Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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About
The collection of the Psalter is not for those whose life is one of uninterrupted continuity and equilibrium.
Such people should stay safely in the book of Proverbs, which reflects on the continuities of life.
But few of us live that kind of life.
Most of us who think our lives are that way have been numbed, desensitized, and suppressed so that we are cut off from what is in fact going on in our lives.
Praying the Psalms depends upon two things: (1) what we find when we come to the Psalms that is already there; and (2) what we bring to the Psalms out of our own lives.
A great danger in praying the Psalms is that we shall mistakenly take their language in a positivistic, descriptive way as nothing more than a report on what is.
Taken that way, the Psalms can probably be managed and comprehended and rendered powerless.
That is a hazard of the repeated use of any important words.
We assume we already know what they mean.
But if the language of the Psalms is understood impressionistically and creatively, then it holds surprise and in fact creates new realities where none existed before.
It races on ahead to form something new that never was before.
This language then, with its speech of liberation, is dangerous and revolutionary, for its very use constitutes a threat to the way things have been.
It is for that reason that totalitarian regimes, even when they control all the hardware, are most fearful of the poet.
The creative speech of the poet can evoke new forms of human life which even the power of arms and repression is helpless to prevent.
Such speech, which is the proper idiom for prayer, is the language of surprise.
It means that in such speech both the speaker and God may be surprised by what is freshly offered.
The language of the Psalms permits us to be boldly anticipatory about what may be, as well as discerning about what has been.
The poets are powerful in being able to bring such a struggle to visibility and concreteness.
Notice that even though there is great detail, one cannot determine from the Psalm what the actual problem is—whether sickness, abandonment, guilt, imprisonment.
The poet has an amazing capacity to say much and yet leave everything open.
Thus the Psalm provides a marvelous receptacle which we are free to fill with our particular experience.
What Is The Unique Contribution of The Psalms?
(1) The psalms are poetry.
Psalms are poetry, but not the kind of poetry to which many of us are accustomed.
When you look at the psalms in the King James Version of the Bible, you will discover that the format of the Book of Psalms is no different than that of Genesis.
It was not until over 100 years later than Bishop Robert Lowth rediscovered the genius of Hebrew poetry.198
Hebrew poetry is not like our poetry.
When we think of poetry, we think of lines that rhyme:
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
Hebrew poetry does not rely heavily on rhyme; it is based upon repetition and development of thought from one line to the next.
This repetition is known as “parallelism.”199
In synonymous parallelism, the first line is echoed in the second, with only a slight change of terms:
Why do the nations cause a commotion?
Why are the countries devising plots that will fail?
(; see also 3:1).
In antithetical parallelism, the words of the first line are affirmed in the second, not by repetition, but by contrast:
Certainly the Lord rewards the behavior of the godly,
but the behavior of the wicked is self-destructive (; see also 40:4).
In climactic parallelism, the second line refines, develops, and completes the thought of the first:
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the nations,
ascribe to the Lord splendor and strength!
()
There are other types of parallelism, but this gives you some examples of how parallelism is the backbone of Hebrew poetry.
How wise and gracious God was to use Hebrew poetry, rather than the kind of poetry to which we are accustomed.
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to translate “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into the Hebrew language so that it rhymed?
Hebrew poetry is the most easily translated form of poetry I know of, and this is the poetry God chose for the Book of Psalms.
Poetry is a medium of expression that facilitates the communication of deep feelings and emotions.
When my father was in the Navy during World War II, he wrote poems to my mother.
(In fact, until recently, my father wrote a poem to each of his children and grandchildren for their birthdays.)
During my years of prison ministry, I was shocked to learn how many prisoners write poetry.
For some reason, this is considered an acceptable way of revealing one’s feelings (something that is not done very much inside a prison).
Because the psalms are poetry, they must be interpreted in a different manner than historical narrative.
We expect figures of speech and what appears to be exaggeration.
We know better than to take every word literally.
For example, in the psalms we read,
Let the rivers clap their hands!
Let the mountains sing in unison ().
(2) The psalms are songs.
The Hebrew word Tehillim that is the title of the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible means “songs of praise.”
The terms found at the heading of many psalms are often musical terms.
Sometimes there will be a reference to the “choir director” in the first verse of psalm (e.g., , , , , , etc.).
Various musical instruments are mentioned, such as the flute () and stringed instruments (, , , ).
Music played a vital part in the worship of ancient Israel, just as it has in the church through the ages and down to the present.
Somewhere along the line the musical score for the psalms was lost, and I am inclined to think that this was no accident.
It means that in order for us to sing the psalms we must put them to music, our own music.
It would have to be this way.
Can you imagine what it would have been like trying to match the words to the notes when the psalms were translated?
Sometimes, due to the nature of translation, there would be twice as many words as notes, and at other times just the reverse.
Some Hebrew words MUST be translated with a phrase,so more words are required.
God knew that the psalms would be translated into many, many languages, and that each language group would have its own culture, its own music, and its own preferences.
The psalms encourage us to write the musical score which we find appropriate to the psalm and to our culture.
(3) The psalms are expressions of worship.
The psalms are an expression of man’s response to God in the light of his circumstances.
The range of precipitating circumstances is very wide in the psalms.
Ron Allen has, with some words of caution, divided the Scriptures into three major categories: revelation, reflection, and response.201
Revelation would include the narrative accounts of the Bible, for example.
Reflection would include some of the wisdom books, such as Proverbs.
Response would be expressed in the psalms.
Often, the psalms are one’s public response to God as an outgrowth of a more private encounter with God.
We see the psalmists expressing their worship to God as the fulfillment of their vow to praise God publicly for His intervention in their lives in answer to their petitions:
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
before all his people ().
You are the reason I offer praise in the great assembly;
I will fulfill my promises before the Lord’s loyal followers.
(; see also 66:13-16)
The psalmist frequently urges his fellow-Israelites to join him in worshipping God.
In , we are exhorted to,
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
The psalms actually facilitate this.
We are enabled not only to enter into the experience of the psalmists, but also to enter into their inner thoughts, especially their thoughts about God (Psa 42, )
(4) The psalms are prayers:
This collection of the prayers of David son of Jesse ends here ().
At the moment, a great deal of attention is being given the “prayer of Jabez:”
Jabez called out to the God of Israel, “If only you would greatly bless me and expand my territory!
May your hand be with me! Keep me from harm so I might not endure pain!” God answered his prayer ().
I am not trying to fault those who would have us model some of our prayers after this “prayer of Jabez,” but I would point out that the psalms are prayers that were specifically designed to be repeated.
I’m not quite as certain about the prayer of Jabez.
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