The Mountain Is Not Yet Ascended: The King And His People As The Nations Rage in Psalms 25–33 (Part 1)—Introduction

by on July 18, 2026 | Comment

Life is full of tension between the good and the bad. Most of us would like to find a way to resolve these tensions to simplify our experience and understanding of the world. Nonetheless, usually by giving up one side of the tension, we end up with a lopsided view of life. Our blind optimism leaves people around us sensing that we are unable to recognize the true difficulties in their lives. Unflinching negativity gives the impression that we fail to see God’s blessings. Life is simply full of good and bad, and sometimes we have to live with them alongside each other without either one being crushed completely under the weight of the other.

The Psalter instructs us about how to hold tensions of life together in the Christian experience and how to bring them before the Lord. Two tensions dominate this book. First, Psalm 1 instructs us that the blessed life is for the one who keeps God’s law. Yet the psalmist often needs to confess his sin, showing that David is not the ultimate fulfillment of the king who would earn blessings of refuge for his people by his obedience to God. Psalm 2 introduces the second tension with the promise of the obedient king who would possess the nations as his heritage even though they foolishly rage and plot against the Lord and his anointed. As the Psalter unfolds, we see the psalmist’s struggle with the burden of the raging nations. The tension is that God’s promises of sure blessing and victory over raging nations do not erase the king’s lived experience of hardship, and the king’s people, in the king, endure that raging.

This essay argues that the third major section in the first book of the Psalter is Psalms 25–33, which help us pray as we feel the tension of that lived experience of hardship. It introduces this batch of psalms as teaching us about how God’s ultimate king persevered against adversaries in gospel victory by never taking his eyes off his heavenly Father and heavenly mission. In this respect, we are reminded that the Psalter is a unified book telling a story about something specific as it starts somewhere, develops, and ends somewhere. This story is about the king who is God’s Son and his victory to give refuge and blessing to his people (Ps 2:7, 11).

As part of this argument, this essay also reflects on how this section of the Psalms equips us to pray as those who belong to the king. We are able to use each psalm to give voice to our own prayers, even though they are foremost about God’s king, because we are those who belong to this king. Accordingly, these psalms also teach us the godly response to the full spectrum of experience and emotion we encounter in the Christian life.

Structural Considerations

One challenge to seeing how Psalms 25–33 relate in a unit is explaining their order and what binds them together. As O. Palmer Robertson has highlighted, book 1 of the Psalter (Psalms 3–41) is mostly about conflict, specifically between God’s king and the nations.1 Within this larger section, how do we recognize the smaller groups of psalms that go together?

Here we consider how to see the relationship among Psalms 25–33 before we relate them as a group to preceding groups of psalms. The main issue here regards the logical order and purposeful arrangement of these individual psalms. In this case, each pertains in some way to David’s conflict with enemies.

The arrangement of Psalms 25–29 seems straightforward. Psalms 25–28 were probably written around the same time in light of an undeserved accusation from enemies.2 The progression of ideas becomes clear when we reflect on the main themes. Psalm 25 is a request that God would not let his king be put to shame by his enemies. Psalm 26 is then a petition for vindication that God would show the psalmist to be in the right against his enemies.3 Psalm 27 develops David’s requests that he offered in Psalms 25 and 26 about not being put to shame and vindication by stating absolute confidence.4David’s confidence in Psalm 27 progresses in Psalm 28 into wanting judgment on those who wronged him.5 Psalm 29 develops Psalm 28:8, that the Lord is the strength of his people, by summoning heavenly beings to worship God.6 In these psalms we see with relative ease the basically linear progression of thought.

The situation becomes more complicated when we try to relate Psalms 30–33 to Psalms 25–29. The same ideas are present, but a clean-cut repetition of the order of ideas is elusive. Psalms 25–28 are personal prayers, followed by Psalm 29 as a command for heavenly beings to worship God. Psalms 30–33 then repeat the ideas of Psalms 25–28 as Psalm 33 instructs earthly beings to worship God. Then, Psalm 34 is a command to us to taste and see that God is good. Psalm 29 really stands as this collection’s central focus, emphasizing God’s glory.7

The trouble is that Psalms 30–32 reverse the order of topics, but Psalm 33 seems to leap back to a culminating summons of praise. The temptation is to suggest two parallel lines of linear thought:

Psalm 25 Psalm 26 Psalm 27 Psalm 28 Psalm 29
Unashamed Vindication Confidence Justice Call to worship
(heavenly beings)
Psalm 30 Psalm 31 Psalm 32 Psalm 33
Differentiate Confidence Forgiveness Call to worship (earthly beings)

The problem with this order is that Psalm 30 seems more related to Psalm 28, Psalm 31 to Psalm 27, and Psalm 32 to Psalm 26. In this respect, the inclination is to suggest a chiasm:

Psalm 25: Put me not to shame

Psalm 26: Vindication

Psalm 27: Confidence in victory

Psalm 28: Justice for enemies

Psalm 29: Heavenly beings should worship God for his word

Psalm 30: Differentiation from enemies

Psalm 31: Confidence in refuge

Psalm 32: Vindication in forgiveness

Psalm 33: Earthly beings should worship God for his word

The confusion here is that Psalm 33 does not parallel Psalm 25 but leaps back to an ending climax of a summons to praise.

