What does psalm mean in Hebrew - Part 1

Trinity Journal 42:1, 2021

In Discovering the Psalms, Jerome Creach adheres to the purpose of Eerdmans's Discovering Biblical Text series: To provide a comprehensive, upto-date, and student-friendly introduction to the Psalms that emphasizes content, structure, theology, interpretive debates, and major turning points through its reception history. The book's main body consists of ten chapters divided into three parts: Part One covers Issues in Reading the Psalms and the Psalter, Part Two looks at Reading the Psalms Together, and Part Three develops The Psalms as Prayers. It also includes a brief introduction titled The role of the Psalms in the life of the Church and a brief conclusion titled The Psalms and Jesus Christ. The author writes from the perspective of a Christian biblical scholar and is concerned with reading the Psalms as "Christian Scripture" (p. 5). Chapter 1 ("What is a psalm?") provides a general introduction to basic features of the Psalms, such as the general structure of the division of the Psalms into five books, each closing with doxologies, with Pss 1-2 serving as an introduction and Pss 146-50 as a conclusion. The author writes, "The arrangement of the psalms is one key to the meaning and purpose of its individual parts, and as a whole, the book has a meaning that transcends its parts (p. 24). Chapter 2 ("It's poetry!") deals with poetic features, such as progress in the study of parallelism and an introductory discussion of "the LORD is king" and "refuge" as metaphors in the Psalms. Chapter 3 ("Did David write the Psalms?") deals with the perennial question of authorship and its complexity. The author affirms, questions, and clarifies what Davidic authorship is and is not for the Psalms. He espouses "the Levites" as a group to be a more likely candidate for the authorship and compilation of the Psalms, a group who looked upon David as a "prime example of how to pray in times of trouble" (p. 58). Creach maintains that the link between David and the Psalter is an essential theological connection (pp. 59-60). Chapter 4 ("A Psalm for every occasion: types of psalms") surveys the Psalms as a genre and the developments therein following a discussion of Gunkel, and it affirms the limits of genre labels, noting that often psalms combine features of more than one genre (p. 79). Chapter 5 ("Settings for the performance of the Psalms") acknowledges Gunkel's insight that the Psalms originated in an Israelite worship setting or the cult, which at face value, though having complex understandings among authors, shows that psalms "grew out of real-life problems and celebrations" (p. 80). The author notably argues that the proposed setting for Israelite worship is not decisive and reliable for interpreting the Psalms, given that "Israelite worship underwent changes as the Israelites reread and re-used" the Psalms (pp. 96-97). This concludes Part One of the book, paving the way for a new direction in the study of the Psalms, focusing on its present form and function within an immediate literary context, especially in reading the Psalter as a whole. The second part envisages the Psalter as a book with "a theologically significant 'shape' that provides a context in which to read and interpret individual psalms" (p. 102). This new direction in the study of the Psalms affirms that "as the various psalms came together to form the present book, they took on a different context from their original context in Israel's cult" (p. 102). Chapter 6 ("Going by the book: The Psalter as a guide to reading the psalms") provides justification and elaboration for reading the Psalms together. This includes textual evidence for coherence and further elaboration

“Mit meinem Gott überspringe ich eine Mauer”/“By my God I can leap over a wall”: Interreligiöse Horizonte in den Psalmen und Psalmenstudien/Interreligious Horizons in Psalms and Psalms Studies, Christian Frevel, ed. (Herders Biblische Studien 96; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder), 2020

In diesem Aufsatz wird die Stellung der Psalmen im jüdischen Leben und in der jüdischen Liturgie dargestellt. Fragen der Beziehung der Psalmen zur Tora und der Zuschreibung zu König David werden im ersten Teil behandelt. Im zweiten Teil geht es zuerst um den Gebrauch der Psalmen im Rahmen des täglichen jüdischen Gebets. Danach wird das Rezitieren von Psalmen zu besonderen Angelegenheiten im jüdischen Leben kurz angesprochen. Schließlich wird die Frage der aus moderner Sicht schwierigen Stellen in den Psalmen, die in der Liturgie vorkommen, erörtert.

in Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, its Exegesis and its Language. Edited by: Moshe Bar-Asher, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Emanuel Tov and Nili Wazana. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. 2007. Pp. 21*-36*.

