The Psalms (Volume 1, Introduction: Christ and the Psalms) E-Book

Christopher Ash

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 769

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Stand-Alone Commentary Set from Christopher Ash Sets Out a Deeply Christian Study of the Psalms While reading Psalms, it is common for commentaries to focus on Old Testament meaning, without connecting it deeply to Christ's fulfillment in the New Testament. By studying Scripture this way, believers miss out on the fullness of God's word. The key to experiencing authentically Christian worship is learning a Christ-focused approach to praying and singing the Psalms. In this in-depth, 4-volume commentary, Christopher Ash provides a thorough treatment of all 150 Psalms, examining each psalm's significance to David and the other psalmists, to Jesus during his earthly ministry, and to the church of Christ in every age. The first volume in the set is a detailed handbook that explains how to interpret the Psalms with Christ at the center. The remaining 3 volumes cover each psalm in depth, with introductory quotations, a deep analysis of the text's structure and vocabulary, and a closing reflection and response. Ash also includes selected quotations from older readings of the Psalms, including patristic, medieval, Reformation, and post-Reformation scholars. Perfect for pastors, Bible teachers, and students, this commentary set helps readers sing and pray the Psalms with Christ in view. - Stand-Alone Commentary: Ash's research also builds on other commentaries for a comprehensive, thorough resource on the Psalms - Exhaustive: Christopher Ash's exegesis includes all 150 Psalms and their superscriptions, and explores how the Psalms are quoted and echoed throughout the New Testament - Applicable and Heartfelt: Explains how a Christ-centered approach to reading the Psalms influences doctrines of prayer, prophecy, the Trinity, ecclesiology, and more - Ideal for Pastors and Serious Students of Scripture: Written for Bible teachers, Sunday school and youth leaders, and small-group leaders

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“These wonderful volumes on the Psalms place the whole church of Christ in their author’s debt. To have carried to completion the vision of such a project is a breathtaking accomplishment. And to have done it with the author’s characteristically loving and careful approach to the text of Scripture, coupled with richness of exposition, humility of spirit, and wise personal and pastoral application, stimulates our admiration and gratitude. In an era when the evangelical church in the West has, by and large, turned its back on the wisdom of two millennia of Christian praise dominated by the Psalms, these four magnificent volumes provide both the equipment and the inspiration needed to discover what our Lord and Savior himself experienced. They deserve to become—indeed, are surely destined to be—the go-to resource for multitudes of preachers, teachers, and students for decades to come. We are richer because of their publication.”

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Teaching Fellow, Ligonier Ministries

“Since the Enlightenment, it has become fashionable to hypercontextualize the Psalms, thereby repudiating eighteen centuries of Christ-centered preaching, teaching, and scholarship. In this magisterial commentary, Christopher Ash returns to the old paths by displaying Christ and his glory in all 150 psalms. The Reformers and the Puritans would have loved this warm, devotional, and accessible work, for herein Ash provides the kind of experiential, practical, and Christ-saturated exegesis that they so dearly treasured. With careful historical-theological reflection and a tender pastoral heart, Ash guides the people of God as they seek to better read, sing, meditate on, study, and preach the Psalms. This commentary will no doubt become a staple in the pastor’s library for many years to come.”

Joel R. Beeke, Chancellor and Professor of Homiletics and Systematic Theology, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

“Modern readers often gravitate toward the Psalms because in them they see a mirror for themselves and their own emotions. This is not wrong, but as Christopher Ash reminds us, it is insufficient. The writers of the New Testament and many throughout church history read the Psalms because in them they found Christ. Ash provides a comprehensive help to the church to read the Psalms afresh from that Christ-centered perspective, in a way that not only exercises our minds but feeds our souls.”

Iain M. Duguid, Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary

“How easy it is to quickly read ourselves into the center of the Psalms, and yet how important it is not to do this. Christopher Ash can be counted on to see a psalm in its real setting, grasp its proper culmination in Christ, and tell its rich implications to us. Few writers think with as much faithfulness or illumination as Ash does, and these volumes will be the new treasure chest in learning and psalmody.”

Simon Manchester, Former Rector, St. Thomas’ Anglican Church, North Sydney, Australia

“In this four-volume work, Christopher Ash casts a vision of the Psalter that is theologically centered on Christ, typologically related to Christ, and ultimately fulfilled in Christ—a book of the Old Testament that reveals, in type and shadow, through image of king and priest, prophet and teacher, supplicant and sufferer, the divinity and humanity of Christ, who in his humanity perfectly expressed the full range of human emotions and affections in the vicissitudes of his earthly humiliation as he awaited his heavenly exaltation. Therefore, he is the true and better singer of the Psalter, the one through whom and in union with whom the Christian and the church today can sing ‘the Psalms of Jesus’ with eyes unveiled. Encyclopedic in scope, enlightening in content, enthusing in purpose—this magnum opus ought to find a place in every pastor’s library, in every student’s book budget, and on every Christian’s bedside table. These volumes will hopefully change the way we read—and sing!—the Psalms for years to come.”

Jonathan Gibson, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary

“This is a landmark commentary that belongs in the library of every Bible teacher and scholar. Grounded in wide-ranging research, warmed by sincere devotion, and crafted with unusual elegance, this work offers the reader an exegetical and theological feast for both heart and mind. Any believer who has studied and taught the Psalms knows the challenge of handling them in faithfulness as truly Christian Scripture. In these pages Ash has pursued the compelling thesis that the Psalms are emphatically Christ centered from beginning to end, having Christ as their true subject and object. For those who wish to understand how and why this is so, this study is both a treasure and a delight.”

Jonathan Griffiths, Lead Pastor, The Metropolitan Bible Church, Ottawa, Canada

“How pleasing it is to find a modern, scholarly commentary that unashamedly leads us to Jesus the Messiah! The case for this Christ-centered work is carefully argued and applied to each psalm without ignoring original contexts or their relevance to believers. More controversially, Christopher Ash provides the most compelling defense to date for accepting every penitential and imprecatory line in the Psalter as appropriate on the lips of the sinless Savior, the Christian’s covenant head. Helpful quotations from early Christian writers, the Reformers, and contemporary authors add to the commentary’s appeal. I warmly recommend it.”

