Psalms:Their Timeless Beauty and Powerful Impact: How the Psalms Alternate between Sorrow Offset by a Hint of Sweetness and Joy, Tempered by a Tinge of Sorrow

By James A. Manthey

The book includes scholarly research on the psalms in general, yielding much fascinating information useful to a reader seeking to become knowledgeable about the wonderful psalms. The main focus, however, consists of a collection of favorite psalms that have encouraged and inspired the author. This collection, it is hoped and assured, will do the same for the reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385024285

James A. Manthey

Manthey writes from the heart as well as from experience: He believes the most powerfully impactful writing stems from personal experience. That is why he is leaning upon David, author of half of the psalms, as his guide. He has four previously published books, all Christian in nature, including a play for teens.

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Copyright © 2024 James A. Manthey Doctor Of Divinity.

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2427-8 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2428-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024908561

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/08/2024

CONTENTS

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1:Lexicon of Hebrew Terms

Chapter 2:Parallelism

Chapter 3:Quotes

Chapter 4:Imprecatory Psalms

Chapter 5:Special Psalms

Chapter 6:Cameo of Key Davidic Psalms: The Historical Background and How it Affected the Author’s Pathos

Chapter 7:Davidic Psalms: Summary, Quick Preview

Chapter 8:A Review of Literature on the Psalms

Postscript on Psalm 119

Bibliography

ABSTRACT ¹

The theme of my dissertation is: "Psalms, choice psalms, and that je ne sais quoi that makes the Davidic Psalms so special (also: How the psalms alternate between a sweet sorrow and a conditional joy). The actual title ended up being: The Timeless Beauty and Powerful Impact of the Psalms.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I need to mention a wonderful Christian couple who just seem to live for advancing the kingdom of Christ. That couple is: Jesse and Jen Watzka of Denmark, Wisconsin.

Jesse and Jen have been off-the-charts kind and generous in their support of my education with International Christian College and Seminary. Over a period of two years (now going on three years) they have stepped up, giving generously and with joy, enabling me to complete the work I believe God has assigned me to do. What about those, such as International Christian College and Seminary (Debary, Florida) who have been entrusted with training people for the ministry?

A big part of God’s calling, in my case, has involved getting this much needed Christian and advanced theological training. God, working through the seminary and the professors, has been supplying me with awesome tools to take the message of salvation through Christ and Him alone, to the world. The care and personal input from I.C.C.S., in short, has been without exception a gift from God. I am extremely thankful to God for them. Particularly Professor McCorkle and Irene, the secretary, from I.C.C.S. have been in my corner, as I said, for going on three years now. May God bless them and their families always.

To Jesus, finally, goes most thanks and glory for helping me to find these great Christian folks who are changing my life. I believe God’s best plan for my life, for your life, is what He will continue to unpack as time moves forward. May the training and education I receive be impacted in the ministry God assigns me. Most of all, may the love of Jesus compel us all to bring healing, light, joy, salt, and salvation to an otherwise: diseased, dark, sad, tasteless, and seemingly hopeless world.

Thank-you, Jesus! You are the working definition of Magnificent!

DEDICATION

I dedicate this work to all the sidewalk evangelists out there—the Elijahs and John the Baptists of our day, as well as to the praise and worship/song leaders, the writers and performers of Christian music and poetry everywhere.

In an article entitled God Filled Your Bible with Poems, John Piper estimates that one third of the Bible could be qualified as poetry. He lists entire books of the Bible that are poetic: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Song of Solomon. In addition: A majority of Old Testament prophecy is poetic in form. Jesus is one of the most famous poets of the world. ²

PREFACE

I was on a riverside bike pathway many years ago, roller blades strapped to my feet, a Gideon Personal Worker Testament in hand. Here I first seriously began looking into the Psalms. Testing the waters with them was one thing. The more I sampled, the more I loved what I saw. That was another thing.

