Word Finder - psalms

definition

A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God.

definition

One of the hymns by David and others, collected into one book of the Old Testament, or a modern metrical version of such a hymn for public worship.

This is the argument in Psalms xvi.

Very important for the study of Midrashic literature are the Yalgut (gleaning) Shim`oni, on the whole Bible, the Yalqut Mekhiri, on the Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs and Job, and the Midrash ha-gadhol, 2 all of which are of uncertain but late date and preserve earlier material.

As yet our authorities do not permit us to follow them to Egypt with any certainty, but the Psalms of Solomon express the mind of one who survived to see Pompey the Great brought low.

It is probable that he was the author of the greater portion of the Compendious Book of Psalms and Spiritual Songs which contains a large number of hymns from the German.

It cannot be doubted that the three types of David, represented by the books of Samuel, of Chronicles, and the superscriptions of the Psalms, are irreconcilable, and that they represent successive developments of the original traditions.

The Hebrew titles ascribe to him seventy-three psalms; the Septuagint adds some fifteen more; and later opinion, both Jewish p and Christian, claimed for him the authorship of the whole Psalter (so the Talmud, Augustine and others).

See further Chronicles, Psalms.

They also contributed to sacred literature themselves in the composition of new psalms. Attendance to the ordinary needs of nature was entirely relegated to the hours of darkness.

Nevertheless, he was opposed to Colenso's criticism of the Bible, and replied to it in The Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms (1863), written from a conservative standpoint.

These additions are identical in object and closely related in character and diction with the Psalms of Solomon.

At the same time he was accused of "introducing into the church and service at the altar compositions of psalms and hymns not inspected or authorized by any proper judicature."

His first Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charlestown, 1737) contains five of his incomparable translations from the German, and on his return to England he published another Collection in 1738, with five more translations.

Hippolytus tells us that in his time most Christians said " the Psalms of David," and believed the whole book to be his; but this title and belief are both of Jewish origin, for in 2 Macc. ii.

With this it agrees that the titles of the psalms name no one later than Solomon, and even he is not recognized as a psalmodist by the most ancient tradition, that of the LXX., which omits him from the title of Ps.

Whatever may be the value of the titles to individual psalms, there can be no question that the tradition that the Psalter was collected by David is not historical; 1 Hippol., ed.

The passages are collected in Kimhi's preface to his commentary on the Psalms, ed.

Thus, though the psalms represent a great range of individual religious experience, they avoid such situations and expressions as are too unique to be used in acts of public devotion.

Many of the psalms are doxologies or the like, expressly written for the Temple; others are made up of extracts from older poems in a way perfectly natural in a hymn-book, but otherwise hardly intelligible.

This is not due to the authors of the individual psalms, but to an editor; for Ps.

The Elohim psalms, then, have undergone a common editorial treatment, distinguishing them from the rest of the Psalter.

But when we look at the Elohim psalms more nearly, we see that they contain two distinct elements, Davidic psalms and psalms ascribed to the Levitical choirs (sons of Korah, Asaph).

The Davidic collection as we have it splits the Levitical psalms into two groups and actually divides the Asaphic Ps.

But if we remove them we get a continuous body of Levitical Elohim psalms, or rather two collections, the first Korahitic and the second Asaphic, to which there have been added by way of appendix by a non-Elohistic editor a supplementary group of Korahite psalms and one psalm (certainly late) ascribed to David.

And finally the anonymous psalms i., ii., which as anonymous were hardly an original part of book I., may have been prefixed after the whole Psalter was completed.

Other evidence of date is to be found in the Levitical psalms of the Elohistic collection.

But against this explanation of the heading ry;p' 2 there is an almost insuperable objection; for, since both the first and second books contain psalms with this heading, it is clear that the " Chief Musician's - or Director's - Psalter " must have been in existence before either of these books; in which case, apart from the difficulty of the antiquity which we should be compelled to assign to this earliest Psalter, it is impossible to understand on what principle the first book of Psalms was formed.