Philip H. Eveson, Former Principal and Old Testament Tutor, London Seminary; author, Psalms: From Suffering to Glory

“To simply call this resource a commentary seems too mundane. What Christopher Ash presents us with here is an extensive and detailed exploration of the verdant theological landscape of the Psalter, with Jesus the Messiah as the lodestar. These remarkable volumes are weighty but not burdensome, erudite but not arid. Ash’s pastoral insights into the Psalms reflect a maturity and wisdom that can be cultivated only over a lifetime spent in the full counsel of Scripture and ministry in the church. What a tremendous achievement this is, what a blessing it is sure to be to the church, and what a testament to the beauty and transforming power of the true and final King, Jesus Christ.”

William A. Ross, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte

“With historical breadth, exegetical finesse, rhetorical care, and a deeply doxological thrust, Christopher Ash’s commentary brings the Psalms closer to the center of Christian devotion—and Jesus Christ to the very center of the Psalter. These wonderful volumes have helped me grasp, more deeply than ever before, just why Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Psalms an ‘incomparable treasure.’ More than that, they have revealed the incomparable treasure himself who sings in every psalm yet whose voice we so often fail to hear.”

Scott Hubbard, Editor, Desiring God; Pastor, All Peoples Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota

“This new commentary—in which ‘the person of Christ is central to the meaning and force of every psalm’—is theologically rich, spiritually refreshing, and carefully assembled to understand Old and New Testament themes in the light of Christ. Here is a commentary that will be rewarding in the study as the minister prepares to teach the Psalms or, indeed, the many New Testament passages that reference them. This is also great material for personal devotions. Thank you, Christopher Ash, for such a rich resource to help us know Christ.”

Nat Schluter, Principal, Johannesburg Bible College

“A masterful balance of being thoughtfully Christ centered and warmly devotional at the same time. A blessing for my personal quiet time and my sermon preparation.”

Denesh Divyanathan, Senior Pastor, The Crossing Church, Singapore; Chairman, Evangelical Theological College of Asia; President, Project Timothy Singapore

The Psalms

A Christ-Centered Commentary

Other Crossway Books by Christopher Ash

The Heart of Anger: How the Bible Transforms Anger in Our Understanding and Experience, coauthored with Steve Midgley (2021)

Job: The Wisdom of the Cross (2014)

Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be (2016)

Trusting God in the Darkness: A Guide to Understanding the Book of Job (2021)

The Psalms

A Christ-Centered Commentary

Volume 1

Introduction: Christ and the Psalms

Christopher Ash

The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary, Volume 1, Introduction: Christ and the Psalms

© 2024 by Christopher Brian Garton Ash

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Portions of this work are adapted from Christopher Ash, Bible Delight: Heartbeat of the Word of God; Psalm 119 for the Bible Teacher and Bible Hearer (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008); Ash, Psalms for You: How to Pray, How to Feel, and How to Sing (Epsom, UK: Good Book, 2020); and Ash, Teaching Psalms: From Text to Message, 2 vols. (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2017–2018). Used by permission of the publishers.

The content of chapter 10 owes a great debt to Andrew Saville and his presentation at a Teaching Day for the Proclamation Trust in 2002. Used by permission of Andrew Saville.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2024

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are taken from the New English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1961, 1970. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked REB are taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN (vol. 1): 978-1-4335-7441-2ePub ISBN (vol. 1): 978-1-4335-7444-3PDF ISBN (vol. 1): 978-1-4335-7442-9Hardcover ISBN (4-vol. set): 978-1-4335-6388-1ePub ISBN (4-vol. set): 978-1-4335-8843-3PDF ISBN (4-vol. set): 978-1-4335-8841-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023938846

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2025-02-26 04:28:26 PM

To Tyndale House, Cambridge,

a fellowship of delight

in the Scriptures (Ps. 1:2).

Jesus, my shepherd, brother, friend,my prophet, priest, and king,my Lord, my life, my way, my end,accept the praise I bring.

John Newton

“How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds”

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Overview

Conventions

Abbreviations

Introduction: Christ and the Psalms

Introduction

Why Bother with the Psalms?

Part 1: Christ and the Psalms

1  From the Psalms to Christ

How the Psalter Cries Out for Future Completion

2  From Christ to the Psalms—I

Method

3  From Christ to the Psalms—II

Results

Part 2: Doctrine and the Psalms

4  Interpretation and Worship

Some Principles for Reading the Psalms

5  Prophecy

Speaking by the Spirit of Christ

6  Prayer and Praise

Approaching the Father through Christ and by the Spirit

7  Incarnation and Christology

The Emotions of Jesus in His Human Nature

8  Righteousness

Who Are the Righteous in the Psalms?

9  Repentance

Can Jesus Christ Pray Prayers of Penitence?

10  “Imprecation”

Can Jesus Christ Pray “Imprecatory” Prayers?

Part 3: Christian History and the Psalms

11  The Place of Christian History in Interpretation

Reading the Bible with the Church

12  Introduction to the Psalms in Christian History

Some Preliminary Observations

13  The Psalms in the Patristic Period

Discerning the Whole Christ in the Psalter

14  The Psalms in the Medieval Age

Understanding the Fourfold Sense of Scripture

15  The Psalms in the Renaissance and Reformation Periods

Christ-Centered Interpretation through a Humanistic Lens

16  Some Trends from the Reformation to the Present Day

The Resilience of Christ-Centered Readings despite the Rise of Skepticism

Conclusion

Christian Singing of the Psalms

Appendix 1: The Content, Status, Origin, and Significance of the Superscriptions

Appendix 2: Psalms Quotations and Echoes in the New Testament

Appendix 3   Psalms Quotations and Echoes in New Testament Order

Appendix 4: Notes on Selected Writers Quoted

Full Bibliography

Subject Index

Name Index

Scripture Index

Preface

Two convictions underlie this commentary: that the Psalms are essential to the life of the Christian church and that Christ is central to the Psalms.

