Straight to the Heart of Psalms

60 bite-sized insights

Phil Moore

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780857214287
• eBook ISBN: 9780857214294
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

God wants us to worship him, so it shouldn't surprise us that the longest book of the Bible sets out to show us how. The Psalms were written by Israel's greatest worshippers over the course of 1,000 years in order to teach God's People how he wants them to worship him. They show us what kind of worship is music to God's ears.

Allow Phil Moore to fill your Bible devotion with scholarly insights, powerful metaphors and life-changing revelation in 'Straight to the Heart of Psalms'.

God inspired the Bible for a reason - so that you could read it and let it change your life. A lifestyle of devotion isn't always as easy as it seem, but if you are willing to take the challange, Phil Moore is waiting with a helping hand.

In the 'Straight to the Heart Commentary' series, you'll discover 60 bite-sized chapters designed to fit snuggly into your devotional routine. These chapters are far from dull; they're punchy, relevant and overflowing with fascinating scholarship.

Welcome to a new way of reading your Bible.

Book I – Psalms 1–41:

Sing About Who God Is

The King of Kings (1:1–2:12)

I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.

(Psalm 2:6)

If you want to understand Psalms 1 and 2, you only need four words: anyone, Solomon, Jesus, us. There you have it. That’s the meaning of the first two psalms in just four words.

Psalm 1:1–6 is about anyone. It acts as a preface to the entire book of Psalms by calling each of us to make an up-front choice between righteousness and wickedness, between listening to God’s Word or to the world, between living for ourselves or pursuing friendship with God. It begins by promising that blessed or happy is anyone who delights in God’s Word and who studies it day and night.¹ It promises that if we plant ourselves in a place where we can deepen our relationship with God, we will drink from the non-stop stream of blessings which flows from his throne. It’s significant that the first word of Psalms is “happy”. This book holds the key to our enjoying the deeply fulfilling friendship with God for which we were created.²

But this first psalm also warns us that anyone can be deceived into missing God’s purpose for their life. The drift is often gradual, since 1:1 reminds us that walking with sinners easily becomes standing with sinners and eventually sitting with sinners. It is often unnoticed, since those who turn away from God often think that they are still part of “the assembly of the righteous”.³ Psalms isn’t just a collection of pretty choruses; it demands that we make an active decision from the outset. It warns us that, unless we meditate on the words of this book and apply them, God will sweep us away like dust before the scorching wind. Psalm 2 was deliberately placed after Psalm 1 because the same Hebrew word hagah is used for the nations plotting to cast off God’s rule in 2:1 as is used for the righteous meditating on his Word in 1:2.⁴ Psalm 2:1–3 therefore tells us that many people will despise the happiness described in Psalm 1 and will choose to view God’s commands as chains and shackles which restrict them from having a good time. Ancient kings and rulers or modern media and social networking unite the human race in trying to throw off the rule of God and of his Messiah.⁵

Psalm 2:4–9 is therefore about Solomon. Even though these two psalms are untitled, we can tell from Acts 4:25 that David wrote them after God promised him in 2 Samuel 7 that “I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood… I will be his father, and he will be my son… Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” David wrote this psalm for Solomon’s coronation to rejoice that his wise son had chosen the righteous life described in Psalm 1 and that no foreign ruler would be able to his resist his righteous reign.⁶ “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain,” he hears God saying. “You are my son; today I have become your father.”⁷

If you know anything about Solomon’s reign, you will grasp why Psalm 2:4–9 is also about Jesus. Solomon proved to be one of Israel’s greatest failures, because even the best of men are only men at best. He was enticed by his pagan wives into walking, standing and sitting in their pagan temples. Within five years of his death, Israel was torn apart and an invading Egyptian army succeeded in plundering Jerusalem.⁸ Solomon was not the true Messiah that God’s People needed. He was simply a picture of a greater descendant of David who was yet to come.

The early Christians understood this. They prayed this psalm back to God in Acts 4:23–31 and asked him to give the nations of the earth to “your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed”. John quotes from this psalm in Revelation 19:11–16 in order to tell us that Jesus rules with an iron sceptre and that he laughs at human rebellion because he is “King of kings and Lord of lords”. Paul quotes from this psalm in Acts 13:33 to tell us that God the Father declared to the world that Jesus is his Son by raising him from the dead.⁹ We have failed to live the righteous life which is described in Psalm 1, so God sent Jesus to live it for us and to establish a Kingdom of those who want to choose afresh to pursue relationship with God.

