The Writings
Psalms
The one book in the Bible written to God rather than about Him
Everywhere else in Scripture, God is speaking to people. Here, people are speaking to God — and they are doing it out of the middle of something. The Psalms are the movement of a human heart toward God, and the circumstance that moved it is very often printed right at the top of the page.
That is worth slowing down on, because it changes how the book reads. A psalm is not a general statement about faith, composed in a quiet room by someone with nothing much going on. It is what a particular man said to God on a particular day, and the book frequently tells you which day.
The book tells you who is speaking
Most psalms open with a line of information before verse one — the superscription. It is not a chapter title added by a publisher. It is part of the text, old enough that the ancient translators already had it, and in the Hebrew numbering it is verse one. English Bibles print it in italics above the psalm, so it is easy to skim past. Do not skim past it.
Roughly half the psalms name their author, and the names are not all David:
| Named | How many | What the heading actually says |
|---|---|---|
| David | 73 | “A psalm by David.” — the largest share by far |
| Asaph | 12 | “A psalm by Asaph.” (Psalm 50) — a Levite David appointed over the music |
| Korah’s descendants | 11 | “For the choir director; a maskil by Korah’s descendants.” (Psalm 42) |
| Solomon | 2 | “By Solomon.” (Psalm 72, 127) |
| Moses | 1 | “A prayer by Moses, the man of God.” (Psalm 90) — the oldest thing in the book |
| Heman the Ezrahite | 1 | Psalm 88 — the darkest psalm in the book |
| Ethan the Ezrahite | 1 | “A maskil by Ethan the Ezrahite.” (Psalm 89) |
| No name given | about 50 | Often called the “orphan psalms” |
And sometimes it tells you what had just happened
Thirteen psalms go further than a name. Their headings anchor the prayer to a dated moment in David’s life — and in almost every case you can turn to Samuel and read the story from the outside, then turn back and read what he was saying to God from the inside.
| Psalm | What the heading says | Where the story is told |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | “when he fled from his son Absalom” | II Samuel 15–17 |
| 7 | “about the slanderous words of Cush, a descendant of Benjamin” | No such episode is recorded anywhere in Scripture |
| 18 | “when the LORD rescued him from all his enemies, especially from Saul” | II Samuel 22 — the same song, printed twice |
| 34 | “when he pretended to be insane… Abimelech threw him out” | I Samuel 21:10–15 |
| 51 | “when the prophet Nathan came to him after David’s adultery with Bathsheba” | II Samuel 11–12 |
| 52 | “when Doeg… told Saul that David had come to Ahimelech’s home” | I Samuel 21–22 |
| 54 | “when people from the city of Ziph told Saul that David was hiding among them” | I Samuel 23:19; 26:1 |
| 56 | “when the Philistines captured him in Gath” | I Samuel 21:10–11 |
| 57 | “when he fled from Saul into the cave” | I Samuel 22:1 or 24 |
| 59 | “when Saul sent men to watch David’s home and kill him” | I Samuel 19:11 |
| 60 | “when David fought Aram Naharaim and Aram Zobah, and when Joab came back and killed 12,000 men from Edom” | II Samuel 8:13; I Chronicles 18:12 |
| 63 | “when he was in the wilderness of Judah” | A region and a season, not a single incident |
| 142 | “when he was in the cave” | I Samuel 22:1–2 (probably) |
I have left the two soft ones in the table rather than tidying them away. Psalm 7 names a man, Cush the Benjaminite, and a grievance — and no such story exists in the Old Testament. Psalm 63 names a wilderness, not a day. The honest thing is to say so, and the honest thing is also more useful: it shows you that the headings are reporting real memory, including memory of things the historians did not think worth writing down.
What this does to the reading
Take Psalm 3 as the clearest case. The heading says when he fled from his son Absalom. Go read II Samuel 15 first: an old king walking barefoot up the Mount of Olives, weeping, his own son on the throne behind him, a man throwing stones at him on the road. Then come back and read what he prayed.
O LORD, look how my enemies have increased! Many are attacking me. Many are saying about me, “Even with God on his side, he won’t be victorious.”
Psalm 3:1–2 · God’s Word
That is not a devotional thought. That is a man who has just been told, out loud, that God has finished with him. And it lands differently once you know he had earned some of it.
