The True and Greater Sweet-Psalmist of Israel

Almost every page of Frederick Krummacher’s The Suffering Savior is dripping with profound meditations about the events of the final days of our Lord Jesus leading to His death on the cross. It is one of those rare works that you can read repeatedly and continue to glean theological riches that you somehow missed when you read it before. As I’ve started reading through it again, I happened across one such rich observation that I somehow missed before.

In the introductory section of his chapter “The Walk to Gethsemane,” Krummacher reflected on the importance of Jesus singing the Psalms  (probably the Hallel) with his disciples in the upper room prior to heading to Gethsemane. What is most striking about Krummacher’s explanation of the significance of Jesus singing the Psalms is that he noted that the Psalms were about Jesus and that they reflect Jesus’ own view of Scripture. In a very real sense we can say that Jesus, not David, is the true and greater sweet-Psalmist of Israel (2 Sam. 23:1). Krummacher wrote:

We find the Lord of glory singing with his followers. O, if David, who wrote those Psalms, could have supposed that they would experience the high honor of being sung by the gracious lips of him who was the supreme object of his songs and the sole hope of his life, he would have let the pen drop in joyful astonishment from his hand. But what a seal does the Lord impress upon those Psalms, as the real effusions o the Holy Spirit, by applying them to himself, while thus singing them in the most solemn hour of his earthly course! Would he have sung them, especially at that moment, if they had not contained the pure words of God? The Lord’s singing them, therefore, is a powerful proof of the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.1

If you have time, I would also encourage you to read through “The Songs of the Son: Seeing Christ in the Psalms”

Additionally, you can download a free Kindle.Mobi and EPUB version of The Suffering Savior over at Monergism.

1. Frederick Krummacher The Suffering Savior  (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1859) pp. 83-84