1 Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.
THE FIRST TWO VERSES FOCUS ON THE God who is to be praised, and in particular on his role as the Sovereign over all creation. The language employed in these verses appears elsewhere in the Psalter in association with the reign of God.2 Given the dominance of this theme (i.e., the kingship of Yahweh) throughout the Psalter, its presence in the book’s final psalm is hardly surprising.3
Praise God in his sanctuary. Although verse 1b/c refers to spatial locations (“sanctuary,” “heavens”), its purpose is to identify the God who is to be praised. Elsewhere in the Psalter the word “sanctuary” can refer to the Jerusalem temple (cf. Pss 74:3; 134:2), and it is likely in view in Psalm 150 as well. Yet the reference to the earthly sanctuary is extended to the heavenly realm with the subsequent line. In verse 1c creation is called to praise God “in his mighty heavens [raqi‘a].” The word raqi‘a means “dome,” and according to Genesis 1 it is that which holds in place the “waters above.” In other texts (cf. Ezek 1:25; Ps 19:1) the term refers to the heavenly realm more generally—the apparent connotation in this verse. Hossfeld and Zenger explain the image being constructed in verse 1 in light of Israel’s larger tradition of the divine sanctuary:
While in pre-exilic Temple theology the Jerusalem Temple functioned as the axis mundi that gives stability to the cosmos by being the foundation of YHWH’s throne, which extends upward to the heavens (cf. Isa 61:1–4; Ps 93), post-exilic theology distinguishes between a heavenly sanctuary where YHWH dwells and an earthly sanctuary, the image of the heavenly one, to which he descends, where his Name dwells, and from which he acts.4
Psalm 150 merges the references to the two sanctuaries and, by doing so, declares that Yahweh is the one who rules over all, both in heaven and on earth.
Praise him for his acts of power [and] greatness. The reference to Yahweh’s “acts of power (geburah)” occurs elsewhere in the Psalter in reference to Yahweh’s kingship and rule over all creation (cf. Pss 65:6; 66:7; 106:2, 8). The clearest example of this association can be found in Psalm 145:11, which declares, “They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might [geburah].” The might (geburah) of Yahweh is understood only in light of his kingship. Similar associations are found in Psalm 145:4, 12.
Psalm 150 continues the association of Yahweh’s “acts of power” (geburah) and his kingship by referencing the greatness of Yahweh in verse 2b. To declare Yahweh “great,” or to refer to his greatness, is to do far more than make a subjective assessment about the nature of God. In the ancient Near East the label “great” was applied to deities in combination with their role as kings, as abundantly reflected in ancient texts, stela, and iconography. In ancient Mesopotamia, the prologue to the Lipit-Ishtar law code begins, “Anu, the great, the father of the gods.”5 In Egypt, the god Resheph is declared “the great god, lord forever, ruler of eternity and lifetime” on a stela found at Deir el-Medina.6 And the Cyrus Cylinder, so named for the Persian king, refers to Marduk explicitly as the “king of the gods” and “the great lord.”7 In the Psalter, the connection between kingship and the label “great” can be found well beyond Ps 150 (cf. Pss 95:3; 145:3; 147:5).
PSALM 150 SERVES as a fitting conclusion to the Final Hallel (Pss 146–50) and, equally so, to the entire Psalter. The psalm affirms the kingship of Yahweh, and throughout the preceding 149 psalms, references to Yahweh’s kingship have dominated the language and imagery of these poetic texts. Thus, taken together, the entire Psalter confesses that Israel’s God is not a tribal or regional deity associated with a particular group of people; instead, Israel is a particular group of people in covenant with the Divine King who stands over the cosmos. The one whose throne reaches from the earth to the heavens (and over the heavens) is the God of Israel (Ps 150:2). His commitment to his people is evident in his great acts of power (v. 3a). These acts are manifestations of his “greatness” and further evidence of his royal rule over the world. Because this is the God whom Israel worships, Psalm 150 breaks out into full-throated praise. From the beginning to end of this poem, the psalmist calls for praise.
