The largest and the most widely used book of the Bible.

Facts about Psalms

• The 150 Chapters
• Every Psalm mentions God
• Composed over approximately 1000 years.
• Jesus quotes from Psalms more than from any other book.
• Written in a poetic style but not like we think now with rhymes and cadence but parallelism. Showing similarities, opposites, stairstep pattern to a climax, acrostic (begin each line with same Hebrew letter) or alphabetical arrangements.
• The main theme of Psalms is worship.
• There are 7 different types of Psalms.
  • Praise – show you how to thank God for who he is
  • History – Tell you what God has done for His people
  • Friendship – Reminds us that God loves us and tells us how we can show our love to Him.
  • Frustration/Anger – Prayers for judgment, justice, and peace on earth
  • Confession – How to talk to God about our Sins
  • Messianic – Tell us about Jesus
  • Worship – Used on special days to worship God with other people
  • 50 of the Psalms are anonymous while the other 100 were written by David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, Solomon, Moses, Heman, and Ethan, some attribute the anonymous ones to Ezra.
• One of the key verses is Psalm 19:14 “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”

This book shows that God is worthy of all praise because of who He is, what He has done, and what He will do. His goodness extends through all time and eternity. Psalms put a high value on the Word of God, His statutes, His judgments, and His promises.

In studying the Psalms, we can learn how to speak to God and how to have fellowship with Him. We can bring all our feelings to God—no matter how negative or complaining they may be—and we can rest assured that He will hear and understand. The psalmist teaches us that the most profound prayer of all is a cry for help as we find ourselves overwhelmed by life’s problems.

In this section of True Hope 4 You, we will explore the Psalms.