Old Testament · Book 19 of 66

Psalms

The canon's longest book: 150 Psalms edited into five doxology-bookended books, composed across a millennium, attributed to David, Asaph, Korah's sons, Moses, Solomon, Heman, Ethan, and anonymous voices. A ''Torah of David''; the Bible's longest continuous liturgical-devotional corpus.

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Gerard van Honthorst, King David Playing the Harp (1622, public domain): the shepherd-king who wrote most of the Psalter, harp in hand, painted by a Dutch master of light against dark. The whole page is set against it, faintly, as its backdrop.

150
Psalms
5 books
Doxology-bookended
6 messianic
Pss 2·16·22·45·69·110

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Psalms 23:1

All 150 chapters

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If you only read a few chapters

The Prayer Book of Israel · Psalms

An Anatomy of the Soul

The Psalms are the one book of the Bible written to Godrather than only about Him, where the whole range of the human heart, from the pit of lament to unbroken praise, is taught to speak. Its deep design carries the reader from the collapse of the Davidic throne to the bedrock confession that the LORD reigns, and every road runs, at last, to the King on Zion who is Christ.

Summary

This page gives the Psalter's architecture whole: the five books, the double gate, the genres, the poetry, and the psalms the New Testament reads of Christ.

Five books, each sealed with a doxology, tell one arc: the throne falls in Book III and “the LORD reigns” answers in Book IV.
Psalms 1 and 2 are the double gate the editors set at the front: the two ways, and the Anointed King.
Every genre of the heart is here: praise, lament, thanksgiving, penitence, even imprecation, all taught to pray.
Twelve psalms carry the New Testament's witness to Christ, Psalm 110 cited most of all.

The Five Books: the shape is the argument

The Psalter is deliberately arranged (Gerald Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, 1985): royal psalms stand at the seams, and Book III ends on the catastrophe of the broken Davidic covenant, to which Book IV is the answer. When the human throne fails, God is still King.

Book IPs 1–41

Overwhelmingly Davidic: individual laments and trust; the LORD's name predominates.

doxology · Ps 41:13

Book IIPs 42–72

Korah, Asaph, David: the 'Elohistic Psalter'; ends: 'the prayers of David are ended.'

doxology · Ps 72:18–19

Book IIIPs 73–89

Asaphite communal lament, ending on the crisis of the collapsed Davidic covenant (Ps 89).

doxology · Ps 89:52

Book IVPs 90–106

The Moses / 'the LORD reigns' book: the enthronement psalms answering Ps 89.

doxology · Ps 106:48

Book VPs 107–150

Return, the Songs of Ascents, the Hallel: rising to a fivefold Hallelujah crescendo.

doxology · Ps 146–150

The great turn

Book III closes with the throne in ruins: "Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses…?" (89:49). Book IV answers not with a new king but with the King: it opens with Moses (Ps 90, older than the monarchy) and proclaims "The LORD reigneth" (93; 95–99).

Psalms in a Nutshell

Five books of prayer that run from two ways and a raging world through a fallen throne to the Lord reigns, and end with everything that breathes praising him.

One hundred and fifty songs written to God, saying everything out loud, fear and rage and guilt and delight, until the last word is praise.

01
Psalms is the one book of the Bible written to God instead of about him. It holds a hundred and fifty songs by David, Asaph, the sons of Korah, Moses and others, gathered into five books, each one sealed with a blessing. Two psalms stand at the door. The first sets out two ways to live, the man rooted like a tree by water and the wicked blown off like chaff. The second sets the raging nations against God's anointed king on Zion.
02
Book One is mostly David, and mostly trouble. He runs from Absalom, sleeps because the Lord holds him up, asks how long God will forget him, and answers his own question by trusting anyway. Psalm 22 opens with the words Jesus cried from the cross, and goes on to name pierced hands and feet and soldiers dividing his clothing. Psalm 23 answers with a shepherd, a table set in front of enemies, and a house to live in for ever. The book ends with a friend who ate his bread and turned on him.
03
Book Two brings in the sons of Korah and Asaph, and the deer panting for the water brooks. Tears are food day and night while people ask where God is, and the singer keeps telling his own soul to hope. Here also is David after Nathan came to him, asking for a clean heart and a right spirit, and saying that God will not turn away a broken and contrite heart. The book closes on a king who judges the poor rightly and rules from sea to sea.
04
Book Three is the hardest stretch. Asaph almost walks away because the arrogant prosper, until he goes into the sanctuary and sees how it ends for them. Psalm 88 goes down into the dark and never turns, and its last word is darkness. Then Psalm 89 rehearses God's oath to David, that his throne would last as long as the sun, and then describes that crown thrown to the ground. The book ends on a question nobody answers: where are your former mercies?
05
Book Four answers it. It opens with the oldest song in the collection, a prayer of Moses, who says God was our dwelling place before the mountains were made, and asks him to teach us to number our days. Then psalm after psalm says the same thing: the Lord reigns. He is king whether or not a son of David is sitting on a throne in Jerusalem. The book ends with Israel's own history told back as a confession of sin and a record of mercy.
06
Book Five is the road home. It opens with four groups of people in trouble who cried out and were rescued, each account ending in praise. Psalm 110 seats a king at God's right hand and makes him a priest, and the New Testament quotes it more than any other. Psalm 119 spends its whole length on the word of God. Pilgrims climb the Songs of Ascents up to Jerusalem, exiles hang their harps in Babylon, and the collection ends in five psalms of pure praise: let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Written from the book's own text (ASV) and MannaFest's chapter summaries of Psalms; the shape follows the guide's five books.

Structure

Psalms in 5 parts. Each card opens one focused stretch of the book — what it is for, the verse it turns on, and where Christ stands in it. Roughly five minutes each.

