Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 177:707 (Jul 2020)
Article: How Reading The Psalms Christologically Resembles "Where’s Waldo?" And How It Does Not
Author: Daniel J. Estes

BSac 177:707 (July-September 2020) p. 269

How Reading The Psalms Christologically Resembles Where’s Waldo? And How It Does Not

Daniel J. Estes

Daniel J. Estes is Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Cedarville University, Cedarville, Ohio.

Abstract

In the book of Psalms there are some clear appearances of Christ, as well as glimpses of Christ when some psalms are applied to him in the New Testament. The psalms are an integral part of God’s plan of redemption that culminates in Christ. However, insisting upon seeing Christ in all the psalms can at times obscure the intention of the original psalmist writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which is to evoke the worship of the Lord by his people across the full range of their experiences.

Introduction

When my children were young, they were delighted by the Where’s Waldo? books, called Where’s Wally in the UK. In these books, drawings by Martin Handford place Waldo in his trademark red-and-white sweater and glasses somewhere on each page, and the challenge for the reader is to find him, sometimes in plain sight, but more often hidden and less obvious. As the series developed, the pictures became increasingly complex, making the challenge sometimes nearly impossible, yet the careful observer was rewarded by successfully finding Waldo.

The title of this article asserts that “reading the Psalms Christologically resembles Where’s Waldo?,” yet in certain ways it does not. Using this analogy as a lens, I hope to bring into focus interpretive issues relating to Christologically reading the Psalter.

BSac 177:707 (July-September 2020) p. 270

Viewpoints On How The Psalms Relate To Christ

In the history of interpretation of the Psalms generally, and among evangelical scholars specifically, viewpoints differ about how the Psalms relate to Christ, and therefore the extent to which they can legitimately be read Christologically. Toward one end of the spectrum is Goldingay, who differentiates between genuine messianic prophecies such as Isaiah 11:1–9 and Jeremiah 23:5–6, and psalms such as Psalm 2, which he claims do not contain messianic prophecies, because “they talk not about a coming king but about a present king.”1 He continues, “In applying them to Jesus under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, then, the NT is using them to illumine the significance of Jesus, but using them in a way that sees new significance in them. It is not working with the meaning the Holy Spirit originally gave ...