How the Author of Hebrews Reads the Book of Psalms
The Psalms
The Psalms have always been at the heart of Christian worship. Believers sing, pray, and meditate on the words of the Psalms week in and week out, and they have done so since the foundation of the church. This frequent devotion, however, is often only partially formed. We go to the Psalms looking to find ourselves, to put words to the emotions we already feel or hope to feel. We go to the Psalms as a voice for our heart, as a counselor, as a comfort. None of this is wrong—it is part of why God gave us the Psalms—but it is incomplete.
If we look to the way the New Testament uses the Psalms, we will discover that in addition to an emotional outpouring to God, the New Testament authors find a rich theology of God in the Psalter. The Psalms, in the New Testament’s reading, are the songs of the Son. The Father speaks to the Son, and the Son speaks in return.1 It is not just that some psalms predict things about Jesus; it is that in many of the psalms, we hear the voice of Jesus speaking and the Father speaking to him. The Son speaks in his preincarnate glory. He speaks in his earthly life and suffering. He even speaks in the role of his people, taking their sin and their suffering onto himself.
Songs of the Son
Daniel Stevens
Songs of the Son examines 9 psalms highlighted in Hebrews to reveal the preincarnate glory of Christ in the Old Testament.
Paul, the unknown author of Hebrews, and Jesus himself all go to the Psalms to find Jesus, the Son of God, speaking and being spoken to. In earlier eras, the church has been more conscious of this, singing the Psalms regularly and finding the words of Jesus in their mouths even as they saw Jesus singing their own thoughts, emotions, and confessions through the Psalter. More than any other book of the Old Testament, the Psalms presents us with the unity between Christ and his people as the psalmists quickly shift between speaking of the Son in his glory, in his humility, and in his representation of his people. Theophylact, a medieval Greek bishop whose New Testament commentaries proved influential in both the Western and Eastern churches, would generalize from specific quotations and claim that Paul read entire psalms as being about Jesus. This was likely uncontroversial. This is not to say that an interpretation is right because it is old or was widely accepted; but in this case, those Scripture-saturated Christians were more sensitive to the Bible’s own way of reading itself. The Psalms are, in their fullness, the songs of the Son, the hymnbook of the greater David.
This is plain throughout the New Testament, but it is particularly poignant in the epistle to the Hebrews.
Read by the Author of Hebrews
In the book of Hebrews, we are presented with the God who speaks. He speaks to us in his word and in his Son. But this is not all we see. The Father speaks to the Son, and the Son speaks back. The author finds throughout Scripture, but particularly in the Psalms, this call and response within the Trinity. A divine conversation plays out before our eyes as the world is made, as salvation is accomplished, and as all things are made new in the Son of God. Our God is a speaking God, and before he ever spoke to us, God has always been the one who speaks within the Trinity. As this speaking God turns to that which is not himself, all creation bursts into being and is sustained by that same word. Within history, God speaks again and again, until at last that Son comes in whom God communicates perfectly and finally. By grace, Hebrews gives us glimpses of this divine conversation. To do so, the author turns to the language of the Psalms.
Within history, God speaks again and again, until at last that Son comes in whom God communicates perfectly and finally.
While any book of the New Testament could be used to help us understand God’s revelation in the Old, few books offer as extended, deep, and explicit an interaction with the Old Testament as does the epistle to the Hebrews. In particular, in this one letter, we are shown time and again how the Psalms form our understanding of Jesus: his nature, his work, and his relationships. Through paying close attention to how Hebrews reasons with the Psalms, we will see Jesus more clearly and learn to read the Psalms the apostles’ way, as the songs of the Son.
More than any other inspired writer, the author of Hebrews develops his argument by reasoning with the Scriptures of Israel and particularly with the Psalms. Far more than simply quoting the Psalms as illustrations or proof texts, the author of Hebrews composes his entire letter as a series of arguments from the Psalms and other Old Testament texts in light of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, ongoing work, and coming return.
Nowhere else do we have such a dense and sustained interaction with one book of Scripture by another. While the author weaves together texts from all of the Old Testament canon, deftly synthesizing the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings as he demonstrates the superiority of Christ, it is to the Psalms that he returns again and again. At crucial points in his argument as he explains or applies or clarifies, the author of Hebrews reaches consistently for the Psalms. Since this is the case, it is particularly helpful for us to explore how the author reads the Psalms.
It is my conviction that if we read the Psalms with the author of Hebrews, we will learn to read the Psalms for what they truly are. Their meanings will unfold as we see precisely how they witness to Christ: not only as predictions to be fulfilled but also as testimony to the very voice of God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In the voice of the psalmists, the Son reveals his nature, his mission, and his relationships with his Father and his people.
Notes:
- While this type of observation is common in the older theological tradition, in modern scholarship on Hebrews it has been most clearly argued in Madison Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The Recontextualization of Spoken Quotations of Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
This article is adapted from Songs of the Son: Reading the Psalms with the Author of Hebrews by Daniel Stevens.
Related Articles
4 Psalms You Didn’t Realize Point to Christ
Again and again I have seen a psalm come into focus when I relate it to Christ, similar to a fuzzy scene through a camera viewfinder coming into sharp focus when the lens is properly adjusted.
10 Things You Should Know about the Psalms
Bruce K. Waltke, Fred G. Zaspel
Throughout the history of the church, Psalms has been among the first books of the Bible translated and the most commonly read and memorized.
What Is Distinct about the Theology of Hebrews?
The theology of the book of Hebrews is distinct in that it draws together so many of the greatest truths revealed in God’s word to address the deepest of human needs.
Do You Long for Truth and Meaning in Life? Read Hebrews
Hebrews is a rich treasury of life-transforming truth and heart-sustaining encouragement. Do you long to know Jesus? Hebrews introduces him as the eternal Son who radiates the glory of God.
