Quotes & Sayings About Psalms

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant.' - Psalms 25:14. — James E. Talmage

PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience. — Ambrose Bierce

Don't look to wine for your stimulation. That leads only in the direction of ruin. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Let Him exhilarate your soul and even the excess will be turned to joy in the Lord! Then as you speak to one another, the ecstasy will rise still higher. Your tongues will be loosed in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, rather than carousing. — John Crowder

Environment affects me a great deal. A lot of the songs were written after the sun went down. And I like storms, I like to stay up during a storm. I get very meditative sometimes, and this one phrase was going through my head: 'Work while the day lasts, because the night of death cometh when no man can work.' I don't recall where I heard it. I like preaching, I hear a lot of preaching, and I probably just heard it somewhere. Maybe it's in Psalms, it beats me. But it wouldn't let me go. I was, like, what does that phrase mean? But it was at the forefront of my mind, for a long period of time... — Bob Dylan

The Book of Psalms is the Bible's hymnbook. It will show you what it means to walk with God in prayer and praise. — Billy Graham

Psalms 28:7 - The LORD [is] my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life. Psalms 4:23 — David

Poor Fred - he's actually working on a typo, and somebody ought to tell him. Twice in the New Testament Jesus withered fig trees, Isaiah withered a fig tree, and there's another place in the Old Testament - I think it-s in Psalms - where a fig tree was withered. God hates figs, not fags! — Thom Hartmann

There are many themes found in the Book of Psalms that are generally not found in modern music. These include the fear of God, the righteousness and justice of God, the sovereignty of God, the judgement of God, the evil of sin, spiritual and physical warfare, the arch enemies of the Christian, the destruction of the wicked, the reality of hell, the blessedness of the church, the vicious attacks upon the church, the commandments of God, the dominion of David's son, and so on. Without the backdrop of these truths, the themes of love, mercy, faith, and salvation become largely meaningless. — Kevin Swanson

Throughout its history, the members of Shearith Israel have observed Thanksgiving by reciting in synagogue the same psalms of praise and gratitude sung by Jews all over the world on festive days like Hanukkah. — Meir Soloveichik

God your love is so precious! You
protect people in the shadow of your
wings. Psalms 36:7 — Anonymous

There is a very important connection between the Church's worldview and the Church's hymns. If your heart and mouth are filled with songs of victory, you will tend to have an eschatology of dominion; if, instead, your songs are fearful, expressing a longing for escape-or if they are weak, childish ditties-your worldview and expectations will be escapist and childish. Historically, the basic hymnbook for the Church has been the Book of Psalms. The largest book of the Bible is the Book of Psalms, and God providentially placed it right in the middle of the Bible, so that we couldn't miss it! Yet how many churches use the Psalms in musical worship? It is noteworthy that the Church's abandonment of dominion eschatology coincided with the Church's abandonment of the Psalms. — David H. Chilton

In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art. — Dylan Thomas

The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When we are in the darkness, we begin to feel like we have always been there. But it is not true. David reminds himself that God has been faithful in the past; God will be faithful again. He urges himself to put his hope in God because the morning will come. — John Eldredge

Never believe that true prayer consists in mere babbling, reciting so many psalms and vigils, saying your beads while you allow your thoughts to roam. — Johannes Tauler

This is one of the reasons we watch movies, attend recovery groups, read memoirs, and sit around campfires telling stories long after the fire has dwindled down to a few glowing embers. It's written in the Psalms that "deep calls to deep," which is what happens when you get a glimpse of what someone else has gone through or is currently in the throes of and you find yourself inextricably, mysteriously linked with that person because you have been reminded again of our common humanity and its singular source, the subsurface unity of all things that is ever before us in countless manifestations but requires eyes wide open to see it burst into view. — Rob Bell

The delightful study of the Psalms has yielded me boundless profit and ever-growing pleasure; common gratitude constrains me to communicate to others a portion of the benefit, with the prayer that it may induce them to search further for themselves. — Charles Spurgeon

Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God because by her all the emotions are swayed. That is why there are so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been bestowed on men alone to remind them that they are created to praise and magnify the Lord. — Martin Luther