That’s why Psalm 2:10–12 is about us. Note the way in which the final sentence of Psalm 2 follows the same construction as the first sentence of Psalm 1. David repeats that blessed or happy is anyone who takes refuge in God’s Messiah as their Saviour because only he can equip them to live the righteous life which God requires. Note that it is also the same construction which Jesus used in his Beatitudes in Matthew 5 to tell us that “Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Blessed are the pure in heart.” Jesus came to turn us from the path of destruction and to become our refuge from God’s judgment. He calls us to find true happiness by discovering the deep friendship with God for which we were originally created.¹⁰

So can you see why God placed these two psalms together? Can you see what God is saying through these two chapters as a whole? Both psalms lay out a choice between happiness and destruction. Both psalms call us to live fruitful lives as friends of God. They tell us that Jesus is King of kings, that he laughs at human rebellion, and that he invites us to rule as “kings and priests” with him.¹¹ In case we miss this, he quotes from Psalm 2:9 in Revelation 2:27 and promises that we have authority to extend his rule over the nations. He makes us co-heirs with him to the Father’s promise in 2:8: “Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.”

Anyone, Solomon, Jesus, us. Psalms 1 and 2 belong together and can be summed up in four simple words, but their message is life-changingly profound. They call us to pour out the rest of our lives in submission to God’s Word and to his Messiah. They call us to make an up-front choice to take the path to true happiness. They call us to surrender our lives to Jesus, the glorious King of kings.

The Rejected One (3:1–5:12)

Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him.”

(Psalm 3:2)

God likes contrasts. He made the elephant and the ant. He made the sunshine and the rain. He made the forest and the desert. And he made Psalms 3–5 come straight after Psalms 1–2.

The forty-one psalms which make up Book I are all psalms of David. In theory, this could mean that they were written for him rather than by him, but the New Testament makes it clear that he authored of over half of the 150 psalms,¹ and the Old Testament tells us that he praised the Lord on his deathbed that he had been “the sweet psalmist of Israel”.² Psalm 3 is the first of fourteen psalms with titles which tell us at what point in his life David wrote it, but note that these psalms do not appear in chronological order.³ David wrote Psalm 3 towards the end of his life but it was placed here to form a contrast with the message of the two psalms which go before. God wants to make it clear to us from the outset that if we choose friendship with him, it means suffering alongside the Rejected One as well as reigning with the King of kings.

Note the deliberate contrast between “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain” in 2:6 and “A psalm of David. When he fled from his son Absalom” in the title of Psalm 3. The Lord doesn’t want us to take Psalm 1 out of context and expect the Christian life to be trouble-free, or to misunderstand Psalm 2 as a promise that God’s People will never see short-term defeat along the way. He gives us Psalm 3 as a rude awakening which warns us that his Messiah’s Kingdom is both now and not yet, and that believers will be persecuted for their decision to side with him. We read in 3:1–2 that the godly will be hated, defeated and taunted that their God has abandoned them altogether.⁴ Just as Absalom captured Mount Zion and usurped the throne, the wicked will often look as though they have defeated the Lord.

That’s why 3:2 ends with the Hebrew word selah, a musical term which is used seventy-one times in Psalms and which either means silence or an instrumental solo.⁵ Either way, it instructs us to stop singing and recall what we know about God’s character before we dare to say a single word more. When David stops singing, he suddenly remembers the words of Genesis 15:1, where the Lord promised the downcast Abraham that “I am your shield, your very great reward.”⁶ Suddenly the tempo of Psalm 3 changes. David spends the rest of the song modelling how we are to worship God when he doesn’t look like the King of kings at all. Jesus warned in Matthew 7:24–27 that those who fail to apply his words will be swept away when trials come, but David has built his house on the rock and finds strength to trust that God is still enthroned on “his holy mountain”, despite all appearances to the contrary. He still trusts the Lord to be his defender, his glory and his joy, even in the midst of trouble.⁷ After a second selah at the end of 3:4, he sings out his confidence that the Lord will indeed deli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Straight to the Heart Series
• Introduction: Music to God’s Ears
• BOOK I – PSALMS 1–41: SING ABOUT WHO GOD IS
• BOOK II – PSALMS 42–72: SING WHEN TIMES ARE HARD
• BOOK III – PSALMS 73–89: SING OUT HOW YOU REALLY FEEL
• BOOK IV – PSALMS 90–106: SING ABOUT GOD’S PLAN
• BOOK V – PSALMS 107–150: SING YOUR RESPONSE TO GOD
• TITLES IN THE STRAIGHT TO THE HEART SERIES: