Content related to Psalms

Home » Old Testament » Psalms » Page 4

Psalm 90:12-17

Proper 23B

The Lectionary has us picking up just the tail end of Psalm 90 this week.  It is a curious poem.  It opens with a lyric consideration of how God had been his people’s dwelling place—their home—from generation to generation.  But then in the middle section there is a shift in tone as a rather fearsome…

Read More

Psalm 8

Proper 22B

Psalm 8 swiftly sums up something that the Israelites found as amazing as anything else they could think of.  Yes, the psalm is about the majesty of God and that is awesome enough.  And the psalmist sees that majesty of God chiefly in the things that this great God created and most especially the wonders…

Read More

Psalm 19:7-14

Proper 21B

We all recognize that rules and regulations are simply a part of life.  Mostly, however, we are only too happy to dispense with recitations of such things as quickly as possible.  Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial airline know that before the flight can begin, the flight attendants have to run through their…

Read More

Psalm 54

Proper 20B

Psalm 54 tells a story in just seven short verses.  Like most if not all of the stories the psalms tell, it is a very generic tale.  We have no precise clue who the psalmist is, who his enemies are, exactly what actions the enemies take, or what God does to earn the praise he…

Read More

Psalm 116:1-9

Proper 19B

One of the benefits of the fact that psalms are not tied to any obvious specific set of circumstances is that they can be applied to a wide variety of experiences whether or not those exactly match whatever any given psalmist was talking about.  In the case of Psalm 116, one could surmise this was…

Read More

Psalm 146

Proper 18B

As we often note here on the CEP website and in our various sermon commentaries on the Psalms, we use the word “Hallelujah” as an expression of praise.  For us it is synonymous with the sentiment, “I am praising God right now!”  And sometimes we use it as a way to express gratitude and relief,…

Read More

Psalm 15

Proper 17B

We could summarize and simultaneously contemporize Psalm 15 this way: Who may dwell with God on God’s holy mountain?  The one who stays off social media. Or at the very least the one who does not do on social media what altogether too many other people have been doing in the years since Facebook and…

Read More

Psalm 34:15-22

Proper 16B

So here we are for the third week in a row in Psalm 34, this time centering on the concluding verses.  In the first of this Lectionary triplet on this psalm we took note of the fact that this is one of those sunny-side-up poems in the Hebrew Psalter in which everything is coming up…

Read More

Psalm 34:9-14

Proper 15B

When I wrote my sermon commentary for August 11, 2024, on the first 8 verses of Psalm 34, I confess I did not notice that the Lectionary continues in this same psalm for this week and, wonder of wonders, finishes it the following week.  Three weeks in a row in the same psalm!  Not sure…

Read More

Psalm 34:1-8

Proper 14B

Let’s say you are going through a tough season in your life.  Too much has gone wrong of late and in your head you find yourself returning again and again to that line from the hymn “Abide with Me”: “Death and decay in all around I see.”  And let’s say further that one of the…

Read More