Starting on January 9 I began a series in our evening Bible Studies on the Psalms of David. Originally I had not thought much about posting links here since this is a New Testament blog, but several people have asked about a few notes, so I have decided to post a reflection after the service with links to the audio file as I have done with Acts and Galatians.
My plan in this series is to collect all of the Psalms which refer to an event in David’s life, examine the event as it appears in 1 -2 Samuel, then look at the worship which results from that situation or event. I am going to assume for the sake of the series that the “historical David” really experienced the events recorded in 1-2 Samuel and that he reflected on these events at a later time, creating a prayer intended for public worship. I am fully aware of the possibility that the Psalm Header identifying David as the author my be taken as “for David” or “dedicated to David,” implying that the psalm was written and well after David’s time, perhaps imagining what David would have said had he written then psalm. In fact, there usually legitimate textual reasons for connecting the Psalm and the even in 1-2 Samuel.
I think my approach is a legitimate way to handle the individual Psalms since even if the writer lived 200 years after David, he was creating the Psalm as if David wrote it. Within the story-world of the Psalm, David is the author. From a literary standpoint, it doesn’t matter who wrote the Psalm, the Psalm proceeds as if David is the author.