What is a psalm?
A psalm is a song — words given to God and set to music, sung out of real experience of trouble, deliverance and joy. The book that collects them has been prayed and sung for centuries, yet commentators note that its real plan is easily missed, because a psalm is not only a devotional piece but also a prophecy, and often the voice of Christ Himself.
The word and its music
The English word comes from the Greek version of the Old Testament, and it points to music as much as to words.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinOur English word "psalms" is taken from the Greek word used in the Septuagint translation — "psalmoi"; this means "songs." The book is also often called the Psalter. This word is also Greek, from "psalterion," a harp or any other stringed instrument.
The Hebrew name for the collection points somewhere slightly different — not to the instrument, but to what the singing is for.
Frederick W GrantThe second characteristic of the Psalms is just that they are "psalms." The Hebrew word means rather "hymns" or "praises" (tehillim), but everywhere the swell and harmony of poetry and music link themselves with this. The soul in its various moods and most opposite circumstances is controlled and harmonized by the felt presence of God.
What makes a song a psalm
Not every sad or joyful poem is a psalm. The mark of a psalm is its direction: the singer turns to God, whatever the mood.
Frederick W GrantBut what makes them psalms surely gives them their character. They are heart-melodies addressed to God; so that in the saddest of them, God still reigns: in the middle of all fears and questionings and darkness and difficulty, it is to Him that the soul always turns.
The heart put into words
A psalm is not a chapter of history, and not a list of teachings. It records what passed through a believing heart while God was at work in it.
J. N. DarbyThe Psalms are almost all the expression of the feelings produced in the hearts of God's people by the events through which they pass — or I should speak more correctly if I said, prepared for them in the events — and indeed they express the feelings not only of the people of God, but often, as is known, those of the Lord Himself. They are the expression of the part the Spirit of God takes, as working in their hearts, in the sorrows and exercises of the saints.
Because of this, the same words fit many later readers. One writer observes that although the writers lived under the law of Moses and did not yet know the full grace that came with Christ, "the most enlightened believer in the present favoured period will never fail to discover much that exactly corresponds with the exercises of his own heart today" (W. W. Fereday).
More than devotion — prophecy
Commentators warn that treating the Psalms only as private devotion leaves much of them closed.
W. W. FeredayPerhaps no book is better known than the book of Psalms... But perhaps there is no book less understood. It is commonly regarded as containing only devotional exercises. Certainly the heart tells itself out in the Psalms as nowhere else in the Book of God. But beyond the devotional side lies the prophetic; and unless this is seen, there is much in the Psalms that can never be understood.
The voice of Christ in them
The writers wrote their own feelings, yet another Voice is heard in them.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThis book has been called the heart of the Bible. It expresses feelings produced by the Spirit of Christ — whether of prayer, sorrow, confession, or praise — in the hearts of God's people... The writers do not merely relate what others did and felt; they expressed what was passing through their own souls. And yet their language is not simply what they felt, but that of the Spirit of Christ who spoke in them... This explains why Christ is found throughout the Psalms: some refer only to Him, such as Psalm 22... In no part of Scripture is the inner life of the Lord Jesus disclosed as it is in the Psalms.
Psalms among Christians
The New Testament keeps the word and sets it beside two others, in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16.
Leslie M. GrantThe word indicates a sacred song accompanied by a stringed instrument. Hymns are songs of praise addressed to God, and the word is clearly used for many of the psalms too, though not all psalms are hymns and hymns are not necessarily psalms. Spiritual songs cover a wider field than praise, for they include songs of spiritual experience, the celebration of scriptural events, and meditation on various truths of Scripture. Singing is audible, but making melody in your heart is more vital.
And when believers sing together, one writer says, they are not singing alone:
J. N. DarbyWe ought to feel, each time we meet as an assembly, that Christ is there, and leads the praise.
Summary
- Song. "Psalm" comes from a Greek word for song, tied to the harp; the Hebrew title means praises.
- Godward. What makes a song a psalm is its direction — a heart-melody addressed to God, even in the darkest lines.
- Experience. Psalms carry real feelings — fear, sorrow, confidence, thanks — worked in the heart by the Spirit of God.
- Christ. The Spirit of Christ speaks in them, so no part of Scripture shows the inner life of Jesus as the Psalms do.
- Praise. They end where they aim: praise to the LORD — and Christ Himself leads that song among His people today.