Interpretive Guidelines for the Psalms
T. David Gordon
In 1983, Richard L. Pratt, Jr. wrote an article in the Westminster Theological Journal
entitled “Pictures, Windows, and Mirrors in Old Testament Exegesis.” Pratt suggested that
there are three kinds of questions we can raise of OT texts: Literary, Historical, and
Theological. Literary questions look at the text, the way one looks at a picture. Historical
questions look through the text to the circumstance behind it, they way one looks through a
window. And Theological/Thematic questions reflect upon how the text informs our own
questions, concerns and interests, the way one reflects one’s image in a mirror. Pratt’s three
categories have influenced my study of the Scriptures for three decades, and they inform the
three categories I employ in this introductory course to the Psalms.
I. Literary Questions
Preliminarily, we observe that all of the Psalms are entitled, in the original,
“Tehellim” (‫)תהלים‬, “Praises.” The word comes from the same verb that appears in
the word “Hallelujah.” Yet these “praises” also bear the form of Hebrew verse.
“Verse” is preferable, perhaps, to the term “poetry,” because our English word
“poetry” is ordinarily associated with fiction (as the term “poesy” means in Sir Philip
Sidney’s Defence of Poesy (1579/95). The salvation-historical psalms (such as Psalm
78) are written in Hebrew verse, but we would say the content is “non-fiction.” So
“verse” may be a less-misleading term for describing the Psalms,
A. Determine Genre, in order to know what to look for structurally and thematically. Do
so, however, recognizing that the genres were not legal requirements; they were
tendencies within Israel’s community. Thus, some psalms might arguably have the
characteristics of more than one genre.
1. Lament--The following structural elements characterize lament, but are not
always present in each lament. The interpretive focus or weight of a lament is
ordinarily located in two places (the complaint and the expression of confidence
in God), but depending on the complexity of the given psalm, there may be
richness in each section. Many scholars believe that the lament contains within
itself virtually every other genre. Always ask whether the lament is individual or
corporate.
a. Invocation
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Pss. 4:1 Answer me when I call, O God of my right! Thou hast
given me room when I was in distress. Be gracious to me, and hear
my prayer.
b. Plea for help
Pss. 3:6 I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set
themselves against me round about. 7 Arise, O LORD! Deliver
me, O my God!
c. Complaint(s)
i. About self
Pss. 42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are
you disquieted within me? … 11 Why are you cast down, O
my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
ii. About enemies or difficulties
Pss. 42:3 … men say to me continually, “Where is your
God?”…10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my
adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
iii. About God
Pss. 42:9 I say to God, my rock: “Why hast thou forgotten
me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the
enemy?”
d. Confession of sin or assertion of innocence
Pss. 7:3 O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in
my hands, 4 if I have requited my friend with evil or plundered
my enemy without cause, 5 let the enemy pursue me and overtake
me, and let him trample my life to the ground, and lay my soul in
the dust.
e. Imprecation
Pss. 5:10 Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their
own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out,
for they have rebelled against thee.
f. Expression of confidence in God
Pss. 4:5 Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD.…7
Thou hast put more joy in my heart than they have when their
grain and wine abound. 8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for thou alone, O LORD, makest me dwell in safety.
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g. Hymn or blessing
Pss. 5:11 But let all who take refuge in thee rejoice, let them ever
sing for joy; and do thou defend them, that those who love thy
name may exult in thee. 12 For thou dost bless the righteous, O
LORD; thou dost cover him with favor as with a shield.
2. Hymn of praise--The following structural elements characterize hymns. The
interpretive “weight” or focus in hymns resides in the reasons supplied for praise
(b., below)
a. Call to praise/worship
Pss. 47:1 Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud
songs of joy!
b. Reasons given for why God should be praised or worshiped.
Pss. 47: 2 For the LORD, the Most High, is terrible, a great king
over all the earth. 3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations
under our feet. 4 He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob
whom he loves. [Selah] 5 God has gone up with a shout, the
LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
c. Further call to praise
Pss. 47:6 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our
King, sing praises! 7 For God is the king of all the earth; sing
praises with a psalm! 8 God reigns over the nations; God sits on
his holy throne. 9 The princes of the peoples gather as the people
of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted!
