Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook (Handbooks for Old Testament Exegesis | HOTE)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
In this valuable resource for pastors and students, celebrated scholar Mark Futato explains the nature of Hebrew poetry and the purpose of the Psalms. After outlining issues related to the proper interpretation of Israel’s songbook, he concludes with a sample of moving from interpretation to proclamation.
- Guides readers in the interpretation and preaching of the Bible
- Provides practical examples of sound exegesis
- Includes insight into the literary genres, historical context, and theological themes of biblical books
Top Highlights
“When writing poetry we group related lines together to form a strophe. A strophe is in poetry what a paragraph is in prose.” (Page 29)
“For now, we can define a line as one complete parallelistic expression of thought.” (Page 28)
“The hymns usually fall into three sections: an opening invitation to praise God, a central delineation of the praiseworthy character and actions of God, and a concluding affirmation of faith or a renewed invitation to praise and worship.” (Page 146)
“The most frequent line in Hebrew poetry is made up of two halves. Each half line is called a colon,9 so the basic line is called a bicolon.” (Page 27)
“Hebrew poetry employs the waw-relative imperfect,5 the direct-object marker, the relative pronoun, and the definite article with far less frequency than does Hebrew prose.” (Pages 25–26)
Mark D. Futato is professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary. Dr. Futato received his PhD from The Catholic University of America. He served on the translation team for the Book of Psalms in the New Living Translation. He is the author of Beginning Biblical Hebrew and The Book of Psalms in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary.