Page 49 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

Crucial to our understanding is the NT identification of Psalms as a book about Christ. “Let the message
of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through
psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts (Col. 3:16).”

With so much study of the Psalms going on, we can begin our own reading with some of the obvious
organizing structures in the book that many scholars have observed We note a short doxology of praise
to God at the end of each section (Psalm 41:13; 7:18-19; 89:52; 106:48; 150). Psalm 1-2 have no title in
contrast to almost all of the Psalms in Book I and Book II. Psalm 146-150 all begin and end with “Praise
the Lord,” transliterated from Hebrew and pronounced “Hallelujah”. Together they form the doxology to
the entire book of Psalms. “The long-drawn music of the Psalter closes with five Hallelujah psalms, in
which, with constantly swelling diapason [burst of harmony], all themes of praise are pealed forth, until
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the melodious thunder of the final psalm, which calls on everything that has breath to praise Jehovah.”

79 Alexander Maclaren, D.D., The Psalms (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1896), vol. 3, 434-435.
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