In the preface to his book Interpreting the Psalms, Patrick Miller (1935–2020) expresses the first sentiment like this: “It is in the conviction that the psalms belong both at the center of the life and worship of Christian congregations and in the midst of the personal pilgrimage that each of us makes under the shadow of the Almighty, that I have written this book.”1 I share this conviction. It ought not to be controversial, although the Psalms have sometimes been marginalized in church life today. I want to add my voice to others calling the church to bring them back into the mainstream of both corporate worship and personal devotion.

The second conviction is that Christ is central to the Psalms. This is a Christ-centered commentary in which Christ is front and center in each psalm and in all the Psalms. Every word of the Psalms is ours in Christ but always and only in Christ, to whom the Psalms preeminently belong. The Puritan Thomas Adams (1583–1652) writes that Jesus Christ is “the sum of the whole Bible, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited, demonstrated, to be found in every leaf, almost in every line, the Scriptures being but as it were the swaddling bands of the child Jesus.”2 I believe this is emphatically true of the Psalms. I am persuaded that the Psalms belong to Jesus Christ and cannot rightly be understood apart from him. The main purpose of this introductory volume is to explain my approach and outline a defense for reading the Psalms this way.

For the larger part of church history, this has broadly been the way Christians have read the Psalms (see part 3, “Christian History and the Psalms”). The Christian tradition of concluding the singing of a psalm with the “Gloria Patri” (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen”) expresses the ancient Christian conviction that the Psalms are—in their original and enduring meaning—deeply Christian poems.3

But since the so-called “Enlightenment,” Christ has been eclipsed in much Psalms scholarship and preaching.4 With a few notable exceptions, recent commentaries tend either to omit Christ from many or all of the Psalms or to mention him as little more than an afterthought. But like an adventurer planting a flag in occupied territory, I want to reclaim the Psalms for Christ. Much more needs to be done. Scholars need to argue their way, yard by yard, across this occupied realm, claimed both by Judaism (as part of the Hebrew Scriptures, with Christ denied) and by the Old Testament academy (in various ways, with Christ at best on the margins). But in this commentary I want to do something else, something that may seem eccentric, even doomed to failure. I want to set before us what the Psalms might look and feel like, how they might be read and appropriated, if in truth they do belong to Christ—and to argue that they do.

For I have become persuaded that Jesus Christ is the subject and object of the Psalms, that his majestic divine-human person is woven into the warp and woof of the Psalter, and that he is the preeminent singer of psalms, the focus of the Psalter, and the one without whom the Psalms cannot be understood aright.5 I hope therefore to place Christ in the foreground of our reading of every psalm and to do so in ways that are shaped by the New Testament.

In arguing for a Christ-centered reading, I have occasionally been misheard as if I were suggesting that individual Christians cannot pray the Psalms. Far from it! This misunderstanding can arise because I draw attention to problems that arise when an individual believer seeks to refer a psalm directly to himself or herself and because I seek to emphasize how Jesus Christ prays the Psalms. The endpoint for which I argue, however, is that we may and must appropriate the Psalms for ourselves, both individually and corporately, but that we may only legitimately do so as men and women in Christ. If we are outside Christ, the Psalms are not mine or yours to appropriate; if we are in Christ, every word is our birthright as children of God the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, men and women indwelt with the Spirit of Christ.

I write as an amateur in the professional world of biblical studies and am deeply conscious of the shortcomings of my work. For the Psalms are difficult. Both Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–1564) express this awareness well.

“I confess frankly,” Luther said when he gave his First Lectures on the Psalms, “that even to the present day I do not understand many psalms.”6 In the preface to his comments on Psalms 1–22 (1519–1521), he writes,

I do not want anyone to suppose that I shall accomplish what none of the most holy and learned theologians have ever accomplished before, namely, to understand and teach the correct meaning of the Psalter in all particulars. It is enough to have understood some of the psalms, and those only in part. The Spirit reserves much for Himself, so that we may always remain His pupils. There is much that He reveals only to lure us on, much that He gives only to stir us up. . . . I know that a person would be guilty of the most shameless boldness if he dared claim that he had understood even one book of the Scriptures in all its parts. In fact, who would even dare assert that anyone had completely understood one single psalm?7

In the author’s preface to his Psalms commentary, Calvin writes, “The varied and resplendid [sic] riches which are contained in this treasury it is no easy matter to express in words; so much so, that I well know that whatever I shall be able to say will be far from approaching the excellence of the subject.”8

What was true for Luther and Calvin is far more applicable to me. There is much you will not find in this commentary. I am a preacher and pastor rather than a trained biblical scholar. I have sought to interact with a representative sample of writers across the centuries but have not, for the most part, attempted to interact with the voluminous and ever-growing secondary literature.9 Even in the sixteenth century, Luther could observe that “in many places the interpretations [i.e., of the Psalms] seem to require more interpretation than the text itself.”10 How much more today! I hope I am sufficiently aware of the more significant debates, but for a full study of these things, readers should consult one or more of the recent technical commentaries.

I have worked from the Hebrew text but have no particular expertise in the language, especially as regards Hebrew poetry, translation of tense forms, and poetic parallelism.11 Much scholarly debate surrounds theories of the dating, possible contexts of origins, and putative redaction histories of psalms. Too often, it seems to me that scholars construct theories on the basis of inadequate evidence; furthermore, I am not persuaded that these debates are always useful to Christian disciples seeking to weave the Psalms into their lives of prayer and praise. This commentary is not, therefore, a substitute for technical, scholarly commentaries. What you will find here, I hope, is the Psalter read with the breadth of a whole-Bible perspective and with a clear focus on Christ, the center of history and the fulcrum of the Bible story.12 Whether or not you are persuaded by every detail of my approach, I hope that this introductory volume whets your appetite to grapple with the commentary psalm by psalm and—far more importantly—to immerse yourself afresh in the Psalms themselves, in the presence of the God who so generously gave them to us.

1  Patrick D. Miller, Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), vii.

2  Thomas Adams, Works (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1861), 3:224.

3Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 159.

4  For example, in David Howard’s clear and fair 1999 overview of “Recent Trends in Psalms Study,” one short paragraph in forty pages mentions Christological approaches. David M. Howard Jr., “Recent Trends in Psalms Study,” in The Face of Old Testament Studies: A Survey of Contemporary Approaches, ed. David W. Baker and Bill T. Arnold (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), 360.

