Something exciting has been happening in Bible studies. The Enlightenment (17-19th centuries) made reason supreme. As a result, many theologians, pastors, and people looked at the Old Testament as “what happened way back then,” literal history before Christ. But the early church didn’t read the Old Testament that way. Wrote Hugh of St. Victor, “All of Divine Scripture is one book, and that one book is Christ, because all of Divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all of Divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ” (in Robert Wilken, The Church’s Bible: Isaiah, xv). That way of reading the Old Testament is coming back.
For example, Psalm 38 is the third penitential psalm. At first reading, it’s from a person who is physically very sick, and the butt of slander and schemes from everyone around him. “There is no soundness in my flesh. There is no health in my bones. My wounds stink and fester” (Psalm 38:3-5). No reason to doubt that was true way back then, but does this psalm prefigure the suffering of Christ? It sure does! “But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth. I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes. But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer” (Psalm 38:13-15).
Wander to other scriptures. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away” (Isaiah 53:7-8). “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you and example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:21-24).
Try it yourself with other psalms and Old Testament passages. Bible study becomes an adventure!