"Psalms move from lament to praise."

Explore the profound significance of the Book of Psalms in faith, worship, and personal prayer, highlighting its themes of lament, praise, creation, and community. Discover how Psalms serve as a timeless tool for honest communication with God and a foundation for worship across centuries.

• Dive deeper into the Book of Psalms with Enter the Bible
• Enter the Bible podcast: "My Favorite Bible Passage: Psalm 30"
• Enter the Bible podcast: "Why Do Christians Need to Read the Old Testament?"

Hello and welcome to the Bible in a Year podcast, a resource from Enter the Bible and journey with us through the books of the Bible, discovering more about scripture and how it shapes our lives today. I'm Katie Langston.

and I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker And we have as our special guest today, Professor Diane Jacobson, is ⁓ a Professor Emerita of Old Testament here at Luther Seminary and the former director of the Book of Faith Initiative for the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. So thank you for joining us again,

Diane Jacobson:

It is a pure delight to be with you.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Always good to see you. ⁓ So this episode is on a

Yes.

big book, not just in terms of length.

Diane Jacobson:

Minor book in... yeah, just a minor book. The Book of Psalms.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

And Diane, you've taught Psalms for years and years and years here at Luther Seminary and to probably countless adult forums and conferences over the years. So we wanted to get ⁓ your wisdom on the Book of Psalms. So thank you for joining us to talk about it. ⁓

Yeah, right, no one's ever heard of it.

So this may or may not apply to Psalms, but one of the questions we often ask is give us a quick summary or outline.

Diane Jacobson:

Which is kind of a hysterical question for Psalms, know, a quick summary or outline. It doesn't work the way traditional books do, although there are a couple of interesting things.

Right?

Right, right.

There are five books in the book of Psalms, which parallels the five books of Pentateuch. So, you know, there is an outline in some kind of weird sense of it. And those five books kind of move through things. Psalm one in each of the five books has a sort of introduction and a conclusion.

and Psalms one and two really introduce the entire book of Psalms. So they are almost a title Psalms. ⁓ And then one of the feelings you get is that it moves from lament to praise. And that's not entirely true because praise Psalms are mixed in with lament Psalms and lament Psalms are mixed in with praise Psalms. But the whole book,

Right.

Books one through three are more lament, and then books four and five are more praise. So you get this overall movement of the book that we're not used to so much.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Can you give us a quick definition of lament for our listeners?

Diane Jacobson:

Quick definition. Okay. A lament is speaking to God and bringing your concerns to God.

saying, you know, this part of life is not really pleasing God. Do something about it or you're to blame or darn it, I'm really mad about this. And that's not a bad thing to bring to God. It's a necessary, it's a true thing to bring to God. And so we tend to think that some should be all praise and

Right? Right?

Right?

You know, modern praise bands tend not to do the laments. But the laments are very much a part of our tradition of how we speak truthfully to God, not just about God, but to God.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

And Jesus himself used lament from the cross, Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's a lament. Exactly. Yeah. Or how long, Lord. One of them, forget which one, even says, wake up, God. Wake up, God.

Right.

Yeah.

Right?

Ha ha ha ha

ha!

Get with the program, I think is what it is. You promised. You promised. You promised. what gives here? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, yeah. And can you imagine ⁓ Israel going into exile, Psalm 137 comes to mind, and saying, wait a minute, this is not what you promised. This is not. So it's very much, even though it's not history, like.

Right?

Right? What are you doing?

it's tied to it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

And it's it's honest. Right. Very honest. Correct. Historically, ⁓ Jews have been much better at lament than Christians.

Diane Jacobson:

The first ⁓ version of our book of worship in the ELCA cut out a lot of the laments. Yeah. I actually was in charge of the Psalms with the ELW.

Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓ You were...

which is the current hymnnal for the ELC.

Diane Jacobson:

I said, we are going to have all 150 Psalms, no question. Yeah. The end. for you. That's the right one.