5  For a popular-level introduction to a Christ-centered reading of the Psalms, I recommend Michael LeFebvre, Singing the Songs of Jesus: Revisiting the Psalms (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2010).

6  Luther, Luther’s Works (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), 10:8.

7  Luther, Luther’s Works, 14:284–85.

8  John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson, in Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), 1:xxxvi.

9  Like Calvin, “I have also generally abstained from refuting the opinions of others” and have not “heaped together a great mass of materials.” Calvin, Psalms, 1:xlix. And for the Psalms, there is indeed “a great mass of materials” available. On the library shelves rests a two-volume work, more than nine hundred pages in length, consisting entirely and solely of a bibliography of writings on the Psalms in the twentieth century alone; see Thorne Wittstruck, The Book of Psalms: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 vols., Books of the Bible 5 (New York: Garland, 1994).

10  Luther, Luther’s Works, 10:8.

11  For significant contributions to debates about structures and parallelism, see Adele Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008); J. P. Fokkelman, Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible: At the Interface of Hermeneutics and Structural Analysis, 4 vols., SSN (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1998–2004). For helpful reflections on translating Hebrew poetry, see Andrew G. Shead, “Theology in Poetry: The Challenge of Translating the Psalms,” in Stirred by a Noble Theme: The Book of Psalms in the Life of the Church, ed. Andrew G. Shead (Nottingham, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2013), 133–57.

12  Those who wish to learn something about the possible ancient Near Eastern background to the Psalms are referred to Tremper Longman III, “Psalms: Ancient Near Eastern Background,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings, ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 593–605.

Acknowledgments

My love affair with the Psalms began to develop when teaching courses on Old Testament poetry at the Proclamation Trust’s Cornhill Training Course in London, where I served as director from 2004 to 2015. Poetry metamorphosed into a course specifically on the Psalms. I owe much to these generations of lively and thoughtful students. Their responses and questions helped me more than they can have realized. My colleagues at the Proclamation Trust over those years were to me as iron sharpening iron, especially Stuart Allen, Jonathan Griffiths, David Jackman, Dick Lucas, Tim McMahon, Adrian Reynolds, Robin Sydserff, Tim Ward, and Robin Weekes. A golden thread of excellent administrators, including Beckie Hollands, Katy Jones-Parry, Christine Mulryne, Erica Tapp, and Nikki Tomkins, provided invaluable support and much wise advice.

In 2008 I published a devotional study on Psalm 119.1 Gradually, I came to see that a Christ-centered reading made sense and in 2017 and 2018 published Teaching Psalms, in which volume 1 was my first attempt at sketching out the salient features of such a reading, and volume 2 a brief suggestion for a Christ-centered reading of each psalm in turn.2 Then in 2020 I published Psalms for You, a popular-level, Christ-centered exposition of thirty-two selected psalms.3 I am grateful to Christian Focus Publications and the Good Book Company for permission to use or adapt material from these books.

In all these publications I am sure I both oversimplified and overstated some of the points I was trying to make. So I was grateful when Justin Taylor at Crossway generously agreed to my proposal to try to flesh this out more fully and in a more nuanced manner. These volumes are the fruit of that attempt.

“Imagine you are called upon to write a commentary on the Psalms,” writes one British scholar, voicing sentiments I share. “You soon discover that not only is 150 a large number, but also that there are many difficult issues to face. Each psalm poses its own questions.”4 How very true! There have been times when I have come close to abandoning the project. That I have completed it is a testimony to the grace of God and also to the help of many along the way.

I have lost count of the gracious opportunities I have had to teach and preach from the Psalms over the years, including in many churches. Notable have been seminaries or conferences for those in ministry, including the Evangelical Ministry Assembly in London, “The Basics” in Ohio, Queensland Theological College in Brisbane, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where I was privileged to give the Gheens Lectures in fall 2019. Our years at Christ Church Mayfair in London were a precious time of fellowship, and I am thankful for the friendship and steady encouragement of the senior minister, Matt Fuller, and his wife, Ceri.

Most of the writing of these volumes has been done in the wonderful context of Tyndale House, Cambridge (www.tyndalehouse.com), where I have been privileged to be writer in residence since 2015. I have dedicated these volumes to the fellowship of people there, and I owe much to the encouragement and expertise of scholars and others on staff, including Peter Williams, principal; Dirk Jongkind and Simon Sykes, vice principals; and fellow researchers James Bejon, Caleb Howard, Kaspars Ozolins, and Kim Phillips. I have also been encouraged by many visiting scholars at Tyndale House, including Diego Alves, Benedict Bird, John F. Evans, Tom Habib, Philip Johnston, Andrew Keenan, O. Palmer Robertson, Howard Spencer, and Luke Wisley.

Many other scholars and pastors have helped and encouraged me. Notable among these are John Woodhouse, whose expositions of various psalms brought a Christ-centered approach back into the mainstream for many in my circles, and James Hely Hutchinson, who has given many kind and expert suggestions and prayed faithfully for my writing. Others include Sam Ashton, Alistair Begg, Philip Eveson, Sinclair Ferguson, Gary Millar, Andrew Saville, Matt Searles, Mark Smith, and Garry Williams. Of recent commentaries, I have particularly appreciated those by Philip Eveson and James M. Hamilton Jr.5

I owe a personal debt to good friends, including prayer partners Nigel Beynon and Stephen Moore while in London, and Diego Alves, Caleb Howard, and Andrew Keenan at Tyndale House. Nick Grant has supplied me with a steady and welcome flow of freshly roasted coffee beans. I am grateful to Alasdair Paine, my senior pastor since 2015, who has guarded my calendar and given me unflagging encouragement to persevere in the work. Precious prayer partners have prayed faithfully in response to our prayer letters; it would be impossible to exaggerate how much this project owes its completion to God’s answers to their many prayers.

I owe a substantial debt of gratitude to Crossway, first to Justin Taylor, for encouraging me to take on this project, and then to David Barshinger, my patient and painstaking editor, who has lavished his skill and attention on the project for many, many hours and without whom the end result would be incomparably worse than it is.

