Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his little book on the Psalms with an observation and a question: “The Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, but prayers are the words of men to God. How do prayers then get into the Bible?”
As evangelicals, we’d answer by confessing that the Scriptures have both human authors and a divine author. Scripture reflects its human authors’ contexts and personalities, but the Bible’s words are also from God, because the holy prophets and apostles were taught by the Holy Spirit. This evangelical confession is right and true, but it’s not how Bonhoeffer resolves his question.
When answering how the Psalms can both be from God and directed to him, Bonhoeffer doesn’t appeal to the doctrine of Scripture. Instead, he turns to the New Testament. He finds there that Jesus Christ, the God-man, prays the psalms. So Bonhoeffer writes, “In [Jesus’s] mouth, the word of a man becomes the Word of God, and if we pray his prayer with him, the Word of God becomes again the word of man.”
Bonhoeffer wasn’t an evangelical; his words don’t reflect a biblical doctrine of inspiration. I wish he’d written “the word of man is the Word of God” instead of “becomes the Word of God,” but though I disagree with Bonhoeffer’s view of Scripture, I still think there’s beauty in his answer.
Bonhoeffer reminds us that the psalms aren’t only divinely inspired Israelite prayers. They’re also Jesus’s prayers. When we see how the psalms are used in the New Testament, we gain confidence that every type of psalm belongs to him.
Seven Types of Psalms
The New Testament quotes the Psalms more often than any other Old Testament book. When we look at which psalms are quoted, we discover that the New Testament authors appeal to every type. Tremper Longman III identifies seven types, or genres, of psalms. Let’s review them and consider how they relate to Jesus.
Historical, Kingship, and Wisdom Psalms
The first three psalm types trace the contours of Israel’s past and celebrate the Davidic covenant as the crown of that history’s arc.
(1) Historical psalms (e.g., Pss. 78; 89; 105; 106; 132; 135; 136) retell the story of God’s past acts of redemption. Often, these songs recount the exodus, how God gave the law to Moses, or how God established David’s kingdom. Psalm 78, for example, begins with God giving the law and calling the Israelites to teach it to the coming generations (vv. 5–8). The psalm ends with how God chose David, taking him from the sheepfolds so he might shepherd Israel with an upright heart and skillful hand (vv. 70–72; see 2 Sam. 7:8; 1 Chron. 17:7).
Bonhoeffer reminds us that the psalms aren’t only divinely inspired Israelite prayers. They’re also Jesus’s prayers.
(2) Kingship psalms (e.g., Pss. 2; 20; 21; 22; 69; 110) celebrate either Israel’s human king, God as King of the whole earth, or the future messianic King. One famous kingship psalm is Psalm 2. It admonishes other earthly kings to honor Israel’s throne. Though the passage refers to David in its original context, Paul quotes this psalm in his sermon at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:33) to demonstrate how Jesus comes as the fulfillment of biblical history. Jesus is the Son whom the kingship psalms celebrate and promise. God has proven this by raising Jesus from the dead (v. 34).
(3) Wisdom psalms (e.g., Pss. 1; 8; 19; 45; 119; 127), like the Bible’s wisdom books, reveal God’s will for everyday life. Psalm 45 reads like Song of Solomon; it’s a wisdom song about the joys of marriage. Psalm 127 teaches the singer to rely on God to establish his household. Some of the most notable wisdom psalms celebrate God’s good creation (Pss. 8; 19:1–6; 29) and law (Pss. 1; 19:7–14; 119). The New Testament shows us Jesus is the One greater than Solomon (Matt. 12:42). He’s the firstborn of creation and the law’s fulfillment. He’s the One “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
Psalms of Lament
The psalmist lifts (4) lament psalms (e.g., Pss. 13; 31; 35; 41; 44; 54; 55; 61; 74; 79; 86; 88; 102; 105) when he has nowhere to turn but to God. As Longman observes, these cries of great emotional distress raise complaints about three issues. Sometimes the psalmist is troubled by himself. In Psalm 51, for example, David confesses his guilt and sin. Other times, the psalmist is troubled by his enemies, so he asks God to provide rescue by judging and cursing them (see Ps. 137).
