The Lyre and the Psalms

On class Friday, I tried to make a connection between the lyre and the psalms, but I don't think I made my argument very clear therefore I want to explain it a little here. One connection that can be made between the two is that the lyre was sometimes used orchestrally when reciting the psalms. However, this doesn't explain why the lyre is used on the cover and shows up in every psalm of the book. Another connection that can be made, and more significant I think, is looking at the psalms themselves as a lyre. In the handout that we received, it stated that David played the lyre for Saul upon request:

"Whenever the evil from God came upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand, and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him."

It was the lyre that soothed Saul, not David, although he was the one playing it. The same thing applies to the psalms, for it was the psalm and not the writer that soothed the reader. The psalms actually served and serve the same function, that of soothing, as the lyre. The reason I say this is because of the quote and some information from the introduction and class discussions. David only had to play the lyre when Saul needed it, just as the psalms were read by people of the past when they comfort in times of hardship.  In fact, many of the psalms were written in reaction to current of events such as wars, which we talked about in class, and were requested from professional psalm writers, in much the same way as David was summoned to play the lyre. 

I think that the passage we read in class may have more significance to the books structure than we may have given credit to it and I hope that I have clarified further what I was trying to say in class.