3. Thanksgiving--Ordinarily, a thanksgiving psalm is an expression of gratitude to
God for answered prayer, frequently for answering a lament. They remind us to
be grateful for God’s answering our petitions, even though our particular petitions
may not have been identical to those of the psalmist. The following structural
elements characterize thanksgivings
a. Expression of intent to give thanks/praise, or call to others to do so.
Pss. 124:1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, let
Israel now say
b. Restatement of the original lament or petition
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Pss. 124:2 if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when
men rose up against us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up
alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood
would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5
then over us would have gone the raging waters.
c. Account of God’s help or deliverance.
Pss. 124:6 Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to
their teeth! 7 We have escaped as a bird from the snare of the
fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped! 8 Our help is
in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
4. Song of trust--There is no clearly-identifiable structure to songs of trust. They
are unified by the psalmists declaring the reason(s) for his trust in God. The
interpretive focus or weight resides in answering the question: Why does the
psalmist trust in God? These psalms are especially appropriate for pastoral
visitations with those who are greatly afflicted or ill.
Pss. 121:1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will
not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold,
he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your
keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not
smite you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you
from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your going
out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.
5. Wisdom--These reflect in devotional mode the reality of the wisdom literature
per se. Wisdom always distinguishes alternative ways of life, alternatives
between wise and unwise, prudent and imprudent, godly and ungodly, lawful and
unlawful ways of life, commending the one and condemning the other. Wisdom
psalms celebrate the wisdom that is derivable either from the created order or
from God’s Torah. They sometimes extol God as the author of all wisdom. To
interpret them correctly, one must ask: What choice is approved or disapproved,
commended or condemned, and why?
6. Royal. Royal psalms tend to fall into two categories: those that refer to God’s
rule, or those (as a sub-category thereof) that refer to the rule of Israel’s king. In
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content, they can celebrate such rule, give thanks for it, ask for God’s blessings on
it, refer to its final expression in the coming Messiah, etc. There is, therefore, no
particular structure that identifies these psalms.
7. Salvation-historical (Sometimes called “Psalms of Remembrance”). These
psalms on occasion celebrate some single act of God (such as the Exodus), but
more commonly celebrate a series of such acts. All are reminders of God’s
sovereignty over history, reminders that he acts when, as, when, and how he
wishes, and implicitly warn or comfort that though he may not be acting in a
mighty manner at the moment, he has and will act in such a manner when and as
he wishes.
The only genuinely antiphonal psalm in the Psalter is a salvation-historical psalm
(136), in which some liturgical reader would read what God had done, and the
congregation would reply, “His love endures forever” (‫)חסדו לעלם כי‬.
B. Examine Overall Structure, to determine how the parts of a psalm contribute to an
overall unity. In the instructor’s opinion, the most common (though not always the most
significant) error in Psalm-interpretation is the grasping of a verse or several verses from
their context in the Psalm as a whole. The Psalms were (with only possibly two or three
exceptions) literary units; they had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Therefore, we do
not understand a Psalm when we do not understand the parts in their relation to the
whole.
1. From what we know of genres (above)
2. Does “Selah” help?
3. Do some portions of the psalm interpret or restrict other parts?
a. Consider the following two verses from Psalm 51:16-17:
“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Note that one might be inclined to conclude that this passage teaches that
the external rites of religion are unimportant; that only the internal realities
are important. Yet, the following verses (18-19) suggest otherwise:
“Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then you will delight in right sacrifices,
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in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.”
