[Music] thank you so much for the privilege and the blessing that comes to me to share this portion of god's word with you this year not in classes today is that right what are you doing here you could be in the park you could be with your family ah thank you very much for the special effort and energy to to come and sit through a boring lecture this morning it is a great joy for me to share from the book of psalms in particular but let us pray before we begin thank you for this wonderful gift you have given us father god you want us to sing your praises you want us to hem the glories of jesus christ so you have given us this wonderful book the book of prayers and praises in which we can learn how better to approach your throne of grace we stumble with our words before your presence but your word guides us and leads us help us more and more to bring every thought into captivity to jesus and to him your praises by the use of the psalms for we pray in the name of jesus christ christ jesus our savior amen martin luther had always something interesting to say about just about everything this is what martin luther said about the book of psalms he says i like to think that the holy spirit wanted to have a little bible a little so he put everything in the book of songs this is a little bible if you want to confess your sins you find it in the book of songs if you want to rehearse the glories of god the creator of all things you turn to the book of songs and what about eschatology don't you like that word well if you want to learn about eschatology you read the book of psalms they they are acquainted a little bit with gerhardus vos yes he did there gerhardus vos has a a special article on the eschatology of the song and he talks about how interesting it is that in some bindings of a new testament you have the new testament and what you sometimes have a little new testament with the book of psalms in the back yes so what's right in front of the book of psalms if you do that oh yeah what book of the bible would be right before the book of psalms if the psalms is connected at the end of the new testament testimony though no this is new testament with the book of psalms added at the back what new testament book would be right connected to the book of psalms revelation revelation amen thank you very much do i have a prize to give to you yes and so gerhardt of swash says but isn't that interesting that if you want to talk about eschatology you see revelation and psalms right together i'll so you have a little bible everything is in the book of songs if you want to preach christ you preach the book of psalms what did the apostles use as their text when they wanted to establish the resurrection [Music] psalm 16 the book of psalms psalm 66 of the psalms if they wanted to establish justification by faith alone where did they go to philosophy psalm 32 the book of psalms so the whole bible is in the book of song now it's very interesting that if you begin to study the structure of the book of psalms you might end up agreeing with me that the book of psalms has been structured by the holy spirit so that and just a plain old common israelite could memorize the whole book of psalms as you know poetry is much easier to memorize than prose and if you get poetry structured then you can it's a little late for me to start on this process but not for you and no problem says why not begin to memorize the book of psalms and of course if you're going to understand the structure you're going to have to memorize it in hebrew right exactly is and i'll send you a free copy of my book on the psalms if you let me know that you've memorized the whole software in the in hebrew if the old hebrew farmer could do it then you can do it psalm 1 says in his law the the godly man meditates day and night how many different versions of the bible did the common israelite have to carry around with him or in his home one thing is very soon in castle did they have the niv the esv they he have uh copies on his little cellphone i don't think so he could me instantly look up verses in king james whatsoever only the few priests in the temple would have a copy of the song but you know oral societies memorize every sabbath as many jewish people as possible would be at that temple and hear the recitation of the song at least three times a year they would come for a full week to celebrate and all day long they would have the reading of the scriptures and certainly much of the psalms well that was for worship period [Music] they hear it they memorize it they meditate on it while they're digging their garden during their carpentry so in the 20th century we think we're so smart thomas okay so how do you read the songs how do you read the book of songs do you see each song is is one little nice piece of special brazilian chocolate with an almond in the center we had some delicious brazilian chocolate on on a piece of pizza last night so i know about your love for chocolate chocolate but it's so sweet that you usually wrap every little piece in in silver top i'm about to fall asleep tonight i think i'll read a song oh [Music] that's the way people have been reading the psalms for the past 2000 years saint augustine had produced a commentary of all 150 songs condensed to over 600 pages and at the end of his commentary he says the arrangement of the psalms seems to me to contain the secret of a mighty mystery come there again the secret of the arrangement of the psalms seems to me to contain the secret of a mighty mystery that has not yet been revealed unto me that is he's been through the whole book of psalms taken him many years but he says the arrangement all right it's a mighty mystery a recent evangelical introduction to the old testament you know dillard and longman um [Music] says except for under rare circumstances it is inappropriate to exegeta psalm in the context of the psalter you are not to interpret psalm 23 in the light of psalm 21 22 24 and 25. instead you must go after that german phrase the sitz emblazoned the situation in life prior to the the form of the song have the psalms been deliberately arranged into groupings and if you find these groupings will that help you to interpret the songs 150 individual written collected and arranged over a period of four hundred to five hundred years escritos equation the westminster confession says the unity of the whole of the bible is one of the things that gives testimony to its divine inspiration there is an amazing unity to the book of psalms and you've got multiple authors what's brazil going to look like this is 2017 let's say 2517 what is brazil going to look like can you imagine a a book that that begins to be written here in brazil today [Music] and somehow the manuscript gets transferred to automan mongolia it stays over there for three or four generations does it even have some structure to it how did it get put together you know when when you have a wedding some of you will be ordained as ministers and you will perform weddings yes do you usually have flowers in front of the church at a wedding yes you do lots of nice ones a lot of them now when someone arranges the flowers for a wedding does he just as well that's cool are they carefully arranged so that you've got tulips and iris and all sorts of beautiful things with the right color blend oh it is what do you think god is going to just let the book of psalms just be like this is about one half of the book of psalms 73 specifically are designated as by david specifically david at david approximately i told him this there's little hangers here abraham 2000 moses 15 really 1400 bc david 1000 the exile and return 500 and jesus christ zero donations is so about the one half of those psalms are by david from 1000 b. c psalm 80 describes the destruction of samaria in 722 b.