Leaven, 2012

Leaven, 2012

The book of Psalms is a rich collection of poetry from the life of ancient Israel. The psalms express a wide range of emotions and feelings: joys, sorrows, fears, hurts, amazements, and yearnings; and they address a wide variety of topics: interpersonal relationships, enemies, illnesses, national crises, the splendor of creation, the goodness of God, and human sinfulness. The Psalter is arguably the most-loved book of the Old Testament. The New Testament contains allusions to and quotes from no less than 129 psalms-attesting to its tremendous popularity with and influence on the New Testament writers.1 Martin Luther captured how central the psalms are to the life of faith, when he wrote that the Psalter "might well be called a little Bible" (Luther 1960:254). Nahum Sarna observes: In the Psalms, the human soul extends itself beyond its confining, sheltering, impermanent house of clay. It strives for contact with the Ultimate Source of all life. It gropes for an experience of the divine Presence. The biblical psalms are essentially a record of the human quest for God. (Sarna 1993: 3)

Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, 2014

This is a paper for the conference "Psalms in Rituals form Antiquity to the Present" in Erfurt (Germany).

Women in Judaism a Multidisciplinary Journal, 2011

For me, one of the delights of Jewish religious experience is its resemblance to theatre, with all of us as the actors. Jewish spiritual practise provides the opportunity to enact drama, to take on the roles within our narrative. The easiest examples to access are those in the Passover Haggadah, where we are explicitly invited to see ourselves as having personally gone out from Egypt. The Jewish calendar has days that ask us to truly feel joy, truly feel mourning, truly feel awe. Our texts also provide chances to enter into exciting dramas. The book of Psalms is praised for its wide range of emotions, its scope of narrative from creation through exile to redemption, and the vividness of the many voices-individual, collective, and divine-that appear within its poetry. Psalms are recited for healing and comfort. They are studied and simply read and enjoyed. And they have become an integral part of Jewish liturgy. Miriyam Glazer, a rabbi and professor of literature, has written a book guiding the reader through the psalms that are included in full in the liturgy, approaching prayer in a way that I consider drama-personal, emotional, explored in real time. Psalms of the Jewish Liturgy is a lovely, clear, easy to read book. Its small size and straightforward organization make it a good companion for services and for private contemplation. Especially helpful is the inclusion of entire psalms rather than excerpts, in Hebrew and the author's own translation. I enjoyed it at my bedside and carried it with me to read on my way. Glazer spells out her goals early and restates them at intervals. She encourages the reader not only to read and study the psalms, not only to pray the psalms as part of a service, but to find ways to experience the psalms in order to find personal self-understanding, meditative practise, and approaches to God. She looks at the psalms that appear in Conservative Jewish liturgy. In each chapter, she provides a psalm or group of psalms in Hebrew, then in her own translation, and then presents a potential use for the psalm. The author suggests two main contexts in which to experience the psalms: during prayer with groups, that is, the liturgical context of these psalms, and in slow private

A contemporary synthesis of the questions in and around The Book of the Psalms and the Song of Songs. A key to modern comprehension and usage. Being a paper presented as part of the my licentiate studies, it hopes to develop into a Book Chapter.

Published in Kenneth Mtata, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Miriam Rose (eds.), Singing the Songs of the Lord in Foreign Lands. Psalms in Contemporary Lutheran Interpretation. LWF DOC 59, pp. 91-104., 2014

Lament or complaint Psalms with closely tied praise and lament parts belong to the most important biblical genres, particularly because of their potential to address people in different times and places. Taking into consideration the insights that Mesopotamian literature has revealed, a door will be opened for understanding the lament Psalms in more existential terms. Distress in general, fear of being abandoned by God, overcoming of this fear, prophylaxis against calamities (not understood as part of magic) and one's preparedness for potential acute distress situations are the aspects that should be considered beside the application of lament Psalms in acute distress situations. Regarding the development of the lament Psalms one can conclude that the descriptions of the calamities grew longer and merged with transience complaints suggesting an emphasis on permanent distress (cf. Ps 22A), while proportionally praise became more important. Thus, in the Old Testament Psalms, human existence between praise and lament is tangible in word.

2019