Yeah, yeah. Can I share a story

that this is raising, actually? here in Utah, I run a support group for folks who are coming out of, let's say, high demand religious traditions or have had some kind of spiritual

Yeah. Yeah.

disorientation, let's say, ⁓ a dramatic shift in their worldview, a lot of folks coming out of the Mormon tradition, but we actually have, you know, folks with Jehovah's Witness background, Seventh-day Adventist, and just other kinds of traditions where people have had a poor experience with church. ⁓ so last night, we were talking about ⁓ trust, and how do you, you know, how do you trust

either God again, or how do you trust any sort of like religious leader or religious figure right after you've been wounded or your trust has been betrayed. And we talked a lot about how ⁓ what makes someone trustworthy, you know, in some of these traditions that folks had experienced, maybe we were

Yeah, yeah,

taught that if we trusted the leader, that meant we had to do everything they said and obey them and leave our own feelings or thoughts, of stuff them down in order to do what the leader was telling us. And we talked about how actually a trustworthy relationship is one where you can be honest and where you can...

Mm,

yeah.

disagree, right? Like you can argue back and the person, you can ask questions and the person is not going to, ⁓ that's not going to rupture the relationship because it's more important, you know, the relationship is more important than like full agreement. you know, we kind of talked about

Yeah, and question.

⁓ how lament is a piece of that, right? Like, if God can take it, surely your religious leader should be able to, right? And if you're in a situation where your religious leader can't accept your lament or your questioning or your challenging or something like that, you know, that says more about them than it does you, right, in terms of their...

Right. Yeah, that's good.

Diane Jacobson:

And that's where Psalms is saying that the very thing you're talking about, God is saying, if you're going to have a relationship with me, then it's going to include lament.

Right. You're gonna be disappointed, you're gonna be

angry, you're gonna question, you're not gonna agree, right? And yeah, anyway, so I think...

But God is big enough to take it and the relationship is strong enough that God will hold on to you even when you question. Or maybe especially when you question because you're being honest. . And if you're trying to protect me by being dishonest, that's not what I want.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Right, right, right. Yeah. That's a great analogy, Katie. Thank you for sharing that story. Yeah.

Right.

And God wants that, right?

Yeah, yeah, so anyway.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what's a way into this book? There are so many different, you know, prayers and experiences that are sort of in the book of Psalms, like how, how would you suggest someone even get started to sort of dive in?

Right.

Well, I think our main way into the book is already singing. Our whole Psalm tradition, our whole hymn tradition comes out of the Book of Psalms. So in lots of ways, the way most people begin their relationship with the Book of Psalms is by singing and singing together. So that's not...

Yeah.

the answer you'd give to any other book of the Bible, don't think. Well, maybe Revelation, but that draws a lot on Psalms.

Right. You're not, are you saying we're

not singing Chronicles?

No, we don't tend to sing the Chronicles. That's absolutely... Or Leviticus. Or any of the prophetic books. We don't tend to sing those. So we sing Psalms. Yeah. And so that... ⁓

That's a different emotional way of getting into anything. ⁓ As people, often as people are dying, they can't remember anything, but they can remember a song. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And therefore they often remember a psalm. Yeah. So like, creating me a clean heart, Psalm 51, or the Lord is my shepherd. So many songs from the 23rd Psalm. That it just is part of people's emotional

Right? Right? Right?

Memory, yeah, and it's a way into the book on a on a different level. I would say the other way of the book This is what I was saying with Proverbs 2 is to remember its poetry. Yeah, and The main way all Psalms and all poetry works is through parallelism. Hmm Where a line in the psalm is a and what's more be? Mm-hmm and your job

Yeah.

as you are entering this book is to figure out what's the relationship of A and B in every line. Sometimes it's saying the exact same thing. Sometimes it's moving you to the exact opposite. Sometimes it's saying this and it leads to a question. so watching how parallelism works, lots of people have written about parallelism. So,

Hmm.

Hmm.