The more I investigated and loved, the more I worked to memorize, then attempt, by God’s grace only, to live what I was reading and memorizing. That was the final thing—the one that sealed the deal, resulting in what has ended up entailing a lifetime dedicated love affair with God’s book, nineteenth of sixty-six.

It is to those beautiful SHALOM-filled moments: alone in my thoughts, with occasional signs of people, with the sight and telltale nitrogenic odor of maraming mga baka (lots of cows) that I owe much of my love for the Lord and his word.

There is something about being alone with God, engaged in a Christian discipline (in this case: roller blading and speaking/praying/memorizing favorite psalms), that reaches deep into your soul, drawing you closer to the One you love, the One who has saved you, the One who loves and adores YOU! Paul attempts to describe such questioning moments this cosi (Italian: in this way):

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)

My divine bonding times along the Fox River included enjoying: wildlife, the beautiful bouquet of God’s wonderful floristic panorama, the aromas of fresh country air. In addition to the other stimuli were the sounds of summer bees buzzing, as well as the eerie high-pitched sounds of bush crickets, a.k.a. Tettigoniidae), floating by as I rolled on down the path. I was reading a verse, then looking away into space, as I repeated that verse. I added another and started over again, this time with two verses as my goal. Further out into the countryside I glided, cattle lowing in the distance, as the length of my memorized verses grew longer by the moment.

The Holy Spirit was leading me to do this, in retrospect. I think God knew this was the way to capture my heart, turning me into a seeker of God’s love, that love which is discoverable in his holy word.

The Spirit was nudging me, speaking to MY spirit, telling me, moving me (my heart, and literally, plus my entire body) to combine things I loved—cardio-vascular movement, trips into the countryside accompanied by solitude yet with the sound of my own voice repeating the wonderful words of every believer’s best Friend’s all-time best seller, the Bible. ³

Thanks, God, for both the SHUV s (Hebrew: returns) to MY past, and for the visitations into YOUR (the reader’s) life oggi (Italian: today).

In the days of Hosea, God promised to win back HIS bride by taking her out to a locale of quietude, wooing her in a place he knew she loved. It was only in the tahimik (Tagalog: silent) secluded area where the Lord would have her undivided attention. Here he could whisper sweet somethings into her ear, just as he would do with me over 2700 hundred years later:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. (Hosea 2:14) This brings back another memory from the gospel: Jesus once took his disciples to a similarly tahimik place, extracting them from the hustle and bustle of the big city--Jerusalem.

They all needed some quiet time. Matthew 16:13 ff records this special moment in the ministry, this time of retreat, where the Jewish Rabbi, the King of all people, chose to spend quality time with those he loved—those who would end up in the front line of apostleship, earning the Heavenly crown of martyrdom in the process, spreading the precious life-saving gospel.

Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name. Make his praise glorious. (Psalm 66:1-2)

Consider this an honest attempt to examine why certain psalms really have captured my heart over the years. When I first took notice of them, they became so special that I took the time, expending the effort, to memorize them.

Ultimately, all our best gifts have been authored by God in one way or another. ⁴

INTRODUCTION

Invariably something exciting occurs when the author is looking to check, re-check, tweak, tidy up, not to mention adding the final parts to a work: He or she comes across valuable information that cannot be ignored. Jesus, in the final stretch of his Sermon on the Mount, has the explanation: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you... (Matthew 7:7, KJV)

I was looking at the Review of the Literature on the Psalms section of this dissertation. There are five famous or not-so-famous authors upon whose work I have chosen to comment. One was: Reflections on the Psalms, by C.S. Lewis, specifically—the Introduction to the same.

This being MY introduction, I want to focus in on a statement C.S. Lewis made in his opening. His words partly reflect some of my own sentiments. His caveat emptor was, in short, that: In his book on the Psalms-reflections, he chose not to make it a scholarly work . What was the result?

Instead, he humbly encouraged his readers to think of it as one amateur’s thoughts and reflections expressed to another. He even went so far as to compare his experience of writing, and for his readers, in reading the work—to a couple of school boys conducting their own learning session: One is the teacher, the other, the learner.

