JUDGE THE EARTH, INHERIT THE NATIONS
Psalm 82
Psalm 82 reads as a confrontation between the living God of Israel and the deputy gods of the nations. The pagan gods have not been doing their job of establishing justice in the land, and so the psalmist pleads for God to take matters into his own hands.
WHEN GOD COMES
Psalm 101
In Psalm 101, the poet sets out to ponder the way that is blameless. This leads him immediately to recognize God's distance and his need for living in the power of God's presence. The rest of the poem is then a reflection on life lived in God's presence when God comes.
REDEEMED FROM THE FOUR CORNERS
Psalm 107
The poet calls the redeemed to give thanks, and defines the redeemed as people who have been gathered in from the east, west, north, and south. Each of these directions then gets explored as representative as certain kinds of experiences needing redemption.
ALL NATIONS PRAISE THE LORD
Psalm 117
This shortest of the psalms gives a crystal clear vision of the Bible's central hope: that all nations would turn to the God of Israel in worship.
VICTORIOUS UNDERDOG
Psalm 118
Psalm 118 anticipates a coming king whom God will deliver from death and thus bring salvation to his people. Upon Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the crowds appropriated the words of this psalm as if it were about Jesus. But Jesus turned the expectation inherent in the psalm upside down as God delivered him from death in a radically new way.