It's kind of fun to explore that so that then you read Psalms creatively.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Yeah, the marker of Hebrew poetry, and of course this is written in Hebrew, is not, so when we, I think one of the most basic things we think about in poetry, English poetry, is rhyming. Right. And rhythm, and certainly the Hebrew has the rhythm, but it's this very Very rarely. Very rarely.

Rhymes, right?

I mean, very really rhyming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that parallelism. So I'm just I'm trying to look at see an example here. Like I just opened to Psalm 25. Make me to know your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths. Right. So it's right. A make me to know your ways, O Lord. And what's more, teach me your paths. That's the kind of thing.

Diane Jacobson:

Bless the Lord of my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Yeah. Yeah. But then you look at the Lord is my light.

Hmm.

and my salvation, whom shall I fear? So you go from that, you don't think of that as parallel thoughts leading to a question, but that's often actually the way it works. The Lord is my light and my salvation, therefore, whom shall I fear? Whom should I fear? Right, and so it goes to a very different way of how...

Hmm.

⁓ how poetry works in your inside of you.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Yeah, but it's still a kind of kind of heart language. Yeah speaking directly. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ So what what? ⁓

Hmm.

Yeah, it's not a collection

of like propositions, right? It's not a discourse, right? Sure, sure, sure.

No, there are occasional propositions, that's,

and especially in what we would call the wisdom Psalms, but they're not, not usually. What kind of book is the book of Psalms, What kind of book is the book of Psalms? Well, the interesting thing, well, it's a book that has Psalms in it. But one of the things, yeah, isn't that profound?

Right, Huh, yeah.

Ha!

⁓ One of the things that ⁓

All right, there's a German scholar by the name of Hermann Gunkel who taught us all this thing called form criticism. And that's used more in the book of Psalms than it is in a lot of places. That there are different kinds of Psalms. I'm looking for where I have them all listed on my paper and I can't find it, so I'll have to do it from memory. ⁓ But you have a lament Psalm, you have a praise Psalm, but you have... ⁓

a royal psalm that talks about the ordination, coronation of a king. You have songs of Zion that talk about how important Jerusalem is. You have wisdom or Torah psalms that tell you how you should think about the law or how you should think about wisdom. You have psalms that are written ⁓

alphabetically. We don't think about that. But there are a lot of what we call acrostic Psalms that are written alphabetically. The principal one that people think about is ⁓ Psalm 119, which is this long Torah Psalm. And it's got all the letters of the alphabet eight times in each stanza. Wow. So you

Alright

It is a really long one.

You know, that's the kind of thing, when you're reading it in English, you don't know that's going on. But it's Psalms is picking up the language and moving it some way. So ⁓ there are very liturgical Psalms, there are not such liturgical Psalms. there are lots of different forms in this book.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Overall, I'm wondering if like the analogy of a hymnal,

Wow.

missed that.

might be appropriate. So it's like ⁓ these smaller collections of songs and prayers that are then added to and then edited and it slowly grows into this hymnal kind of.

Diane Jacobso:

Right, and when you look up the hymnal, if you look in the back you're saying, Psalms for Lent, I'm gonna read these during Lent. These are Easter Psalms. Yeah, right. These are...

You

You know, so it can be a liturgical year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or just, I want to cry. What song do I sing if I want to Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The breakup song. Show me the breakup song. That's good.

Hmm.

Right? That's a breakup song. Is there a breakup song? Right? ⁓

Cool. Well, it is time to play everyone's favorite game, Bible Bingo. This is where, here we are, yes. This is where Diane, you sent us five, you know, concepts, words, phrases ⁓ that kind of sum up or articulate some of the themes of the book. And ⁓ I'm going to read them off to you and you're going to kind of quick fire respond why you put that particular thought on your Bingo card.

Woohoo!

Okay.

for Psalms, for the book of Psalms. Okay, the first is praise.

Well, I think almost everyone would say Psalms is about praising God, bringing our praise to God. The word that comes to mind is hallelujah. Praise the Lord. It's the way the book ends. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. That's our job.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

And hallelujah, by the way, is Hebrew for y'all praise the Lord.