Still other times, the psalmist is troubled by the Lord. The psalmist’s life is so dark that he cries out, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (13:1). Perhaps the darkest example from this lament category is Psalm 88: “Your wrath sweeps over me. . . . You have distanced loved one and neighbor from me; darkness is my only friend” (vv. 16–18, CSB). Around 40 percent of the psalms contain laments of one of these three types, and what Bonhoeffer wrote about them is profound.
Bonhoeffer attended a prominent black Baptist church in Harlem during seminary, then he returned to Germany, where his covert work against the Nazis began. In both contexts, Bonhoeffer grew familiar with large-scale injustice and the songs of lament that rise against it. Yet in 1940, he wrote, “No individual can repeat the lamentation Psalms out of his own experience; it is the distress of the entire Christian community at all times, as only Jesus Christ has experienced it entirely alone.”
For Bonhoeffer, no one has fully experienced the pain the laments describe except Jesus. In the upper room, for example, knowing one of his disciples was now his enemy, Jesus quoted the lament in Psalm 41: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (v. 9; see John 13:18). And while our sinless Savior didn’t have a personal need to pray laments of confession, he bore our sins on the cross and there cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34).
When we see Jesus’s full experience of suffering, we learn that the laments weren’t meant to send us spiraling into despair. Instead, God invites us to pour out our complaints to him. And because we know Jesus prays with us, we can have hope and give thanks amid our pain (e.g., Ps. 18:16; 56:12).
Psalms of Thanksgiving, Confidence, and Praise
(5) Thanksgiving psalms (e.g., Pss. 30; 32; 34; 100) express gratitude to the Lord for his character, good gifts, and answered prayers. In Psalm 100, for instance, Longman observes, “The psalmist bursts at the seams in gratitude to God. How much more should we be thankful to God for providing his Son as a sacrifice to atone for our sins.”
(6) Psalms of confidence and trust (e.g., Pss. 11; 16; 23; 27; 46; 62; 91; 121; 125; 131) express faith in God because of his goodness and power. These psalms contain striking metaphors. God is our refuge and strength (11:1; 16:1; 46:1), our shepherd (23:1), light (27:1), rock (62:2), and help (121:2). From the New Testament, we know Jesus is the object of our faith. He is our sure foundation. With the New Testament authors, believers can pray psalms of confidence with faith that nothing can separate them from God’s love in Christ (Rom. 8:38–39).
When we see Jesus’s full experience of suffering, we learn that the laments weren’t meant to send us spiraling into despair.
(7) Finally, hymns (e.g., Pss. 41; 72; 89; 106; 146–150) are easily recognized by their exuberant praise. There are many hymns in the Psalter, but as Longman says, they all share a basic structure.
Hymns begin with a call to worship, frequently opening with the simple command to “praise the LORD,” which in Hebrew is Hallelujah! After this call, hymns continue by expounding the reasons God should be praised. They often conclude with further calls to praise.
Jesus Prays with Us
I’ve listed hymns last, because praise is the direction the Psalms points. If you’ve read straight through the Psalter, you’ve noticed that it’s divided into five books. Jeremy Linneman notes that “the order of these books and the nature of how each one ends provides a powerful clue to [the direction of our] prayer.”
The first four books each end with a hallelujah hymn (Pss. 41; 72; 89; 106), and the fifth book ends with five hallelujah hymns (Pss. 146–150). After all our remembrance of God’s work through history, our painful laments, and our expressions of thanksgiving and faith, ultimately everything turns to praise.
Jesus sings these praises too. When the author of Hebrews wanted to show how the incarnate Son identified with his people, he turned to Psalm 22. In this lament, King David promises that after the Lord delivers him from his enemies, he’ll boast of God’s greatness in the assembly. He says, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise” (v. 22).
Hebrews puts those words in Jesus’s mouth (2:12). Having adopted us into his family, the God-man now meets with us when we gather. His Spirit is present with us, and he inhabits our praise. With the psalms on our lips, we confidently lift up prayers that are both our words and his.
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