I cannot see how it can be argued that one should speak in tones of reverence and awe about the alleged divine instruction-in Psalms-to grab the defenseless bodies of innocent infants and dash their brains out against the nearest rocks or walls. — Steve Allen

In another lifetime she must have owned the world, or been faithfully wed to some righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams. — Bob Dylan

The Psalms offer us a way of joining in a chorus of praise and prayer that has been going on for millennia and across all cultures. Not to try to inhabit them, while continuing to invent nonpsalmic "worship" based on our own feelings of the moment, risks being like a spoiled child who, taken to the summit of Table Mountain with the city and the ocean spread out before him, refuses to gaze at the view because he is playing with his Game Boy. — N. T. Wright

I need to be clear. I am not suggesting that the individual wealthy person is dull. Rather I am suggesting that a social order bent on producing wealth as an end in itself cannot avoid producing people whose souls are superficial and whose daily lives are captured by sentimentalities. They ask questions like, "Why does a good god let bad things happen to good people?" Such a people cannot imagine what kind of people would write and sing the Psalms. — Stanley Hauerwas

The Psalms draw a hard and fast distinction between the righteous and the wicked, something that is not appreciated in a period of religious syncretism. — Kevin Swanson

John Calvin called the Book of Psalms 'an anatomy of all parts of the soul.' All the range of emotions are expressed; the Psalms weave an emotional fabric for the human soul. These inspired lyrics take us by the hand and train us in proper emotion. They lead us to emotional maturity. — Kevin Swanson

Aaron reached into his jacket pocket and took out his Bible, a gift from his father, Captain Benjamin K. Matthews, on the the day he had ridden off to war. Aaron opened to the Psalms, intending to read, but his eyes were heavy and closed against his will. O death, where is thy sting? Pastor Blackwell had told him that death had no power over him, but he sure felt that sting now. O grave, where is thy victory? How much longer would it be? Just four miles from home. Would Mama ever know?
Shiloh, the place of peace. Good ground to die on. Holy ground. — Karl A. Bacon

Truth Is As Plan As The Inspired Words David Wrote In The Psalms: A future Awaits For All Those Who Seek Peace..But All EVIL Will Eventually Be Destroyed; There Will Be No Future For The Wicked. — Timothy Pina

Whenever I read the psalms, I feel like I am eavesdropping on a saint having a personal conversation with God. — R.C. Sproul

The psalms, like no other literature, lift us to a position where we can commune with God, capturing a sense of the greatness of his kingdom and a sense of what living with him for eternity will be like. — Gordon Fee

Life can be a painful struggle and filled with mysteries, so whatever one needs to do to get through the day to find happiness and to bring some resolution to those nagging mysteries ... well ... who am I to argue? As declared in Psalms 46:1: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. — Michael Shermer

The Psalms are much more than poetry. Many of them bear the title, Maskil, or teaching psalm. They are thus intended to instruct the mind as well as to encourage the heart. They are designed not only to reflect a mood, but to show us also how to handle that mood; how to escape from depression or how to balance exaltation with wisdom. — Ray Stedman

Our lives can be filled with a series of trials. Some would say "You're either in one, coming out of one or one is on the way." During these times a flood of emotions can creep into our lives like a dark unrelenting storm. I'm comforted by what God says. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalms 30:5)" So please take heart, this too shall pass. ~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

Praise and worship shouldn't be a few hour church service entertainment. It should be our heartbeat and should never depart our lips. 'Let us come before him with thanks giving and extol him with music and song' (Psalms 95:2). — Euginia Herlihy

I find in the Psalms much the same range of mood and expression as I perceive within my own life of prayer. — Reverend Malcolm Boyd

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. — Anonymous

But Mama was so mad at the insurance company that even though he used words like "flaming assholes" she didn't realize till later that he was cussing: she said she thought he was quoting the Psalms. — David James Duncan

Holy is the dish and drain, the soap and sink, and the cup and plate and the warm wool socks, and the cold white tile, showerheads and good dry towelsand frying eggs sound like psalms, with bits of salt measured in my palm. It's all a part of a sacrament, as holy as a day is spent ... — Carrie Newcomer