In the first two verses of Psalm 150 the psalmist identifies the God who is the object of the praise. In verse 3–5 he turns to the means of that praise. In addition to dancing, the people are called upon to play musical praise on seven different instruments. Yet in dancing and celebrating, in blowing the shofar and clashing the cymbals, they are doing much more. Hossfeld and Zenger explain the significance of the instruments by declaring that, when “Psalm 150 begins the series of instruments that are to sound with the shofar, the coming and the presence of the God-King Yahweh are both signaled and effected.”16 The connection between liturgical music and the coming of God is clearly on display in 2 Chronicles 5:11–14, a text that references many of the instruments listed in Psalm 150:
The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. All the Levites who were musicians . . . stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
“He is good; his love endures forever.”
Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.
The people played instruments and offered up a confession—and they experienced the fullness of God’s glory on display. The psalmist invites the congregation, and even all creation, to do likewise.
In his treatment of Psalm 150, Walter Brueggemann notes the relationship between Psalms 1 and 150. The former is an apt introduction because of its emphasis on torah faithfulness. The latter psalm is a fitting conclusion because “it states the outcome of such a life under torah. Torah-keeping does arrive at obedience, yet obedience is not the goal of torah-keeping. Finally such a life arrives at unencumbered praise.”17 For Brueggemann, the “expectation of the Old Testament” is not obedience but adoration. Yet it seems that the language of Psalm 150 presses us even beyond adoration to expectation. We are called to sing, dance, and make music because we are offering up praise to the one who is and is to come. Praise is indeed grounded in adoration, but it compels us to lean forward in expectation.
MOST ANY INTRODUCTION to the book of Psalms will observe that the Psalter, from beginning to end, moves from lament to praise. The first three books of the Psalter (Pss 1–89) are comprised chiefly of lament psalms and the latter two books (Pss 90–150) of psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Regrettably, in reflecting on lament and praise, some people revert to analogs that are simple but incorrect. They equate lament with sadness and praise with happiness. In making such claims, however, they fundamentally miss the rich theological move that takes place in the Psalter. People utter a lament not simply because they are sad, but more significantly because their world is broken and disordered. A lament confesses that the world they know, their own world and the world writ large, stands in need of restoration and redemption. The psalms of praise, however, move us in a very different direction. To suggest that one who utters praise can be equated with one who is happy is to misunderstand grossly the confessional nature of praise. When we praise God, we are doing far more than simply listing all the good qualities God possesses—we are uttering a confession about the reality of that God. We are declaring that the God who is worthy of praise is the God who will redeem the brokenness of our lamenting world. We are declaring that our wailing will be turned into dancing by this God (Ps 30:11). We are declaring that the Divine King is coming still. And for that, we have no other words to utter but
Hallelujah—Praise the Lord.
1. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 605.
2. McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” 1278.
3. See James L. Mays’ discussion concerning the reign of God as the “root metaphor” for the book of Psalms in The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 12–22.
4. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 658.
5. S. N. Kramer, trans., “Lipit-Ishtar Lawcode,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. James B. Pritchard, 3rd ed. with supplement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 159.
6. Maciej M. Münnich, The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East, Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 83–84.
7. “The Cyrus Cylinder,” in The Persian Period: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period, ed. Amélie Kuhrt (London: Routledge, 2007), 71.
8. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 659.
9. Ivor H. Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 4:930–39.
10. Ibid., 660.
11. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 659.
12. See the brief overview in Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” 937.
13. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 660.
14. Ibid., 649.
15. Goldingay, Psalms 3, 749. See also Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” 935.
16. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 649
17. Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 167.
IN VERSES 3–5 THE PSALMIST DECLARES that the praise of God as the great King begins in the context of celebratory worship. Even though the instruments listed in these verses were used in temple worship, their purpose has likely been expanded in Psalm 150. As suggested below, the language and imagery used in these verses allude to “everything the biblical tradition knows about celebrating the appearance and majesty of a king, or a god-king.”8 Thus verses 3–5 do not comprise simply a call to make music before God; instead, they suggest that celebratory music and dancing are demonstrable evidences of the people’s confession concerning the kingship of Yahweh.
