Excerpt From The Interview
“The third of five kinds of psalm is a grateful praise psalm. This is normally called Thanksgiving. It’s the best we can do. Thanksgiving is a little bit of a misnomer to me because I can say to you, ‘Michael, thank you. Thank you for having me.’ But that would not be Thanksgiving in the Old Testament. It would be rather that I would tell everybody else how wonderful Michael Easley is and what a wonderful program he has. These thanksgiving psalms are a confession about what God has done for the psalmist in answering his prayer. We call those thanksgiving psalms, I prefer to call them psalms of grateful praise.
When you read the Psalms, you see they are the victories of Christ. They’re the deliverance of Christ as identification with Him. Because it’s the king, that’s why they can go back and forth. ‘I do not trust in my bow, but you have brought us down in defeat.’ And it goes back and forth between the I and the we, because it’s the army. Once you understand that, it will revolutionize for the Christian the reading of the Psalter.”
About Dr. Bruce Waltke
Prof. Bruce Waltke is a preeminent Old Testament scholar, holding doctorates from Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.D.), Harvard University (Ph.D.), and Houghton College (D. Litt.). His teaching appointments at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College, Westminster Theological Seminary, Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando and currently at Knox Theological Seminary, have earned him a reputation as a master teacher with a pastoral heart.
In addition to serving on the translation committee of the NIV and TNIV and as editor of the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, Waltke has written commentaries on Genesis, Proverbs, and Micah. His latest publication, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical and Thematic Approach, earned the Christian Book Award in 2007. Although retired and living in Seattle, WA with wife Elaine he still takes time to travel to teach courses at nearby Regent College and Knox Theological Seminary in Florida.
Links Mentioned:
How to Read and Understand The Psalms by Dr. Bruce Waltke
Watch the highlights and full version of this interview on our Youtube channel.
For more inContext interviews, click here.