I think it might be helpful to know what kinds of helpful insights you can get from reading a commentary on the psalms. I find that I can "go on autopilot" when reading the psalms, especially in a liturgical setting. If you pray daily morning or evening prayer in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, you will get a large dose of psalmody into your head and heart over the years. It will generally be in the lovely but idiosyncratic translation that is unique to the Book of Common Prayer 1979. Psalms in the BCP are laid out with each verse in two parts, enabling choral singing in a monastic setting, with two groups sitting, one on each side, responding antiphonally. That scheme means that sometimes the number of verses and the versification itself are unique to the BCP. If you read a commentary reference to the Psalms, you will follow the argument better if you read from the Bible than from the BCP.
Psalm 80 has a repeating refrain (I guess that's a redundant redundancy, isn't it?): "Restore us, O God..."
The commentary that accompanies the NRSV New Oxford Annotated Bible (4th edition) (NOAB) offers some historical perspective. References to "Joseph" and to "Ephraim, and Benjamin and Manasseh"in "vv.1-7 ask God to aid the northern tribes suffering from the effects of God's anger, vv.8-13 recall Israel's founding event (the exodus and settlement of Canaan) called into question by the enemies' triumph, and vv.12-19 pray that God act now. The psalm imagines the founding event as the transplanting of a vine to Canaan" (p. 840).
In the Gospels, we read parables of Jesus that feature vineyards. This psalm gives us some insight in understanding the richness of Jesus' allusions in those parables.
Psalm 81 is a great contrast to the psalm it follows. It is full of joy at the beginning, inviting the community--and remember! psalms were first sung and remembered in communal worship--to praise God using song, shouts of joy, and musical instruments of all kinds: strings, percussion, and brass.
It is a psalm that invites the community to remember its past. God speaks: "I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I rescued you..."
But God goes on to remind the people that they have a long history of ignoring God's voice.
The final verse (81:16) reads:
I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."
Several of my children attended a camp called Honey Rock. I love this verse because I love the earthiness of home-made sourdough wheat bread and honey. What a beautiful marriage of sour and sweet! God giving us something delicious, nourishing, and wonderful!
Psalm 82 The NOAB points out that, as in Psalm 29 and "to a lesser extent Pss 58 and 75, the setting is the assembly of the heavenly beings, who were thought to rule the nations of the earth under God's supervision (cf Deut 32:8-9). This psalm tells how these beings lost their authority by ruling unjustly, and how God took over their rule. The psalm shares mythic and historical material with Gen 6:1-2; Isa 14.12-21; and Ezek 28.1-19" (NOAB 842).
Notice how The major complaint that God has here is that these people don't take seriously the needs of "the weak and the needy" the "lowly and the destitute" (vss.3-4).
C.S. Lewis, in Reflections on the Psalms has a wonderful commentary on the concept of justice in the Psalms:
It was...with great surprise that I first noticed how the Psalmists talk about the judgments of God. They talk like this; "O let the nations rejoice and be glad, for thou shalt judge the folk righteously" (67,4) ...Judgement is apparently an occasion of universal rejoicing. People ask for it: "Judge me, O Lord my God, according to thy righteousness" (35,24).
The reason for this soon becomes very plain. The ancient Jews, like ourselves, think of God's judgement in terms of an earthly court of justice. The difference is that the Christian pictures the case to be tried as a criminal case with himself in the dock; the Jew pictures it as a civil case with himself as the plaintiff. the one hopes for acquittal, or rather for pardon; the other hopes for a resounding triumph with heavy damages.
...Notice what [Our Lord] means by "an unjust judge". ...The Unjust Judge in the parable is quite a different character. There is no danger of appearing in his court against your will: the difficulty is the opposite--to get into it. It is clearly a civil action. The poor woman (Luke 18,1-5) has had her little strip of land--room for a pigsty or a hen-run--taken away from her by a richer and more powerful neighbor (nowadays it would be Town-Planners of some other "Body"). And she knows she has a perfectly watertight case. If once she could get it into court and have it tried by the laws of the land, she would be bound to get that strip back. But no one will listen to her, she can't get it tried. No wonder she is anxious for "judgement".