Yeah.

Cool. Cool.

That's awesome. It is? Y'all? Did you say y'all?

Well, I said y'all, it's a masculine plural imperative. in the when it's masculine plural, that's collective. Yeah, it's masculine and it's men and women together. like, I'm from Missouri, so I can say y'all, right? But we're both from Missouri. That's right. That's right. But in the deep south, which is not Missouri, you can say all y'all. All y'all. All y'all. Praise the Lord. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, it's the plural. I like it.

Right.

Right.

So you can, yeah.

Okay, all y'all praise the Lord. I like that. I love that. Okay good

I forgot,

yes, we're both from Mizzou. Unexpected. Yes.

Alright, get the next one. So

fun. The next one we have is Lament.

And we've been talking a lot about that. When you pray to God, you don't just praise. You also bring all of your concerns and your cares. You lament, you cry, you tell the truth about your experience in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amen.

Cool,

Sing.

sing. I just can't think about Psalms without music. There are truckloads of words in Psalms about instruments and stuff. So and lots of times the word sing comes in. So it's that's what we do.

Right?

Yeah.

And Diane's husband, Paul, is a professional musician.

Diane Jacobson:

Yes, he is. So he would think this is a wrong podcast if I didn't mention. That's right. has to be music. There has to be music. For sure. For sure.

cool.

There has to be music involved. I love that.

I love that. I also love this next one that you put in, ⁓ which is join centuries of worship.

Yeah. The truth is a lot of people carry around the New Testament and Psalms. Yeah. Yeah, those little pocket Bibles that are the New Testament and Psalms. Yeah, Psalms are centuries of worship. And if you look at the development of worship over the centuries, it is Psalms. Luther did it, well, before, and then Calvin thought

Yeah, right, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You can't sing to God. The only way you sing to God is through Psalms. ⁓ And that tradition carries certainly, well, for the 2,000 years of history of Christianity and the 1,000 years before that of Judaism and its predecessor, it is how you worship God. And it leads, it's this book.

Yeah.

So any Christian worship service or Jewish worship service is gonna be filled with phrases, verses from the Psalms, even if you don't realize it. ⁓ Like creating me a clean heart or ⁓ let all creation praise the Lord. Yeah, the heavens declare the glory of God. There's all these phrases ⁓ that come from the book of from the book of Psalms, absolutely.

Yeah.

That's cool. And the last one you have is create community.

I think sometimes people think that the way you enter Psalms is by yourself, reading a Psalm. I'm not against that. That's good. I'm not saying don't do that. But Psalms are also what bring us together as community. We sing these songs together. We say these Psalms together.

Mm. Yeah. Sure. You're not telling people not to. Right.

creates something by this becoming our common language.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Yeah. And the act of singing itself, I'm thinking about, ⁓ you know, times when I've gone to ⁓ either a hym sing or just around a campfire or whatever. There's something that singing together creates community too. yeah. It does. Yeah. Good. Good, good. Well,

Hmm. Hmm.

Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you for playing Bible

Bingo. Amazing. Amazing.

All right, Diane, this again seems ⁓ like an impossible question for the Book of Psalms, but what memorable verses, chapters, passages would you be sure to address if you were talking about the Book of Psalms?

Diane Jacobson:

And I want to turn that question away from me to everyone listening to this podcast or watching it or whatever you're doing. Yeah. And ask you this question.

Yeah. ⁓

What memorable verses, chapters, passages from Psalms form your life? Because I don't know of very many religious people who don't have a Psalm verse or verses that float in your head. Psalm 23 is kind of the obvious one, the Lord is my shepherd, I don't know. It just floats around.

Right? Yeah.

so many people's minds. But it's for me wrong to tell other people which Psalm they should, but you should think about it for yourself. All right. That's good. That's good. And yeah, some big ones like the 23rd Psalm or the Eagles Wing Psalm 91 or Be Still and Know That I'm God. there's

Sure.

