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Psalms
By James L. Mays
Louisville, Westminster/ John Knox, 1994, 457 pp. $29.99.

We don't read far in this new Psalms commentary in the "Interpretation" series before we sense that we are in the hands of a master teacher in confident control of his subject. In the opening forty pages of introduction, we are provided with as deft a rendition of Psalms scholarship as we are ever likely to get. Those of us who preach and teach the Psalms realize that we are being given fresh and immediate access to the largesse of devout erudition that has been accumulating through the centuries around our basic biblical prayer book.

James Luther Mays, Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Old Testament Interpretation at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, cultivates the Psalms text much as a gardener works a garden so that it grows and blossoms. There is a style of scholarship, far too prevalent in my opinion, that reduces any text it treats to mere grammar, mere history, mere idea. Some of us who have spent our lives preaching and teaching God are plenty tired of a thorough-going "hermeneutic of suspicion" that has a way of turning its subject matter, whether books or people, into valleys of dry bones. This commentary operates from a "hermeneutic of adoration." As Mays guides us in our reading and study, the text becomes more, not less.

The dedication page sets the context in which the book was formed, but also in which it can still be read: "For the Conclave, and all the others who

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sat and studied together in the annual Seminar on Psalms at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, 1957-1994)." That is thirty seven years-thirty-seven years of sitting and studying, pondering and praying in conversations conducted in and around the text of the Psalms. As I read the book, I imagined myself into membership in that seminar, and relished the between-the-lines echoes of devout and learned conversation.

The commentary is presented in the form of expositions on each psalm in turn. After a brief introduction that identifies the psalm, numbered paragraphs deal with such matters as literary structure, biblical theology, canonical setting, and the ways in which the psalm has been used liturgically in both Israel and church. But mostly the commentary is about prayer. These psalms are not treated as religious relics to be examined and evaluated and then either discarded or venerated. Psalms are prayers, living prayers. Our awareness that in the Psalms we are dealing with men and women-ourselves! - at prayer is achieved not by overtly insisting on it, but by quietly and artfully maintaining a sense of contemporaneity. For instance, on Psalm 84, Mays writes, "God dwells in heaven, but he has a place on earth. We 'go' to God. Every visit to a temple or church or meeting of believers is in a profound sense a pilgrimage. We 'go,' not just for practical or personal reasons; we go theologically."

The expositions are concise, but adequate, two to three pages usually; but when hermeneutical or christological opportunities present themselves (Psalms 1 and 2, 22, 90, 118 are instances) there is no hesitation in seizing the opening and extending the exposition. And always there is theology-not obtrusively, calling attention to itself, but there, clarifying and connecting, providing a sense of depth and coherence. Besides serving as a most reliable guide to prayer, the commentary exhibits one of our premier biblical theologians at work. Sober exegesis and spirited theology is well wed here, maturely wed.

Whenever appropriate, the commentary brings individual psalms into congenial and unforced relations with Jesus and the gospel. In commenting on the penitential Psalm 51, Mays writes, "We are sinners; God is gracious. Jesus told of a man who went down to his house justified, whose prayer was, 'LORD, be merciful to me, a sinner' (Luke 18:13). That man's prayer was in effect the opening words of Psalm 51." In the same spirit, the concluding comment on Psalm 2 is, "When the risen Jesus announced to his assembled court, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations' (Matt. 28:18f.), we are hearing the Christian version of the grant to the Old Testament messianic king: 'Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage' (Ps. 2:8)."

And this final excellence: "Torah," writes Mays, "in Psalm 1 means instruction in the broadest sense, written tradition that is authoritative for the people of God ... Scripture to be studied, heeded, and absorbed." Mays replicates this spirit of torah in this commentary in both what and

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how he writes. The form and style conform to the content. Here knowledge, deep and wide, has been distilled into wisdom-a rare gift.

Eugene H. Peterson
Regent College
Vancouver, BC