Psalms overview

Purpose & Theme

The Psalms are the songbook and prayer book of God’s people — a collection of 150 inspired poems that give voice to the whole range of human experience before God. Here are soaring praises and desperate laments, confident trust and anguished questions, joyful thanksgiving and heartbroken confession. Where most of Scripture is God’s word to us, the Psalms are largely our words to God, and by inspiring them the Spirit teaches us how to pray and worship in every season — in the heights of joy and the depths of despair, in victory and in guilt, in the presence of enemies and in the shelter of God’s wings.

The Psalter is bound together by a few great themes: the greatness and steadfast love of God, the refuge He is to those who trust Him, the kingship of the LORD, the beauty of His Word, and the hope of His anointed King, the Messiah. No book of the Old Testament is quoted more often in the New, for the Psalms are saturated with Christ — He prayed them, fulfilled them, and stands at their center as the true King, the righteous Sufferer, and the object of the Psalter’s deepest hope. The book opens with a call to delight in God’s Law and builds, through every kind of prayer, to an unbroken crescendo of praise: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!”

Historical Context

The Psalms were composed across roughly a thousand years, from the time of Moses (Psalm 90) to the era after the exile. About half are attributed to David, Israel’s shepherd-king and “the sweet psalmist of Israel,” who established music in the worship of God; others come from the temple musicians Asaph and the sons of Korah, from Solomon, from Heman and Ethan, and many are anonymous. The individual psalms arose out of real life — David’s flight from Saul, his sin with Bathsheba, national crises, festivals, and pilgrimages — and were gathered over time into the collection we have.

The finished Psalter is arranged into five “books” (1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 107-150), each closing with a doxology, perhaps echoing the five books of Moses. The psalms served as the hymnbook of the temple and synagogue, sung by choirs and pilgrims, and they became the prayer book of the early church and of believers ever since. Many carry ancient superscriptions noting authorship, occasion, or musical directions.

Structure & Outline

The Psalter is organized into five books, each ending in a doxology:

• Book 1 (Psalms 1-41) — largely Davidic; personal prayers of trust, lament, and praise.
• Book 2 (Psalms 42-72) — Davidic and Korahite psalms, closing with a royal psalm for Solomon.
• Book 3 (Psalms 73-89) — many by Asaph and the sons of Korah; often national and questioning.
• Book 4 (Psalms 90-106) — opening with Moses; the “LORD reigns” psalms and rehearsals of history.
• Book 5 (Psalms 107-150) — thanksgiving, the Songs of Ascents, the great Hallel, and a closing burst of praise.

The individual psalms also fall into recognizable types: hymns of praise, laments (individual and communal), thanksgiving psalms, psalms of trust, royal and messianic psalms, wisdom psalms, and songs of Zion.

How This Book Points to Jesus

The Psalms are the Old Testament’s fullest wellspring of messianic hope, and Jesus stands at their heart. Many are royal psalms that reach beyond any earthly king to the promised Son of David: Psalm 2, the King whom the nations rage against and to whom God says, “You are my Son”; Psalm 110, the King who is also a priest forever and sits at God’s right hand; Psalm 45 and 72, the glorious, righteous reign. Others are astonishing previews of His passion: Psalm 22 opens with the very cry Jesus uttered on the cross — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — and describes pierced hands and feet and the casting of lots for His garments; Psalm 16 foretells that God will not let His Holy One see corruption, which Peter and Paul preach as fulfilled in the resurrection.

Beyond specific prophecies, Jesus is the true worshiper who perfectly prayed the Psalms, the righteous sufferer of the laments, the King of the royal psalms, and the LORD whose praise the whole book proclaims. He told His disciples that everything written about Him “in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44). To read the Psalms Christianly is to hear the voice of Christ — praying, suffering, trusting, and reigning — and to join Him in bringing every cry and every praise to the Father.