Or lay Psalm 51 against II Samuel 12. God’s Word does not soften the heading — it says after David’s adultery with Bathsheba. The narrative gives you the crime and the confrontation. The psalm gives you what was happening inside the man while Nathan stood there. Both are Scripture. Neither is complete without the other.
Every emotion is in here
Because these prayers come out of real circumstances, they cover the whole range of what a person actually feels — and the book does not clean any of it up on the way in.
Abandonment. The line Jesus quoted from the cross was already somebody’s prayer:
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away from helping me, so far away from the words of my groaning?
Psalm 22:1 · God’s Word
Impatience with God. Four times in two verses, and no apology for it:
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I make decisions alone with sorrow in my heart day after day?
Psalm 13:1–2 · God’s Word
Exhaustion. “I am worn out from my groaning. My eyes flood my bed every night. I soak my couch with tears” (Psalm 6:6).
Envy, plainly admitted. Asaph watches people who have no time for God do very well, and says out loud that it nearly finished him: “my feet had almost stumbled… because I was envious of arrogant people when I saw the prosperity that wicked people enjoy” (Psalm 73:2–3). He does not resolve it by thinking harder. He says so: “when I tried to understand this, it was too difficult for me. Only when I came into God’s holy place did I finally understand” (73:16–17).
Homesickness and rage together. Psalm 137 is exiles being asked by their captors to perform: “Sing a song from Zion for us!” — and the answer is a question no worship leader would print. “How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” The psalm ends somewhere very dark indeed, and it was left in.
Talking to yourself, because nobody else is listening. This one may be the most useful line in the book for an ordinary week:
Why are you discouraged, my soul? Why are you so restless? Put your hope in God, because I will still praise him. He is my savior and my God.
Psalm 42:5 · God’s Word
The relief of stopping the pretence. “When I kept silent about my sins, my bones began to weaken… I made my sins known to you, and I did not cover up my guilt… Then you forgave all my sins” (Psalm 32:3–5).
Rescue, remembered. “He pulled me out of a horrible pit, out of the mud and clay. He set my feet on a rock… He placed a new song in my mouth” (Psalm 40:1–3).
And, at the end, nothing but praise. The book closes with five psalms that do nothing else, and the last line of the last one takes in everything alive: “Let everything that breathes praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150:6).
Notice the shape of that. The book does not begin in praise and stay there. It arrives at praise, having gone through everything else on the way. Psalm 88 — Heman’s psalm — is the one place that never turns the corner. It ends: “You have taken my loved ones and friends far away from me. Darkness is my only friend!” That is the last verse. There is no resolution, and God saw fit to leave it in the hymnbook. If you have ever had a week that did not resolve, the book has already made room for you.
Why it is helpful for an ordinary journey
Here is the practical value of everything above. These prayers were not written for extraordinary people at extraordinary moments. They were written by a shepherd hiding in a cave, a choir director, a Levite watching the wrong people prosper, and a man of God who had spent forty years in a desert with a complaining nation. The circumstances were specific; the emotions are common property.
So when you come to the book, you are not being asked to work up a feeling you do not have. You are being handed language for the one you already have — and then, usually, walked somewhere by it. That is the movement worth watching: not from sorrow to a better mood, but from sorrow spoken honestly to God, toward God Himself. Psalm 13 does it in six verses. Psalm 73 takes twenty-eight. Psalm 88 does not do it at all, and is still in the book.
Three ways to read it
- Read the heading first, then the story, then the psalm. Start with Psalm 3 and II Samuel 15. Twenty minutes, and the book will never look the same.
- Find the one that matches the week you are having, and pray it as written rather than improving it. That is what it is for.
- Read the whole book in order sometime, and watch the shape — five collections, each ending in a burst of praise, the last five psalms nothing but praise. The arrangement is an argument.
Where to go from here
Read next: Psalm 23 — The Lord, My Shepherd, the best-known psalm in the book, walked line by line. About twelve minutes.
And, because his name is on seventy-three of these: Understanding David — the son who was not in the lineup. About eight minutes.
Read the text itself: Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 together — the two doors into the book, one about the individual, one about the nations. Five minutes.