The trumpet. The Hebrew term for “trumpet” is shofar, a term that makes its way into the English vocabulary as well (“shofar”). Rather than being a polished brass instrument, the shofar is the horn of an animal and lacks any type of mouthpiece. Because the shofar lacks a mouthpiece to govern sound, it is not designed to serve as a melodic instrument. Instead, in the Old Testament world the shofar was simply blown to signal that certain events were impending, including war (Josh 6:4–20; Judg 3:27) and festal events such as the Day of Atonement (Lev 25:9).9 In Exodus 19 the shofar is sounded at Sinai to signal to the people the coming presence of Yahweh. In other words, the shofar served as “the acoustic signal of the theophany” of Yahweh, the Divine King.10 Similarly, the shofar was used as a signal to announce God’s royal rule (Pss 47:6; 98:6).11
The harp and lyre. Both terms refer to stringed instruments, although the word for “harp,” nebal, is more difficult to identify with precision.12 It is possible that nebal simply refers to a different type of lyre (a standing lyre versus a hand lyre). The books of Chronicles explain that the harp and lyre were the instruments played by the Levites for temple music (cf. 1 Chr 15:16). In addition to making music, these instruments were understood to have something of a “numinous effect.” The playing of the harp and lyre drove the evil spirit out of Saul (1 Sam 19:9–10), and according to 2 Chronicles 5, the harp and lyre were played prior to the arrival of the glory of Yahweh (see below, Bridging Contexts).13
Timbrel and dancing. As noted in the commentary on Psalm 149, dancing and the playing of the timbrel can function in a proleptic, anticipatory sense. In Psalms 96 and 98 the making of music and dancing signaled “the inbreaking of the universal royal reign” of Yahweh.14 Both psalms declare that Yahweh will judge the peoples of the earth and, in doing so, will restore the world to its right order under the reign of God. As similarly in Psalm 149, the call to dance and make music in Psalm 150 functions proleptically. The psalmist invites “everything that has breath” to sing and dance before the Divine King in praise of who he is and in anticipation of what he will do.
Clash of cymbals. Verse 5 mentions cymbals (tseltselim) twice: “clash of cymbals” and “resounding cymbals.” The Hebrew could also be translated as “cymbals of sound [shema]” and “cymbals of a loud blast [teru‘ah].” While the translation provided by the NIV attempts to be descriptive of their sounds, the alternative translation provided here attempts to capture their purpose. The word teru‘ah, “loud blast,” has a considerable range of meaning, but included in that range is reference to a war cry that would have been shouted prior to battle. Such a cry would have accompanied the blowing of the shofar (cf. Zeph 1:16). Elsewhere the loud “blast” or shout was used in cultic settings (Lev 23:9) to announce the great feast. Additionally, the “shout” was lifted up in celebration of the coming of the Divine King (Pss 47:5; 81:2; 95:1). Thus, as John Goldingay explains, the first reference to cymbals (“cymbals of sound”) was meant to encourage “the people to listen to what is about to happen,” and the second reference (“cymbals of a loud blast”) tells them that it is “time to shout in acclamation.”15 Understood in this way, verse 5 does not imply the loud, frenetic clanging of cymbals, as might first be imagined, but instead may reflect the liturgical use of musical instruments to guide the people toward anticipatory worship and unfettered praise of their God.
PSALM 150 SERVES as a fitting conclusion to the Final Hallel (Pss 146–50) and, equally so, to the entire Psalter. The psalm affirms the kingship of Yahweh, and throughout the preceding 149 psalms, references to Yahweh’s kingship have dominated the language and imagery of these poetic texts. Thus, taken together, the entire Psalter confesses that Israel’s God is not a tribal or regional deity associated with a particular group of people; instead, Israel is a particular group of people in covenant with the Divine King who stands over the cosmos. The one whose throne reaches from the earth to the heavens (and over the heavens) is the God of Israel (Ps 150:2). His commitment to his people is evident in his great acts of power (v. 3a). These acts are manifestations of his “greatness” and further evidence of his royal rule over the world. Because this is the God whom Israel worships, Psalm 150 breaks out into full-throated praise. From the beginning to end of this poem, the psalmist calls for praise.
