Does the Book of Psalms as a whole tell a story?
Tradition states that the order of the Psalms is concealed. If they were arranged in their proper order, Rabbi Eleazar taught, then anyone who read them would be able to resurrect the dead and perform other miracles. But even in the received dis-arrangement there’s order. The first Book, Psalms 1 through 41, is largely personal; Book Two, which is 42 through 72, concerns the individual as part of a nation; Book Three, 73 through 89, sings the individual as a part of history; the fourth Book, 90 through 106, rehearses that history as public worship; the fifth and last is a book of praises. In your versions, the psalmist often seems alone and desperate, or recalling times he was. Alone and desperate are two different things. That each of us is ultimately on his own, even in a family or community, is part of the Psalms’ realism. Psalms are all addressed to God, which means they talk at once to what’s within, and what’s beyond. But they are always spoken by an individual. Part of the poetr