What Psalms Alone Teaches

Five books, sealed with five doxologies

The Psalter divides itself into five books, and it marks each seam with a doxology that belongs to the collection rather than to the psalm it closes. Book I ends, “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, From everlasting and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.” (41:13). Book II ends the same way and then adds a colophon, “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” (72:20). Book III closes with “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore. Amen, and Amen.” (89:52), Book IV with “And let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye Jehovah.” (106:48), and Book V with the whole of Psalm 150 standing as the doxology of the entire book. The five-part shape is the load-bearing structural fact about the Psalter, and Jewish tradition has long read it as a Psalter answering to the five books of Moses.

Psalms 41:13 · Psalms 72:19 · Psalms 89:52 · Psalms 106:48 · Psalms 150:6

The two ways, at the gate

Psalm 1 stands at the door without a heading of its own and sorts every reader before a single prayer is prayed. “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked” (1:1), whose delight is in the law of Jehovah, planted like a tree by water. The psalm closes the choice: “For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous; But the way of the wicked shall perish.” (1:6). Everything after it is prayed by someone who has taken the first road.

Psalms 1:1 · Psalms 1:6

The King enthroned on Zion

Psalm 2 answers Psalm 1 at the same threshold. The nations rage and the kings of the earth set themselves “Against Jehovah, and against his anointed” (2:2), and God installs his King anyway, saying “Thou art my son; This day have I begotten thee.” (2:7). Royal psalms then stand at the hinges of the book: Psalm 2 at the opening, Psalm 72 at the close of Book II, Psalm 89 at the close of Book III where the covenant with David appears to have failed. Gerald Wilson (The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, 1985) argued that this placement is deliberate, and that Book IV answers Psalm 89's crisis by turning to the reign of God himself.

Psalms 2:2 · Psalms 2:7

Lament as covenant speech

More psalms are laments than any other kind, and they are addressed to God in the second person by people who expect an answer. “How long, O Jehovah? wilt thou forget me for ever?” (13:1) is covenant language: the one praying holds God to what God has bound himself to. Walter Brueggemann (The Message of the Psalms, 1984) described the movement as orientation, disorientation, and new orientation, and Israel's hymnbook gives the middle stage as much room as the other two. Psalm 88 ends in the dark with no turn at all, “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, And mine acquaintance into darkness.” (88:18), and the book keeps it.

Psalms 13:1 · Psalms 88:18

Chesed, the loyalty that endures

The word the ASV renders lovingkindness is chesed, God's covenant loyalty, and it is the ground the Psalter stands on. It appears in the ASV Psalms 121 times. Psalm 136 makes it a refrain and repeats it in all twenty-six of its verses, “For his lovingkindness endureth for ever.”, running it under creation, exodus, conquest, and daily bread alike. The point of the repetition is that the same loyalty holds through every act of God the psalm lists.

Psalms 136:1 · Psalms 107:1

Zion, the city of the great King

The Psalter loves a place. “Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob.” (87:2), and Psalm 48 calls the mountain “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth” (48:2). Pilgrims sing their way up to it in the Songs of Ascents (120-134), and the exile is felt as distance from it (137:1). Zion is where God has put his name, which is why longing for the courts is treated as longing for God himself: “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of Jehovah” (84:2).

Psalms 48:2 · Psalms 87:2

The arc that ends in hallelujah

The book moves. Lament dominates the early books, and praise dominates the end, until the last five psalms each open and close with “Praise ye Jehovah.” and the final verse widens the choir to everything alive: “Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah. Praise ye Jehovah.” (150:6). The Hebrew title of the whole book is Tehillim, praises, which names the destination the collection is arranged toward.

Psalms 146:1 · Psalms 150:6

Christ in Psalms

ProphecyThou art my son. Psalm 2 sets God's King on Zion against the assembled kings of the earth and reports the decree: “Thou art my son; This day have I begotten thee.” (2:7). Hebrews 1:5 applies the line to Christ and to no angel, and Paul preaches it in the synagogue at Antioch as fulfilled in the resurrection (Acts 13:33). The persecuted church in Jerusalem prays Psalm 2:1-2 back to God over Herod and Pilate (Acts 4:25-26), quoting it as spoken “by the mouth of our father David thy servant”. Psalms 2:7
ProphecyMy God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?. Psalm 22 opens with a cry Jesus takes onto his own lips at the ninth hour: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The psalm then describes what the Gospels report: mockery, thirst, bones out of joint, “They pierced my hands and my feet.” (22:16), and soldiers dividing the clothes, “They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture do they cast lots.” (22:18), which John cites at the foot of the cross (John 19:24). The psalm turns at verse 22 into praise and ends with the nations converted, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto Jehovah” (22:27), so the quotation from the cross reaches for a psalm that finishes in victory. Psalms 22:1
ProphecyThe priest at the right hand. Psalm 110 opens with David overhearing a conversation above him: “Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” (110:1). Jesus presses the verse on the Pharisees to ask how David's son can also be David's Lord (Matthew 22:44), Peter preaches it at Pentecost (Acts 2:34-35), and Hebrews turns it against the angels (Hebrews 1:13). Verse 4 adds the priesthood: “Thou art a priest for ever After the order of Melchizedek.”, quoted word for word at Hebrews 5:6 and expounded through Hebrews 7. Psalm 110 is commonly observed to be the psalm the New Testament quotes and alludes to more than any other. Psalms 110:1
QuotationThe psalms concerning me. On the evening of the resurrection Jesus names the Psalms as one of the three parts of Scripture that speak of him, telling the disciples that “all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44). He gave that reading of the Psalter himself, and the apostolic preaching in Acts is the book of Psalms opened along the line he drew. Luke 24:44
TypologyJehovah is my shepherd. “Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (23:1) is spoken by a shepherd about God, and it carries the reader through the dark: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me” (23:4). Jesus takes the shepherd title for himself and adds what the psalm leaves unsaid about the cost: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11). The psalm's confidence and the Gospel's cross belong to the same figure. Psalms 23:1
QuotationThou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol. David writes “For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption.” (16:10). Peter quotes it at Pentecost in the form “Because thou wilt not leave my soul unto Hades, Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption.” (Acts 2:27), then argues that David died, was buried, and his tomb was still in Jerusalem, so the psalm looked past him to a descendant God raised. Psalm 118:22 supplies the companion image, “The stone which the builders rejected”, which Jesus applies to himself in the temple (Matthew 21:42). Psalms 16:10

