I want to preface this by stating that I did not write all the paragraphs per your suggestion. This
was not due to laziness or negligence, I simply didn’t have much time to do so all of last week or
over the weekend as I had a Oratory Union tournament to prepare for and compete in and I was
and still am preparing for my Nats vocal competition. That being said, I carefully looked over my
notes, rewatched some of the lectures on the various genres and re-read parts of the chapters
going over the genres so that I would be adequately prepared to write the randomly assigned
essay. My strategy was this: answer the multiple choice questions in 5 minutes or less, copy and
paste the following paragraphs and then spend 20 minutes crafting the final essay. And that is
why there are fewer paragraphs than were originally suggested.
A canonical reading of the psalms is a way of reading that emphasizes looking at the context of
the scriptures as a whole when studying the book. When reading this way, scripture is viewed as
a continuity and the Psalms are analyzed in this context of the entire biblical literature. Reading
canonically is a largely reaction to the traditional way of reading the Psalms in general which
analyzes the Psalms by genre and historical background and a canonical reading aims at
framing the individual Psalms within the bigger picture that each of the Psalms is a part of. It is
not a new way of reading scripture, but was rather used by the early Jewish and Christian
commentators of the bible and was gradually replaced but the traditional reading of the Psalms.
An example of reading the Psalms canonically is David’s pleas for forgiveness. In Psalm 51
David writes the first of a series of Psalms begging for God’s forgiveness, not receiving it until
Psalm 65. And even after He has been forgiven the consequences of his sin linger over him and
continue to haunt him. A traditional reading of Psalm 51 would acknowledge David’s feelings of
remorse and his repentance towards God, however it would completely miss the bigger story of
David continuing to beg for God’s healing and ultimately getting it only to realize that he still has
to deal with the impact his sin has on himself and others. That is the strength of reading the
psalms canonically: it allows the reader to step back and analyze the Psalms and read from an
birds-eye view.
There are four levels of meaning that can be gained from reading the psalms. The first level of
reading the Psalms is reading from the Psalmist perspective. The goal of this level is to
understand the historical and cultural context of a particular psalm as best as possible. This
involves looking at historical and cultural allusions as well as analysing the language itself for
any kind of context. Looking at types that are portrayed is also an important aspect of this level.
The second level is reading from the Editor’s perspective. This level of interpretation looks at the
larger web that all the individual psalms exist in. The Psalms were written in 5 separate books
and each book bears several key similarities with the others and each has its own themes and
ideas that it conveys over the entire collection. The third level of reading the Psalms is reading
from the Apostle’s perspective. In the word’s of Martin Luther, scripture is the cradle of Christ
and reading the Psalms as the apostles would have is an important way of interpreting them.
Christ can be found throughout all of scripture however he is particularly present in the Psalter
and looking for the messianic overtones that underlie the entire book as critical to a complete
understanding of the Psalms. The fourth and final level of interpreting the Psalms is reading
them from the student’s perspective which involves looking for the reapplication of the psalms
in today’s world. This is also known as the paradigmatic approach and involves interpreting the
Psalms in terms of present day circumstances.
Psalm 100 is a wonderful example of a praise psalm and is one of my personal favorites in the
entire psalter. Though relatively short, Psalm 100 makes up for its lack of length in the power of
its words. As said before, it is a praise Psalm and focuses around a communal call to worship
God. It features declarative praise that provides rich examples of appearing in God’s court and
being the sheep of his pasture. The psalm also gives the all important reason for delivering this
praise to our God: it is he that has made us and not we ourselves. God the great creator has
given us our lives and everything we have and the knowledge of this fact is the reason all my
bow down at his knee and serve him. The theme of creation is present in many of the praise
psalms in the Psalter and is absolutely essential to Psalm 100.
The Psalms were composed over a very long process spanning hundreds of years resulting in
our present day psalter that we know and love. The history of the book of Psalms dates all the
way from the time of Moses through to the post-exilic period. Multiple authors were involved in
the creation of the Psalter, most notably David, but the sons of Korah, Asaph, and even Moses
played a role in the development of the book. The Davidic Psalms are most likely a combination
of Psalms written specifically by David and also Psalms written in David’s name or those that
were dedicated to him. The Psalms of the sons of Korah were those written by the descendants
of Korah who were spared God’s wrath when He swallowed up the rebels in the wilderness. As
they were Levites, the Sons of Korah would have been heavily associated with the temple and
temple worship, particularly singing through the Psalms. Asaph was also associated with temple
worship and contributed quite a few psalms. The Psalter is divided into 5 books and each bear
several key similarities however they all discuss different themes and develop differing
concepts. The Psalter as we know it was probably composed sometime in the post-exilic period
and were formed according to the 5 book scheme.