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The assigned verses are a portion of a much larger psalm that concludes book three of the psalter. The context of both the verses and the psalm are interpretively significant. Verses 1 to 4 introduce (...)

Although the central section of this psalm is comprised of hymnic praise of God, the psalm as a whole suggests that the prayer exemplifies what Walter Brueggemann categorized as psalms of reorientation. Psalms of reorientation (...)

This psalm lection contains a magnificent constellation of biblical terms, portraying them with a striking intimacy that catches modern readers off guard: “righteousness and peace will kiss each other” (verse 10)? This psalm lection contains (...)

A Liturgy of Blessing As the twice-repeated refrain (verses 3, 5) indicates, Psalm 67 is a song meant for public worship.1 We can imagine a worship leader or choir singing the body of the psalm, (...)

Psalm 138 is classified as an Individual Hymn of Thanksgiving, a psalm in which a single voice praises God for goodness to or on behalf of that individual, usually for deliverance from some trying situation. (...)

Psalm 145 occurs just before the five-psalm doxological close to the book of Psalms (Psalms 146-150) and is the last in a group of Psalms (Psalms 139-145) in Book Five that are identified in their (...)

Are we teachable? Can we change? Can we grow into the image of God in which we are created? Each text for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost asks these questions. Psalm 25 puts them in (...)

The good news of Psalm 46 is essentially the same as that of last week’s psalm (see Psalm 91:9-16, Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost) — that is, God is “with us.”1 This message is reinforced by (...)

“A Mighty Fortress is Our God” — the hymn, which according to Ulrich Leupold, “more than any other epitomizes Luther’s thought and personal experience” — is a rather free paraphrase of Psalm 46.1 For that (...)

This Reformation Sunday is a time to ask whether the church, and by this I mean the whole Christian Church on earth, needs to have a big rummage sale. I’m not talking about a literal (...)