The Portal: Psalms 1 & 2, the twin gates

Psalm 1The Two Ways

'Blessed is the man… his delight is in the law of the LORD', the torah-gate: the fruitful tree against the driven chaff.

Psalm 2The Anointed King

'Why do the nations rage… Thou art my Son', the kingship-gate: the raging nations against the LORD's Anointed on Zion.

Two untitled psalms, joined by an ʾashrê ("blessed") inclusio: wisdom and kingship set as the gates of the whole book.

Where Psalms Points to Christ

— the royal psalms find their horizon in the Son of David

Ps 2:7direct

'Thou art my Son': sonship & resurrection (Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5)

Ps 8direct

'crowned with glory': the exalted Son (Heb 2:6–9)

Ps 16:10direct

'not… see corruption': the resurrection proof (Acts 2:25–28)

Ps 22typological

'why hast thou forsaken me' · pierced hands & feet · parted garments

Ps 40:6–8direct

'a body hast thou prepared me' (Heb 10:5–7)

Ps 41:9typological

'mine own familiar friend… his heel against me': the betrayal (John 13:18)

Ps 45:6–7direct

'Thy throne, O God, is for ever': addressed to the Son (Heb 1:8)

Ps 68:18direct

'ascended on high, led captivity captive' (Eph 4:8)

Ps 69typological

zeal, reproach, gall & vinegar (John 2:17; Matt 27:34)

Ps 102:25–27direct

'thou, Lord… hast laid the foundation of the earth' (Heb 1:10–12)

Ps 110direct

'Sit thou at my right hand'; priest after the order of Melchizedek: the NT's most-cited psalm

Ps 118:22typological

'the stone which the builders refused' · the Palm Sunday Hosanna

The Messianic Psalms: the full study →

Themes

The kingship of YHWH: 'the LORD reigns' (the theological spine)

The two ways: the righteous and the wicked (Ps 1)

The LORD as refuge: rock, fortress, shield, wing, hiding-place

Ḥesed: the steadfast covenant love that 'endureth for ever'

Zion & the Temple: the dwelling of God, the pilgrim's longing

Creation & the Creator's glory (Ps 8, 19, 104, 148)

The word of God: the delight of Ps 1, 19, and all 176 verses of Ps 119

Lament & the depths: anguish brought honestly to God (the Psalter's pastoral genius)

Praise as the goal: the book that ends in five pure Hallelujahs

The Shepherd: Ps 23; 80; 100 (→ 'I am the good shepherd,' John 10)

The Genres of the Heart

— every mode of prayer has its form

Hymn / praise8, 19, 29, 100, 103, 145–150

Individual lament3, 6, 13, 22, 42–43, 51, 88, 130

Communal lament44, 74, 79, 80, 83, 137

Thanksgiving (todah)30, 32, 34, 40, 116, 118, 138

Royal2, 18, 20, 45, 72, 89, 110, 132

Enthronement (YHWH malak)47, 93, 95–99

Wisdom / Torah1, 19, 37, 49, 73, 119, 127

Songs of Zion46, 48, 76, 84, 87, 122

Penitential6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143

Imprecatory35, 58, 69, 83, 109, 137

Songs of Ascents120–134 (the pilgrim collection)

Hallel113–118 · 136 · 146–150

How Hebrew Poetry Works

— the second line always adds

Hebrew poetry rhymes thoughts, not sounds. Its engine is parallelism: a first line answered by a second that echoes, sharpens, or completes it. The old rule "the second line just repeats" is wrong: B always adds.

"The heavens declare the glory of God;

and the firmament sheweth his handywork." (Ps 19:1)

— the second line moves from the heavens to what fills them, from declaring to showing the work of His hands.

The Acrostics

— poems built on the alphabet: order as worship

Ps 9–10 Ps 25 Ps 34 Ps 37 Ps 111 Ps 112 Ps 119 Ps 145

Eight psalms run through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order: Psalm 119 gives eight verses to every letter (22 × 8 = 176). Psalm 145 is missing its nun verse in the Hebrew, restored from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek: a text-critical case you can see.

The Singers

— a thousand years of one people's prayers

David~73 psalms; 13 with historical settings Asaph12 psalms (50, 73–83)

Sons of Korah11 psalms (42, 44–49, 84–88)

HemanPs 88 EthanPs 89 MosesPs 90: the oldest psalm SolomonPs 72, 127

Author: David principally (73 Psalms + 2 NT-cited); Asaph, Sons of Korah, Solomon, Moses, Heman, Ethan; ~50 anonymous.
Date: Composed c. 1400 BC (Mosaic Ps 90) through the post-exilic period (Ps 126 ''when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion''). Roughly a millennium of composition; editorial compilation likely into the Persian period.
Audience: The covenant community at worship: temple, synagogue, home, and exile. The Psalter is Israel's prayerbook and Christianity's devotional manual.