...We need not therefore be surprised if the Psalms, and the Prophets, are full of the longing for judgement, and regard the announcement that "judgement" is coming as good news. Hundreds and thousands of people who have been stripped of all they possess and who have the right entirely on their side will at last be heard. Of course they are not afraid of judgement. They know their case is unanswerable--if only it could be heard. When God comes to judge, at last it will.
Dozens of passages make the point clear. ...When God accuses earthly judges of "wrong judgement", He follows it up by telling them to see that the poor "have right" (82,2,3).
The "just" judge, then, is primarily he who rights a wrong in a civil case..." (pp. 9-12)
Lewis's words are helpful as we read the next psalm (Psalm 83), as well. This one is full of allusions to events described in 1 Samuel (which we're reading simultaneously with this psalm) and in the book of Judges.
Just for the beauty of it, look at the language that the psalmist uses to ask God to bring vengeance down on his enemies (83:13ff).
O my God, make them like whirling dust,
like chaff before the wind.
As fire consumes the forest,
as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
so pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane.
Psalm 84 has been set to music many times. Here is one of the loveliest, by Brahms, from his Requiem: "How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts"
Psalm 85 Another psalm that asks God to "restore us"! (God has done it in the past--v.1--now the psalmist asks God to "restore us again" in v. 4.)
The request in v. 7 is for God to show his hesed, translated "steadfast love" or "mercy." It is one of the chief OT words to describe how God acts towards his people.
I have often thought that v. 10 expresses a longing that I, too, have for characteristics that seldom are found in the same person:
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
The LORD will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
The BCP translates: "Mercy and truth have met..."
Interesting, because the word for truth in Hebrew is related to the word for faithfulness, for dependability, for trustworthiness.
Psalm 86 This psalm contains the characteristic self-description that the LORD uses in each of the major divisions of the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Prophets, and Writings (Psalms are in the "Writings" category.) The Psalmist prays:
But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (86:15).
It's a word pair that we also saw in Psalm 85 above.
Psalm 87 A psalm about Jerusalem. When a friend of mine was celebrating a New Ministry in a parish, the preacher preached on the last two verses of this psalm:
The LORD will record as he enrolls the peoples,
These also were born there."
The singers and the dancers will say,
"All my fresh springs are in you."
My friend has a beautiful singing voice, and a love of the arts. The preacher prayed that she would continue to find the LORD to be the source of all her creativity and refreshment.
Psalm 88 A classic psalm of lament. Just so it doesn't distract, we might need a definition of "Abaddon" (v. 11). We might get a hint from its position in the poem apposite "the grave". The notes of the NOAB are helpful: "(literally "destruction") another name for the abode of the dead" (NOAB, p. 846). It is rare in that it ends in greater despair than it begins with.
Psalm 89 This is a prayer asking God to be faithful to David. It alludes to the way God makes himself known in nature, and makes reference to "Rahab" the primeval chaos monster. (What would it be like to have the name "Rahab"? Are they actually from the same Hebrew root? If so, would it license a person to be somewhat wild and out of control?) God overpowers that monster.
God promises to act in hesed and faithfulness. Yet by the end of the psalm, the psalmist is asking the perennial question: "How long, O LORD?" Evidence of the events of the psalmist's day make it difficult to remember that God is continuing to care, continuing in control. The final petition is:
"Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted..." Remember! Remember!
The final blessing stated in v. 52 is not formally part of the psalm, but is rather a formal marker of the 3rd of the 5 "books" of the Psalms. There are five "books" or divisions in the psalms, likely to mirror the 5 books of the Torah
Psalm 90 If you read your psalms in the BCP, you miss the attributions at the beginnings of the psalms. They often don't add much to devotional reading, but interestingly, this psalm's attribution reads: "A prayer of Moses, the man of God."
The description of timelessness in v.2 is really remarkable. The contrast between our finite human lives and timescale and God's eternity is important to this psalm (vss.2-10). The conclusion: "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart" (v. 12).
And then again comes that question, HOW LONG, O LORD!?!?!?
And the psalmist begs God to show hesed and compassion.
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