The book of Psalms is one of the most important sections of the Bible and is frequently quoted in the New Testament. The Psalms were used in the worship of the Israelite sanctuary, and church and synagogue have continued this usage. The book of Psalms provides a comprehensive picture of the covenant faith of Israel.
The book of Psalms, or “Praises” (Hebrew thillim), is one of the major portions of the Holy Scripture. In the Hebrew Bible, it stands at the beginning of the third division of the canon, the “Writings” (Ktuvim), after the Law (Torah) and the Prophets. The three Old Testament books most often quoted in the New Testament are Deuteronomy (from the Law), Isaiah (from the Prophets), and the Psalms, for the apostles saw the Psalms as prophetic of Christ. In this they were following the lead of Jesus himself, who, in appearing to his disciples after the Resurrection, had reminded them; “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).
The Psalms are invaluable as a source for our knowledge of the worship of ancient Israel. The Pentateuch lays out the procedures to be followed in the sacrificial cult and in the observance of the various festivals. The Mosaic directives, however, focus on the priests and their responsibilities or on the external obligations of the lay worshiper. The Psalms most clearly reveal the faithful Israelite’s “heart for God,” the devotion of the loyal covenant partner of the Lord. They express the religious experience, not of those who officiated in sacrificial rites, but of those who appeared before the Lord to bring the tribute of praise or the offering of prayer and song as a personal and deeply felt response to Yahweh’s covenant love. These things hold true although the Psalms were performed by the sanctuary’s professional musicians, the Levitical singers, and although the majority of them seem to speak with the voice of the Davidic king as the representative of the covenant community.
The Psalms were used in the worship of the Israelite sanctuary in Jerusalem, as an offering of song alongside the offering of sacrifices. In fact, many of them probably originated in the worship of the tent (or tabernacle) of David, the sanctuary established on Mount Zion when David brought the ark of the covenant up from Kiriath-Jearim (2 Sam. 6; 1 Chron. 13:13). When the temple of Solomon was erected and the sacrificial rituals were moved from Gibeon to Jerusalem, the Psalms passed into the worship of the temple. With the rise of the synagogue, the Psalms eventually took their place alongside the recitations of the Torah and the Prophets in the weekly and festal worship of the Jewish community. Jesus and the early Christians worshiped with psalms (Matt. 26:30; Acts 16:25; 1 Cor. 14:26; Eph. 5:19). The church in every age has made extensive use of the psalmody of Israel: in the historic chant of the liturgical churches, in the psalters of the Reformation congregations, in the responsive readings of modern Protestant denominations, and in the Scripture songs of charismatic and other contemporary worship.
The book of Psalms offers a panorama of the religious life of the people of God. If we had no other biblical sources, we could reconstruct a fairly accurate picture of the faith and history of Israel from the Psalms alone. Taken as a whole, the Psalter provides the resource for a comprehensive biblical theology, with special stress on the covenant. The different types of psalms bear a relationship to the elements of the ceremony of covenant making and covenant renewal, so that “the Psalter served broadly as a cultic instrument for the maintenance of a proper covenantal relationship with Yahweh” (M. G. Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972], p. 63). Finally, the Psalms are poetry and hymnody of great beauty and expressive power and can be appreciated for their literary value as well as for their application to theology and worship.