In the first two verses of Psalm 150 the psalmist identifies the God who is the object of the praise. In verse 3–5 he turns to the means of that praise. In addition to dancing, the people are called upon to play musical praise on seven different instruments. Yet in dancing and celebrating, in blowing the shofar and clashing the cymbals, they are doing much more. Hossfeld and Zenger explain the significance of the instruments by declaring that, when “Psalm 150 begins the series of instruments that are to sound with the shofar, the coming and the presence of the God-King Yahweh are both signaled and effected.”16 The connection between liturgical music and the coming of God is clearly on display in 2 Chronicles 5:11–14, a text that references many of the instruments listed in Psalm 150:
The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. All the Levites who were musicians . . . stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
“He is good; his love endures forever.”
Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.
The people played instruments and offered up a confession—and they experienced the fullness of God’s glory on display. The psalmist invites the congregation, and even all creation, to do likewise.
In his treatment of Psalm 150, Walter Brueggemann notes the relationship between Psalms 1 and 150. The former is an apt introduction because of its emphasis on torah faithfulness. The latter psalm is a fitting conclusion because “it states the outcome of such a life under torah. Torah-keeping does arrive at obedience, yet obedience is not the goal of torah-keeping. Finally such a life arrives at unencumbered praise.”17 For Brueggemann, the “expectation of the Old Testament” is not obedience but adoration. Yet it seems that the language of Psalm 150 presses us even beyond adoration to expectation. We are called to sing, dance, and make music because we are offering up praise to the one who is and is to come. Praise is indeed grounded in adoration, but it compels us to lean forward in expectation.
MOST ANY INTRODUCTION to the book of Psalms will observe that the Psalter, from beginning to end, moves from lament to praise. The first three books of the Psalter (Pss 1–89) are comprised chiefly of lament psalms and the latter two books (Pss 90–150) of psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Regrettably, in reflecting on lament and praise, some people revert to analogs that are simple but incorrect. They equate lament with sadness and praise with happiness. In making such claims, however, they fundamentally miss the rich theological move that takes place in the Psalter. People utter a lament not simply because they are sad, but more significantly because their world is broken and disordered. A lament confesses that the world they know, their own world and the world writ large, stands in need of restoration and redemption. The psalms of praise, however, move us in a very different direction. To suggest that one who utters praise can be equated with one who is happy is to misunderstand grossly the confessional nature of praise. When we praise God, we are doing far more than simply listing all the good qualities God possesses—we are uttering a confession about the reality of that God. We are declaring that the God who is worthy of praise is the God who will redeem the brokenness of our lamenting world. We are declaring that our wailing will be turned into dancing by this God (Ps 30:11). We are declaring that the Divine King is coming still. And for that, we have no other words to utter but
Hallelujah—Praise the Lord.
1. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 605.
2. McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” 1278.
3. See James L. Mays’ discussion concerning the reign of God as the “root metaphor” for the book of Psalms in The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 12–22.
4. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 658.
5. S. N. Kramer, trans., “Lipit-Ishtar Lawcode,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. James B. Pritchard, 3rd ed. with supplement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 159.
6. Maciej M. Münnich, The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East, Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 83–84.
7. “The Cyrus Cylinder,” in The Persian Period: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period, ed. Amélie Kuhrt (London: Routledge, 2007), 71.
8. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 659.
9. Ivor H. Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 4:930–39.
10. Ibid., 660.
11. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 659.
12. See the brief overview in Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” 937.
13. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 660.
14. Ibid., 649.
15. Goldingay, Psalms 3, 749. See also Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” 935.
16. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 649
17. Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 167.
FOLLOWING A SERIES OF TEN IMPERATIVES exhorting the people to praise God, the psalmist concludes with a final exhortation in the form of a jussive, “Let everything that has breath [kol-neshamah] praise the LORD.” The line is meant to parallel Psalm 145:21, “Let every creature [kol-basar] praise his holy name.” The word for “breath,” neshamah, can refer to that which God breathed into humans (Gen 2:7) or, more generally, to all creation (Gen 7:22), even as kol-basar, “all flesh,” can refer to all living creatures (Gen 6:12, 17). With this final exhortation the psalmist extends the summons beyond the temple to all creation, thus inviting all creation to praise God.