I read a book about birds in the Bible. Yes. And a better translation, you're going to love this, is not eagle but vulture. And we're on vulture sleep. Yeah. And it becomes a whole different notion of this unclean beast. That's really fascinating. That carries us, that lives off blood.

No way!

That's wild.

Is this sounding Christian? ⁓ That ⁓ then carries us to God. I just can't imagine the song. I sing it that way, but I'm probably the only person in the whole world who does. Okay, I've done it to everyone.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

There we go. Now that's going to live in my head. Or of course, I lift up my eyes to the hills from whence will my help come. My help comes from the Lord.

So but somehow, and I will raise you up on vulture's wings.

I

Mm-hmm.

who made

heaven and earth.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Yeah, so many, so many. think you did the right thing here, Diane. ⁓ for our listeners, for our viewers, what memorable verses, what's your favorite psalm? And if you don't have one, ⁓ we invite you to enter the Bible and look at the book of Psalms. Because there is undoubtedly a psalm there that will speak to And it may be...

Yeah.

Psalm you don't even know is a psalm Yeah, and if you kind of don't read it all at once because it'll drive you nuts But if you read a little at a time and you come across Wow, I know that first Yeah, that's from the Psalms. That would be a kind of fun thing to do ⁓

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

A little anecdote of my own I know a pastor young young pastor or she was a young pastor newly graduated went to

Sure, yeah, yeah, that's cool

visit a man in a nursing home who was dying and knew he was dying. And she read all the typical Psalms, right? The Lord is my shepherd and I lift up my eyes to the hills. All the comforting Psalms and he wouldn't turn his face away from the wall. He just stared at the wall. And then out of desperation, she started reading the lament Psalms. And he turned to her and said, finally someone feels the same way I do. ⁓

Huh,

well.

That's

not a direct experience. I heard this story from someone else kind of secondhand, but I just think that speaks to the power of the Psalms.

Diane Jacobson:

I have a dear friend whose husband divorced her in a quite terrible way. we had a lament party for her divorce. And we used Psalm 13.

Cool. Yeah.

And we followed the three parts of the song where you bring your concern and I should look at it and think of the three parts, but you can do it yourself. ending with what's good and stuff. And we ended the whole thing by ⁓ going and hitting a, what you, you know, with candy. Like a gong? No, A piñata!

A pinata? A pinata?

A break-up pinata?

Yeah, we had a

pinata of the ex-husband and we slugged it and out came candy. So there you go.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

That's great. I love that. So Psalm 13. There you go.

So you did hear it, you heard it here folks that Psalm 13 is

the breakup Psalm.

There you go. How long, Lord, will you forgive me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? But then it ends as most lament psalms do. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. I love that. That's a great, that's great, Diane. That's good. You're a good friend. Good friend. All right. ⁓

Amazing.

That's amazing.

Yeah, what?

Next

question. Why is this book important for Christian life and theology? I think we've been talking about that already.

Diane Jacobson:

We have been talking about that. And as I said, people wander around with the book of Psalms in the New Testament. So it's clearly there and it's clearly in the history. But you said it yourself. Jesus quotes Psalm 22 from the cross. But not only that, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, you can't

read the story of the crucifixion without knowing Psalm 22. It tells the story of the crucifixion. And so that part of the Psalms is certainly there, but it's not just that. The Psalms are quoted all over the New Testament. All over the New Testament. And they're quoted both as songs, but also as theology. So they're...

But it's so intertwined. And prophecy, too. David is considered a prophet in New Testament. And we haven't even talked about the fact that David, at least in the first books, is considered the author of many of the Psalms. Whether, in fact, he wrote as many as are attributed to him is probably... It's a matter of discussion. But nonetheless, that's the tradition.

that whole Davidic tradition and how that goes into it's very important.

Right?

What's one key theme you'd kind of want people to look for as they enter the text if they're getting ready to dive in?