Although our sons and daughter had left home before the main writing of this commentary, I am grateful to them and their spouses and our grandchildren for putting up with Grandpa’s preoccupation with what must have seemed a strange project over the years. But my greatest debt under God is to Carolyn, my dear wife of more than forty years, my dearest friend, and my daily partner in prayer. Her kindness, patience, love, and encouragement have been and remain the bedrock of my life in Christ.

Christopher Ash

Cambridge, England, 2023

1  Christopher Ash, Bible Delight: Heartbeat of the Word of God; Psalm 119 for the Bible Teacher and Bible Hearer (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008).

2  Christopher Ash, Teaching Psalms: From Text to Message, 2 vols. (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2017–2018).

3  Christopher Ash, Psalms for You: How to Pray, How to Feel, and How to Sing (Epsom, UK: Good Book, 2020).

4  John H. Eaton, Psalms of the Way and the Kingdom: A Conference with Commentators, JSOTSup 199 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 9.

5  Philip Eveson, Psalms: From Suffering to Glory, 2 vols., WCS (Darlington, UK: EP Books, 2014–2015); James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms, 2 vols., EBTC (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2021).

Overview

The introductory chapter (“Why Bother with the Psalms?”) seeks to tease out just why and how the Psalms are God’s means of blessing Christ’s people. I begin with a study of the two New Testament verses that speak explicitly about the Psalms in corporate worship (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). I move from there to indications in the contexts in Ephesians and Colossians of some of the major ways in which the Psalms bring blessing, finishing with some wider observations from older writers about how these blessings may be expected to multiply.

Part 1 (“Christ and the Psalms”) sketches out the heart of my argument for a Christ-centered commentary. I seek to do this first by moving forward from the Psalter to Christ; chapter 1 outlines some characteristics of the Psalter that—in my view—cry out for a completion found perfectly only in Christ. I take the superscriptions to be reliable indicators of authorship and context. Since this is a minority position in contemporary scholarship, I have summarized my reasoning for so doing in appendix 1. Then in chapters 2 and 3, I move, as it were, backward from Christ to the Psalms. I study how the New Testament writers quoted and echoed the psalms, seeking to find patterns and norms to guide the commentary. Chapter 2 discusses the method, and chapter 3 summarizes the conclusions. Appendix 2 gives a table of New Testament quotations and at least some of the echoes.

In part 2 (“Doctrine and the Psalms”) I offer seven brief essays seeking to relate the Psalms to various areas of Christian doctrine. Chapter 4 sketches out some principles for interpretation and highlights how interpretation and worship ought to be inseparable. In chapter 5 I relate biblical convictions about the God of prophecy to the Psalms. I especially consider what prophecy means when it consists of words spoken not simply to people from God but to God from people: what does it mean for the text of the Psalms to be at the same time the words of men and women spoken to God in prayer and praise and the inspired words of God for us? Chapter 6 moves to a biblical theology of prayer and praise as it affects the Psalms. It considers what it means for Christ to be not only our prophet but also our priest, through whom we pray and praise. In chapter 7 I try very briefly to relate biblical convictions about the divine-human person of Christ to the Psalms, especially probing what it means for Christ in his perfect humanity to experience and feel the Psalms. In chapter 8 I ask what righteousness means in the Psalms, who the righteous people are, and how their righteousness relates to Christ the Righteous One. Chapters 9 and 10 address two critical issues for any understanding that sees Jesus as praying some or all of the Psalms. Chapter 9 asks whether Jesus Christ can pray words of penitence in the Psalms and, if so, what this can mean on the lips of the sinless Son of God. Chapter 10 faces the question of the so-called imprecations—the many times in the Psalms when the psalmists pray for God to judge the wicked—and asks what difference it might make if Jesus actually prays these sometimes shocking prayers.

Part 3 (“Christian History and the Psalms”) shifts the focus from Scripture to history. In chapter 11 I consider what place Christian tradition can rightly have in biblical interpretation. Then, after some introductory remarks about how Christians have read the Psalms (chap. 12), I sketch some salient features from the patristic period (chap. 13), the medieval era (chap. 14), and the Renaissance and Reformation periods (chap. 15). Chapter 16 touches very briefly on some trends from the Reformation to the present day before offering a summary conclusion from Christian history. Appendix 3 gives a concise table of older writers quoted, focusing mainly on those before the twentieth century. Part 3 is, of course, woefully inadequate as an attempt to summarize a gargantuan body of source material, quite apart from failing to consider traditions of Jewish interpretation and, more recently, various secular approaches. Nevertheless, I hope this very concise survey is of some value in helping us see our Psalms interpretation in a wider historical context.

Finally, in the conclusion I try to pull the main threads together and suggest the outline of a Christian reading of the Psalms. The three volumes of commentary (volumes 2, 3, and 4) attempt to put this approach into practice.

Many commentaries begin with an exegesis of the text and then conclude (if they are more or less conservative Christian commentaries) with some reflections about the meaning or implication of the psalm today in the light of Christ. I am persuaded that Christ is so integral and central to the meaning itself (the original meaning) that the exegesis cannot accurately be done without first considering how we should orient ourselves to the psalm in the light of Christ. I have therefore structured my treatment of each psalm as follows.

Orientation. After a few (usually older) quotations (epigraphs) opposite the opening page, I begin with an orientation section that aims to ask how the psalm “lines up” in the light of Christ and therefore how we ourselves ought to line up our strategy for understanding it. To this end, I consider New Testament quotations and echoes, together with the overall perspective of the New Testament, and ask what light these shed on a particular psalm. This section aims to prepare the reader to engage in a Christ-focused appropriation, placing Christ at the center rather than setting him on the periphery or treating him as an afterthought.

Text. I consider structure only briefly and cautiously, seeking to point to clear structural markers but remaining agnostic where there is no consensus (as is often the case). My structures are provisional. In particular, I find chiastic structures only rarely persuasive. In the text section, I provide verse-by-verse commentary, and my aim is to discern the flow and meaning of the psalm not only in its original context but as it is fully understood in Christ.

Reflection and response. After working through the text, I append some notes on response, suggesting some of the ways in which we might rightly respond to the psalm as we appropriate it for Christian use, both in private devotion and in corporate worship. If we do not reach the place where we can sing, pray, hear, and praise with the Psalter, all the hermeneutics in the world will have achieved nothing of value.

