to perceive the various oracles, laws, proverbs, and stories that later came to be written and collected as the Scriptures)? With what expectations and preunderstandings do we approach the Scriptures, if we come trained by the worship of the psalms? Much could be said in answer to that question, but four observations stand out. First, and perhaps most obviously, the psalms present the Scriptures as both a vast diversity and a coherent unity. On the one hand, much of the time, the language