As the earliest witnesses report them; positions and holders under Who Wrote It.

The world behind this book

The book of Psalms

Where

Jerusalem and the hills of Judah — first the tent David pitched on Mount Zion, then Solomon's temple, and finally the second temple rebuilt after the exile.

The history, and what it meant to them

The history

The Psalms were not written to be read silently. They were sheet music. David set aside whole families of Levites to lead the singing, and 1 Chronicles 23:5 counts four thousand of them praising the LORD with instruments David had made. Three great guilds carried the work — the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of Jeduthun — and their names still sit at the top of psalms we sing today.

The little lines above many psalms are performance directions left in the text. "To the chief Musician" points to the worship leader. "Neginoth" means stringed instruments. "Selah," scattered seventy-one times, is most likely a musical pause or a swell. The temple had trumpets, harps, lyres, and cymbals, and the sound of them carried across the city.

Three times a year every Israelite family that could travel went up to Jerusalem for a feast. Psalms 120 through 134 are labeled Songs of Ascents — short, portable songs sung on the climb up to the city, which sits high in the hill country. Other groups had fixed places too: Psalms 113–118, the Egyptian Hallel, were sung at Passover, which is almost certainly the hymn Jesus and the disciples sang at the Last Supper.

Because the book grew over centuries, it carries the whole history of the nation inside it. Psalm 90 comes from the wilderness. Many psalms come from David's years running from Saul and reigning in Jerusalem. Psalm 137 was written by people sitting beside the canals of Babylon with their harps hung up in the trees. The hymnbook outlived the temple that first sang it.

What it meant to them

For the first hearers, the Psalms were the words God gave them to say back to Him. A farmer who could not read still knew these songs by heart, because he had sung them at the feasts since he was a child. When his crops failed or his enemies closed in, he already had the language for it.

They also taught Israel that God could take honesty. Almost a third of the Psalter is lament — complaint, grief, even anger, brought straight to God instead of swallowed. The book teaches the worshiper to carry everything to the LORD and leave the settling of scores with Him, and then it ends with five straight songs of pure praise, so that the last word of the human heart is praise.

Sources cited

Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services
Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Every work MannaFest builds on →

Who Wrote It, and When

Author: The Psalter gathers the work of many hands across many centuries. Its own headings name David most often, at a count commonly given as seventy-three psalms, along with Asaph, the sons of Korah, Solomon, Moses, Heman the Ezrahite, and Ethan the Ezrahite. Roughly fifty psalms carry no name at all. David's central place rests on more than the headings: 2 Samuel 23:1 calls him “The anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet psalmist of Israel”, 1 Chronicles 16:7 records that “Then on that day did David first ordain to give thanks unto Jehovah, by the hand of Asaph and his brethren”, and the New Testament reasons from Davidic authorship in argument (Mark 12:36; Acts 2:25-31; Acts 4:25, which credits Psalm 2 to David though the Hebrew text gives that psalm no heading).
Date: No single date fits the book. Psalm 90's heading assigns a psalm to Moses; the Davidic psalms belong to the tenth century BC; the Asaph and Korah psalms belong to the temple guilds that followed; Psalm 137 speaks from the exile, “By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion”; and Psalm 126 speaks from the return, “When Jehovah brought back those that returned to Zion, We were like unto them that dream.” The composition of the Psalter therefore runs across most of Israel's recorded history.
Audience: The Psalms were written for Israel at worship and for the individual Israelite alone with God, and both uses run side by side through the book. The headings preserve performance directions addressed to the Chief Musician and to named instruments and tunes, which places many psalms in the temple liturgy. The same psalms carry first-person prayer of the most private kind, “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (139:23). The church took the book over whole, and Paul tells two congregations to keep singing it (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).
Occasion: Each psalm has its own occasion, and the headings supply one for thirteen of the Davidic psalms, tying them to episodes in 1 and 2 Samuel. The collection as a whole answers a standing need rather than a single crisis: Israel required words for every condition a covenant people can be in, from the sanctuary to the pit. John Calvin named the result in his preface to the Commentary on the Book of Psalms (1557), calling the book “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul.” The Babylonian Talmud preserves an aggadic tradition on the same point, that David composed the book “by means of ten elders,” naming Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah (Bava Batra 14b-15a; the Bavli redacted c. AD 500-600). The list is reception history from the rabbinic tradition, and it shows how early readers already understood the Psalter as many voices gathered under David's name.

The Years of Psalms

Psalms timeline

the Mosaic era
Psalm 90 carries a heading assigning it to Moses; whether that era is the fifteenth or the thirteenth century BC is argued on the Exodus dossier.
Psalms 90:1
c. 1010-970 BC
David reigns; the ledavid psalms, and the appointment of Asaph and his brethren to lead thanksgiving.
Psalms 23:1
c. 960 BC
Solomon's temple is built; the Asaph and Korah guilds sing there, and their psalms enter the collection.
Psalms 72:19
586 BC
Jerusalem falls and Judah is carried to Babylon; the exile speaks in Psalm 137.
Psalms 137:1
c. 538 BC
The return from exile under Cyrus; the pilgrims sing again on the road up to Zion.
Psalms 126:1
c. 5th-4th century BC
The Psalter reaches its five-book shape, on the position most commonly held.
Psalms 106:48
c. 2nd century BC
The Septuagint translates the Psalms into Greek, with its own numbering and expanded headings.
c. AD 30-50
11QPs-a is copied at Qumran, holding Books IV and V in a different order with additional compositions.
the night before the cross
Jesus and the disciples sing a hymn and go out to the Mount of Olives, on the Passover Hallel of Psalms 113-118.

