out more of the author's intent, resulting in a deeper and more meaningful reading experience for the believer. As a further point of illustration of this, let me highlight it just a little bit better here.

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I think I've mentioned this before, but my dad published a book a while back. Was his master's thesis actually called the Peter paradigm In that book. Part of his study took him to Psalm 51 and resulted in a conversation with a Hebrew professor at the University of Montana. Now how he got from Peter back to Psalm 51, I'll leave that for you to figure out. But here's what he had relayed to me regarding the language in the Psalms.

Speaker 2: 14:34

First of all, if you're not aware of Psalm 51, it's a penitent Psalm of David begging for forgiveness from the Lord for his sin with Bathsheba and murdering Uriah. If you read it in a basic translation, you will read the first couple of verses like this have mercy on me, o God. According to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Now, in reading that, even in a monotone fashion, you see that it's powerful and that we can come before the Lord like David and lay out our hearts before him in like manner. But what is missed in this reading is the tone and poetic nature of the way it's written in Hebrew. Now, I want to emphasize that this is not an inaccurate or errant reading of the text. It's just not as clear or brisk as it could be.

Speaker 2: 15:41

The professor went on to tell my dad that the nature of the words chosen by David and the manner in which they are pronounced make all the difference in the world. To speak these words in Hebrew, there would be no monotone nature to it. According to the professor, many words chosen when properly pronounced, carry a sound of angst or desperation and in the English literary term we would call it onomatopoeia. You could almost understand what he's saying based upon the tone itself. Additionally, the phrase like being washed with hyssop is not a routine run through the spin cycle of your top of the line whirlpool phrase. It's a special and abnormally intensive grinding the stain out of the garment, a reference that would have been readily understood by the Hebrew culture. So when you put these details together in Psalms, not to mention the rest of it, not just these first two, but you get a clear picture of the depth of the angst that David is laying out and expressing to the Lord.

Speaker 2: 16:48

And with these two quick examples, this is why I strongly encourage you to read through the Psalms with the study Bible and potentially a secondary version, so that you can get the most out of each work of art. And this is not the only use of literary tools in the Psalms. There are many more and I'll leave those for you to find. But quickly I'll add that Psalm 119 uses each letter of the Hebrew language and builds an incredible Psalm around each letter. It ends up being the longest chapter of the Bible, nearly smack dab in the middle of the Bible we have today. So of all of the books of the Bible to do a disservice to in this crash course through the Old Testament, this is quite possibly the biggest. There's so much here to wrap your head around, but I'm going to leave it here for you to dig into it on your own and just add one short story to wrap this up.

Speaker 2: 17:48

I've mentioned before the story of Teddy Roosevelt walking to work in Washington DC with his kids, and Ted Jr recounting. His dad used to tell him the stories of all the monuments and buildings in the city as they would walk, not just recounting the dates and the charters, but telling it in a way that you felt as if you were right there, in the thick of it. And that's in Jr's book Average Americans. I would submit to you that when you read the Psalms, particularly those of David. And if you can find it, go back and reread the corresponding historical story in Samuel or Kings or Chronicles. It's well worth your time, as Ted Jr said, to put yourself right there in the thick of it and watch it come to life for you. And as it comes to life, let David's prayer in the chaos of life become your prayers, knowing that the God who sees it all sees you. And in the same way that David had a relationship with God, he longs to have a relationship with you.

Speaker 2: 18:56

As I'm wrapping this up, I'm staring at Psalm 21, where David says right off the bat O Lord, in your strength the King rejoices, and in your salvation, how great he exalts. You have given him his heart's desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Guys, get into the word this week and let the word get into you Until next week, god bless. And lastly, as somewhat of a programming note, time is every man's enemy and I have got some things that are stacking up that I have got to get knocked out, which means that for the next two weeks I am not going to have an episode up.

Speaker 2: 19:46

I'm going to need to take some time to take care of a few things. I'm a guy with an average job and I do this on the side, and, unfortunately, things that are on the side are stacking up that I've got to devote some attention and time to, so I will catch up to you in a few weeks. It emphasizes, though, the need and the necessity to stay connected with me on the Facebook page and also to subscribe on whatever platform, so you can be notified when the next episode comes out. So, anyhow, until then, trust that you are having a good start to the new year and a couple weeks from now, we will catch up. God bless 얼�.