(Through The Bible) – Book of Psalms (Part 1): Zac Poonen (Transcript)

Full text of Zac Poonen’s teaching on ‘Book Of Psalms (Part 1)’ which is part of the popular series called Through The Bible.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Zac Poonen – Bible Teacher

We want to turn to the Book of Psalms. The Book of Psalms is more quoted in the New Testament than any other Old Testament book. Many people in the New Testament quote from the Book of Psalms. Jesus quoted from it. And at least out of the 150 Psalms here, at least 50 of them — 50 of them are quoted in the New Testament.

Some of these Psalms, we don’t know their authors. At least 70 of them were written by David, some by Asaph, some by the sons of Korah, a few by Solomon, one by Moses, one by a man called Ethan, and most of the others are unknown.

And now the Book of Psalms is divided actually into five books.

The first book is Psalm 1 to 41. The second book is Psalm 42 to 72. The third book is Psalm 73 to 89. The fourth book is from Psalm 90 to Psalm 106. And the fifth one is Psalm 107 to Psalm 150.

Now, we cannot say that each book has got a different subject. There are a number of subjects in each of the books, but many who have studied the Psalms often compare these five books of the Psalms to the first five books of Moses. And there is a certain amount of similarity, we could say, between the first book of Psalms and Genesis and the second book of Psalms and Exodus, and the third one with Leviticus, the fourth one with Numbers, and the fifth one with Deuteronomy.

For example, in the first book, you read about creation in Psalm 8, and Psalm 19 about the sun and the moon and the stars. And there is a lot of Psalms in that first book about suffering — a godly man suffering from other people who are troubling him and crying out to God for help, reminding us of how Joseph suffered in the book of Genesis, a godly man.

And the second book has a similarity to Exodus in the sense that there are a number of cases of an oppressed people mourning — Psalm 42 to 44, crying out for deliverance and the deliverance coming through Christ, the bridegroom and the king, Psalm 45 and Psalm 72.

The third book, beginning with Psalm 73, lot of Psalms from 73 to 89 deals with the temple. Asaph was one of the people appointed as a singer in the temple. And therefore it is very similar to Leviticus, which has also got to do with the temple ordinances and the laws of God.

The fourth one begins itself with Psalm 90, written by Moses in the wilderness, and therefore has some connection with the wanderings of Israel mentioned in Numbers, and about Christ reigning in Psalm 99 to 106 when the wanderings will cease.

And the last book has Deuteronomy, we can say is the second law, and the last book of the Bible has got Psalm 119, for example, which is all about the law of God and finally ending in the songs of ascent that lead up to Jerusalem, the promised land for us. Deuteronomy prepared the way for the children of Israel entering into the promised land for them, which was Canaan.