Ethics

I believe that the Book of Psalms shows the reader a kind of grey area about ethics.  I don't think it tackles ethics right on, but rather gives people guidelines and "words of wisdom" about how to live their lives.  As seen in every Psalm reading, the main idea is to worship god.  If you worship god, and believe and honor his moral and ethical guidelines, then you will live a healthy and full life.  There are many ethical stances reflected in this book, and one of them is that one should not steal.

In Psalm 50, lines 8-9 the text reads, "I shall not take from your house a bull, nor goats from your pens."  This is referring to how the main character in this psalm will not steal from any other man.  This is interesting because it corresponds directly to one of Moses' Ten Commandments, "Thou shall not steal."  This guideline relates directly to Christianity because it comes right from one of the foundations of Christian belief.

A second reference comes from the Commandment, "Thou shall not bear false witness." This is of course talking about lying.  There are many Psalms which discuss this but one in particular is Psalm 5, "You destroy the pronouncers of lies, a man of blood and deceit the Lord loathes."  This stresses the ethics of telling truths, and not lying.  Just as the first guideline I found, this guideline refers back to the Ten Commandments, in a very catholic manner.  

Another reference to the Ten Commandments comes from Psalm 79. On lines 3-4, the psalm reads "They have spilled their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is none to bury them.  We have become a disgrace to our neighbors, scorn and contempt to all around us."  I interpret this as the Commandment "Thou shall not kill."  This quote says that by spilling the blood of Jerusalem, we have become a disgrace and scorn will come to us.  This is also noting of how god will punish us if we don't follow his laws of life.  I see many ethical stances coming from these psalms, many of them related to the teachings and interpretations of god, through other humans, such as Moses.