The Offices rerooted me in a tradition where, monk or not, I would always be at home. From long ago I knew the power of their repetition, the incantatory force of the Psalms. But they had an added power now. As a kid, the psalmist (or psalmists) had seemed remote to me, the Psalms long prayers which sometimes rose to great poetry but often had simply to be endured. For a middle-aged man, the psalmists' moods and feelings came alive. One of the voices sounded a lot like a modern New Yorker, me or people I knew: a manic-depressive type A personality sometimes up, more often down, sometimes resigned, more often pissed off, railing about his sneaky enemies and feckless friends, always bitching to the Lord about the rotten hand he'd been dealt. That good old changelessness. — Tony Hendra

The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole. — Arno Hintjens

the real message of the Gospels is not a mere description of a state of affairs, but rather an invitation to taste and see how good is the Lord!, to "come and behold the wondrous deeds of God" (Psalms 46:8). — Ruben L.F. Habito

The books I liked became a Bible from which I drew advice and support; I copied out long passages from them; I memorized new canticles and new litanies, psalms, proverbs, and prophecies, and I sanctified every incident in my life by the recital of these sacred texts. My emotions, my tears, and my hopes were no less sincere on account of that; the words and the cadences, the lines and the verses were not aids to make believe: but they rescued from silent oblivion all those intimate adventures of the spirit that I couldn't speak to anyone about; they created a kind of communion between myself and those twin souls which existed somewhere out of reach; instead of living out my small private existence, I was participating in a great spiritual epic. — Simone De Beauvoir

Jesus prays the Psalms of Israel with his disciples: this element is fundamental for understanding the figure of Jesus, but also for understanding the Psalms themselves, which in him could be said to acquire a new subject, a new mode of presence, and an extension beyond Israel into universality. — Pope Benedict XVI

The Psalms are not only poetry in themselves; they are to be the cause of poetry in those who sing them, together and individually. They are God's gifts to us so that we can be shaped as his gift to the world. — N. T. Wright

By praying "his" prayers - the Psalms of the Old Testament, which Jesus prayed - we effectively piggyback on them all the way to heaven. — Eric Metaxas

On earth, however, God doesn't prescribe a happy life. Look at some of the Psalms. They are written by people of great faith, yet they run the emotional gamut. One even ends with "darkness is my closest friend" (Ps. 88:18). When your emotions feel muted or always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is not "How can I figure out what I have done wrong?" but it is, "Where do I turn - or, to whom do I turn - when I am depressed? — Edward T. Welch

They [the Puritans] disallowed of the cathedral mode of worship; of singing their prayers, and of the antiphone or chanting of the Psalms by turns, which the ecclesiastical commissioners in King Edward the Sixth's time advised the laying aside. Nor did they approve of musical instruments, as trumpets, organs, etc. — Daniel Neal

Someone remarked that the newspapers or the news magazines are the same as the psalms except that the names changed in the stories. Maybe you can't understand the psalms without understanding the newspaper and the other way around. — Corita Kent

The greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife. — Robert Duvall

We're all psalm singers. And everybody's got two psalms in them. That song they sing out loud, for others to hear. And the song they sing only to themselves. — Randy Thornhorn

If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy. And what about our problems? When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems. — Richard J. Foster

We live in a world that is beyond our control, and life is in a constant flux of change. So we have a decision to make: keep trying to control a storm that is not going to go away or start learning how to live within the rain. — Glenn Pemberton

And in some sense, God also hates sinners. You might ask, "What happened to 'God hates the sin and loves the sinner'?" Well, the Bible happened to it. One psalmist said to God, "The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong."3 Fourteen times in the first fifty psalms we see similar descriptions of God's hatred toward sinners, his wrath toward liars, and so on. In the chapter in the gospel of John where we find one of the most famous verses concerning God's love, we also find one of the most neglected verses concerning God's wrath.4 — David Platt

Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Psalms 5:8 Very bitter is the enmity of the world against the people of Christ. Men will forgive a thousand faults in others, but they will magnify the most trivial offence in the followers of Jesus. Instead of vainly regretting this, let us turn it to account, and since so many are watching for our halting, let this be a special motive for walking very carefully before God. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Psalms 46

10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. — Anonymous

The imprecatory psalms are for us to pray, who are not victims. Indeed, if we do not want to pray them, it raises questions about the shallowness of our own spirituality, theology and ethics. Do we not want to see wrongdoers put down and punished? One — John E. Goldingay