As a former teacher myself, I was charmed by those comments: Teachers today, at all levels, in all schools, even in universities are aware of this phenomenon: Professors invariably have Graduate teaching assistants. The assistants often meet once a week with the hoi polloi. What is the theory behind this: student-teaching-students phenomenon?

Simply this: Students invariably learn much from a gifted peer, that at least greatly supplements the master teacher. The disciples, learning from Jesus, is the exception.

My twist on the sentiments shared by the amazing C.S. is this: Contrary to his avoidance of scholarship, I will make some claim to scholarship with this work. You will see evidence of this, for example, in the Hebraisms as Lewis called them. Also: You will find here research results that DO cross over into: Bible History, as well as linguistics. Yet, I, like Lewis, have chosen to stay away from an overly scholarly account. So where have I claimed poetic license to allow more of the gut feeling and personal take on things? I think the response is threefold:

1) The poet-in-making or a poet-want-to-be for most of my adult life decided to add a poetic summary at the conclusion of most of the stated: favorite poems. If your adult lifetime view, to the contrary, has involved the more politically correct trumpeted male aversion to poetry, it is to YOU I most apologize up front. I would only add this caveat: that you attempt to think outside of the box, making this your one exception; if you rise to the soft challenge, I guarantee that, with God’s grace and the Spirit’s lead, you will be rewarded. In a humble attempt to bolster my defense, I wish to refer you to an article by John Piper called: God Filled Your Bible with Poems. ⁵

2) What is the second part of my three-pronged modus operandi for this treatise?

Instead of the usual laser-focus of attention given to the commentary part on any given Bible book (in this case, the Psalter) and/or chapter, you will find an abundance of detailed cross references to other passages and Bible books. My hope and prayer is that this interweaving of multiple references both dall’interno (from within) and da fuori (from without—Italian) the Psalms, will do for YOU what it does for myself: ...bring about a rich, memorable, mosaic of that great and indispensable tenet of Bible exegesis: Let the Bible interpret itself.

3) I almost forgot: I need to add a distant third aspect of the uniqueness of this take on the Psalms. What might that be? Perhaps you have already noticed: The hope and prayer that you will appreciate, as do I, the sound and impact of foreign words, (from other languages). You will find me freely exercising my experience with several, including: German, Italian, French, Tagalog/Filipino, Ancient Hebrew, just a hint of Modern Hebrew, Ancient Greek, and finally Ancient Latin. (Sorry to all you pig-Latin lovers: I did not mean to get your hopes up, only, resulting in a dashing them to pieces like Nebuchadnezzar smashing through the walls of Jerusalem in 586.) ⁶

THE FIVE BOOKS OF THE PSALMS

⁷

BOOK I: Psalm 1-41 ⁸

BOOK II: 42-72 ⁹

BOOK III: 73-89

BOOK IV: 90-106

BOOK V: 107-150

Although the number of psalm types easily goes into a two-digit number, we will focus on only these...

SEVEN MAJOR TYPES OF PSALMS

1) the Royal Psalms, declaring God’s greatness (2, 18, 20, 21, 42 are some, among many)

2) the Psalms of Zion, centering on the temple in Jerusalem (e.g. Psalm 48, 87, 126, 132, 137)

3) the Penitential Psalms like David’s prayer, confession of sin, and plea for forgiveness and Restoration in Psalm 6. (Also, e.g. 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, 142)

4) the Wisdom Psalms, like Psalm 1, where both God’s and man’s wisdom are contrasted. (Also, e.g. 14, 37, 73, 91, 112, 119, 128)

5) the Imprecatory Psalms—pleas for God to deliver from the destruction of enemies; (e.g. Psalms 5 and 137, and many Davidic psalms)

6) Prophetic Psalms (like Psalm 2, 8, 22, 34:20, 35:11...)

