A manual of the book of Psalms — Context and Discussion

Luther’s Polemical Reading of the Psalms

Luther consistently interprets the Psalms as prophecies and prayers against contemporary foes. In his note on Psalm 74, he writes that the devastation depicted was wrought by “the Chaldeans, and by Antiochus Epiphanes,” but immediately adds: “We also use this Psalm against the Turk and Mahomet; and also against our Antiochus, the pope; who destroys daily the true church.” This move—collapsing biblical history into present struggle—is characteristic. The psalmist’s enemies become Luther’s enemies; the temple’s destruction becomes the desolation of true preaching under papal authority. The language is blunt: the pope “stirs up and diffuses abroad the poison of the devil and every abomination.” Such direct identification leaves no room for allegorical distance; the Psalms are weapons in an ongoing war.

The Voice of the Afflicted Church

Luther repeatedly insists that the true church is a company of “poor and afflicted people, who are burdened with sins, filled with fears, covered with infirmities, and despised by the world.” This description, drawn from the translator’s preface, echoes through the commentary. In Psalm 75, Luther contrasts the “turbulent and hardened hypocrites” who boast of their church and authority with the godly who wait on God’s judgment. The hypocrites speak arrogantly—“Who shall teach us?” “Who is Lord over us?”—while the righteous are those who “bear up and sustain this world upon their shoulders.” Luther’s diction is concrete: the wicked “lift up the horn” and speak with a “stiff neck,” while the godly are the “pillars of the earth.” The Psalms, for Luther, give voice to this embattled minority.

God’s Judgment and the Cup of Wrath

A striking image recurs in Luther’s treatment of Psalm 75: the cup of God’s wrath. The psalm itself speaks of a cup “full of mixture” whose dregs the wicked must drink. Luther seizes on this as a promise of divine retribution. He admonishes the people of God to “know and acknowledge, that there is a God who will surely judge all iniquity, if we do but wait his time.” The God who “maketh the mountains to tremble” on Sinai is the same God who “visits the wicked in his own appointed time.” Yet Luther balances judgment with preservation: God “preserves the pillars of the earth,” the righteous, even as he overthrows nations. The example of Lot and the believing Jews in Jerusalem serves as proof that God knows how to “preserve his own” amid destruction.

Translator’s Frame and Rhetorical Strategy

Henry Cole’s preface shapes how the reader approaches Luther’s commentary. Cole enumerates the “great and heavenly things” Luther opens up: the vanity of mere forms, the persecution of true disciples, the grounds of Christian hope, the blessedness of a nation governed by God’s word, and the destruction of kingdoms that oppose it. This list is itself a rhetorical structure, preparing the reader to find these themes in every psalm. Cole also emphasizes that Luther “repeatedly shews” that the true church is the despised and afflicted. The translator’s voice thus amplifies Luther’s own, creating a double-layered exhortation. The reader is not simply studying the Psalms but being drawn into a tradition of suffering and hope.

Readers approaching this manual should expect not a neutral commentary but a passionate appropriation of the Psalms for Reformation-era struggles. Luther’s voice is urgent, his targets specific, his comfort directed at the beleaguered. The work rewards those who attend to its rhetorical moves—how it collapses past and present, how it names enemies, how it insists on God’s ultimate justice. Cole’s translation, with its nineteenth-century idiom, adds another layer of historical distance and immediacy. To read this manual is to overhear a conversation across centuries about what it means to be the people of God under pressure.

Reading Luther on the Psalms reminded me of sitting with my grandfather, who underlined everything. That quiet insistence on trusting grace over outward show—it stirred the same ache I felt years ago, wrestling through A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II. — Context and Discussion. Both books made me feel less alone in doubting what I’d been told was solid ground.