Speech patterns and the Psalms

And so on to the Psalms.  

I had already started reading the Psalms in my NRSV Bible and I found the footnotes very helpful, so I will continue on with that translation for now, though the version with the cross-references in the centre of the pages is helpful too.

I have reached Psalms 9 and 10.  I read that these are said to be a set.  One indication of this is that there is no sub-heading at the beginning of chapter 10.  I have read and re-read, and I felt that there are two types of preaching typified here. Psalm 9 is gentler, positive; while Psalm 10 seems to speak of “fire and brimstone” – not that I have experienced such preaching, except in novels. 

That gave me something to wonder about (the reader may have noticed that I like to have something to wonder about that takes me off on tangents).  "Fire and brimstone” gets a mention in Psalm 11: the only one in Psalms!  Ezekiel 38:22 has it, and there are four references in Revelation.  “Brimstone” is reduced to “sulphur” in the NRSV.  The phrase seems to be another definition of hell.  And hell is obliterated in Christian Science by the idea which precedes it in the Glossary – Heaven.  Is Psalm 9 perhaps the antidote to Psalm 10?

I find in the NKJV’s cross-references that many ideas are repeated throughout the Psalms, for example, Psalm 9:8 and Psalm 13 both have: “He shall judge the world with righteousness.”  This reminds me of how we depend on those who have gone before us for our speech patterns, our verbal expressions.  

I am grateful for the composers of the Psalms, and all the writers who have shared their inspirations over the centuries.  In our enlightened day, we have the Christian Science periodicals which pass on folks’ inspirations.

Joyce Voysey