How to Read and Understand the Psalms is essentially the content of Waltke’s lectures on the Psalms at BiblicalTraining.org written up by Zaspel (p. xvii), although there is a substantial amount of additional material (p. xviii). The book offers a broad introduction to the Psalms in chapters 1–2. Chapters 3–14 first engage in various aspects of studying the Psalms and then work through the prominent genres of psalms. The final chapter (ch. 15) addresses the most recent development in Psalms scholarship: canonical shape. It is the gleanings of Waltke’s teaching on the Psalms across his career presented by Zaspel. My expectations were high.

Initially, I was slightly underwhelmed. First, although clearly based on a lifetime of serious study in the Scriptures, How to Read and Understand the Psalms does not evidence such by way of footnotes. Despite an impressive bibliography, references are sparse throughout. If the book in its entirety evidenced its research as it does in the final chapter, its usefulness would have been much enhanced. Second, at first glance it looks like a comprehensive introduction or handbook on the psalms. But on reading the content it feels more like a pseudo-commentary. Almost half the psalms are addressed with some form of commentary, but the commentary is necessarily restricted. Equally, just over half of the psalms have no commentary. Third, I fear How to Read and Understand the Psalms will not receive the wide readership it deserves. It is evidently written in a way to make scholarship accessible at the lay level, but the lay people I know are not going to read a 600-page book.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed How to Read and Understand the Psalms. Moreover, many features commend this book. To begin, Waltke offers a wonderful defense of Davidic authorship of the Psalms (pp. 38–46). Chapter 4’s emphasis on the royal orientation of the Psalter lays “a firm foundation for a Christological interpretation of the Psalms” (p. 81). The material on Hebrew poetry, and particularly parallelism, is excellent (pp. 133–43). Two of the appendices are useful reprints of material Waltke has published elsewhere. I was particularly pleased to find “A Canonical Process Approach to the Psalms” reprinted here as it can be difficult to source in its original publication. It was equally helpful to see so much of the biblical text reproduced in the discussion—and while this inevitably added to the book’s length, it ensured the reader engaged with more than merely Waltke and Zaspel’s words. Above all, the example of how to move from the Psalms to Christ was instructive and enriching. Commenting on Psalm 15, for example, the reader is pointed to Christ in this way:

But it has a canonical function also, pointing ahead to David’s greater Son who alone has perfectly satisfied these covenant requirements. He is the one in whom God is well pleased (Matt. 3:17). Nothing less than his perfect obedience and sacrifice for his people can secure the eternal inviolability in God’s presence this psalm envisions, and this perfect obedience is just what we have in union with Christ. Yet this psalm reminds us that in Christ we have not only justification, acceptance, but also transformation of life, apart from which our worship is unacceptable. (p. 429)

Praise YHWH!

For whom, then, is this book most useful? In the first instance, I think it best serves educators as it provides a rich array of examples to employ in class when teaching on various aspects of the Psalms. I will certainly refer to it in preparation for my teaching. Two further groups of people may also benefit from it: pastors and scholars. For pastors, How to Read and Understand the Psalms may prove beneficial in preparation for a sermon series on the Psalms. Similar information, however, can be gleaned in far fewer pages from Geoffrey Grogan’s Prayer, Praise and Prophecy: A Theology of the Psalms (Ross-shire: Mentor, 2009) or Mark Futato’s Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook, ed. David M. Howard (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2007), for example. Furthermore, commentaries on the Psalms will offer more depth than the commentary contained here. For scholars who desire to read something that is personally stimulating and robustly researched, this book is most suitable.

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