Midweek Musing- August 27, 2025

Musing 1 of 3: Psalm 111 — A to Z Praise

Until very recently when I was doing some reading and research, I had no idea that some of the Psalms were acrostic poems. If you have forgotten acrostic poems are the ones where each line begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. In the case of the Psalms, it is the Hebrew alphabet.

Of course, when we translate the Hebrew into English this acrostic format doesn’t hold. This means that we modern day readers of the text miss how the Hebrew speaking people read and understood these Psalms.

In fact, I discovered there a three of these acrostics in the Psalms. That discovery opened a door (and a new Musing series) for me, and I want to invite you to walk with me through them.

So, over the next three weeks, we’ll look at Psalms 111, 112, and 119 — all acrostic psalms — and we will discover how much richer they become when we pay attention not only to what they say, but how they say it.

Now Psalm 111 begins: “Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.” But in Hebrew, that opening is also the opening letter of the alphabet — aleph. The psalm then unfolds line by line, letter by letter, until it reaches the end of the Hebrew alphabet, tav.

Now for the ancient readers and hearers of thes Psalms, this wasn’t just the writer showing off with a poetic flourish. It was a way of saying: “From A to Z, from beginning to end, God is worthy of praise.” It was a reminder that God’s works are whole and complete, that God’s righteousness isn’t haphazard and disjointed but intentional and fully comprehensive.

Here’s where it gets important for us: you and I wouldn’t know Psalm 111 is an acrostic if you only read it in English. Even the most popular and for some beloved translations — the NRSV, the King James, the NIV — they can’t show you the alphabetic structure. They give you an ok understanding of the words, but certainly not the form.

I mention this in part because I think in an age where scholarship is under attack this is just one example of why we must study and engage in Biblical scholarship. It is why I believe we should each spend time wrestling with the text.

The Reformers, including our Presbyterian ancestors, had a rallying cry: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda — “The church reformed, always reforming.” It meant that the work of God’s Spirit is never finished, that we are always being reshaped by God’s Word. But it also applies to Scripture itself: always reforming, always offering new depths as we dig, as we listen, as we lean in, and as we learn.

The late Biblical scholar Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann reminds us: “It is in the wrestling with the text, and not in our easy answers, that God’s newness breaks through.”

That is exactly what happens when we study Psalm 111. In this Psalms structure, hidden to us unless we search, we find that this text declares that God’s praise is to be from A to Z, beginning to end. It is to be whole and complete.

But we would miss this if we didn’t study and struggle with the word to see it. And when we do engage in this work, the Word comes alive in new vibrant and fresh ways.

My hope is that we all continue to engage in seeking to understand God’s word and how it applies in our life.

By do this we will be open to understanding the wholeness of each text and also open ourselves to the wonder we can find within it. This will allow us to give thanks to the Word which is living and active here and now just as it was when it was written.

So may we continue to study and wrestle with Scripture, not settling for easy answers but leaning into the mystery and trusting that the Holy Spirit will always show us something new.

Because God - from aleph to tav, from beginning to end, is worthy of our praise.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia Amen.