The Voices on Psalms

each in his own words, on a verse of this book

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers:Psalms 1:1-2
Blessed— see how this Book of Psalms opens with a benediction, even as did the famous Sermon of our Lord upon the Mount! The word translated "blessed" is a very expressive one. The original word is plural, and it is a controverted matter whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Hence we may learn the multiplicity of the blessings which shall rest upon the man whom God hath justified, and the perfection and greatness of the blessedness he shall enjoy. We might read it, "Oh, the blessednesses!"
Charles Spurgeon, 1869, The Treasury of David, Vol. 1
Why do the nations rage, And the peoples meditate a vain thing?Psalms 2:1-3
We have, in these first three verses, a description of the hatred of human nature against the Christ of God. No better comment is needed upon it than the apostolic song in Acts 4:27, 28: "For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done."
Charles Spurgeon, 1869, The Treasury of David, Vol. 1
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers:Psalms 1:1
Scornful - Of those who make a mock of sin, and scoff at goodness and goodmen. Divers observe a gradation in this verse; the following clause still exceeding the former, for standing is more than walking, and sitting more than standing; and sinners in scripture use, are worse than the ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners.
John Wesley, 1765, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.Psalms 2:8
The hopes of the rebels are thus overthrown, and not only so; the kingdom they opposed is destined to be coextensive with the earth. heathen--or, "nations" (Ps 2:1). and the uttermost parts of the earth-- (Ps 22:27); denotes universality.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, 1871, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Lead me, O Jehovah, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; Make thy way straight before my face.Psalms 5:8
The righteousness of God, therefore, in this passage, as in many others, is to be understood of his faithfulness and mercy which he shows in defending and preserving his people. Consequently, in thy righteousness means the same thing as for or according to thy righteousness.
John Calvin, 1554, Commentaries
My soul waiteth in silence for God only: From him cometh my salvation.Psalms 62:1
Waiting is the room where my character is formed and my faith is forged. Waiting is the ground upon which my trust is tested and my commitment is challenged.
Dr. Rob Reimer, 2018, The Waiting Room (Renewal International blog)
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?Psalms 22:1-21
Psalm 22 reads as if it was dictated, first person singular, as He hung on the cross, even though it was written 700 years earlier.
Chuck Missler, 2021, How Can We Be Sure? (article)
One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after: That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of Jehovah, And to inquire in his temple.Psalms 27:4
The primary quest in my life is to learn how to host the Presence of God. There is no greater privilege than being a host to God Himself. Neither is there a greater responsibility.
Bill Johnson, Hosting the Presence (Core Values article, Bill Johnson Ministries)
And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O Jehovah; Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones.Psalms 89:5-8
The same council language found in Psalm 82 appears in Psalm 89 (as I noted in the book), and the latter psalm specifies that the council and its sons of God are "in the skies" (the spiritual realm; Psa 89:5-8, noting v. 6 in particular).
Michael S. Heiser, 2019, "Response to Dr. Thomas Howe's Thoughts on The Unseen Realm" (drmsh.com)
From following the ewes that have their young he brought him, To be the shepherd of Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.Psalms 78:71
"And He chose David His servant" [Psalm 78:71]. The tribe, I say, of Judah, for the sake of David: but David for the sake of Christ: the tribe then of Judah for the sake of Christ. At whose passing by blind men cried out, "Have pity on us, Son of David:" [Matthew 20:30] and immediately by His pity they received light, because true was the thing which they cried out. This then the Apostle does not cursorily speak of, but does heedfully notice, writing to Timothy, "Be thou mindful, that Christ Jesus has risen from the dead, of the seed of David," etc. [2 Timothy 2:8] Therefore the Saviour Himself, made according to the flesh of the seed of David, is figured in this passage under the name of David, the Lord opening in parables His mouth. And let it not move us, that when he had said, "and He chose David," under which name he signified Christ, he has added, "His servant," not His Son. Yea even hence we may perceive, that not the substance of the Only-Begotten coeternal with the Father, but the "form of a servant" was taken of the seed of David.
Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 78
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God?Psalms 42:2
First, therefore, he is sought without being found, so that afterward, when found, he may be held more tightly. For holy desires, as we have said, grow by delay. But if they fail by delay, they were not desires. With this love burned whoever was able to reach the truth. Hence David says: "My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?" Hence he admonishes us, saying: "Seek his face always."
Gregory the Dialogist, 7th century, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 25
This is my comfort in my affliction; For thy word hath quickened me.Psalms 119:50-51
We are instructed in all this, but the prophet has already experienced it. He says, "This hope has consoled me in my humility, for your word has given me life." The hope is the hope that God has implanted in him. It has consoled him "in his humility," that is, when he is spurned, mocked, vexed by injustices, dishonored by insults, for he knows that he is soldiering through his present trials. But the hope instilled by the Lord consoles him in these wars endured in his weakness, and he is lent life by the utterances of God.
Hilary of Poitiers, 4th century, HOMILY ON PSALM 118

Voices still in copyright, quoted briefly

C. S. Lewis

Each verified against the source; go to the work for the rest.

“The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God which made David dance.”
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (1958) · on Psalms 27:4

More works on Psalms

1 works this site reads

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (1940)

Original Language

— the keynote Hebrew words

חֶסֶד

ḥesed

steadfast covenant love (the keynote of God's character)

תְּהִלָּה

tehillah

praise: 'Tehillim,' the book's Hebrew title

הָלַל

halal

to praise / shine: the root of 'Hallelujah'

סֶלָה

selah

a musical/liturgical pause (meaning uncertain)

אַשְׁרֵי

ʾashrê

'blessed / happy are…': the word that opens the Psalter

תּוֹרָה

torah

instruction / law: the delight of Ps 1 and 119

נֶפֶשׁ

nephesh

soul / life: 'my soul thirsteth for God'

שְׁאוֹל

sheʾol

the grave / the pit: dreaded, and delivered from

Contested Points

— every view at full strength

Davidic authorship & the superscriptions

Where the readings stand: The traditional reading receives the superscriptions as reliable and part of the inspired text, pointing to the New Testament's own attributions (Ps 110, 16, 2) as confirming at least those psalms. Others read the superscriptions as later editorial additions, noting that the manuscript traditions do not always agree on them.