In structuring the commentary in this way, I hope to move away from commentaries in which Christ is omitted altogether, from those in which Christ is marginal to the reading or entirely tangential to the force of the psalm, and from those in which he is merely illustrative of what is said in the psalm. In my understanding, the person of Christ is central to the meaning and force of every psalm, which cannot rightly be understood apart from him. To read a psalm without discerning this is, it seems to me, like taking a burning coal or log away from the heart of the fire; it leads, at best, to spiritually lukewarm readings. Since the Psalms are so central to Christian devotion and the corporate devotion of the church (and indeed to its evangelism and witness in life), it is of great importance that we learn afresh how to read and appropriate the Psalms in these ways.

Conventions

Texts and Translations

I have followed the normal Jewish and Christian understanding that the Masoretic Text is the most reliable witness to the original form of the texts. Some modern translations give considerable weight to the Greek translations (and sometimes also to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ancient Versions), but I have erred on the side of caution, except where there are overwhelming reasons for rejecting the Masoretic Text. I have indicated where there is significant uncertainty. But for the most part, I have not engaged with the text-critical questions raised either by the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Such questions are significant when the New Testament quotes from the Septuagint and the Septuagint differs in some substantial way from the Masoretic Text; in these (few) cases, I have offered some discussion in the commentary.

While suggested repointing of Hebrew vowels is not especially problematic, I have been reluctant to do so unless there seems strong reason. Consonantal emendation is far more serious, and I have not considered this except where there seems to be an overwhelming need for it. Some scholars seem to me too “trigger-happy” in embracing emendations, including when they wish to tidy up the metrical patterns of psalm lines.1

When quoting Hebrew or Greek, I provide both the original forms and the transliteration in the main text. In footnotes I provide only the original Hebrew or Greek. Where a Hebrew word is rare (or a hapax legomenon), I have offered some discussion of translation options.

I have used the English Standard Version (ESV) as my base text (though I have at times taken liberty to break stanzas differently from the ESV). I have found this an admirable translation for the purposes of detailed study. Where there are significant differences, I have sometimes referred to the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), the King James Version (KJV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the New International Version (NIV), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), or the Revised English Bible (REB).

Hebrew Tense Forms

Scholars vary in the terminology they use for the two tense forms in Hebrew. One form may be called the perfect, the perfective, the suffix conjugation, or the qatal. The other may be called the imperfect, the imperfective, the prefix conjugation, or the yiqtol. For simplicity I use the traditional terminology perfect and imperfect, even though these do not translate simply into English perfect or imperfect tenses, especially in poetry. In general, it may be true that an imperfect form conveys an action that is continuing (typically but not always future), while a perfect form indicates an action that is completed (typically but not always past). But there are many exceptions (especially when following the vav consecutive).

The Divine Name “the Lord”

The Hebrew name יהוה‎, or YHWH, often written Yahweh and sometimes called the tetragrammaton (after its four consonants), is written “Lord” in quotations from the biblical text (in line with the usual convention for English translations). Outside quotations, I prefer to use the phrases covenant Lord or covenant God, rather than the word Yahweh, partly because we do not know for sure how it was pronounced but mainly because it captures the strong Old Testament context of covenantal lordship.

The Davidic King

When speaking of the Davidic king/King, I have generally capitalized King to encourage the reader to think toward the fulfillment of Davidic kingship in Christ, the final King. I have used the lowercase king only when referring exclusively to an old covenant king, whether David or one of his successors.

Psalm Numbering

I have numbered the Psalms according to the Masoretic Text and all English translations throughout. Most patristic writers followed the Psalm chapter numbering in, or derived from, the Greek translations. This numbering differs from the Hebrew numbering as shown in table 1. So, for example, when commenting on what our English Bibles call Psalm 107, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) refers to it as Psalm 106. But even when referring to the Septuagint or Vulgate, I have translated into the Masoretic Text numbering.

Table 1 Psalm Numbering in English and Greek Versions

Psalm Number in English Versions

Psalm Number in Greek Versions

Pss. 1–8

Unchanged: Pss. 1–8

Pss. 9–10

Combined into Ps. 9

Pss. 11–113

One less: Pss. 10–112

Pss. 114–115

Combined into Ps. 113

Ps. 116

Split into Pss. 114 and 115

Pss. 117–146

One less: Pss. 116–145

Ps. 147

Split into Pss. 146 and 147

Pss. 148–150

Unchanged: Pss. 148–150

Verse Numbering

I have used English verse numbering throughout, with superscriptions labeled S. Where a psalm has more than a very short superscription, the Masoretic Text usually designates the superscription verse 1, increasing all subsequent verse numbers by one. Otherwise, the superscription forms the start of verse 1. I have noted this feature when commenting on each superscription.

1  A commentator who seems to me to do this often is Hans-Joachim Kraus (1918–2000), Psalms, trans. Hilton C. Oswald, 2 vols., CC (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

Abbreviations

ACCS  Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Edited by Thomas C. Oden. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998–2010.

ACW  Ancient Christian Writers

AD  anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord,” often called the Common Era, CE

ANF  Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. 1885–1887. 10 vols. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

BC  before Christ, sometimes called BCE, before the Common Era

BCOTWP  Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms

BECNT  Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

BHQ  Biblia Hebraica Quinta 

BHS  Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983.

BRLJ  Brill Reference Library of Judaism

ca.  circa, “approximately”

CBSC  Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

CC  Continental Commentaries

CCT  Contours of Christian Theology 

CFTL  Clark’s Foreign Theological Library

chap(s).  chapter(s)

CNTOT  Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Edited by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.

CRINT  Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum

CTHPT  Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought

DSS  Dead Sea Scrolls

EBTC  Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary

ECF  Early Church Fathers

e.g.  exempli gratia, “for example”

esp.  especially

ET  English translation

etc.  et cetera, “and so forth”

FC  Fathers of the Church

fl.  floruit, “flourished”

FOET  Foundations of Evangelical Theology

HBT  Horizons in Biblical Theology

ICC  International Critical Commentary

JBL  Journal of Biblical Literature

JSOTSup  Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

JSS  Journal of Semitic Studies

LEChr  Library of Early Christology

lit.  literally

LNTS  Library of New Testament Studies

LXX  Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures)

MC  A Mentor Commentary

MT  Masoretic Text

NIGTC  New International Greek Testament Commentary

NPNF2  Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. 2nd ser. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. 1890–1900. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987.

