Tag: Acrostic

Psalm 111

True worship is to see God’s works and praise Him for them, to see the truth of God’s Word and praise Him for it, and, then, to go out and apply what you have seen and what you have read. Is this your daily activity of worship (Romans 12.1-2)?

Psalm 111
This is a well-constructed acrostic psalm meant to draw us into praising God. The Hebrew alphabet is presented in each line as presented in the English. The acrostic is presented with two letters for each of the first eight verses with the final two verses having three letters each, which make the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Again, try doing this with the English alphabet and you will see how difficult it is to present a cohesive truth with an acrostic. Great and marvelous is He who reigns.

  • Verse 1-Praise God! We are called to praise God when we are with those who praise Him and when we are among those who may or may not praise Him. Regardless of our station in life, we must praise the Lord.
  • Verses 2-9-Why we should praise God. He is great, glorious, wonderful, gracious, compassionate, provider, powerful, true, upright, holy, redeemer, just to name a few from this psalm.
  • Verse 10-Praise God! When we stand in awe of Him, revere Him, we are beginning to see what wisdom truly is for He is wisdom.

True worship is to see God’s works and praise Him for them, to see the truth of God’s Word and praise Him for it, and, then, to go out and apply what you have seen and what you have read. Is this your daily activity of worship (Romans 12.1-2)?

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Holy is the Lord by Chris Tomlin

Psalm 145

We should understand that praising God is not determined by whether we feel like praising Him no more than forgiving another or loving another is based on a feeling. Each one of these is based on a conscious choice to do so. We must choose to praise, forgive, and love despite what we feel or our circumstances.

Psalm 145

In this semi-acrostic psalm (it is missing the letter “nun”), we are called to praise God. We are called to make known His fame to the generation of people to follow. David entreats us to tell of God’s greatness and goodness (1-7), grace and kingdom (8-14), and desire to hear and answer our prayers (15-21). Do people understand this about God as they see your life and hear your words? After reading verse one, we should understand that praising God is not determined by whether we feel like praising Him no more than forgiving another or loving another is based on a feeling. Each one of these is based on a conscious choice to do so. We must choose to praise, forgive, and love despite what we feel or our circumstances.

After reading through this psalm, you should see God as “active, compassionate, faithful, generous, good, gracious, great, judge, king, loving, majestic, near, powerful, righteous, and watchful” (Elwell, 1995). With God being these, it is only natural that the psalm uses nine separate terms for our response: extol, bless, praise, declare, meditate, speak, utter, sing, and make known. Are you doing this?

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Acrostics

The writers of acrostic literature need to place great thought into each verse in order to achieve this genre due to the self-imposed fetter. Try it with English. Write a letter in the comment section of this post using the 26 letters of our alphabet to create a cohesive and interesting unit of literature that makes sense.

Acrostic psalms normally have 22 verses to coincide with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first type of this is seen in the combining of Psalm 9 and Psalm 10. The next in the psalter is Psalm 25. The next few are Psalm 34, Psalm 37, Psalm 111, Psalm 112, Psalm 119, and Psalm 145. Psalm 119 is a special case in that it is created around eight verses for each letter, which results in 176 verses. As an oddity, there are eight acrostic psalms, 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which, when combined, make 176, which is the number of verses in Psalm 119. The other psalms are created around one verse for each letter, which results in 22 verses. This style of writing is also evident in Proverbs 31.10-31 when the author speaks of the virtuous woman. The book of Lamentations is a series of acrostics. Chapters 1-2 and 4-5 have 22 verses while chapter 3 has 66 verses because it devotes three verses for each letter.

The writers of acrostic literature need to place great thought into each verse in order to achieve this genre due to the self-imposed fetter. Try it with English. Write a letter in the comment section of this post using the 26 letters of our alphabet to create a cohesive and interesting unit of literature that makes sense.