Some scholars, in reading Psalm 55, have found it to be incoherent. At first, the psalmist seems to be complaining about being persecuted by enemies. But there’s a sudden shift halfway through the psalm: now the complaint seems to be about being betrayed by a friend. There are no easy answers here, but there is much to learn about the reality of betrayal and how we might respond. 

“How long, LORD?” It’s a common complaint in the Psalms. We’re not always told what the psalmists are suffering, nor how long they’ve had to prayerfully endure, waiting for God to do something. But at some point, the psalmists have to express their anguished impatience—and they sometimes do so in a no-holds-barred fashion. Psalm 13 is a short and excellent example of this, illustration the necessary tension between praise and lament in the psalms. 

The poet who wrote Psalm 14 (and perhaps Psalm 53 as well) says that there isn’t a single person in the world who does good—but also suggests that God is present among the righteous. Is the psalmist saying that everyone is corrupt, including God’s people? Or is he only talking about the people’s enemies? Here, we’ll explore how the apostle Paul might read it, as he quotes Psalms 14 and 53.

The psalmists clearly display negative emotions in their writing, but seldom name those emotions, leaving them open to interpretation. Often, their words seem to express anger or fear, particularly with regard to their enemies. I suspect, however, that one of the main emotions expressed in Psalms 14 and 53 is disgust—disgust at the sinful and corrupt state of humankind.

It’s one thing to complain to God about our personal troubles like persecution or illness. But it’s another to see beyond these to the sorry and broken state of humanity as a whole. Psalm 14, together with its near-twin Psalm 53, laments over the foolishness and corruption of the human race.

Throughout the Psalms, the psalmists' enemies are portrayed as godless people who lie, scheme, and use violence to get their way. But the psalmists give us a vision of a world in which God, in righteousness and justice, must have the last word. And as Psalm 7 suggests, that means that sometimes the violence of the wicked will backfire and bring violence upon themselves.

In Psalm 7, the psalmist prays for an end to violence in a way that itself sounds violent. And along the way, the psalmist describes sin in a way that suggests a perversion of the way things should be. In this episode, I’ll illustrate this with a reference to…the sci-fi horror classic, Alien.  

Earlier, we saw how Psalm 51, attributed to David after he had been confronted by the prophet Nathan, was filled with words of remorse and repentance. But other psalms, like Psalm 7, protest the poet’s innocence while calling upon God to wipe out their adversaries. It’s a dangerous prayer. Is it possible to pray it with honesty and humility?

Psalms of lament often include reasons as to why God should grant the psalmist’s prayer. Psalm 6 gives two reasons. The first one is straightforward: God should do this because of his “unfailing love.” But the second is more obscure: the psalmist asks to be saved because the dead don’t praise God. How should we understand this?

God revealed himself by name to Moses at the burning bush; in English translations of the Old Testament, that name is rendered as “the LORD.” But when we read that in the Psalms, we should remember that this is the psalmist addressing God personally by name. Psalm 6 is a deeply personal plea, and it’s striking how many times the name of God is used.