Review of Reading the Psalms as Scripture by James M. Hamilton Jr. and Matthew Damico
By: Laurens Pruis
One only needs to look up the lyrics of the latest hits on the Spotify Top Charts to confirm that “bad worldviews produce bad art” (52). Most popular songs are simply another variation of the same song. It is a song that suckles love of the world and is set to the drumbeat of fleshly desires. After all, “we sing what we celebrate” (119). We recognize the melody of expressive individualism. Sexual desires reign supreme, and the pride of life is the highest aim. These songs reflect and reinforce who ‘we’ understand ourselves to be. It is the narrative of the negative world set to song, praising a path of life that ultimately leads to death. Yet, as with the Titanic, the orchestra continues to play in an attempt to calm the passengers, even as the ship is sinking.
The psalms, by contrast, “point us in an altogether different direction” (3). Set to the tune of God’s redemptive plan, the Psalter reflects and reinforces our identity as God’s people. It celebrates the good, the true, and the beautiful, while directing our praises toward God. In Reading the Psalms as Scripture, James M. Hamilton Jr. and Matthew Damico invite readers to appreciate the artistic beauty of the Psalter and embrace its identity-shaping role for our lives. By unlocking the treasury of the psalms, this book aims to help Christians grasp who they are as God’s people, as they sojourn as strangers through this world.
The Unified Story of the Psalter
Probably the most thought-provoking and transformative insight this book provides is that the Psalter is not just a random collection of individual poems but is a carefully arranged book that tells a story. This story is introduced by the ‘prelude’ of psalms 1 and 2. Hamilton and Damico argue that these psalms “form the thematic backbone of the entire Psalter”, as they introduce the two big ideas: “(1) Yahweh’s word and (2) Yahweh’s king, and how people respond to these two things determines everything” (22). The storyline can then be traced through the five books of the Psalter: from the life of the historical David retold in books one and two (Pss 1–41 and 42–72), the failure and collapse of the Davidic dynasty in book three (Pss 73–89), Moses’ prophetic intercession for the Davidic covenant during the exile in book four (Pss 90–106), to the return from exile, the new exodus and the future conquest of the promised king from David’s line in book five (Pss 107–150). As such, the Psalter captures Scripture’s storyline in song. It is the melody of God’s magnificent plan of redemption, culminating in the promised Messiah, Jesus, the Son of David.
For those skeptical of such ambitious claims, Hamilton and Damico’s argument is not based on wishful thinking or creative projection. One does not have to squint at the evidence to see this grand narrative. They carefully examine the text, tracking with the “clues of coherence” that the psalms themselves provide. For example, they show how superscriptions allow readers to track the life of the historical David in books one and two, and how authorial attributions and repeated phrases provide structure to collections of Psalms (e.g., Pss 15–24; 32).
Besides helping readers to track with the meta-narrative of the Psalter, this book also explains simple poetic techniques employed by the psalmists. In chapter III, we are introduced to the beauty and exegetical benefit of recognizing and understanding parallelism, chiasm and the acrostic form. In so doing, the book helps readers meditate upon and appreciate the artistic beauty of individual Psalms.
Furthermore, by reading the Psalms against the backdrop of Scripture (chapter V), considering how Messianic hope is woven typologically through the Psalter (chapter VI), and exploring how Psalms are understood by later Old and New Testament authors (chapters VII and VIII), Hamilton and Damico help us align our understanding of the psalms with that of the inspired biblical authors. A central insight in this analysis is the argument that the psalms should be read typologically. Typology is defined as “God-ordained, author-intended historical correspondence and escalation in significance between people, events and institutions across the biblical storyline” (80). This typological reading helps us understand why David can describe his own experience in terms reminiscent of earlier figures in Scripture, while simultaneously prophetically foreshadowing the experiences of the Lord Jesus. In the words of the authors,
David was not predicting the future by looking through the corridor of time and announcing what would take place. Rather, he was predicting the future by rightly understanding the past, seeing how his own experience fit with the patterns of the past, contemplating how the promises spoke into the past and his own situation, and then speaking of himself so that what he said of his own experience recalled that of Joseph and Moses, even as it also generated expectation for more of the same in the future (87).
Such a typological reading, Hamilton and Damico argue, is essential for understanding how the psalms point us to their fulfillment in Christ.
An Invitation to Sing Along
Though this book is rich with exegetical insights on the Psalter, it by no means engages only the intellect. After all, biblical theology is for discipleship. This is captured well by Hamilton’s definition of biblical theology, the driving force behind this work. Biblical theology is the attempt “to understand and embrace the way the biblical authors understood the world, themselves, life, death, and the hope that God’s promises gave to them” (4). Key words here are “understand and embrace”. The Psalter is an invitation—not merely to understand the perspective of these ancient people and admire their poetry, but to embrace their worldview for what it is: the God-inspired way of seeing the world. As Hamilton and Damico argue, “the world of the Psalter is the world around you” (54, emphasis theirs). As the Psalter sings about this world, then, it stirs the reader to sing along.
To that end, Hamilton and Damico provide practical ways to start doing so. They encourage memorization in order to “start thinking the poet’s thoughts after him” (40), suggest reading multiple psalms in a single sitting in order to see their interconnectedness, provide guidance in how to detect the use of earlier Scripture when meditating on the psalms, and explain what it looks like to read psalms in light of the Messianic hope fulfilled in Christ. Moreover, recognizing the Psalter as “a sourcebook for a faithful conception of who we are and how we ought to live in God’s world” (91–92), they demonstrate how it shapes our worship, teaches us wisdom, cultivates hope, and, above all, calls us to sing. As such, this book is an invitation to be discipled by the psalmists.
An Invitation to Dive Deeper
If there is one critique to be made, it is that this book feels like a cliff-hanger. It is like taking a bite of an exquisite dish, only to have your plate whisked away. For instance, chapter VIII, which explores the way New Testament authors engage the psalms, offers only a handful of examples. Those who love God’s word will find themselves hungry for more. However, there is no need to fret; Hamilton has written a 1300-page, 2-volume commentary on the Psalter which continues the quest.1 After handing out this little book to one of my church members, he reported back two weeks later that he had indeed ordered the full commentary set. Suffice it to say, if you want to have your appetite for the Psalter whetted, Reading the Psalms as Scripture will not disappoint.
Conclusion
“We sing what we celebrate” (119). The Psalter teaches us to celebrate the right things, orienting our hearts toward God’s promises and shaping us as the people of God. As we read, sing, meditate upon and treasure these psalms, we are transformed. We are reminded of the path of life that leads to the eternal joy that is found in God’s presence alone (Ps. 16:11). In a world that plays its own fading melody, the Psalter calls us to a better song—one that “will ring through the ages.”2
