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As we had occasion to observe in relation to Psalm 148, last week’s psalm, Israel’s songs of praise regularly invite an expansive congregation to praise God. Whereas last week’s essay explored the ecological implications of (...)

This psalm selection begins with a sharp transition calling upon God (“But you, O LORD,” v. 19a). The Hebrew construction invites us to emphatically pronounce “you” (referring to God). The urgency of his plea is (...)

Chosen for a Sunday toward the end of the liturgical season of Ordinary Time that confirms the constancy of grace manifested mysteriously in the middle of doldrums, Psalm 66 blows in fresh air with its (...)

“The One Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” Forgive my crude attempt at upending the philosophy of a well-known bumper sticker (“The one who dies with the most toys wins”) at least from my (...)

Psalm 15 is usually categorized as an entrance liturgy. The mention of God’s “tent” in v. 1 recalls the portable tabernacle of the wilderness era (Exodus 33:7-11; Numbers 12:5); but the designation came to be (...)

In Psalm 82, the poetic imagination of the Psalmist conjures a mythic heavenly court. This court is different from typical pictures of the radical monotheism of Israel. The one true God is now surrounded by (...)

Psalm 113 is the third psalm in a group of psalms in Book Five known as the hallelujah psalms (Psalms 111-118). It also the first of a collection of six psalms (Psalms 113-118) that are (...)

Psalm 146 lacks any evidence of context, enabling the reader to hear it in her own time and place. In the psalm God is the author of liberation (v. 7), the only one worthy of (...)

Written as an acrostic poem, approximately every other line in Psalm 37 begins with a successive letter of the twenty-two letter Hebrew alphabet. This can even be seen in the English translation of the NRSV (...)

Psalm 111 is a classic psalm of praise extolling the virtues of God presented as the praise of a single individual. It is a Hallel, one of the psalms that begins with hallelu Yah, “Hallelujah” (...)