NSBT  New Studies in Biblical Theology

NT  New Testament

OSHT  Oxford Studies in Historical Theology

OT  Old Testament

OTL  Old Testament Library

OWC  Oxford World’s Classics

PPS  Popular Patristics Series

RCS  Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Edited by Timothy George and Scott M. Manetsch. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011–.

SBLDS  Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBT  Studies in Biblical Theology

SJT  Scottish Journal of Theology

SSN  Studia Semitica Neerlandica

STDJ  Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

s.v.  sub verbo, “under the word”

TAPS  Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

TBST  The Bible Speaks Today

TOTC  Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries

TT  Theology Today

Vg.  Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible)

VTSup  Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

WBBC  Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries

WBC  Word Biblical Commentary

WCS  Welwyn Commentary Series

WGRW  Writings from the Greco-Roman World

WTJWestminster Theological Journal

WUNT  Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZAW  Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Introduction

Christ and the Psalms

Introduction

Why Bother with the Psalms?

“I read the Psalms every day as I have done for years,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) to his parents from prison in May 1943. “I know them and love them more than any other book.”1 A little earlier in his life he wrote, “Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure is lost to the Christian church. With its recovery will come unexpected power.”2 The aim of this chapter is to explore why he was right. In the preface I suggested that the Psalms are essential to the life of the Christian church. Now I want to argue and develop this conviction and to set before us some of the overflowing blessings that are to be found when the church is soaked in the Psalms. It is wise to consider the broad benefits of the Psalms before embarking on the main argument of this volume, which is that only a Christ-centered reading can do justice to the true meaning of the Psalms.

Why should we bother with the Psalms? That may sound a foolish, even impious, question. Before embarking on a rather long commentary, I certainly needed to ask this question. For most of Christian history, it scarcely needed asking, for the Psalter has been woven into the warp and woof of Christian corporate worship since the very earliest days—and in old covenant Israel before that.3 But today the Psalms are perhaps more often paid lip service as a great book of the Bible than actually used regularly, at least in many churches.

It is possible to study the Psalms simply as students of literature or of the history of Israel’s religion. No doubt, there is value in that exploration, and it is of interest to some. But this is not my goal. My aim is that every Christian minister should lead each congregation not only in studying but in appropriating all the Psalms in both corporate worship and individual devotion.

Perhaps the most common reason people might bother with the Psalms today is because they make us feel better. We find them inspiring, beautiful, and uplifting, especially when we select the parts that do not offend or challenge us. We love to pick and choose the verses that sound comforting. When ministers plan a summer holiday preaching series with visiting preachers, they sometimes say to them, “Pick your favorite Psalm and preach that. People will love what is precious to you.” And yet it may be that what we really love is not the Psalms as a whole but just our favorite psalms—or even our treasured nuggets from the Psalms.

In his fascinating essay “How the Twenty-Third Psalm Became an American Secular Icon,”4 William Holladay observes that part of the cultural appeal of Psalm 23 is that it is—on the face of it—“undemanding. It does not mention sin or suggest the appropriateness of participating in any ecclesial community. It simply seems to affirm that God (or, alternatively, Jesus) accompanies the speaker and takes care of him or her.”5 This understanding is, as my commentary seeks to show, a misreading of the psalm, but it is easy to see how it can be misread that way. It is easy to read a sentimentalized subset of extracts from the Psalms rather than the Psalms as a whole. In chapter 16 I note the roots of such a romantic, purely aesthetic, or sentimental reading in trends in nineteenth-century German “higher” criticism.6 Even among those who are Reformed and evangelical, when someone says to me, “I love the Psalms,” I sometimes have a lingering misgiving that this may be a love shaped—perhaps more than the person realizes—by this romantic tradition. This is not the answer I want to give to the question “Why bother with the Psalms?”

I want to address the question “Why bother to weave the Psalms (all the Psalms) into our regular patterns of corporate worship and private prayer and praise?” For by “praying the Psalms,” I do not mean “praying from the Psalms.” To pray from the Psalms can mean to pick and choose some parts of the Psalms as a resource for prayer. We might call this the “calendar verse” approach: we read a Psalm and see if any of it resonates with our experience and warms our hearts; if it does, we choose that verse to put on a devotional calendar. January: “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” February: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” And so on. This may make us feel better, but if this is all we do, it lacks integrity. It places us in charge since our selections are governed by our tastes.

In addressing the question “Why bother with the Psalms?” I begin with the two places in the New Testament where it is assumed that the Psalms are a part of Christian corporate worship. After that I broaden out to suggest a vista of rich blessings that God sets before us through the Psalms. I hope we can then embark on the body of this volume persuaded that Bonhoeffer was not exaggerating when he spoke of the “incomparable treasure” and “unexpected power” of the Psalms.

The New Testament Assumes That Churches Will Speak the Psalms (Eph. 5:18–20; Col. 3:16–17)

Writing to the Ephesians, Paul tells the church to

be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph. 5:18–20)

In the parallel passage in Colossians, he writes,

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3:16–17)

Although these exhortations appear only in Ephesians and Colossians, there is no reason to suppose that Paul writes this as a particular or occasional word just to these churches at that time because they particularly needed to hear this exhortation, as if other churches need not bother. He simply assumes that this practice characterizes a healthy church, much as his teaching about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians assumes that every church remembers the Lord’s death in this way.

What Are “Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs”?

What does Paul mean by the repeated phrase “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”? The three nouns “psalm,” “hymn,” and “song” are used in ancient nonbiblical Greek and would have been understood in wider culture outside the Christian church as fairly general designations of music and songs. But the most significant background for many Greek words in the New Testament is the usage of those words in the Septuagint, which was the most commonly used Bible of the church in the apostolic age. If believers who knew—or were getting to know—the Septuagint heard the phrase “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” what would they most naturally think of?

