Lewis gets to the heart of the matter, April 27, 2006
Thankfully this is not one of those books on the Psalms that will tell you that this or that Psalm is a lament or a cultic liturgy or an ode to someone bent on the succession of the Davidic monarchy. Lewis gets to the heart of matters, raising and answering questions that concern intelligent believers. For instance, what are we as Christians to make of imprecated Psalms? Lewis considers not only those who write such Psalms, but also what has happened to them in life to get them to that point. Why so much talk about God's judgment? Lewis corrects the erroneous impression that judgment in the Psalms refers to God's punishment of evil doers. The primary sense is of a plaintiff pleading with God (the Judge) to pass judgment in their favor. What of the apparent self-righteousness of some of the Psalmists? Lewis says that all the talk about the Law is no Pharisaism but a the delight in Order: "The Order of the Divine mind, embodied in the Divine Law is beautiful." (53) Lewis' favorite is Psalm 19 and his writes about it in such a way as to make it come alive. The searching cleansing sun, is the searching cleansing Law. He identifies the key phrase as "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof" (19.6) That, for Lewis, describes the Law: :"luminous, severe, disinfectant, exultant (57). Finally, I must mention the surprising chapter on the subject of praise. Lewis writes that praise is not a matter of telling God how wonderful he is, but a way of expressing gratitude for what we care deeply about. Praise is something all human beings naturally do: we praise things and people that we value. When we praise them we complete our enjoyment of them through our words: "praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment" (81). Despite the fact that Lewis was not a theologian, he had a keener grasp of comparative religion, and Hebraic concepts than many biblical scholars. This is a book written by someone who has spent years praying the Psalms, not by someone who treats the Psalms as if they were an insect under a microscope.
