Psalm 9: The Past For The Sake Of The Present (Part 1)—Context

by on July 27, 2024 | Comment

Most history teachers at some point in their tenure face that deflating student question: Why does this matter? In other words, what use is it to study the past? Is it not the present that is the most important thing? Why should we think that those people and events from way back when have any relevance for life today?

One helpful answer is that history often repeats itself. I am frequently struck in pastoral ministry how many doctrinal problems I see pop up that have some parallel to an older debate. I am also struck by how many of our cultural challenges today seem to have an analogous counterpart in history too. So, history can helpfully arm us to deal more effectively with issues in the present.

Knowing our history arms us for the present in more ways than just knowing how things went wrong in the past. It also helps by reminding us of when and how things went well. Remembering the past can give us confidence, grounding, and knowhow for facing what stands before us today.

Psalm 9 reminds us that we should remember the past in order to have confidence as we pray in the present. It calls us to consider what the Lord has done for us before so that we might be reminded of all his faithfulness. Recalling those previous blessings ought to stir our souls to greater assurance that God will hear us again as we seek after him for things we need now.

This article considers how Psalm 9 fits into the Psalter. We need to see what role Psalm 9 has in the unfolding development of the book of Psalms in order to discern its point and how it contributes to the message of the book as a whole. That understanding will in turn help us find encouragement from the psalm itself.

Approaches to the Psalter

The older approach to studying the Psalter was to focus exclusively on the form of individual psalms. That method emphasized discerning the genre of particular psalms and left us with little more to consider than that point alone. This method keeps us mainly in the details without a sense of the bigger picture. Thankfully, more recent scholarship has emphasized the Psalter’s canonical shape.

This newer approach takes account of how editors, under the Spirit’s inspiration, carefully arranged the Psalms into the order we find them now. Although God inspired each psalm so that it has usefulness as it stands alone, God also oversaw the compilation of the Psalms as a book so that the entire collection would contribute holistically to holy Scripture. We still do not have a whole picture of the Psalter’s arrangement, but insights on this front are growing and helping us to see the Psalms as a book that starts somewhere, goes somewhere, and ends somewhere. Our increasing sense of this reality should shape how we interact with the Psalms.

Psalm 9 fits into a particular place in the growing point of the Psalter. It brings a unique contribution to a book that is building a case for a specific lesson that God’s people need to learn.

The Overall Message of the Psalms

As is well known, Psalms 1–2 form the introduction to the whole Psalter. I have argued in a previous article that the combination of these two psalms shows that one purpose of the Psalter is to instruct us about the law and the gospel. 1

Psalm 1 draws our focus on the need to learn the path of blessedness. In other words, the law is the standard that distinguishes the conduct of the righteous from the ways of the wicked. The psalms of repentance reveal the law’s use to drive us to Christ. Psalm 119 portrays the third use of the law—that God’s people, saved by grace alone, can now delight in the law as the guide to the faithful and fruitful life.

Psalm 2 identifies God’s appointed king as a central theme of the Psalms. This identification serves at least two purposes in studying the Psalms. First, it reveals God’s eternal decree that his king will ultimately be victorious. Despite how the nations rage against God’s appointed king, the sovereign Lord has determined that his king will triumph in the end. This promise is an anchor point for the whole Psalter because the historical leadup to the true fulfillment of that decree is long and at times seemingly at odds with that guarantee.

Second, the identification of God’s king as a central theme in the Psalms focuses the whole Psalter on the gospel. Psalm 2 closes with this promise about those who turn to the king: “Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps 2:12). This promise rings throughout the Psalms; those who fall short of that ideal life of Psalm 1 will have an advocate who has led that life for them sufficiently to ensure their good standing with God. Although believers still seek to walk that path of righteousness, we do so now because we belong to the king who has made us right with God.

Despite the messianic king’s guaranteed eventual victory, the nations will rage until the end of this age. Psalm 9 recounts the king’s response when the nations rage against him, his words to the Lord as he thinks about those raging nations and as he asks God to act in answer to them.

The Narrower Context

Psalms 3–14 form a specific, smaller unit within Book I (Psalms 1–41) of the Psalms. Psalm 3 takes a shocking turn from the strong optimism of Psalm 2. The point of that contrast is to show that, despite the guaranteed victory of God’s king, our experience of the nations raging against God, his king, and his people is still often quite painful. We need that anchor point of Psalm 2 throughout this life because the world will often appear at odds with God’s promise. We must ground ourselves in God’s decree to overcome wickedness through his messianic king or we will lose hope when we look at the world around us.

The unit of Psalms 3–14 is arranged into two parallel sets of six psalms. In Psalms 3–7, we have five prayers of the king as he faces distress while the nations rage against him. Psalm 8 then reflects on the human condition to reorient us to God’s glory as the overarching reality to our existence. In Psalms 9–14, we have another set of five prayers followed by a concluding reflection on the human condition.2

Psalm 9 fits in this smaller unit with a distinct contribution. Psalm 8 was the gospel refresher to lift our heads as we saw the unceasing distress mounting throughout Psalms 3–7. Psalm 9 bridges the Psalter’s message back to prayer without abandoning that note of hope. In verses 1–12, Psalm 9 recounts God’s faithfulness in the past as a reminder of how he has in fact come through to defeat the nations previously. Then in verses 13–20 is David’s prayer that God would act against the nations again as they rage anew. This balances that reinvigorated perspective with the need to keep praying as the nations continue to rage against God and his king.

Conclusion

This article aimed to set Psalm 9 in its canonical context so that we might more clearly see why God gave us this psalm in its location within the developing message of the Psalter. It teaches us to pray with an eye kept on that anchor point of Psalm 2—that God has guaranteed the victory for his king. We need to pray in light of that hope even as we look to him to address the present ways that the nations are raging. The next installments will look more closely at Psalm 9 itself to reflect on its meaning and how to apply it.

Notes

  1. Harrison Perkins, “An Introduction To The Psalter On The Law And The Gospel: Psalms 1–2,” Heidelblog, February 10, 2024.
  2. Bruce K. Waltke and Fred G. Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 480–81.

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

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