Psalm.The Greek word ψαλμός, psalmos, originally meant plucking the string of a bow, hence the playing of a stringed instrument.7 It occurs seventy-nine times8 in the canonical books of the Septuagint. Of these, sixty-five translate one of the classifications in the headings of the Psalms (most commonly but not exclusively מִזְמוֹר‎, mizmor);9 five occur in the main text of the Psalms to refer either to musical instruments or to songs of praise or melody (Pss. 71:22; 81:2; 95:2; 98:5; 147:1); two refer to David as the preeminent psalm singer (1 Sam. 16:18; 2 Sam. 23:1); two occur in Job to refer to a musical instrument (Job 21:12; 30:31); one refers in Lamentations to a taunt song (Lam. 3:14); another refers in Lamentations to music, presumably associated with music for the now-destroyed temple (Lam. 5:14); and three occur in the Prophets, in each case associated with temple worship or sacrifice (Isa. 66:20; Amos 5:23; Zech. 6:14 [only in LXX]). So the overwhelming majority of uses of the word in the canonical books of the Septuagint refer to or are intimately associated with the book of Psalms.

Apart from Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, the word ψαλμός, psalmos, appears five times in the New Testament. Luke uses the word four times in Luke-Acts, each time referring to the Old Testament Psalms. In Luke 20:42, Jesus mentions “the Book of Psalms”; in Luke 24:44, he speaks of “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms,” in which “the Psalms” means the book of Psalms, taken as a common shorthand (pars pro toto) for “the Writings,” the third section of the Hebrew Scriptures; in Acts 1:20, Peter refers to “the Book of Psalms”; and in Acts 13:33, Paul quotes from “the second Psalm.”10The only other New Testament reference is in 1 Corinthians 14:26, where, when the believers “come together, each one has a hymn” (where “hymn” translates ψαλμός, psalmos). We do not know whether this was a fresh song, perhaps written by the believer, or simply an Old Testament psalm.

Weighing the evidence for the biblical use of the word ψαλμός, psalmos, both in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, we find that the most natural understanding is that “psalms” in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 simply refers to the Old Testament book of Psalms.

Hymn. The word ὕμνος, hymnos, in classical Greek means “generally poetic material that is either recited or sung, many times in praise of divinity or in honor of one of the gods.”11 In the canonical Old Testament books of the Septuagint, the word occurs fourteen times. At least six of these translate a designation in the superscription of a psalm, one summarizes the psalms of David in books 1 and 2 (“prayers,” Ps. 72:20), four occur in the main text of psalms, two occur in historical books referring back to the institution of psalmody by David (2 Chron. 7:6; Neh. 12:46), and one occurs in Isaiah (“a new song,” Isa. 42:10). Apart from (possibly) the Isaiah reference, all the uses are associated with the Old Testament book of Psalms.

In the New Testament, the noun ὕμνος, hymnos, comes only in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. The verbal form of the word (ὑμνέω, hymneō, “to sing a hymn”) occurs in Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26, where it is generally thought to refer to one of the Hallel psalms. In Acts 16:25 this verb is used of what Paul and Silas sing in prison overnight. We do not know what they sang; it is not unlikely that it was a biblical psalm. The last example of the verb is in Hebrews 2:12, where it comes in a quotation from Psalm 22:22. So three of these four clearly refer to Old Testament psalms, and the fourth may too.

So again, as with the term “psalms,” the dominant association of the word ὕμνος, hymnos, is the Old Testament book of Psalms.

Song. The word translated “song” (ᾠδη, ōdē, from which we get our English word ode) occurs sixty-eight times in the canonical books of the Septuagint. Eight of these are used of inspired songs embedded in Old Testament narrative (once in Ex. 15:1 of the Song of Moses, six times in Deuteronomy 31–32 of another song of Moses, and once in Judg. 5:12 of the song of Deborah). Thirty-seven occurrences translate designations of psalms (including twelve in parallel with ψαλμός, psalmos; fifteen in the phrase “a Song of Ascents”; one translating “Higgaion” in Ps. 9:16 and one “Shigionoth” in the heading to the psalm of Hab. 3); seven occur in the main text of Psalms; two occur in 2 Samuel (2 Sam. 6:5, of the songs sung as David brought the ark into Jerusalem, and 2 Sam. 22:1, which becomes Ps. 18); twelve appear in 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, in connection with temple worship; and two refer to Solomon’s songs (1 Kings 4:32; 8:53 [only in LXX]). Although the word can be used quite generally of song or music, the overwhelming association in the Septuagint is with the book of Psalms and the temple worship.

Apart from Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, the New Testament uses of the word ᾠδη, ōdē, all come in three places in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 5:9 “a new song” introduces the song of Revelation 5:9–10. In Revelation 14:3 the word appears twice, but the words of the song are not given. In Revelation 15:3 it again occurs twice, describing a song that references “the song of Moses” (Ex. 15 and perhaps Deut. 32) and also alludes to Psalm 86.

Psalm, hymn, and song together. In addition, it is worth noting that the three words “psalm,” “hymn,” and “song” occur in close proximity only twice in the Septuagint, once in the superscription of Psalm 6712 and once in the superscription of Psalm 76.13G. K. Beale suggests that in Paul’s phrase, “the allusion is to both [these] psalms [i.e., Pss. 67; 76] as representing the whole corpus of psalms.”14 He argues this point also from the links between the content of these psalms and the context in Colossians, concluding,

All of this points to the three terms in Col. 3:16 referring to actual OT psalms or songs/hymns composed on the basis of such psalms, which would now be related to the new revelation of Christ. . . . The OT psalms are now viewed to be the very word of Christ! The psalms should now be understood fully through the lens of Christ.15

Spiritual. The adjective “spiritual” (πνευματικός, pneumatikos) is generally—and probably rightly—taken in its full sense of “from the Spirit.”16These are songs given to the church by the Holy Spirit.

In Greek the feminine adjective (πνευματικαῖς, pneumatikais) agrees grammatically with the closest noun, the feminine noun ᾠδη, ōdē, rather than the masculine nouns ψαλμός, psalmos, and ὕμνος, hymnos. This is why the phrase is generally translated “psalms and hymns and