What Did the Divines Mean By Psalms?

 By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog:

Published February 4, 2023

The question has been raised as to just what the divines might have meant by the noun “psalms” in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648).1 WCF 21.5 says,

5. The reading of the Scriptures with godly fear, the sound preaching and conscionable hearing of the Word, in obedience unto God, with understanding, faith, and reverence, singing of psalms with grace in the heart; as also, the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments instituted by Christ, are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God: beside religious oaths, vows, solemn fastings, and thanksgivings upon special occasions, which are, in their several times and seasons, to be used in an holy and religious manner.

It has been suggested that psalms here might include something other than the 150 canonical psalms, that it might include extra canonical songs. This is an interesting question worthy of investigation and an interesting exercise in confessional hermeneutics. How should we seek to interpret our confessional documents?

As we interpret all other documents, Scripture included, we begin by trying to ascertain what the word psalm meant in context. The most obvious sense would seem to be a reference to the 150 canonical psalms in Holy Scripture. The church had sung the Psalms since the earliest post-apostolic days. Though the psalms are not often sung today and in some cases they are not easy to find in song books, prior to the second half of the 20th century, the psalms were widely sung. The patristic church sang the psalms. The medieval church sang the psalms, even if that singing was largely sequestered to monks and monastic choirs, and the Reformers sang the 150 canonical psalms.

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