It is surely as difficult to suppose that the Davidic psalms of the first book are a selection made from a greater collection of such psalms contained in the " Director's Psalter " as it is to imagine that St Mark's Gospel is an abridgment of St, Matthew's.

Now we have seen that the 5 prefixed to n-'p 'p cannot refer to authorship; we seem therefore shut up to one of two alternatives, either the psalms inscribed 's?

The interpretation of the titles here suggested removes an objection brought against the assumption of a Maccabaean date for certain psalms, which lays stress on the fact that some of them, e.g.

The earlier collections of psalms may well have been used first in synagogues,.

It is noteworthy that the psalms. quoted by the Chronicler belong to the last collection, books IV.

Since, then, the existence of separate books of psalms anterior to the present divisions of the Psalter is very doubtful, we must look for other evidences of date.

Now, both the Korahite and Asaphic groups of psalms are remarkable that they hardly contain any recognition of present sin on the part of the community of Jewish faith - though they do confess the sin of Israel in the past - but are exercised with the observation that prosperity does not follow righteousness either in the case of the individual (xlix., lxxiii.) or in that of the nation, which suffers notwithstanding its loyalty to God, or even on account thereof (xliv., lxxix.).

Again, a considerable number of these psalms (xliv., lxxiv., lxxix., lxxx.) point to an historical situation which can be very definitely realized.

Robertson Smith, are opposed to the dating of any psalms of the second collection in the Maccabaean period, that, since they are post-exilic, there is one and only one time in the Persian period to which they can be referred, viz.

On the other hand, in a collection intended for synagogue use - and the second collection of psalms is as a whole far more suitable to a synagogue than to the Temple - where there would not be a large choir and orchestra of skilled musicians, it would obviously be desirable to state whether the psalm was to be sung to a Davidic, Asaphic or Korahite tone, or to give the name of a melody appropriate to it.

In some of the following psalms there are still references to deeds of oppression and violence, but more generally Israel appears as happy under the law.

But some of the psalms refer to a time of struggle and victory.

In later times the psalms for the encaenia or feast of dedication embraced Ps.

But when we look at the psalms themselves we see that they must originally have been a hymn-book, not for the Levites, but for the laity who carne up to Jerusalem at the great pilgrimage feasts, and who themselves remembered, or their fathers had told them, the days when, as we see in Ps.

The titles which ascribe four of the pilgrimage songs to David and one to Solomon are lacking in the true LXX., and inconsistent with the contents of the psalms. Better attested, because found in the LXX.

The only possible question for the critic is whether the ascription of these psalms to David was due to the idea that he was the psalmist par excellence, to whom any poem of unknown origin was naturally ascribed, or whether we have in some at least of these titles an example of the habit so common in later Jewish literature of writing in the name of ancient worthies.

We have still to consider the two great groups of psalms ascribed to David in books I.

It is, however, probable that the title soon came to be understood of David's authorship, with the result that further notes were added indicating the situation in David's life to which the psalms appeared to be appropriate.

It is certainly not impossible that the two groups of " Davidic " psalms once formed separate collections independently compiled, and that the subscription to Ps.

It may fairly be contended therefore that the tradition that David is the author of the psalms which are assigned to him in books I.

And it is not too much to say that that view - which to some extent appears in the historical psalms of the Ehohistic Psalter - implies absolute incapacity to understand the difference between old Israel and later Judaism, and makes almost anything possible in the way of the ascription of comparatively modern pieces to ancient authors.

The second collection of " Davidic " psalms, as well as the Korahite and Asaphic psalms, have been subjected to an Elohistic redaction, for which we must find a reason if the history of the Psalter is to be written.

Both include psalms which are most naturally understood as referring to the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes and to the Maccabaean victories, and cannot therefore be separated by a long interval of time.

And further, if the Elohistic redaction was due merely to a desire to avoid pronouncing the divine name, why was not the presumably earlier collection of psalms in book I.