PSALM 150 SERVES as a fitting conclusion to the Final Hallel (Pss 146–50) and, equally so, to the entire Psalter. The psalm affirms the kingship of Yahweh, and throughout the preceding 149 psalms, references to Yahweh’s kingship have dominated the language and imagery of these poetic texts. Thus, taken together, the entire Psalter confesses that Israel’s God is not a tribal or regional deity associated with a particular group of people; instead, Israel is a particular group of people in covenant with the Divine King who stands over the cosmos. The one whose throne reaches from the earth to the heavens (and over the heavens) is the God of Israel (Ps 150:2). His commitment to his people is evident in his great acts of power (v. 3a). These acts are manifestations of his “greatness” and further evidence of his royal rule over the world. Because this is the God whom Israel worships, Psalm 150 breaks out into full-throated praise. From the beginning to end of this poem, the psalmist calls for praise.
In the first two verses of Psalm 150 the psalmist identifies the God who is the object of the praise. In verse 3–5 he turns to the means of that praise. In addition to dancing, the people are called upon to play musical praise on seven different instruments. Yet in dancing and celebrating, in blowing the shofar and clashing the cymbals, they are doing much more. Hossfeld and Zenger explain the significance of the instruments by declaring that, when “Psalm 150 begins the series of instruments that are to sound with the shofar, the coming and the presence of the God-King Yahweh are both signaled and effected.”16 The connection between liturgical music and the coming of God is clearly on display in 2 Chronicles 5:11–14, a text that references many of the instruments listed in Psalm 150:
The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. All the Levites who were musicians . . . stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
“He is good; his love endures forever.”
Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.
The people played instruments and offered up a confession—and they experienced the fullness of God’s glory on display. The psalmist invites the congregation, and even all creation, to do likewise.
In his treatment of Psalm 150, Walter Brueggemann notes the relationship between Psalms 1 and 150. The former is an apt introduction because of its emphasis on torah faithfulness. The latter psalm is a fitting conclusion because “it states the outcome of such a life under torah. Torah-keeping does arrive at obedience, yet obedience is not the goal of torah-keeping. Finally such a life arrives at unencumbered praise.”17 For Brueggemann, the “expectation of the Old Testament” is not obedience but adoration. Yet it seems that the language of Psalm 150 presses us even beyond adoration to expectation. We are called to sing, dance, and make music because we are offering up praise to the one who is and is to come. Praise is indeed grounded in adoration, but it compels us to lean forward in expectation.
MOST ANY INTRODUCTION to the book of Psalms will observe that the Psalter, from beginning to end, moves from lament to praise. The first three books of the Psalter (Pss 1–89) are comprised chiefly of lament psalms and the latter two books (Pss 90–150) of psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Regrettably, in reflecting on lament and praise, some people revert to analogs that are simple but incorrect. They equate lament with sadness and praise with happiness. In making such claims, however, they fundamentally miss the rich theological move that takes place in the Psalter. People utter a lament not simply because they are sad, but more significantly because their world is broken and disordered. A lament confesses that the world they know, their own world and the world writ large, stands in need of restoration and redemption. The psalms of praise, however, move us in a very different direction. To suggest that one who utters praise can be equated with one who is happy is to misunderstand grossly the confessional nature of praise. When we praise God, we are doing far more than simply listing all the good qualities God possesses—we are uttering a confession about the reality of that God. We are declaring that the God who is worthy of praise is the God who will redeem the brokenness of our lamenting world. We are declaring that our wailing will be turned into dancing by this God (Ps 30:11). We are declaring that the Divine King is coming still. And for that, we have no other words to utter but
Hallelujah—Praise the Lord.
1. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 605.
2. McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” 1278.
3. See James L. Mays’ discussion concerning the reign of God as the “root metaphor” for the book of Psalms in The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 12–22.
4. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 658.
5. S. N. Kramer, trans., “Lipit-Ishtar Lawcode,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. James B. Pritchard, 3rd ed. with supplement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 159.
6. Maciej M. Münnich, The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East, Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 83–84.
7. “The Cyrus Cylinder,” in The Persian Period: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period, ed. Amélie Kuhrt (London: Routledge, 2007), 71.
8. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 659.
9. Ivor H. Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 4:930–39.
10. Ibid., 660.
11. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 659.
12. See the brief overview in Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” 937.
13. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 660.
14. Ibid., 649.
15. Goldingay, Psalms 3, 749. See also Jones, “Music and Musical Instruments,” 935.
16. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 649
17. Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 167.