The imprecatory psalms (Ps 137:9; 69; 109)

Where the readings stand: Named honestly (Lewis's discomfort) beside justice-deferred-to-God & the Christ-prayed reading (Bonhoeffer): never license for human vengeance

Psalm 22:16: 'pierced' vs. 'like a lion'

Where the readings stand: Both witnesses shown: MT 'like a lion' vs. LXX + Dead Sea Scroll 'they pierced', a visible text-criticism case

Artwork: Gerard van Honthorst, King David Playing the Harp (1622), public domain. Analysis drafted from the MannaFest canon study of Psalms (public-domain commentators: Spurgeon's Treasury of David , Calvin, Delitzsch, and the founder's approved-voices roster); Scripture ASV.

The Book’s Shape

The nations brought in (Psalm 67)

proposed structure

AGod bless us and make his face shine on us67:1
BThat thy way may be known upon earth, thy salvation among all nations67:2
CLet the peoples praise thee, O God67:3
XThe nations glad, judged with equity and governed by God67:4
C'Let the peoples praise thee, O God67:5
B'The earth hath yielded its increase67:6
A'God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him67:7

Mapped by the ring structure widely noted in Psalms scholarship on this psalm, built on its repeated refrain at verses 3 and 5.

Man crowned in a world that is God's (Psalm 8)

attested structure

AO Jehovah, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth8:1
BStrength established out of the mouth of babes and sucklings8:2
CThe heavens, the moon and the stars, ordained by God8:3
XWhat is man, that thou art mindful of him?8:4
C'Made but little lower than God, crowned with glory and honor8:5
B'All things put under his feet8:6-8
A'O Jehovah, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth8:9

Mapped by the psalm's own inclusio, verse 1 and verse 9 repeating word for word.

Key Words, with Doors

The Hard Questions, Honestly

The places a careful reader stops, with the readings named and their holders.

How should a Christian pray the imprecatory psalms?

A number of psalms ask God to act against enemies in terms that stop a modern reader cold. Psalm 137 ends, “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones Against the rock.”

The evidence, and the readings

(137:9); Psalm 69 asks that their table become a snare and their eyes be darkened (69:22-23); Psalm 139 says plainly “Do not I hate them, O Jehovah, that hate thee?” (139:21) four verses before “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (139:23). The readings below have all been held by serious Christians, and they overlap more often than they compete. What every one of them shares is the observation that the psalmist asks God to act and does not act himself.

Vengeance handed over to God instead of taken
held by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Psalms: The Prayer of the Bible, 1940) and Erich Zenger (A God of Vengeance? Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath, 1996)
On this reading the prayer is itself the renunciation. The one praying brings real rage to God and leaves the judgment with him, which is what Romans 12:19 asks of a Christian.
Covenant-curse language, invoking terms God himself set
held by Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (Toward Old Testament Ethics, 1983) and John N. Day (Crying for Justice, 2005)
Reads the curses as appeals to Genesis 12:3 and the covenant sanctions of Deuteronomy 27-28, spoken by a covenant people against those who set themselves against the covenant.
Prayed christologically, in the mouth of the Righteous One
held by Augustine (Enarrationes in Psalmos, c. AD 392-418) with his totus Christus reading, and Bonhoeffer following the same line
Christ prays the psalm as the only one with a clean claim to it, and the church prays it in him against evil rather than against persons.
Read as real human hatred, recorded honestly and left uncomfortable
held by C. S. Lewis (Reflections on the Psalms, 1958)
Lewis refused to soften the language and put its usefulness in what it exposes in the reader who recoils from it.

Praying the Hard Psalms →

Where do the psalm headings come from, and what authority do they carry?

One hundred sixteen psalms carry a heading in the Hebrew text. The headings hold four kinds of information: a name with the lamed prefix (ledavid, of Asaph, of the sons of Korah, of Moses, of Solomon), a genre word (mizmor, a psalm; shir, a song; maskil; miktam), performance directions (lamnatseach, “For the Chief Musician”, with tunes such as “The Hind of the Dawn” at Psalm 22 and instruments such as Neginoth), and, in thirteen Davidic psalms, a historical occasion out of 1 and 2 Samuel. The Hebrew tradition counts most headings as verse 1 of their psalm, which is why Hebrew verse numbers run one ahead of English through much of the book. Positions on their origin and authority are set out below, and this dossier settles neither the question of who supplied them nor the question of their inspiration status.

Part of the received Hebrew text, and ancient
held by the Masoretic tradition, which numbers the headings as scripture verses; the Septuagint (c. 2nd century BC), which already carries them; the New Testament, which argues from Davidic attribution (Mark 12:36; Acts 2:25-31); Bruce Waltke (JBL 110, 1991) and Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72, 1973)
Waltke additionally proposed that some headings functioned as postscripts to the preceding psalm before the text was laid out as we now have it.
Later editorial additions supplied by the collectors
held by Hermann Gunkel (Einleitung in die Psalmen, 1933) and the form-critical tradition; Brevard S. Childs (“Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis,” JSS 16, 1971)
The evidence pressed here is that the Septuagint supplies headings to psalms the Hebrew leaves untitled and assigns several to Haggai and Zechariah, which shows the practice of adding headings continuing after the Hebrew text was set. Childs read the historical headings as the earliest recorded interpretation of the psalms rather than as archival records.