But this is one of the rewards of reading the Old Testament regularly. You keep on discovering more and more what a tissue of quotations from it the New Testament is; how constantly our Lord repeated, reinforced, continued, refined, and sublimated, the Judaic ethics, how very seldom He introduced a novelty...The Light which has lightened every man from the beginning may shine more clearly but cannot change. The Origin cannot suddenly start being, in the popular sense of the word, "original". — C.S. Lewis

In Job and the Psalms we shall find more sublime ideas, more elevated language, than in any of the heathen versifiers of Greece or Rome. — Isaac Watts

Do you read your Bible?" "Sometimes." "With pleasure? Are you fond of it?" "I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah." "And the Psalms? I hope you like them?" "No, sir. — Charlotte Bronte

The Psalms show us what healthy spiritual life looks like. You name everything that's happening inside of you. You give it language and expression, You articulate exactly what the desolation feels like. If you don't drag it up and give it words, then it's buried down in your being somewhere. And it will come out in other ways. Unhealthy, destructive ways. You'll keep it bottled up. And you'll be miserable. — Rob Bell

Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life. — St. Jerome

the Psalms speak to all seasons of our souls. — Tremper Longman III

This rose of pearl-coated infinity transforms the diseased slums of a broken heart into a palace made of psalms and gold. — Aberjhani

That which was published in the Law, the prophets, and psalms before "God was manifested in flesh"
looks forward to Jesus the Christ; what was published after Christ's ascension looks back to Him as "the Lord God of Israel" who "hath visited and redeemed His people" (Luke 1:68). — Tim Liwanag

Dedication Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Pray and Live Chapter 3 - At the Threshold of God's Time Chapter 4 - Where God Dwells Chapter 5 - All the Trees of the Forest Sing for Joy Chapter 6 - At Home in the Psalms Afterword - My Life with the Psalms Acknowledgments Scripture Index About the Author Also by N. T. Wright Credits Copyright About the Publisher Chapter 1 — N. T. Wright

Psalms 25:18 Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. — Anonymous

I knew all of the childhood prayers I uttered on my knees at the side of my bed. Many years of Sunday-school attendance had etched certain Psalms and rote prayers into the fibers of my brain. However, somewhere deep inside of me, I had the secret belief that I did not know how to pray, and that frightened me. — Iyanla Vanzant

Monastic people have long known--and I've experienced it in a small way myself--that the communal reciting, chanting, and singing of the psalms brings a unique sense of wholeness and order to their day, and even establishes the rhythm of their lives. — Kathleen Norris

He was praying the Psalms, as he'd done in times past, with the enemies of King David translated into his own enemies of fear and remorse and self-loathing, which, in their legions, had become as armies of darkness. — Jan Karon

Psalms 118

25 Save now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.

26 Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD: we have blessed you out of the house of the LORD.

27 God is the LORD, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.

28 Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, I will exalt thee.

29 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. — Anonymous

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. — Anonymous

Edin Viso's poetry and prose bear the obvious marks of dark drama-of a soul variously splayed apart and cinched back together...This is a book of psalms-at once craggy and rough as the Balkan landscape, and sublime as sunrise on the Aegean Sea. There are calluses on the palms, dried blood on the knuckles, and dirt under the fingernails of these pieces. And there is grace...Edin is a poet who knows the value of a blanket, a single orange, a moment shared...He is a man who is unafraid, and who does, in the pages before you, "take off his skin and dance in his bones.". — Stephen T. Berg

We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal. — J.I. Packer

The Psalms wrap nouns and verbs around our pain better than any other book. — Joni Eareckson Tada

It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect (teleia) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day. — Henry David Thoreau

When it comes to salvation, we are all fugitives. Psalm 119:176 — Felix Wantang

For what St. Augustine said is true, that one can sing nothing worthy of God save what one has received from Him. Wherefore though we look far and wide we will find no better songs nor songs more suitable to that purpose than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit made and imparted to him. Thus, singing them we may be sure that our words come from God just as if He were to sing in us for His own exaltation. Wherefore, Chrysostom exhorts men, women, and children alike to get used to singing them, so as through this act of meditation to become as one with the choir of angels. — William Romaine

