Jesus on Every Page: 10 Simple Ways to Seek and Find Christ in the Old Testament

by David P. Murray

The Proverbs don’t just land in the middle of the Old Testament like some unexpected aliens from outer space. No, they grow out of Exodus 20.

If the Ten Commandments are like ten blinding spotlights, the proverbs are like hundreds of burning lasers, targeting our sins more specifically and painfully.

It is to show us that we are no-gooders, that there is only one Good, and that is God.

“There is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.”9

It’s also fair to say although some psalms begin with a historical situation in David’s life, they eventually escalate way above a possible historical interpretation.15

In summary, then, Jesus is in the Psalms, but He is in them in different ways.

The book of Psalms was His hymnbook during His earthly life.

“Jesus came to a people who knew how to pray, and to sing. The rich heritage of worship in Israel was part of

the very fabric and furniture of the mind of Jesus. So it is not at all surprising to find him often quoting from the Ps...

The Psalms, therefore, give us an accurate and intimate insight into the soul of Jesus.

But in all the Psalms (and only in the Psalms) we have words of Christ to sing with him.

We find Jesus in the Psalms by hearing his voice leading our praise in every line. . . . Historically, the Psalms were treasured by the Church because they are the hymns of Jesus. The time has come for us to recover a passion for singing, not just about Jesus—but singing with him.29

But God has placed the Song right in the middle of thirty-eight Christ-centered books, and that might just give us a clue to what it’s about.

Of course not. Why would the King write a whole book about Himself and then throw in a chapter that had nothing to do with Him? As Jesus Himself said, He is to be found in all the Scriptures.30

I want to establish that since the entire Old Testament is about Jesus, so is the Song.

I’m afraid that many people have been turned off reading the Song in a Christ-centered way because so many interpreters become lost in the details.

He went on to politely express his horror at the way we were approaching ancient Eastern literature with a modern Western mind-set.

He said that such love songs were very common in his culture and that they were to be primarily interpreted by the emotions and impressions they evoke rather than by dissecting every word with dictionaries, lexicons, grammars, and so on. These songs, he said, were primarily to provoke and stimulate emotions rather than be subjected to cold, logical analysis.