Psaumes
Summary Psalms is a book of prayer and praise that lays every human emotion and every reality of life bare before God. Individual laments and thanksgiving, and the confessions of the community, ultimately converge in the prayer of Jesus Christ, who trusted God even in suffering.
- Date written
- c. 10th–5th century BC (including collection and editing)
- Historical period
- From the united kingdom to the exile
Background
Psalms is not the work of one particular era or one author; it is Israel’s book of prayers and hymns, written over many eras with David at its center. From the personal confessions of the monarchy to the laments of the community in exile, the Psalms contain the language of the real lives God’s people lived through in history. This book neither gives commands like the law nor explains answers like the wisdom books; it shows how human beings speak, weep, and praise before God.
Content
The Psalms contain not only joy and thanksgiving but also fear, anger, despair, and silence, just as they are. The psalmists cry out to God without understanding the reasons for their suffering, and at times they protest to God and lament. Yet this lament is not unbelief that departs from God but an expression of faith that clings to God. Within the flow of the whole Bible, Psalms is not merely a book recording individual emotions but the book that most deeply reveals the inner life of the Messiah who was to come. The language of the Psalms, in which the righteous suffer without cause and, surrounded by enemies, seem forsaken, reaches its climax in Jesus Christ, who quoted the Psalms on the cross. Jesus Christ is the true righteous One of whom the Psalms speak, the one who offers perfect prayer, trusting God even in suffering. In the end, the Psalms do not force an emotion on us, as in “Those who believe in God must always be joyful,” but show the truth that “We can come to God in any condition!” And that way is fulfilled not in human emotions or righteousness but in Jesus Christ, who bore all our laments in our place and offered those prayers of lament before us.