What Are the Psalms? The Bible's Prayer Book
One hundred and fifty songs for every human weather — praise, lament, trust, and thanksgiving. An introduction.
The Psalms are the Bible’s prayer book and hymnal — 150 Hebrew poems of praise, lament, thanksgiving, trust, and royal hope, about half attributed to David. They give words to every spiritual weather, from “The LORD is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1) to “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” — words Jesus himself prayed.
Every weather has a psalm
The Psalter’s genius is its range: exuberant praise (Psalm 100), black-night lament (Psalm 88), guilt and confession (Psalm 51), quiet trust (Psalm 131), fury seeking justice, gratitude counting benefits. Nothing human is off-limits before God — the Psalms authorise honesty. Generations have discovered Athanasius’ secret: other Scripture speaks to us; the Psalms speak for us.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
Five books, many voices
The 150 are arranged in five books — a deliberate echo of the five books of Moses: Torah for the heart. David leads the credits (73 psalms), joined by Asaph, the sons of Korah, Solomon, Ethan, and Moses (Psalm 90, the oldest). The collection is itself shaped: it opens with the two ways of Psalm 1, descends through every valley, and ends with five psalms of unbroken hallelujah — the whole journey bends toward praise.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
Jesus' own songbook
No book is quoted more in the New Testament. Jesus sang the psalms at the last supper, answered temptation and teachers from them, and died with them on his lips — Psalm 22’s opening cry, Psalm 31’s “into thine hand I commit my spirit.” The church inherited the practice: speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. To pray the Psalms is to pray in Jesus’ mother tongue.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Quick answers
- Who wrote the Psalms?
- Many hands across a millennium: David most (73 bear his name), plus Asaph, the sons of Korah, Solomon, Heman, Ethan, and Moses — with about fifty anonymous, including the towering Psalm 119.
- What are the main types of psalms?
- Praise, lament (the most numerous — Scripture’s permission to grieve aloud), thanksgiving, trust, royal and messianic, wisdom, and pilgrimage songs (the Songs of Degrees, 120–134).
- Which psalms should a beginner start with?
- Psalm 23 (trust), 51 (confession), 91 (protection), 100 (praise), 103 (gratitude), 121 (help), and 139 (known by God) — a week’s worth that many keep for life.