Contextually, one perceives that, in its context, David meant something
like this: The regular, God-appointed religious observances would be
meaningless in David’s case (sin against Bathsheba and Uriah) unless they
were offered with a contrite and broken spirit. But there is no disparaging
of the importance of these sacrifices per se; nor any suggestion that the
internal is a substitute for the external. Both are required; the external as
an expression of the internal.
b. Consider also how Psalm 69:22-28 (69D in the RPCNA Psalter)
removes the imprecation from the more-evidently christological verses,
leaving a different impression; perhaps the impression that we
could/should pray that our individual/personal “enemies” should be
blotted out of the book of life (contrary to Jesus’s instructions about
praying for our enemies). Surely, those who reject and murder God's
Chosen Christ shall be cut off from “the book of life,” but we should not
pray or wish such for those who are merely our own personal enemies.
c. Psa. 2:12 (“for his wrath is quickly kindled,” or even 2:10-12) could
seem a contradiction to Ex. 34, “slow to anger.”
d. Any lament. Removing the expression of trust, or the complaint, or the
thanksgiving for past deliverances, alters the meaning.
e. Psa. 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and
be glad in it.” Without its context, this is a fairly superficial psalm and
statement. Yet Psalm 118 was one of the most-frequently quoted Psalms
in the NT, where it was always interpreted in a richly christological
fashion. When the two preceding verses are included, the meaning of the
psalm changes almost entirely:
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the
day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
The psalm addresses the ironic and troubling reality that God’s Anointed
One will actually be rejected by his people, and despite this rejection,
become the cornerstone of a new temple. It is a “marvel” that One who
was rejected could nonetheless make a new temple (in his body) by which
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God would meet with His people. The psalm anticipates the “day” of
Christ’s humiliation and exaltation.
C. Examine Smaller Structure, especially parallelism, as an indication of emphasis or
prominence. Note whether a line is a monocolon, bicolon, or tricolon.
1. Synonymous parallelism--second line restates the first in almost-synonymous
fashion.
Pss. 2:1 Why do the nations conspire,
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD
and (against) his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds asunder,
and cast their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the LORD has them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
2. Antithetic parallelism--second line restates the first by contrast
Pss. 1:6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
3. Synthetic parallelism--second line develops the first line further. Currently,
many scholars consider this “catch-all” category to be too imprecise to be useful.
Each of the following categories, if less precise, could otherwise be called
“synthetic.”
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4. Emblemmatic parallelism--One line explicitly draws an analogy to another line
using some word of comparison (such as “like” or “as”)
Pss. 42:1 As a hart longs for flowing streams,
so longs my soul for thee, O God.
Pss. 73:22 I was stupid and ignorant,
I was like a beast toward thee.
Pss. 78:65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
like a strong man shouting because of wine.
5. Repetitive parallelism (also called stepladder, staircase, or climactic
parallelism). The second (and subsequent) line partially repeats the preceding
line, but takes it further. Note how “the voice of the Lord” is repeated in the first
three lines, and “breaks the cedars” is repeated in lines 3 and 4.
Pss. 29:4 The voice of the LORD is powerful,
the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars,
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6. Pivot parallelism--An interior line “pivots” or is read with, both the preceding
line and the following line.
In the Hebrew of Psalm 98:2, for instance, there is a prepositional phrase
that can modify both the preceding and the following clause:
The LORD has made known his victory,
in the sight of the nations
he has revealed his vindication.
7. Chiasm--The structure of chaism is A-B-B-A.
Pss. 2:10 Now therefore,
O kings,
be wise;
be warned,
O rulers of the earth.
[Here, the vocatives are the A-parts and the imperatives are the B-parts]
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Here’s another rich chiasm from one of the prophetic books, Isa. 6:10
“Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes, and
hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
D. Consider whether there are figures of speech, not to be understood literally, e.g., Pss.
22:6 “But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by the people.” Look
for simile, metaphor (RSV has 308 uses of “like” or “as”), irony, sarcasm, synecdoche,
personification, et. al. Why do students of literature call these figures “images”? They
are not all visual images (they can be tactile, auditory, kinetic, etc.), but the all address
the human imagination.
1. Hyperbole or not?
Pss. 6:6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with
tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
Pss. 40:12 For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities
have overtaken me, till I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my
head; my heart fails me.
Pss. 69:4 More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me
without cause;
Pss. 68:17 With mighty chariotry, twice ten thousand, thousands upon
thousands, the Lord came from Sinai into the holy place.
Pss. 3:6 I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set
themselves against me round about. [In this case, it may be literal,
referring to Absolom’s army that is in pursuit of David].
2. Metaphor
Pss. 18:2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my
God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my
salvation, my stronghold.
