The Book of Psalms is Israel’s hymnbook; indeed many are addressed ‘to the Chief Musician’ – they were intended to be sung. 

The psalms are poetry (laced with some very strong theology). But unlike western poetry, which has a parallelism of sound (rhyme) or tempo (rhythm), Hebrew poetry has a parallelism of ideas – which can be

Comparative (“He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun” Ps 37 v 6);

Contrastive (“For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” Ps 1 v 6); or

Completive (“The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart; the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes” Ps 19 v 8). 

We need to learn to meditate on the psalms, so that they become gateways into the presence of God…