Day 165

Sing to the Lord

Read: Psalms 8-14

The psalms were written to be sung. Notice that the headings of most of these psalms are addressed: “To the choirmaster.” As mentioned above, the headings were not part of the original text of the Psalms, but they are so old that in the Hebrew Bible they are cited as verse 1. The biblical faith is a singing faith. When I have conducted funerals, part of the service includes the congregation singing. How different our mourning from that which we see in other parts of the world on news reports! In all the experiences of life, let us sing praises to our God, for he is good and his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 8 rejoices in the place we have in God’s creation. “You have made him little less than God” (v. 5 ESV). Some psalms are acrostics: each verse begins with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This was probably to aid in memorization. Psalms 9 and 10 are tied together by this device, the acrostic starting in the ninth psalm and concluding in the tenth. Together they deal with a recurrent theme in the psalms: wickedness is prevalent, but God will help his people. The remaining psalms for today’s reading continue to deal with that same theme.

The fourteenth psalm begins with a declaration that practical atheism (spoken in the heart and not in public) is folly. The Wisdom Literature, of which the Psalms are part, emphasizes the foolishness of sin.

PRAYER
Father, put a song in our hearts no matter what the circumstances, for we trust in Christ. In his name. Amen.