The Psalms: A Three-Thousand-Year-Old Prayer Book
What are the Psalms and why are they still read? A look at the genres of the 150 poems (lament, praise, thanks) and this mirror of human experience.
The Psalms are one of the world's oldest and most widely read prayer books, read for nearly three thousand years. The main collection consists of 150 poems and speaks not to a single subject but to the whole of human life: to joy and to grief, to trust and to anger alike. This article looks at the Psalms as a "reading experience" — at their genres, their voices and why they still feel so alive today. (If you are curious about where the name "Zebur" comes from and which book the Psalms correspond to, our What Is the Zebur (Book of Psalms)? guide answers those questions.)
A three-thousand-year-old prayer book
The Psalms are not the work of a single author or a single period. Traditionally, much of the book is associated with King David, but it contains poems from different centuries and different voices. It is therefore fitting to think of it as a "collection": a treasury of prayer and praise spread over a long span of time, passed from hand to hand, memorized and sung to music. This continuity is one of the book's most striking features — words written thousands of years ago can still be read today as if they were pouring from someone's lips in the moment.
The book also has an order of its own: the Psalms are traditionally divided into five "books," and each section closes on a note of praise. That the main collection numbers 150 has shaped many reading and worship traditions over the centuries; some communities have made a habit of reading all the psalms from beginning to end at set intervals. Some Orthodox Bibles also include Psalm 151 from the Septuagint tradition; moreover the Septuagint/Orthodox numbering is often one behind the Hebrew, so which numbering a reference follows can vary. So the Psalms are not merely a set of individual poems but a structure conceived as a whole as well.
A mirror of human experience
What makes the Psalms special is that they leave no emotion outside. One psalm praises with exuberance while the next cries out in pain; one rests in trust while another voices the lament of Psalm 13:1. Joy, fear, anger, sorrow, thanksgiving and hope — all of them appear in the same book, unadorned. This honesty is why readers have found their own voices in the Psalms for centuries: whatever state of mind you are in, you can find a psalm that voices it. This is why the Psalms are often called "a mirror of the human heart."
Another side of this honesty is this: the Psalms do not suppress difficult emotions. There are psalms that voice anger, discouragement, even the feeling of abandonment just as they are. Reading them therefore reminds many people that they do not have to push aside their own tangled feelings; every emotion, spoken honestly, can turn into a prayer or a poem.
The genres of the Psalms
Scholars divide the Psalms into a few main genres. Recognizing these genres makes it easier to understand what kind of voice you are meeting as you read:
How the poetry works: not rhyme but parallelism
The poetry of the Psalms works differently from the poetry we are used to; its basis is not so much rhyme or metre as a technique called "parallelism"; how far Hebrew poetry has rhythm or metre, and how to define it, is debated among scholars. One line states a thought; the second either repeats it in different words, completes it with a contrast, or carries it a step further. This structure has a fine consequence: even when the poetry is translated into other languages it is largely preserved, because what is carried over is not the harmony of sound but the balance of thought. This is one reason the Psalms have not lost their power across thousands of years and hundreds of languages.
Once you notice this technique, you hear the pulse of the poetry better as you read: the second line often answers the first like an echo. In some psalms a thought rises step by step through successive lines; in others it moves through contrasts such as "the righteous and the wicked" or "day and night." Recognizing this rhythm turns the Psalms from a text to be read quickly into a poem to be dwelt upon.
The Psalms as a reading experience
There is no "right" pace for reading the Psalms. Some like to read one psalm every day; others turn to a single psalm in a moment of difficulty. Because they are poems, they are open to being dwelt on, read aloud and repeated rather than passed through quickly. They offer a wide range, from psalms carrying the tears of a people in exile to morning hymns of praise; this is why they suit both personal reading and communal worship. The fact that the same text can be read on a day of joy and on a day of mourning shows the flexibility of the Psalms.
This flexibility makes the Psalms valuable both for newcomers and for those who have read them for years: the same psalm can speak to a person differently at different moments of life over the years.
If you are looking for a regular rhythm, the 30 Days in the Psalms plan offers a selected psalm each day for a month; with a selection of the most-read chapters, it lets you ease slowly into the language of the Psalms.
The Psalms through the centuries
The Psalms were not only read; they were sung, set to music and memorized. From ancient temple worship to monastic traditions, from church hymns to modern songs, they have been voiced in countless forms. Many people have found comfort in hard moments by repeating a single psalm from memory; countless composers, painters and poets have drawn inspiration from these poems. This continuity makes the Psalms not a "museum piece" but a living text still in use — a line whose roots reach back some three thousand years can find fresh meaning today on someone else's lips.
Where should you begin?
If you are reading for the first time, short and familiar psalms are a good entry: Psalm 23 for trust, Psalm 1 on the two ways, Psalm 121 for help. If you are going through a hard time, psalms on the theme of comfort; if you feel gratitude, psalms of thanksgiving may feel closer to you. You can find the chapters arranged by topic on our Comfort & Protection and Thanksgiving pages. And you can read the whole text from the Psalms page, chapter by chapter and for free. You come to know these three-thousand-year-old voices best by reading them directly.