1. Trading in my iPsalm Shuffle

2. When 23 doesn’t follow 22 - Are the psalms in random order?

10th October 2008

The random world of iPod Shuffle
I have managed so far to avoid purchasing an iPod. I’m very happy with my smartphone, which doubles up as a 3 megapixel camera as well as storing as more music tracks than I’m going to get to listen to in any given day. I’m not particularly taken with the gimmicks on the iPhone; I don’t lose sleep over the fact that I’m missing out on watching movies on the move. I’m quite satisfied with my life without an iProduct.

But what I really don’t get in AppleWorld is the concept of the iPod Shuffle. Launched in 2005 with the tag line ‘Life is random’, the whole concept of it was that songs would be selected for me at random - by my iPod. No thanks. Life may well feel random, but it's precisely because of that that I want to be in control of the soundtrack I'm listening to when all these events come my way!

The not so random world of the Book of Psalms
In recent weeks, I’ve been studying the Book of Psalms in a bit of a different way for me. I realised that in all the years I’ve been reading and benefiting from the Psalms, I’ve been tending to take what you might call an iPsalm Shuffle approach. I’ve gone, at random, to individual psalms without ever getting any sense of how each Psalm fits into the overall purpose of the Book of Psalms.

So, I’m on a fascinating journey of rediscovery of the Psalms. I’ve been realising for the first time that there is much to benefit from in this Book if we treat it like a book; if we work - as we would with the author of any other bible book - to understand the purposes of the editor, the main themes and how they emerge and develop as the book progresses. While not taking away from the rich content of each individual psalm, this approach adds a whole new layer of meaning and significance to the Psalter.

I’ve discovered that bible scholars over the past number of years have been studying the Book of Psalms, trying to discern its overall structure and message. I’ve been reading some key books to help me and I want to share this discovery in this blog. It’s still very much a voyage of discovery. As I find things out, I’ll share them. I imagine we’ll spend much time in individual psalms. But, underpinning that, we’ll keep in view the grand vista, the sweeping themes that emerge as we journey through the praise book of the bible.

So I’m trading in my iPsalm Shuffle. I’m setting this playlist to ‘Sequential’ and I’m hoping to experience something of the Book of Psalms as God intended us to read it.

Next time I’ll confess some of my struggles with reading the Psalter sequentially and we’ll discover some of the company I have been keeping in this struggle.

Alistair Hamill