Immanuel Lutheran Church Study Forum

Hello all,

Thank you for the study, it is really opening our eyes on many things.

Heidi and I have tried to read each of the Psalms with an understanding of the historical time line that we think is being presented.

We are having trouble reconciling the Psalms in order of history as some seem to talk about the defeat by Nebuchadnezzar and the exile to Babylon. Aspah seems to be talking about the exile, and the destruction of the temple by fire and being burned to the ground.

Is the chronology more about WHEN Aspah WROTE psalm Tom, or is the destruction of the temple more from the ancient Assyrians?

Some clarification please?

Reid and Heidi

I don't have a good answer. I think the psalms are all undated. We have good records of when David lived and died. The editors stuck all the undated or non event-specific psalms of David at his death, although many could have been written at anytime in his life. Asaph (and his brothers, I think) were appointed by David to be the music directors for worship and they carried position that into the era of Solomon and the temple and possibly beyond. I don't know if we have any other details of Asaph's life or how/when he died. Most are thematically similar and they were written under David's administration or 'regime.' There is another cluster of psalms (including my favorite, psalm 2) that are placed after Solomon. My guess is they just lumped most of the non-David psalms after the undated Davidic psalms to make organization simpler since there isn't a verifiable timeline anyway.

Also, I'm pretty sure the number of the psalm is not correlated to the timeline.

Which psalm are you talking about specifically? I found psalm 137 talks about Babylon and sounds like its during exile, but psalm 137 doesn't name the author and it doesn't sneak into the reading list until September.

That's the one we were talking about.

We are many, many years away from the exile into Babylon, and Asaph wrote about it in his Psalm.

Just interesting that perhaps the chronology of the the year long bible might want to place that Psalm in the time frame of the exile?

Unless, it is a warning to the Israelites about the upcoming exile?

No, 137 hasn't been in the readings yet. You must be doing some extra.