Beware of singing divine psalms for an ordinary recreation, as do men of impure spirits, who sing holy psalms intermingled with profane ballads: They are God's word: take them not in thy mouth in vain. — Lewis Bayly

But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). God and His Word, in essence or essential nature, is truth (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalms 5:5; 33:4; 105:5; 119:151, 160; John 1:17; 14:6; 16:13). Many Christians consider all truth as God's truth, yet they will look to other sources beyond the Bible. However, the only reliable source of truth is God's inerrant Word, the Bible (Psalm 18:30; John 8:31-32; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). All other sources are fallible and cannot be used as the measure for truth. — Paul Smith

Joy explodes throughout the book of Psalms like fireworks, and is the most potent anti-missile defense system there is. — Lynn Austin

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. (Psalms 116:1-2 NIV) — Anonymous

Whoever would be wise should read the Proverbs; whoever would be holy should read the Psalms. — Richard Steele

Knox's daily devotional routine was built around the Psalms, and throughout his life he followed the liturgical practice, acquired as a child in Haddington's church, of moving through the entire psalter every month. — Jane Dawson

It was not unusual to be called Son of God in ancient Judaism. God calls David his son: "today I have begotten you" (Psalms 2:7). He even calls Israel his "first-born son" (Exodus 4:22). But in every case, Son of God is meant as a title, not a description. Paul's view of Jesus as the literal son of God is without precedence in second Temple Judaism. — Reza Aslan

But is it not absurd to think of the Word as in any sense incarnate before the flesh existed, before Jesus was born? So that it could be the incarnate Word who spoke to Moses on the mountain or who cried out to his Father in many psalms? Or is it not absurd to think of the writing and collecting and reading and interpreting of the New Testament as this same Word's actual speech to us, who, as the angel said, is not here but risen? — Ellen F. Davis

Come, let us sing a psalm, and drive away the devil. — Martin Luther

What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues. — Bono

A social order bent on producing wealth as an end in itself cannot avoid the creation of a people whose souls are superficial and whose daily life is captured by sentimentalities. They will ask questions like "why does a good God let bad things happen to good people " such people cannot imagine that a people once existed who produced and sang the psalms. If we learn to say "God " we will do so with the prayer "My God my God why have you forsaken me? — Stanley Hauerwas

It has been said by church historians that in those periods of Christian history where renewal, revival, and awakening took place and the church was at its strongest, that coincidental with those periods in church history, there was a strong focus on the psalms in the life of God's people-particularly in the worship of God's people. — R.C. Sproul

The Psalms, the anthology of the hymns of Israel, are still used by Christians. — Kenneth Scott Latourette

Poetic language is singularly appropriate for recounting the life of the king who is traditionally accepted as the author of the poetic psalms, some of which are included in the narrative. — Robert Pinsky

Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word. — Emma Lazarus

Weak hearts will be strengthened, and drooping saints will be revived as they listen to our "songs of deliverance." Their doubts and fears will be rebuked, as we teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There are only two rules. One is E. M. Forster's guide to Alexandria; the best way to know Alexandria is to wander aimlessly. The second is from the Psalms; grin like a dog and run about through the city. — Jan Morris

Religious music is by far the greatest music of the ages. What is there to compare-in rhythmic beauty, poetic sublimity, and inspired teachings-with the Psalms of David? — Bruce R. McConkie

I pray the breviary every morning. I like to pray with the psalms. Then, later, I celebrate Mass. I pray the Rosary. What I really prefer is adoration in the evening, even when I get distracted and think of other things, or even fall asleep praying. In the evening then, between seven and eight o'clock, I stay in front of the Blessed Sacrament for an hour in adoration. But I pray mentally even when I am waiting at the dentist or at other times of the day. — Pope Francis

What is the historical context in which the Psalter was compiled? What difference do the psalm titles make to canonical interpretation? How does the total canonical context affect our understanding and appropriation of the Psalms? — Anonymous

The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not "the Word of God" in the sense that every passage in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God. — C.S. Lewis

My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. — Dorothy Day

Psalms 46:10 tells us to "Be Still and Know that I am God." — Rhonda Jones

Romans gave Luther his theology, but it was the Psalms that gave him his thunder. — Steven J. Lawson