C. Hassell Bullock, professor of Hebrew Bible emeritus at Wheaton College, has given us a revised and updated edition of his work on Psalms for Baker’s Encountering Biblical Studies series. Since his first edition (2001), Bullock has continued to research the Psalms, having produced a two-volume commentary on them for Baker’s Teach the Text series, Psalms 1–72 (2015) and Psalms 73–150 (2017). This has no doubt deepened and enriched his analysis here. This work is designed as a college/seminary textbook. Sidebars discuss contemporary issues as well as matters of theology and ethics. Chapter outlines orient students’ reading, and chapter objectives explain each chapter’s goals. To help with nomenclature, Bullock provides a glossary of key terms (pp. 249–54). Study questions conclude each chapter. The text’s ideas are profusely illustrated with tables, photographs, and ancient artwork from Mesopotamia and Egypt.The book divides into three parts: three chapters on “Encountering the Literary and Hermeneutical Dimensions of the Psalms,” two chapters on “Encountering Psalms as Worship and Historical Reflection,” and nine chapters on “Encountering Psalms as Literary and Theological Types.”Chapter 1 deals with general introductory matters, such as whether the psalms with David’s name in the superscript imply David’s authorship or something else. Bullock states the arguments concisely and non-polemically before suggesting his own unconventional solution. Bullock, discussing Pss 138–45 in the postexilic Book 5 of the Psalter with the ambiguous superscript “to/for/by David,” concludes that “some of these psalms may be Davidic in origin, but others are probably adapted for the purpose of introducing David’s voice as the final voice of hope before the community and summoning all believers to the ultimate praise of Yahweh in Psalms 146–150” (p. 7). This chapter also discusses musical, historical and other aspects of the titles. Chapter 2 briefly discusses poetic parallelism—limiting the discussion to synonymous and antithetical parallelism—and it discusses how to read psalms from the author’s perspective, from the perspective of editors of the psalms, from the NT’s perspective, from the modern student’s personal perspective, and from the perspective of critical scholarship. Chapter 3 discusses current thinking of the shaping of the Psalms as five books, editorial seams within the books, and subcollections of psalms within books (e.g, Korah psalms, psalms of ascent).Chapter 4 (“Psalms in Worship and Faith”) argues that we relate to psalms because we share humanness with the psalmists who composed them. This chapter also discusses how Christ relates to the psalms and the NT use of psalms. Bullock affirms Bonhoeffer’s notion of psalms, that “David prayed them, and Christ became them” or better “David could pray them because Christ became them” (p. 75), thus combining in psalms humanness and divinity. He goes on to describe the use of psalms in Jewish and Christian worship. Chapter 5 (“Encountering Theology and History in the Psalms”) discusses how themes of creation, the patriarchal promises, the saving act of the exodus, God’s revelation at Sinai, God’s judgments on Israel in the wilderness, God’s fulfillment of the patriarchal land promise in the conquest of Canaan, and God’s acts into the monarchy and Babylonian exile weave their way into various psalms.The largest unit in this book, part 3, categorizes the psalms by genres, giving an exhaustive list of examples, with successive chapters on psalms of praise (ch. 6), laments (ch. 7), psalms of thanksgiving (ch. 8), psalms of trust (ch. 9), royal psalms (ch. 10), kingship of Yahweh psalms (ch. 11), wisdom psalms (ch. 12), psalms of torah (ch. 13), and imprecatory psalms (ch. 14). With psalms of praise, Bullock follows Westermann’s distinction between psalms of declarative praise and psalms of descriptive praise and describes reasons the Psalms praise God (e.g., for God’s creation, for his acts in history). Bullock divides laments into many subcategories (for sickness, for anguish, for persecution and false accusation, community laments). Psalms of thanksgiving, whether of the individual or the community, praise God for deliverance from crisis and remind us of the need for “specific and public acts of gratitude” (p. 153, citing James Mays). Psalms of trust, most famously Ps 23, express a deep faith in God and his providence, even if a crisis is not yet subsided. Psalms of trust, while not formally laments, are what Bullock calls internal laments in which a crisis has left a mark on the psalmist’s memory. Royal psalms (Pss 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 89, 101, 110, 132, 144) focus on the historical king and kingdom of Israel that is rooted in the past but that the NT writers and Jesus himself rightly saw as forming a basis for messianic hope and eschatology culminating in Jesus Christ. Kingship psalms affirm “The lord reigns,” with an emphasis on God’s justice and sovereignty. With Franz Delitzsch and John Calvin, they can be taken to anticipate the coming kingdom of God. Wisdom psalms reflect on life and life’s problems and teach a way of life, while torah psalms (Pss 1, 19, 119) focus on God’s torah (law) and the individual’s spirituality. The final chapter deals with how we are to understand the harsh imprecations (curses) in the Psalms. Bullock discusses various approaches to them, from the condemnation of them as an inferior ethic and noninspired expressions of human vindictiveness to attempts to justify them as hyperbole and calls for justice and the hatred of sin.One can quibble with some elements of Bullock’s work. For example, I find Delitzsch’s treatment of royal/messianic psalms preferable to Bullock’s somewhat murky connection between these psalms and Jesus Christ, and with John H. Eaton (Kingship and the Psalms, Studies in Biblical Theology 32 [London: SCM, 1975]) I would expand royal psalms beyond the list compiled by Hermann Gunkel. Nonetheless, Bullock has produced a useful, thorough-yet-concise textbook introduction to the Psalms that will no doubt be widely adopted in courses on the book of Psalms.