How to Read and Understand the Psalms (eBook)

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Hermeneutics

Interpreting the Psalms as Believers

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law!”

What is required of us to understand the Psalter and gain spiritual profit from it? How can we enter the mind of the authors and the text itself so as to grasp its intended meaning and benefit from its message?

A right understanding of any object of study demands that we seek to understand it on its own terms. So also an understanding of the Psalter (and of the Bible itself) hinges on an understanding of its authors and a certain sympathy with them. Our precommitments and theirs must coincide. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10) and of knowledge (Prov. 1:7); this attitude and positioning of ourselves before God presupposes regeneration. Moreover, Scripture insists that divine illumination is necessary for understanding (1 Cor. 2:11–14). So the interpretive process hinges on the working of God in us. And yet Scripture also requires diligent study (2 Tim. 2:15; cf. Acts 17:11). Understanding is sovereignly given, but not apart from concentrated effort on our part. How does all of this work out in experience and practice?

A consideration of the two leading biblical statements on the nature of Scripture provides a helpful frame of reference. In 2 Timothy 3:16, the apostle Paul affirms that “all Scripture is breathed out by God”—the text is inspired of God. Then in 2 Peter 1:20–21 the apostle Peter tells us how the inspired Scriptures came about: “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” These verses affirm that God is the ultimate author of Scripture and that it came to us through the writings of inspired human authors, and they underline the inspiration of both the biblical writers and the biblical text itself. To interpret Scripture rightly we must have a sympathetic understanding of God, the divine author, the human authors, and the text itself.1

Scripture’s Divine and Human Authors

That Scripture is the word of God through human authors is the Bible’s claim throughout. The famous summary statements of 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:19–21 are just that—crisp and definitive summary statements of what the biblical writers unanimously assert, from the characteristic “Thus says the Lord” of the prophets to the designation of their writings as “Scripture,” “oracle,” “law,” and “word of the Lord.” This is no less true of the Psalms and of David in particular.

1 Now these are the last words of David:

    The oracle of David, the son of Jesse,

    the oracle of the man who was raised on high,

    the anointed of the God of Jacob,

    the sweet psalmist of Israel:

2  “  The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;

    his word is on my tongue.

    The God of Israel has spoken;

    the Rock of Israel has said to me.” (2 Sam. 23:1–3)

Two assertions here are important for our purposes:

1. David was Israel’s premier psalmist: “the sweet psalmist of Israel.”

2. David was an inspired spokesman for God: “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.”

This second assertion is emphasized in two ways: it is a claim that David himself makes plainly (22:2–3), and it is how the narrator characterizes David’s words: “oracle” (23:1). This word (נְאֻם‎), used twice here, refers to prophetic speech, words spoken by God’s Spirit through his spokesman, the prophet. That is, “oracle” is “prophetic” speech. David’s words recorded here (22:2–7) are in fact not his last words spoken (cf. 1 Kings. 1–2) but his final prophetic oracle.

Jesus and the New Testament writers understood David’s words as inspired also:

• David spoke “in the Spirit” (Matt. 22:43–44, citing Ps. 110:1).
• The Holy Spirit spoke through David (Acts 1:16, citing Ps. 69:25 and 109:8; also Acts 4:25, citing Ps. 2:1).
• David was a “prophet” (Acts 2:30, citing Ps. 16:9–11).
• David’s words are “Scripture” (Mark 12:10, citing Ps. 118:22; John 13:18, citing Ps. 41:9; John 19:24, citing Ps. 22:18; cf. Luke 24:44–45).
• David’s word was authoritative divine “law” (John 10:34–35, citing Ps. 82:6).

Just as Scripture comes to us from God, so also our understanding of it depends on his enablement (1 Cor. 2:11–14). That is to say, “The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.”2 This is the divine side in the interpretive process.

Moreover, God’s revelation cannot be received apart from a spiritual commitment to him in faith, hope, and love. The doctrine of illumination entails the responsibility on our part to read Scripture “in a spirit that is harmonious with God’s Spirit,” and it “demands that we stand under the text to respond in service to its Author, not to stand in judgment above it in order to critique the text.”3 Anselm’s “faith seeking understanding”4 has long been the recognized dictum of Christian theologians, so also Augustine’s famous “I believe, in order to understand.”5 As a result of Enlightenment thinking, this spiritual dimension of interpretation was deemed incompatible with the scientific method of interpreting of Scripture. Prayer and piety had no role. But if God is God, and if he is, in fact, the ultimate author of Scripture, then a commitment to him in submissive trust is indispensable. “The Holy Scriptures call us to surrender our wills to its claims” and approach “with open hands of faith.”6 A lack of devotion obstructs understanding. “The fear of God” is the foundation of all learning, not least in understanding his word. For this we are dependent upon God’s initiative and work in us, but it correspondingly requires that we commit to him in trust as is appropriate to him. We must come to Scripture prayerfully and in trust. “Open my eyes, that I may behold / wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18). David Steinmetz writes,

Scripture is not in our power. It is not at the disposal of our intellect and is not obliged to render up its secrets to those who have theological training, merely because they are learned. Scripture imposes its own meaning; it binds the soul to God through faith. Because the initiative in the interpretation of Scripture remains in the hands of God, we must humble ourselves in His presence and pray that He will give understanding and wisdom to us as we meditate on the sacred text. While we may take courage from the thought that God gives understanding of Scripture to the humble, we should also heed the warning that the truth of God can never coexist with human pride. Humility is the hermeneutical precondition for authentic exegesis.7

An understanding of the inspired human authors likewise requires a distinct sympathy with them. Advanced learning should not be neglected, but to understand the biblical authors rightly we cannot stand above them as their judges but must position ourselves sympathetically as their students and disciples. We must enter the world and context of these writers, understanding their setting, their covenantal context, their faith in the God of those covenants, and share with them in it all. Apart from this established fellowship with them in a common faith we will err in our interpretation of their writings. Even in the case of those biblical passages—like many of the Psalms—whose human authors are not specifically identified, we may be sure they were written “for our instruction” (1 Cor. 10:11; cf. 1 Tim. 3:15–17; Heb. 12:5).

Patrick Fairbairn’s discussion of this point merits citing at length.

He [the interpreter] must endeavour to attain to a sympathy in thought and feeling with the sacred writers, whose meaning he seeks to unfold. Such a sympathy is not required for the interpretation alone of the inspired writings; it is equally necessary in respect to any ancient author. Language is but the utterance of thought and feeling of one person to another, and the more we can identify ourselves with the state of mind out of which that thought and feeling arose, the more manifestly shall we be qualified for appreciating the language in which they are embodied, and reproducing true and living impressions of it. . . .

Not a few of them [interpreters] have given proof of superior talents, and have brought to the task also the acquirements of a profound and varied scholarship. The lexicography and grammar, the philology and...