Modern scholars have shown particular interest in trying to understand the actual life situations in which the Psalms were used in Israel's worship. This is a difficult area of study; the Bible provides us with

Temple at all or that he disapproved in principle of the worship of God being expressed through the many forms of Temple worship. In 33: 11, in a vision of restoration after the exile, the prophet says: 'You will hear people sing as they bring thank-offerings to my Temple.' Jeremiah, together with Isaiah and Ezekiel, looked forward to a cleansed and renewed worship of God in a purified, rebuilt Temple, after the end of the punishment of Israel. To Isaiah, the restoration of Jerusalem and its Temple would show God's glory to the world (Isaiah 52: 1-2 and 7-12). Ezekiel left a very detailed plan of how the Temple should be rebuilt when the Jews returned to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 40-43) and set out what his vision showed him about purified sacrificial and cultic practices. We need to understand exactly what the prophets were condemning when they spoke against the Temple, and to understand that the Temple was very important in Israel's worship from the time when Solomon built it in the middle of the tenth century B.C. until the destruction of the buildings which were standing in Jerusalem during the lifetime of Jesus. The Temple buildings which Jesus knew had been rebuilt by Herod the Great, but were totally destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 when the Jews rebelled against Roman rule. So, for a thousand years worship was offered to God on the hill of Zion which Jesus ascended, riding on a donkey, as he went towards the Temple.

We shall now look at five individual Psalms, attempting to understand the life situations which led to their composition and use.