Despite the unexpected linear culmination in Psalm 33, the basic idea of a chiasm does seem to be the more satisfying explanation for how this group hangs together. It is perhaps not all that surprising for the chiasm to end in a way that brings the matter to a linear conclusion, since we have seen several instances in previous series through the Psalms that these little groupings work together to advance the major plotline of the Psalter.

Wider Structures

How does this unified section relate to the preceding groups of Psalms 1–2, 3–14, and 15–24? Several threads could be traced or lenses applied to assess these sections, as countless connections lace together a careful arrangement of the psalms in catchwords and building ideas. What about more big-picture themes that advance the storyline of the Psalter?

One developing theme in these sections is the Lord’s mountain. In Psalm 2, God’s announcement of victory to provide refuge for his people against the raging nations is, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Ps 2:6). This decree establishes how God will reign on earth to defeat those who oppose him, righteousness, and his people. The foundational outlook of Psalms 1–2 as the introduction to the whole Psalter orient us to look for the one righteous king who will walk in God’s ways and delight in his law in such a true way as to earn the blessed life of refuge in salvation for God’s people.8

The catch is that these promises and optimistic prospects conflict with our lived experience, as the nations do rage. Psalms 3–14 form the first section of book 1, properly speaking. They follow a pattern of five prayers amid distress and then a reminder of God’s grandeur and goodness.9 Psalm 11:1 brings us back to this mountain theme:

In the Lord I take refuge;

how can you say to my soul,

Flee like a bird to your mountain?

Notably, the Lord’s mountain is the place where our souls would take refuge in God, which ties it to another major point from Psalm 2:12 about how we take refuge in God’s Son as our king. This connection shows that although God has decreed his king’s place on the holy mountain of the Lord to reign over the nations, the lived experience of the raging nations can be discouraging as we walk among distressing circumstances.

Psalms 15–24 focus on answering the main question of who shall ascend the Lord’s mountain to dwell in his blessed presence.10 Psalm 15:1 opens this group with that concern: “O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” The answer is the one who is righteous, which Psalm 19 confirms with a focus on God’s law. Psalm 24:3–4 ends this section on the same note:

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

And who shall stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart.

The whole collection tells the story of the incarnate Christ’s ministry twice in opposite order, beginning and ending with his ascension as he went up God’s mountain as the victorious king who can provide refuge to God’s people.

We should then consider Psalms 25–33 to develop this theme more fully. Indeed, Psalm 30:7 captures the contribution that this group makes to the Psalter’s storyline:

By your favor, O Lord,

you made my mountain stand strong;

you hid your face;

I was dismayed.

God’s promise of grace does make the king’s mountain stand strong, but the king still lived amid enemies who relentlessly persecuted him. We, too, live in light of how Psalms 15–24 teach us that our king has ascended God’s holy mountain, but we still face the lived experience on earth of the challenges of our pilgrimage until we join him.

Conclusion

How do we live with the tension that God’s promise is sure even as we face distress in this life? Psalms 25–33 answer that question for us. These songs help us respond to the king who has ascended God’s holy mountain to be our representative who will provide grace and blessing. They also help us to remember that we have not yet ascended the mountain and must press ahead with confidence in the Lord who will provide for us.

Psalms 25–33 drop us back into the mire of our lived experience of the nations raging. They show Christ the king battling against evil. They also instruct us how to pray in light of our victorious king who will take us to ascend God’s holy mountain with him.

Note

  1. O. Palmer Robertson, The Flow of the Psalms (P&R, 2015), 53–54.
  2. Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms (Kregel Academic Press, 2011–16), 1:608; James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms, Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Lexham Academic, 2021), 1:322.
  3. Dale Ralph Davis, In the Presence of my Enemies: Psalms 25–37 (Christian Focus, 2020), 31.
  4. Hamilton, Psalms, 1:329.
  5. Hamilton, Psalms, 1:336.
  6. Christopher Ash, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary (Crossway, 2024), 2:340.
  7. Psalms 25–33 form a chiasm with Psalm 34 in a Janus position in relation to the following collection; Hamilton, Psalms, 1:313–14.
  8. For more on this role for Psalms 1–2, see Harrison Perkins, “An Introduction to the Psalter on the Law and the Gospel: Psalms 1–2,” The Heidelblog, February 10, 2024.
  9. While I did not analyze this group of psalms as an integrated collection, I have set them in more detailed canonical context in the following series: Psalm 3, Psalm 4, Psalms 5–7, Psalm 9, Psalm 10, Psalm 11, Psalm 12, Psalm 13, Psalm 14. The series on Psalm 8 by Stephen Spinnenweber is a fine exposition by a very fine pastor.
  10. Find my series on this whole section of the Psalms here.

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

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