c [Music] it was a serious 911 psalm 74 and 79 depict the destruction of jerusalem in 596 586 b. c psalm 137 refers to israel's weeping by the waters of babylon while in exile [Music] psalm 126 when the lord brought back the captives of zion which would be around 537 b. c so you're covering 500 years so the book of psalms and the collection of psalms they're not arranged strictly chronologically but it doesn't fit that's it but there is a rough following of the history of redemption in the arrangement of the psalms is it begins with david's struggle to establish the messianic kingdom of so someone came along and put the book of psalms together who was it i don't know what i'm saying that's one of the best little phrases to learn with respect to questions about the song as a priest who had responsibilities to order the worship of god's people ezra was in exile and came to jerusalem from exile yesterday and you might want to jot down these two verses ezra chapter 7 verses 6 and 10.
which one is it ezra 7 verses 6 and 10. yes ezra was well versed in the law esther ezra's devoted himself to three things esdras devoto the observance and the teaching of the decrees and laws of israel don't ever stop studying just because you write your last paper in seminary don't say i don't have to do any of that anymore that's just the he would have been well equipped to rearrange and rearrange the collection of psalms that had started with david 500 years earlier and put it into a unified whole we do have some indicators of earlier arrangements and collections the end of psalm 72 finale to psalms now what is what does the heading of psalm 72 say what's the heading psalm 72. right now people have translated that solid salon in different ways or but it's most likely in my opinion we don't have time to to go through the arguments here but the ladavid and la ezra the look and look whatever almost certainly refers to authorship are now what does it say [Music] the prayers of david the son of jesse are ended is this the last of the davidic psalms no this is not the last of the davidic psalms all the way into book five you will find psalms by david they will keen there's a nice collection of eight psalms by david at the very end of the book of psalms not the last psalms but near the last um the division for the second to the third book this is the end of the second book of psalms and it's very likely indicating an so this this is an indicator of an early arrangement of davidic songs but it's not the last arrangement which would date after the exile 537 bc returns from exile you know is written there by david songs and i'm just going to quickly here give you at least 12 basic structural elements that are in the book of songs we're not quite ready for them elements yeah just just so you can listen to these five books in this altar groupings by author agropaddles two introductory psalms for the whole of the book of psalms three couplings of a torah song with a messianic song today's uh joining together of a torah psalm and a messianic song eight acrostic songs psalms in book one four acrostic songs in and they're not like this but they're nicely spaced yesterday you know what the next verse starts with four or five groupings of kingship songs cuatro cinco samos historical recollection joined together 105 and 106.
what we may call focal messianic songs psalms that concentrate on the messiah specifically groupings of psalms confessing sin something that may be called poetic pyramid songs poetic pyramid songs we'll talk about this later but psalms that are arranged like this in a pyramid really so these are at least 12 different aspects of arrangements of the salter so let's look at these the salter and begin to break down some of these arrangements so what is the most basic structure of the book of songs what's the most basic structure the five books right five books where did they come from i don't know thank you at least i've taught you something i was so worried when i started teaching because like there was i realized there was so much i did not know so i went to one of the older professors and i said what am i going to do all these i thought i understood this topic but there are all these gaps in my knowledge company the older professor he said do not worry your students will teach you everything you need to know which i found to be true is there any significance in the five books significantly confronted any rationale behind the division of the psalter in the five books well let's look at these elements first of all the basic aspects of the five books so here's an introductory diagram the book structure of the psalter and we have books one book 2 book 3 book 4 book 5. my wife is a mathematician and she put all this together for me these are proportionate according to the number of psalms in each of the books and the first thing you notice is the difference in the size of the various books is mathematician book two has how many thirty-two book three has left three states seventeen this ascension book four has seventeen section five is the largest with 44. thank you very much okay so here is a 41 here is 44.
these two books have only 17 each which is like almost one-third of the size of the two big books i really don't know but we can talk about the biblical theological setting of each one of these five books you like this phrase biblical theological you hear that a lot of times in seminary and redemptive historical biblical theological context and progress of redemption progress yes that's all acknowledging the reality of god's redemption in human history from the perspective of the covenants in the evenings if you look at these songs you can see redemptive advancement in these five books again this does not mean that the psalms are arranged in nice chronological order as i say you you the next to the last penultimate you know the word penultimate the penultimate collection of psalms is eight psalms by david so it's not purely chronological yet you can see order of the unfolding of god's redemptive work in these psalms or they one and two are primarily a collection of psalms by david they would be written between 1000 to 960 bc during this time david struggles constantly against the enemies who oppose the establishment of the messianic kingdom of [Music] in response to this opposition a major portion of the psalter was developed for use in the context of israel's worship now book three is it's a totally different context several psalms that clearly depict god's people in a time of their being conquered by the assyrians in babylonians you can note these psalms psalms 74 79 80 and 89. for example the entire nation along with its center of worship undergoes devastation at the hands of in eterna international enemies this is some 250 to 400 years after david yeah you don't find any of these devastating psalms in books and you don't find any devastation so specific in books 4 and 5. book 4 psalms 90 to 106.