Pss. 22:6 But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by
the people.
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Pss. 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;
Pss. 28:7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts;
so I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to
him.
Pss. 33:20 Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and shield.
Pss. 61:3 for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.
Pss. 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and
honor.
3. Simile
Pss. 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in
its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.
Pss. 7:1 O LORD my God, in thee do I take refuge; save me from all my
pursuers, and deliver me, 2 lest like a lion they rend me, dragging me
away, with none to rescue.
Pss. 31:12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become
like a broken vessel.
Pss. 32:9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must
be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not keep with you.
Pss. 35:5 Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the
LORD driving them on!
Pss. 39:5 Behold, thou hast made my days a few handbreadths, and my
lifetime is as nothing in thy sight. Surely every man stands as a mere
breath! 6 Surely man goes about as a shadow!
Pss. 42:1 As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O
God.
Pss. 44:11 Thou hast made us like sheep for slaughter, and hast scattered
us among the nations.
Pss. 52:8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the
steadfast love of God for ever and ever.
Pss. 64:1 Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint; preserve my life from
dread of the enemy, 2 hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from
the scheming of evildoers, 3 who whet their tongues like swords, who aim
bitter words like arrows,
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Pss. 73:20 They are like a dream when one awakes, on awaking you
despise their phantoms.
Pss. 92:12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar
in Lebanon.
Pss. 102:6 I am like a vulture of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste
places;
Pss. 118:12 They surrounded me like bees, they blazed like a fire of
thorns; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
Pss. 119:83 For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not
forgotten thy statutes.
Pss. 125:1 Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which
cannot be moved, but abides for ever.
4. Anthropomorphism
Pss. 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on
those who hope in his steadfast love,
Pss. 68:4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who
rides upon the clouds; his name is the LORD, exult before him!
5. Personification
Pss. 114:1 When Israel went forth from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a
people of strange language, 2 Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his
dominion. 3 The sea looked and fled, Jordan turned back. 4 The
mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
6. Metonymy (an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or
designate something)
Pss. 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’s throne is in
heaven; his eyes behold, his eyelids test, the children of men. (What are
“eyes” and “eyelids” metonymic of?)
Pss. 45:6 Your divine throne endures for ever and ever. Your royal scepter
is a scepter of equity; (What is affirmed by “royal scepter”?)
Pss. 47:8 God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.
Pss. 89:29 I will establish his line for ever and his throne as the days of the
heavens.
Pss. 93:2 thy throne is established from of old; thou art from everlasting.
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Pss. 99:5 Extol the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!
Pss. 110:1 The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand, till I make
your enemies your footstool.” 2 The LORD sends forth from Zion your
mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes!
E. Examine its proximity to other psalms, to see if the position is interpretively
significant.
II. Historical Questions
A. Can the psalm be located within Israel’s history? Liturgical history or cultic history,
or some other specific moment (Psa. 3)
B. Does the preface provide reliable clues? (e.g., Ps. 3, “A Psalm of David when he fled
from Absolom, his son”, but some are very confounding, e.g., Ps. 7, “A Shiggaion of
David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush a Benjamite,” because we know from
the biblical record of no Benjamite named Cush, nor of any contemporary of David by
this name.)
C. Can the author of the psalm be determined? What does “A Psalm of David (‫”)לדוד‬
mean? Is it a psalm “to” David, “for” David, “about” David, “written by” David? What
difference does it make if the Psalm is the statement of some officer of the covenant, as
opposed to the statement of Joe Israelite?
D. Was the psalm individual or corporate, and how might that have effected the way the
Israelites identified with it, or how we would identify with it?
III. Theological Questions. All of the theological questions one raises regarding the psalms grow
out of the kind of observation made by Geerhardus Vos: “There is a point where the devotional,
the contemplative and the doctrinal, in its simplest form, touch one another. Underneath all the
emotion that pulsates through the Psalter, there lies a deep water of serious thought and
reflection.…If one will only read and sing with the understanding, he shall perceive that the
Psalmists pray and sing out of a rich knowledge of God.” (“The Eschatology of the Psalter,”
found in The Pauline Eschatology, 333)
A. Does the Psalm affirm God’s reign?
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“The theocentric character of Psalter-eschatology appears also in this that it is
prevailingly kingdom-eschatology. By this is meant a form of statement representing
Jehovah as becoming, or revealing, Himself in the last crisis the victorious King of Israel.
