Commentary on Psalms

C. Davis Barry

Description

Comprehensive, accessible, and fully illustrated--this commentary on Psalms is a must-have resource.You want a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, but the notes in your study Bible don't give you enough depth or insight. This commentary was created with you in mind.Each volume of The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary is a nontechnical, section-by-section commentary on one book or section of the Bible that provides reliable and readable interpretations of the Scriptures from leading evangelical scholars. This information-packed commentary will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Bible in your own personal study or in preparation for teaching. It tackles problematic questions, calls attention to the spiritual and personal aspects of the biblical message, and brings out important points of biblical theology, making it invaluable to anyone seeking to get the most out of their Bible study.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781493424535
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2012 by Baker Publishing Group
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook short created 2019
Previously published in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary edited by Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill in 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2453-5
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are 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 labeled ESV from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2007
Scripture quotations labeled NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Scripture quotations labeled NIV 1984 are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NJPS are from the New Jewish Publication Society Version © 1985 by The Jewish Publication Society. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NLT are from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by 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 labeled RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by 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.
Unless otherwise indicated, photos, illustrations, and maps are copyright © Baker Photo Archive.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Abbreviations
Introduction
Commentary

1. Book 1 (1:1–41:13) [Psalms 10, 20, 30, 40 ]
2. Book 2 (42:1–72:20) [Psalms 45, 50, 60, 70 ]
3. Book 3 (73:1–89:52) [Psalms 75, 80, 85 ]
4. Book 4 (90:1–106:48) [Psalms 90, 100 ]
5. Book 5 (107:1–150:6) [Psalms 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 ]
Time Lines
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Abbreviations ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament . Edited by J. B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton, 1969 BDAG Bauer, W., F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago, 1999 ca. circa (about, approximately) cf. compare chap(s). chapter(s) COS The Context of Scripture . Edited by W. W. Hallo. 3 vols. Leiden, 1997– e.g. for example ESV English Standard Version HALOT Koehler, L., W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 5 vols. Leiden, 1994–2000 HCSB Holman Christian Standard Bible i.e. that is KJV King James Version NASB New American Standard Bible NEB New English Bible NET New English Translation NIV New International Version (2011 edition) NIV 1984 New International Version (1984 edition) NJB New Jerusalem Bible NJPS The Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text NKJV New King James Version NLT New Living Translation NRSV New Revised Standard Version RSV Revised Standard Version TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament . Edited by G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by J. T. Willis, G. W. Bromiley, and D. E. Green. 8 vols. Grand Rapids, 1974– TNIV Today’s New International Version
Psalms
Barry C. Davis
Introduction
The Psalms are designed to comfort and to disturb—to minister to our anguish and yet to break us from the complacency of our lives. They do not want us to walk away feeling merely “blessed.” They want us, at times, to feel bludgeoned, battered, and torn apart. They attack our sensibilities—shaking us to the very roots of our beings—yet they resonate within us with the realization that, perhaps for the first time in our lives, we truly have been understood.

The psalmists expect us to enter with them into the glorious worship of our God—we like that. The psalmists also expect us to join with them in calling for and rejoicing over the destruction of the enemies of our God—for some reason, we feel less than comfortable about that. Some psalms we relate to: we have walked the lonely or tragic path that the psalmist has walked; other psalms make little sense to us: we may even question the psalmists’ reasons for writing them. We wonder how a godly person could write a psalm that expresses personal depression or rage at God, hopelessness, bitterness, or caustic invective. We also marvel and are incredulous that a person experiencing deep personal struggles or the deceptive attacks of an enemy could record words that draw us into the highest heaven—words that make our spirits soar or perhaps cause us to feel a glimmer of hope in the midst of our overwhelming sorrow.
Yet, whether we find a given psalm particularly appealing, feel revulsed by it, or simply read it “because it is there,” each of the 150 psalms is designed to guide us, discipline us, alter our thoughts and attitudes, or mold us into being more and more like the God of the Bible, the God whom we serve.
The Psalms sit fixed on the pages of the text, unmoved and unchanged like granite. Their words remain always the same; their meaning never changes. Yet, each time we read them, we are different, and God uses them to intrude in our lives and burn his eternal truth into us so that in each meeting with the familiar and the not-so-familiar psalms, we feel we have encountered them again for the first time.

Statue of a harpist from the tomb of Nykauinpu, Giza [ Copyright © Baker Photo Archive. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago. ]
Even a cursory look at the Psalms reveals that their authors intended them to be sung aloud (often following set tunes accompanied by various instruments), read aloud (sometimes antiphonally or responsively), or meditated on. The Psalms are written at times for private use—to express deep feelings of anguish, contrition, or gratitude; at times for informal gatherings of believers—to teach and encourage one another and to praise God; and at times for formal worship services, specific celebrations, or national events. New Testament believers continued many of these practices (cf. Luke 20:41–44; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16).
Composition, Authorship, and Structure
Under God’s guidance, the 150 psalms tell a unified story—a story of hope in the midst of the chaos of life. They begin with a picture of life as it should be: the righteous always triumphing, the wicked always losing. In other words, Psalm 1 portrays life in an ideal world, not the world that many, if any, of us experience.
Psalm 1, however, establishes one of the key themes of the Psalter: the battle between the righteous and the wicked.
Psalm 2 presents the second major focus of the book of Psalms: the messianic hope—the Messiah who intervenes in the epic battle between good and evil, defeating his enemies and bringing victory to his people.
That messianic victory drives the Psalter (and life for the believer) to its ultimate conclusion—to Psalm 150—to the free, unencumbered joy of praising God. Like Psalm 1, Psalm 150 is not a reality of present-day life. Even the delight experienced and expressed in corporate worship is often tainted by our exhaustion from a week of work or by our worries about family problems, careers, personal failures, future plans, or what’s for lunch. The unspoiled, exuberant expression of praise to God—and seeing those around us also freely proclaiming the wonder of our God—is in its purest sense an experience reserved for us in heaven.
The psalmists are realists. They recognize that life is less than perfect, that it is, in fact, downright difficult. They know that life is not as it should be or as it will be, so they recorded the psalms in between Psalms 1 and 150 to present a picture of life as it is—that is, a picture of the realities of life where there is pain and suffering, where good does not always triumph, and where evil (at times, or even much of the time) seems to overwhelm. On occasion, God graciously gives us an inside glimpse to the world of Psalms 1 and 150, but for the most part we live in the world of the in-between psalms.

Ivory book cover showing David dictating the Psalms (tenth–eleventh century AD) [ Copyright © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia. Courtesy of the Louvre. ]
The 150 psalms of the Psalter were written over a period of approximately one thousand years—from the time of Moses (Ps. 90), if not earlier, to the time of Ezra (Ps. 119?), Haggai and Zechariah (Psalms 146? and 147?), or