Does Psalm 22:16 read “they pierced” or “like a lion”?

The ASV floor reads “They pierced my hands and my feet.” (22:16, numbered 22:17 in Hebrew). The reading rests on a single letter. The Masoretic consonantal text has ka'ari, which reads naturally as “like a lion” and leaves the clause without a verb. A large number of medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Septuagint's oryxan, “they dug through”, and the Syriac and Latin traditions all support a verb instead. The Psalms scroll from Nahal Hever (5/6HevPs, c. AD 50-68), published by Peter Flint, was read as ka'aru with a final waw, a verb form, which put a pre-Masoretic Hebrew witness beside the ancient versions. The fragment is damaged and the reading of that letter is argued over, so it is reported here as published evidence rather than as a closed case.

A verb: they pierced, or they dug through
held by the Septuagint (c. 2nd century BC), the Syriac Peshitta, the Vulgate, a body of medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the reading published from 5/6HevPs, and the English translation tradition including the ASV
“Like a lion, my hands and my feet”
held by the Masoretic vocalization, followed in Jewish translations including the JPS Tanakh
Read this way the line continues the animal imagery already in the psalm, where bulls, dogs, and a lion's mouth surround the sufferer (22:12-13, 21).

Why do Psalms 14 and 53 say almost the same thing?

The two psalms are near duplicates. Both open “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”, and both end with God's rescue of his people. The wording differs at points: Psalm 14:1 has “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works” where Psalm 53:1 has “Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity”, and the divine name changes with the neighborhood. Psalm 14:2 reads “Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men”; Psalm 53:2 reads “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men”. That change is the clearest window in the book onto its editing. Psalms 42 through 83, sometimes called the Elohistic Psalter, prefer Elohim where the surrounding books use the covenant name, and Psalm 53 sits inside that block while Psalm 14 sits outside it. The same psalm was preserved in two collections, and both collections were kept when the collections were joined. Psalms 40:13-17 and 70 stand in the same relation, as do Psalm 108 and parts of Psalms 57 and 60.

Why do Catholic and Orthodox Bibles number the psalms differently?

Both traditions count 150 psalms, and they divide them at different places. The Septuagint joins Hebrew Psalms 9 and 10 into one and Hebrew Psalms 114 and 115 into one, then splits Hebrew Psalm 116 and Hebrew Psalm 147 into two each. The result is that Greek numbering runs one behind Hebrew numbering from Psalm 10 through Psalm 146, and the two agree again at the end. The Latin Vulgate followed the Greek, so older Catholic Bibles, the Douay-Rheims, and Orthodox usage carry the Greek numbers, while Protestant and modern Catholic translations follow the Hebrew. Psalm 23 in a Protestant Bible is Psalm 22 in the older Catholic reckoning, and the text is the same either way.

Why does Psalm 88 end in the dark?

Almost every lament in the book turns before it ends, usually with a vow of praise. Psalm 88 makes no turn. It begins “O Jehovah, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee.” (88:1) and ends “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, And mine acquaintance into darkness.” (88:18). The psalm is kept in the book in that state, and its presence is the answer to its own question: Israel's hymnbook gives words to the believer whose situation has not yet resolved, and it puts those words in the mouth of a temple singer rather than an outsider. Psalm 73 gives the companion pattern, where the turn comes only inside the sanctuary, “Until I went into the sanctuary of God, And considered their latter end.” (73:17). These psalms are living practice, prayed as they stand, and the church has never had to graduate out of them.

The Text and the Spade

The Masoretic Textc. AD 900 (Leningrad and Aleppo Codices)
The standard Hebrew text behind English translations, carrying the 150-psalm order, the headings as numbered verses, and the five-book division with its doxologies.
The Great Psalms Scroll (11QPs-a, from Qumran Cave 11)copied c. AD 30-50
The largest Psalms manuscript from Qumran, holding psalms drawn mostly from Books IV and V in an order different from the Masoretic Text and adding compositions the Hebrew Bible does not carry: Psalm 151 in Hebrew, Psalms 154 and 155, the Apostrophe to Zion, the Plea for Deliverance, the Hymn to the Creator, and a prose passage titled David's Compositions, which credits David with 3,600 psalms and 450 songs. James Sanders read it as a variant edition of the Psalter; Shemaryahu Talmon and Patrick Skehan read it as a liturgical selection from an already fixed book. More than thirty other Psalms manuscripts from Qumran agree closely with the Masoretic wording.
The Septuagint (LXX)c. 2nd century BC
The Greek translation the apostles quote from. It carries its own psalm numbering, adds headings where the Hebrew has none, includes Psalm 151 as an appendix marked outside the number, and supplies the wording behind several New Testament citations, including Hebrews 10:5-7 on Psalm 40:6-8.
The Nahal Hever Psalms scroll (5/6HevPs)c. AD 50-68
A first-century Hebrew Psalms manuscript from the Judean desert, bearing on the text of Psalm 22:16, where its reading was published as a verb form rather than the Masoretic ka'ari. The relevant letter is damaged, and the reading is argued over.