Certain Psalms may be called specific kingdom-Psalms. Pss. xciii, xcvii, xcix, open with
the words ‘Jehovah is king.’ The context shows that this is declared from the standpoint
of the eschatological future, when, after the judgment, his universal dominion shall be
established. Into this future the Psalmist projects himself. The situation is the same in
Ps. xcvi. 10, ‘Say among the nations, Jehovah is King; the world also is established, and
it cannot be moved.’” Vos, 342
“The coherence and reference of the psalmic language world is based on a sentence on
which all that is said in the psalms depends. Everything else is connected to what this
one sentence says. It is a liturgical cry that is both a declaration of faith and a statement
about reality.…The sentence is “Yhwh malak,” “the Lord reigns.”…It is a term for a
dynamic sovereignty, a sovereignty administered in two patterns of activity. One is the
pattern of ordering chaos to bring forth cosmos and world. The other is a scenario of
intervening in human disorder by judgment and deliverance. The reign of God is God’s
activity as creator and maintainer of the universe, and as judge and savior who shapes the
movement of history toward the purpose of God.…The Psalter as a whole comprises a
language in which God and world and human life are understood in terms of the reign of
the Lord.” James Luther Mays,The Lord Reigns. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,
1994, pp. 6,7
1. Over the cosmos (the waters)
2. Over false deities or idols
3. Over the nations or other enemies
4. Over Israel
5. In his coming Anointed One
B. Does the Psalm imply God’s reign?
1. By the Psalmist’s trust
2. By the Psalmist’s petition
3. By the images used for God
4. By reference to the coming Messiah
C. How would an Israelite have understood the psalm in corporate worship?
1. If the psalm is individual
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a. Can the psalm be read in a way that is “christological, not just
autobiographical, a reading of these psalms as words that witness to the
identification of Christ with our humanity.” N.b. Augustine, in his
commentary on Psalm One: “1. "Blessed is the man that hath not gone
away in the counsel of the ungodly" (ver. 1). This is to be understood of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Man. [6] "Blessed is the man that hath not
gone away in the counsel of the ungodly," as "the man of earth did," [7]
who consented to his wife deceived by the serpent, to the transgressing the
commandment of God. "Nor stood in the way of sinners." For He came
indeed in the way of sinners, by being born as sinners are; but He "stood"
not therein, for that the enticements of the world held Him not.” As
Luther said: “The psalter ought to be a precious and beloved book, if for
no other reason than this: it promises Christ's death and Resurrection so
clearly--and pictures His kingdom and the conditions and nature of all
Christendom--that it might well be called a little Bible. In it is
comprehended most beautifully and briefly everything that is in the entire
Bible.” (Preface to the Psalter).
i. Option one--Christ’s incarnation. If there are laments, for
instance, they could be common to the human condition, though
not necessarily the precise experience of every human. Such
laments might be the very psalms that Jesus prayed in his earthly
ministry, when, according to the author of Hebrews: “In the days
of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud
cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and
he was heard for his godly fear.” (5:7)
ii. Option two--Christ’s office as Redeemer. If the laments reflect
the particular trials of some officer of the covenant, they may be an
anticipation of the particular trials Christ faced as mediator.
Example: In Ps. 3, David flees from Absolom; yet, however
poignant it is to us that he flees from his own son, the psalm itself
says virtually nothing about it. The psalm is not about the
estrangement of father and son; note that the psalmist is expressly
concerned not about any individual, but a large number of people:
“O LORD, how many (‫ )רבו‬are my foes! Many (‫ )רבים‬are rising
against me; many (‫ )רבים‬are saying of me, there is no help for him
in God.”