7) Hillel/Hallel Psalms (Hebrew words for praise; e.g. 113, 114, 115:1-11, 12-18,117) ¹⁰

OTHER APPLICABLE SUNDRY BACKROUND INFORMATION

• Psalms derives from the Greek (Septuagint) PSALMOI: songs sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument (meaning of the original Greek word).

• Books I and II are primarily Davidic Psalms.

• Book III includes mainly: Psalms of Asaph and the Sons of Korah (Psalms 46-49).

• Books IV and V are mainly anonymous, a.k.a. orphanic; a few are attributed to King David.

• The book of Psalms has often been called The hymn book of Israel. Yet, not all the psalms are meant to be sung.

• Indications for which psalms WERE to be sung comes from cantillation marks, found in the Masoretic texts of Jewish Bible excerpts. Cantillation is related to the word cantor. The cantor in a Jewish temple or synagogue was and is the song-leader. ¹¹

• ...The five books included in the Psalms point back to the five books of the Pentateuch—the law. They include numerous authors along with the ‘Sweet Psalmist of Israel,’ King David, as the primary one. ¹²

WRITERS OF THE PSALMS (AND NUMBER OF PSALMS WRITTEN)

David: at least 73 ¹³

Moses: 1 (Psalm 90, the opening entry for Book IV)

Solomon: 2 (Psalm 72, 127 a Song of Ascents)

Sons of Korah: 11 (42, 44-49, 84, 85, 87-88)

Asaph or the Sons of Asaph: 12 (Psalm 50, from Book II; then, forming the lion’s share of Book III: Psalm 73-83)

Heman: 1 (Psalm 88) ¹⁴

Ethan, the Ezrahite: 1 (Psalm 89)

Hezekiah: Although not included in the Psalter, we find Hezekiah’s Psalm of thanksgiving recorded in Isaiah 38:10-20, written at the time of God’s gift to him of recovery from a terminal illness.

Orphan Psalms: 24. Many of them are included in Books IV and V. (e.g. Book 4:91-100; 102, 104, 105 et al; Book V: 107, 111-118, et al.¹⁵

CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC

With my sincerest apologies, in summary, I present this paltry piece of hopefully unpretentious platitudes. Perhaps you will perceive it as a personal profession of a potentially profuse peopling the paper with pretty-nearly palpitating alliterative propensities. Per piacere. Perdonnez-moi. ¹⁶

CHAPTER 1

LEXICON OF

HEBREW TERMS

¹⁷

A AYELETH HA SHACHAR, (ON AAYELETH HA SHACHAR), According to the Doe of the Dawn, an instruction, possibly to the type of presentation. (Found at the opening of Psalm 22: Words of the King, yet also words of David—both prophetic and Messianic, expressing a time of succumbing to enemies... ¹⁸

ALAMOTH: There is little difficulty in discerning the word family relationship between this musical term and the root word contained within: ALMA, meaning virgin. The instructions to the musical director for this Davidic psalm say, among other things: ...set to Alamoth (as opposed, for example, to TEFILLAH, for prayer. It sounds, therefore, like a direction to have the virgins or women lead this type of psalm, meant to be sung (a song/SHIR is also included in the introduction). ¹⁹

AL TASHITH: Means destroy not the term is found in the introductory verse of: Psalms 57, 58, 59, and 75. The name Al Tashith is said to be a negative command. The negative command in Hebrew is formed by either LO plus the Imperfect form of the verb or Al plus the same. Lo refers to permanent prohibition (as in: never do this) Al refers to immediate prohibition (as in: Do not do this at this particular time. (This information is from Weingreen’s A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew.) ²⁰

GITTITH (translated often: ...to the Gittith) is said by many to mean: to the accompaniment of a musical instrument from Gath. ²¹

JONATH-ELEM-RECHOCHIM: The Silent Dove in Distant Places, probably a well-known tune. ²²

LAMENATSEH: For the leader...

LEHAZKIR: For being remembered, i.e., before God; in other words—a petition.

LELAMMED: For