The Ketef Hinnom silver amulets (Jerusalem, excavated by Gabriel Barkay, 1979)late 7th to early 6th century BC
Two rolled silver strips from a burial chamber outside the Old City, inscribed in paleo-Hebrew with a form of the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24-26, “Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee”. They are the oldest known artifacts carrying text found in the Hebrew Bible, they predate the exile, and they write the divine name in the blessing formula. The bearing on the Psalter is the language: the blessing vocabulary these amulets preserve in daily use is the vocabulary the psalms of blessing draw on, and Psalm 67 opens by praying that blessing back, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us, And cause his face to shine upon us”.
The Tel Dan Stele9th century BC, discovered 1993-1994
An Aramaic victory inscription set up by a king of Damascus that names the “House of David” as a ruling dynasty within roughly a century and a half of David's own reign. It bears on the Psalter because seventy-three of its headings hang on David, and this is the earliest inscriptional evidence outside the Bible that his line was a recognized royal house.
The monumental southern stairway of the Temple Mount (Benjamin Mazar's Jerusalem excavations, 1968-1978)Herodian construction over earlier phases
A broad flight of steps of deliberately uneven depth, with ritual immersion pools cut beside them, leading pilgrims up to the temple courts. The steps make the physical setting of the Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120-134) concrete: pilgrims climbed, paused, and sang their way up, which matches the short, portable, step-by-step form of those fifteen psalms.

The Ugaritic poetic texts from Ras Shamra

Canaanite (Ugaritic)tablets c. 1400-1200 BC, excavated from 1929

The parallel

The same three-part parallelism the Psalms run on, along with shared word pairs, fixed epithets such as the rider on the clouds, and poetic vocabulary that had been guessed at from context before the tablets were read.

Read honestly

A genuine literary parallel, and a useful one. The Psalms are written in the poetic idiom of their own place and time, which is what allows Ugaritic to clarify rare Hebrew words. Mitchell Dahood (Psalms, Anchor Bible, 1966-1970) pressed the comparison hardest and is generally judged to have pressed it too far. The shared form carries different content: the Ugaritic texts sing of a pantheon of gods with rivalries and deaths among them, and the Psalms sing to one God who has bound himself by covenant to a people.

The Great Hymn to the Aten

Egyptian, from the tomb of Ay at Amarna, composed under Akhenatenc. 1350 BC

The parallel

A long hymn praising the sun as the giver of life, ordering the day and the night, feeding animals and the unborn child, sustaining foreign lands as well as Egypt. Psalm 104 covers much of the same ground in much the same order.

Read honestly

A real literary parallel in theme and sequence, with no direct line of dependence demonstrated between the two texts. The difference is the object of praise. The Egyptian hymn praises the sun disc itself as the source of life; Psalm 104 places the sun among the creatures God appointed, “O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all” (104:24), and gives the praise to the Maker rather than to anything he made.

Mesopotamian individual laments and shuila prayers

Sumerian and Akkadiancopies c. 1800-600 BC

The parallel

The same shape as the biblical lament: an address to the deity, a complaint stating the trouble, a petition, and a vow of praise once the petition is answered.

Read honestly

The form is shared across the ancient Near East, which is why Hermann Gunkel could classify the psalms by type at all. The ground of the appeal separates them. The Mesopotamian sufferer usually cannot know which god he has offended or how, and appeases whichever deity will listen. The psalmist knows exactly whom he is addressing, appeals to that God's own covenant loyalty, and expects to be heard on that basis.

Prophecy and Fulfillment

Body Would Not See Corruption

The promise · Psalm 16:10

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Where it landed · Acts 2:27-31

Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

David prophesied that God's Holy One would not experience physical decay in the grave. Peter explicitly cites this at Pentecost as a direct prophecy of Christ's resurrection, noting that David himself died and his tomb remained, so the prophecy could only refer to a future descendant.

Would Be Resurrected

The promise · Psalm 16:10

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Where it landed · Acts 2:31

He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

The Messiah would rise before his body decayed.

Ascension to Heaven

The promise · Psalm 68:18

Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men.

Where it landed · Acts 1:9

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

The Messiah would ascend to heaven.

Ascension to the Right Hand of God

The promise · Psalm 110:1

The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

Where it landed · Acts 2:33-35

Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool.

Psalm 110 is the most-quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. David calls the Messiah 'my Lord' and prophesies that God will invite Him to sit at His right hand—a position of supreme authority—until all enemies are subdued.

Seated at God's Right Hand

The promise · Psalm 110:1

The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

Where it landed · Hebrews 1:3

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The Messiah would sit at God's right hand.

Led Captivity Captive and Gave Gifts

The promise · Psalm 68:18

Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.

Where it landed · Ephesians 4:8-10

Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that ascended is also he that descended up far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

David's psalm describes a victorious king ascending to the heights after conquest, leading captives in triumph and distributing spoils. Paul applies this directly to Christ's ascension and the giving of spiritual gifts to the church.

Teacher of Parables

The promise · Psalm 78:2

I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old.

Where it landed · Matthew 13:34

All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them.

The Messiah would teach in parables.

Priest After Melchizedek's Order

The promise · Psalm 110:4

The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Where it landed · Hebrews 5:5-6

So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him... Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

The Messiah would be an eternal priest of a different order than Aaron.

Psalms carries 42 more prophecy pairs. See the full ledger.

The Pulpit on Psalms

Christ's Glory Turned to Shame
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3276: “Christ's Glory Turned to Shame” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 4:2
The Poor Man's Friend
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3059: “The Poor Man's Friend” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 10:14
Thought-Reading Extraordinary
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1802: “Thought-Reading Extraordinary” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 10:17
A Suitable Watchword
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3097: “A Suitable Watchword” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 12:1
The Bible Tried and Proved
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2084: “The Bible Tried and Proved” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 12:6
Howling Changed To Singing
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2310: “Howling Changed To Singing” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 13:1-2
Christ's Prayer and Plea
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3280: “Christ's Prayer and Plea” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 16:1
Kept From Iniquity
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2432: “Kept From Iniquity” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)
Charles SpurgeonPsalms 18:23