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b. Can the psalm be read in a way that is “corporate, not just individual, a
use of these first-person psalms as the voice of the community and of
others in it in vicarious representative supplication.”
c. Can the psalm be read in a way that is “typical, rather than subjective, a
saying of these psalms to create a consciousness of who and what we are,
rather than as expressions of a consciousness already there.” (These three
categories, and the quoted words come from James Luther Mays, The
Lord Reigns, 50)
2. If the psalm is corporate
a. How is the visible NT community (generally and/or specifically) like
the visible OT community, in a manner that effects the interpretation of
this psalm?
b. How is the visible NT community (generally and/or specifically) unlike
the visible OT community, in a manner that effects the interpretation of
this psalm?
D. Sidney Greidanus’s Six “ways” of interpreting OT texts (Preaching Christ from the
Old Testament)
1. The Way of Redemptive-Historical Progression
a. To David: “Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16)
b. To Abraham: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”
(Gen. 12:3)
2. The Way of Promise-Fulfilment (Complicated, because includes fulfilment of
non-promises)
a. Multiple fulfilment (e.g. Abrahamic)
b. Joel 2 at Pentecost
3. The Way of Typology: “The tracing of the constant principles of God’s
working in history.”
Requires three things to be valid: analogy, escalation, and theocentricity.
4. The Way of Analogy: “the move from what God was for Israel to what God in
Christ is for the NT church” (221).
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5. The Way of Longitudinal Themes, e.g., ransom, sacrifice
6. The Way of Contrast
a. Cherem warfare with nations in OT replaced with discipling nations in
NT
Pss. 143:12 And in thy steadfast love cut off my enemies, and
destroy all my adversaries, for I am thy servant.
b. Law/Spirit
My additions to Greidanus’s contrasts:
-Temporal suffering or prosperity differs
-Theocracy disappears in NT
Pss. 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
Pss. 147:19 He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and
ordinances to Israel. 20 He has not dealt thus with any
other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the
LORD!
-Sinai’s “burdensome” yoke replaced by Christ’s “easy” yoke
-Family as locus as some religious rites replaced by church (e.g.
passover/Lord’s Supper)
-Land no longer holy, nor is prosperity therein promised to the
obedient.
Pss. 25:12 Who is the man that fears the LORD? Him will
he instruct in the way that he should choose. 13 He himself
shall abide in prosperity, and his children shall possess the
land.
Pss. 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you will
dwell in the land, and enjoy security.
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Pss. 37:22 for those blessed by the LORD shall possess the
land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. (cf. also 37:9,
11, 29, 34)
Pss. 85:9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear
him, that glory may dwell in our land.
Pss. 85:12 Yea, the LORD will give what is good, and our
land will yield its increase.
Pss. 101:6 I will look with favor on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me; he who walks in the way that
is blameless shall minister to me.
Pss. 112:1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears
the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! 2
His descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation
of the upright will be blessed. 3 Wealth and riches are in
his house; and his righteousness endures for ever.
E. Does the psalm demonstrate anything about the covenantal relation of Israel (as vassal)
to Yahweh (as Suzerain)?
The psalms of praise, whether magnifying the majesty of Yahweh’s
person or the wonder of his ways in creation or redemption, were a part of Israel’s
tributary obligations; they were the spiritual sacrifices of the lips offered to the
Great King. As vehicles of private and public devotion they were a continual
resounding of Israel’s “Amen” of covenant ratification. Psalms that rehearsed the
course of covenant history (see, e.g., Pss. 78, 105-106, 135-136) were
confessional responses of acknowledgment to the surveys of Yahweh’s mighty
acts in Israel’s behalf which were contained in the historical prologues of the
treaties, responses suitable for recitation in ceremonies of covenant reaffirmation
where those acts were memorialized (cf. Deut. 26:1ff.; Josh. 24:16-18). In the use
of the psalms extolling the law of God, Israel submitted anew to the stipulations
of the covenant. Plaint and penitential psalms might find a place in interaction
with the prophetic indictment of Israel in the process of the covenant
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lawsuit.…(T)he Psalter served broadly as a cultic instrument in the maintenance
of a proper covenantal relationship with Yahweh.
The Psalter’s function in covenantal confession suggests that it may be
regarded as an extension of the vassal’s ratification response. (Meredith G. Kline,
Structure of Biblical Authority, 63)
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