teach us how to pray, for they give us a rich vocabulary. In the psalms we can proclaim to God our wonder at his greatness. We can confess to him our sins and failures and tell him of our ecstatic joys, our profound sorrows, our deepest needs, and our hidden fears. Indeed, from them we learn the language of prayer. In praying the psalms, we speak to God and God speaks to us. The Book of Psalms—also commonly known as the Psalter—is a gateway opening to us the path to prayer.
Ancient Israel’s Hymnal In Hebrew, the Book of Psalms is called Tehillim, “Praises,” a title that indeed conveys the spirit and meaning of these songs. Even when expressing anguish and pain, the psalmists still affirm God’s goodness and faithfulness and voice tremendous confidence in him. The Psalter consists of 150 compositions or prayer-poems, most of which were intended to be sung or accompanied by music. The individual psalms were written or composed over a period of more than eight hundred years, from the rise of the Davidic monarchy (1000 b.c.) to the time of the Maccabees (167 b.c.). Thus, the Book of Psalms is not the work of one single poet or composer but, rather, a collection of prayers written at different times for varying purposes. The psalms were gathered together by “editors” who divided the collection into five book units, in imitation of the Torah, the first five books of the Jewish Scriptures. Book 1: Psalms 1–41, an early compilation of Davidic hymns Book 2: Psalms 42–72, an anthology of hymns from the northern kingdom Book 3: Psalms 73–89, an assortment of songs from the Temple singers Book 4: Psalms 90–106, psalms from a royal collection Book 5: Psalms 107–150, a second and expanded Davidic royal compilation page 10 | The Psalms
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