You know, I don't know whether it's the one key theme all people should look for, but I'll tell you the key theme that happens for me. I happen to have written my dissertation on creation in the Psalms. And so I can't read the Psalms without thinking about the fact that the Psalms invite us to consider

God's relationship with the world, with the whole of creation and not just with human beings. that all creation praises God. It's not just human beings. And we talked about Psalm 24 where the earth is built rather like a temple that we enter in and the earth becomes the temple.

a world permeated by faithfulness and justice and steadfast love, not just humans, but all of creation. Or you get to Psalm 104, which is this remarkable description of creation as an intricate web and how God works in that. And again,

we end probably the most important psalm, Psalm 148, with creation praising, all of creation praising God. Including trees. Trees, right. Thunderstorms and wind. ⁓ works of the Lord, praise the Lord. This unified verse of praise. So I want people to think of Psalms as something that invite us.

Yeah. Right.

into thinking of the world as bigger than just human beings, but all creation and as someone who ⁓ spends a lot of time thinking about ecological concerns. I think that's something the Psalms invite us into. So God is both conductor and listener, conductor of prayers and listening to praise. I love that.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Our former colleague, much beloved Terry Fretheim, talks about

Sure.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

creation as a symphony orchestra. That's what you're talking about, right? God as the conductor of this symphony and the primary audience of praise so that every part of creation praises the Lord in a different voice, in a different way. The trees in a different way than the whales in a different way from the

Diane Jacobson:

And even chaos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the chaotic waters end up praising God.

Mmm.

Leviathan. Yes, Leviathan. There goes Leviathan. In Psalm 104. Whom thou made to sport with. Yeah. Isn't it funny how we go back to King James no matter how many times we... Especially in the Psalms. ⁓

Hmm. Hmm.

It is beautiful though, it's beautiful

poetry,

Yeah, that theme of creation's praise of God is so important. All right, ⁓ last question, Diane. Describe the book of Psalms in seven words or less, and then tell us what you mean.

Diane Jacobson:

Psalms invite us to talk to God. ⁓

Mm.

Yeah.

And what I definitely mean is Psalms invite us not to just talk about God. ⁓ Yeah, right. Psalms invite us to address God, to be in conversation with God. ⁓ that's, I don't know that it's unique, but it's maybe unique in scripture that that's the book that says talk to God.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

So it's about prayer, not so much systematic theology. Not so much talking about God, but talking to God. That's beautiful.

Diane Jacobson:

And give us all kinds of ways of doing it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Wow, so cool. Thank you. ⁓ Go ahead.

So.

Just,

⁓ yeah, Psalms as a way to teach us how to talk to God, how to pray. How to pray. How to praise, how to lament, how to think prayerfully in conversation. I don't know that you can talk about Psalms as conversation with God, but...

If God's listening, isn't there a form of conversation?

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

Yeah, think about this lovely little book. ⁓ I think it's from the 80s by Eugene Peterson. yeah. Listening to God. Right. And then the subtitle is The Psalms as Tools for Prayer. Yes. I think that's a nice way of thinking about the Psalms as tools for prayer to teach us. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is what I hear from your phrase, the Psalms invite us to talk to God.

Yeah.

They teach us how to pray. Yeah. Beautiful.

Well, thank you so much. Yeah, Diane, we're so glad.

Well, thank you so much, Diane. ⁓

Diane Jacobson:

my deep pleasure.

Kathryn Schifferdecker:

We've learned a lot. years of praying and singing the songs shine through in your teaching about the songs. Thank you.

Absolutely.

And thank you to our listeners and viewers for being with us here on this episode of the year in the Bible in a year. We appreciate you joining us and ⁓ invite you to continue your deep dive into the Bible on enterthebible.org where you can get more in this series as well as just commentaries, resources, videos, other episodes of different podcasts, all kind of stuff.

to kind of invite you more deeply into the biblical text. Of course, if you have enjoyed this episode, we would invite you to rate and review us on your favorite podcast app or YouTube. ⁓ And of course, the very best compliment you can pay us is to share this podcast with a friend. Until next time.