We should read it not as an assortment of poems and songs but as a single rhapsody on God’s covenant promises. Late in the fourth century, a man named Palladius of Galatia left his home (somewhere in ...

Editor’s note: This article was first published in the Aug. 2, 1997, issue of America, titled “Praying the Psalms: Some Notes.” For some years I have been keeping rather extensive reading notebooks.