When people of faith gather around the Hebrew scriptures, the focus is often the book of Psalms. This collection of songs has powerfully influenced worship, theology, ethics, and piety for centuries. The book continues to influence contemporary readers with its eloquent poetic language, which communicates directly to the life circumstances of contemporary readers even though the language originated from the ancient Near East. The book undercuts private and simplistic forms of piety and yet it has been appropriately labeled the “Prayer Book of the Bible.” Luther has even given it the title of the “little Bible” because it encapsulates so much of the message of the Scriptures. He says the Psalter “might well be called a little Bible. In it is comprehended most beautifully and briefly everything that is in the entire Bible … so that anyone who could not read the whole Bible would have anyway almost an entire summary of it, comprised in one little book.” This central biblical book continues to capture the imaginations of readers today as they seek to pray and live faithfully.

Matters of Organization

The context of the book of Psalms can provide clues for readers, and so it may be helpful to discuss a number of introductory matters. The title “Psalms,” which indicates songs accompanied by stringed instruments, comes from the title of the book in the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. The title “Psalter” in the Latin version refers to the stringed instrument. The Hebrew title aptly categorizes the book as “praises.” The book is structured in five sections, or books, each of which concludes with a benediction (Pss 41:13; 72:18–20; 89:52; 106:48; 145:21). Psalms 146–150 conclude the Psalter with a fivefold doxology. Psalms 1 and 2 introduce the collection.

Preface

The biblical text has in it no indication of emphases for reading. In a number of texts quoted herein, we have italicized certain words in order to assist the reader in noting the rhetorical force of the text. In each case, such underscoring is our own work and of course coheres with our own sense of the text. When emphasis appears in a reference other than the Bible, the emphasis is ours unless stated otherwise. When a verse is cited without a book or chapter reference (e.g., v. 1), it is understood to refer to the psalm presently under discussion.

The authors thank the editors and publishers of the New Cambridge Bible Commentary for the opportunity to work on the book of Psalms. Special thanks also go to Libby Ballard, B. J. Parker, Anna Sieges, and Kim Williams Bodenhamer. May these comments on the Psalms help today’s readers and hearers embrace these ancient texts in transforming ways.

The Book of Jeremiah, who was the second of the three major prophets, is situated between Isaiah and Ezekiel and is an immensely complex book. Indeed, it is so complex that some informed readers have concluded that it is impossible to read the book as a coherent whole and have declared it “unreadable.” Although it is possible to see how different subsections of the book function and what they mean, it is not readily apparent how the subsections meaningfully fit together. This is but the first of several critical issues confronting any interpretation of the theology of the Book of Jeremiah.

COMPLEXITY AND CONTEXT

I identify two reasons for the book's complexity. First, the Book of Jeremiah consists of the swirling of several interpretive voices, each of which offers a strong reading of the historical–theological crisis that preoccupies the book. These several voices, moreover, are in some contestation with each other about the meaning and significance of the crisis of Jerusalem and about an appropriate response to that crisis. The traditioning process that produced the final form of the text, moreover, has made no noticeable efforts to adjudicate between or to bring together in a coherent manner those several contesting voices. Rather, the final form of the text has permitted the several contesting voices to stand alongside one another without noticeable harmonization.

GOD AS SOVEREIGN

The Book of Jeremiah is preoccupied with a profound, long-term historical crisis that concerns both Judah (Jerusalem) and the international geopolitical milieu of Judah. That historical crisis, however, is outlined in the Book of Jeremiah with definitive reference to the will, purpose, action, and character of Yhwh, the God of Israel. Indeed, the effect of prophetic rhetoric in the prophets in general and in Jeremiah in particular is to link in decisive ways the rule of Yhwh and the lived reality of history. This connection is accomplished precisely through imaginative rhetoric that yields what Klaus Koch has termed “meta-history”; that is, public history understood and presented as an arena of God's purpose and activity. A theological exposition of the Book of Jeremiah therefore must begin with the character and action of Yhwh outlined in prophetic rhetoric.

It is clear in all parts of the Book of Jeremiah that Yhwh, the God of the long-established covenant tradition, is now seen to be the decisive agent in the Jerusalem of the seventh through sixth centuries bce in a way that the dominant opinion in Jerusalem could scarcely countenance. Of the much rich material on this subject, we may consider the following texts.

Near the end of the Book of Jeremiah, when Yhwh is juxtaposed with the overstated illicit power of Babylon (and the Babylonian gods), Yhwh's self-declaration offers a ringing, triumphal affirmation of Yhwh as incomparable in power and legitimacy: