The Messages of the Psalmists
Overview
The Psalter will live as long as men are moved by the impulse to praise and pray. It anticipates and expresses the profoundest emotions of the spirit. Its simple, penetrating words have a strange power over the human heart, and, in the more solitary moods of the soul, it can touch to thoughts too deep for tears.
In The Messages of the Psalmists, John Edgar McFadyen has categorized the Psalms by subject and paraphrased them in the following chapters:
- Introduction
- Psalms of Adoration
- Psalms of Reflection
- Psalms of Thanksgiving
- Psalms in Celebration of Worship
- The Historical Psalms
- The Penitential Psalms
- The Royal Psalms
- Psalms Concerning the Universal Reign of Jehovah
- The Book of Lamentations
The arrangement is convenient, and it reveals the scope of the religious thought of the ancient Israelite when his soul was holding intercourse with God.
John Edgar McFadyen (1870–1933) was a professor of language, literature, and Old Testament theology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. His numerous works include Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, The Use of the Old Testament in the Light of Modern Knowledge, and The Wisdom Book in Modern Speech.