PSALMS

mizmSr, of which it is the tr. in the titles of individual Psalms (e.g. 3'). The Jewish title for the whole book was 'Book of Praises': this referred directly to the subject-matter of the poems, and less directly than the Greek title to their musical character. Both titles take into account the majority of the poems rather than the whole; not all the Psalms were sung to musical accompaniment, and not all of them consist of praise.

The Psalter contains, according to the division of the Hebrew text followed by EV, 150 poems; the Greek version contains 151", but the last of these is described as 'outside the number.* This number does not exactly correspond with the number of different poems. On the one hand, there are one or two dear cases, and there may be others less clear, of a single Psalm having been wrongly divided into two; thus Psalms 9 and 10 are shown by the continuance of the acrostic scheme through the latter Psalm (cf . Acrostic, and see Expositor, Sept. 1906, pp. 233-253) to have once formed, as they still do in the Greek version, a single poem. So Pss 42. 43 are shown by the recurrence of the same refrain (425- n 436) to be one poem. But the Greek version is scarcely true to the original in making two distinct Psalms out of each of the Psalms numbered 116 and 147 respectively in the Hebrew text and E V. Probably in a larger number of cases, owing to an opposite fortune, two poems originally distinct have been joined together under a single number. A clear instance of this kind is Ps 108, which consists of two Psalms or fragments of Psalms (viz. S*?'-" 60^-^2). Among the more generally suspected instances of the same kind are Pss 19 (=w. 1-6+T-ii) 24 (=w. i-6+'-i«) 27 (=w. i-ii-l-'-") and 36 (=i-*-i-fi-i2). A very much larger number of such instances are inferred byDr.Briggs in his Commentary (/CO.

The Psalter does not contain quite the whole of what survives of Jewish literature of this type. A few psalms not included in the Psalter are found in other books: see, e.g., 1 S 2'-'°, Is 12. SS^"-", Hab 3. And we have another important, though much smaller, collection of psalms in the •Psalms of Solomon' written about B.C. 63. These, with such NT psalms as Lk l«-55. 68-79^^ are important as showing that the period of psalm composition extended beyond the close of the OT.

2. Origin and history, — (1) Beceptioninlo theCanon. — The history of the Psalms and the Psalter is obscure; and many conclusions with regard to it rest, and for lack of other independent evidence must rest, on previous conclusions as to the origin and literary history of other Hebrew and Jewish literature. Conclusive external evi-dence for the existence of the Psalter in its present extent does not carry us very far back beyond the close of the Jewish Canon (see Canon of OT); but the mode of allusion to the Psalms in the NT renders it very unlikely that the book was still open to additions in the 1st cent. A.D.; and the fact that none of the 'Psalms of Solomon' (see § 1, end) gained admission, and that this collection by its title perhaps presupposes the canonical ' Psalms of David,' renders it probable that the Psalter was complete, and not open to further additions, some time before B.C. 63. Other evidence (cf. Hastings' DB iv. 147), such as that derived from the substantial agreement of the Greek version with the Hebrew text, does not carry the proof for the existence of the Psalter in its present extent much further. The net result is that, if not impossible, it is unsafe, to place the completion of the Psalter much below B.C. 100.

(2) Previous history. — Behind that date lies a long history; for the Psalter represents the conclusion of a complex literary growth or development. We may note, first, two things that prove this general fact, that the Psalter is neither a simple edition of the poems of a single man or a single age, nor the first collection of its kind. (1) At the close of Ps 72 stand the words: 'The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.' This is intelligible if the remark once closed an independent collection, and was taken over with the collection by the compiler of a larger work. But apart from some such hypothesis as this it is not intelligible; for the remark is not true of the Psalter as we have it; the prayers of David are not ended, other Psalms actually entitled 'prayers' and described as 'of David' are Pss 86 and 142; and several subsequent Psalms assigned to David are.

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PSALMS

without being so entitled, actually prayers. (2) The same Psalm is repeated in different parts of the Psalter with slight textual or editorial variations: thus Ps 14 = Ps 53; 4013-17 = 70; 108 = 57'-"-|-605-i2. xhe Psalter, then, was composed by drawing on, and in some cases incor-porating, earlier collections of Psalms.

Our next questions are: How many collections earlier than the Psalter can be traced? How far can the methods of the editor who drew on or combined these earlier collections be discerned? The first clue to the first question may be found in the titles referring to persons and their distribution; the more significant features of this distribution may be shown thus —

1. Pss 1-2 are without title.

2. Pss 3-41 are all entitled 'of David,' except Ps 10, which is a continuation of Ps 9 (see above), and Ps 33.

3. Pss 42-49 are all entitled 'of the sons of Korah,' except Ps 43, which is a continuation of Ps 42 (see above).

4. Ps 50 is entitled 'of Asaph.'

5. Pss 51-72 are all entitled ' of David,' except Pss 66. 67. 71. 72.

6. Pss 73-83 are all entitled 'of Asaph.

7. Of Pss 84-89, four (Pss 84. 85. 87. 88) are entitled 'of the'sons of Korah,' one (Ps 86) 'of David,' and one (Ps 69) 'of Ethan.'

8. Pss 120-134 are all entitled ' Songs (so rather than A song' RV) of Ascent.'

The remaining 46 Psalms (90-119, 135-150) are either without title, or the titles are not the same in any consider-able number of consecutive Psalms (but note 108-110 and 138-145 entitled 'of David').

Now, if it stood by itself, the statement at the close of Ps 72 could be explained by a single process — the in-corporation of a previous collection consisting of Pss 1-72 by an editor who added these to Pss 73-150 derived from other sources. But within Pss 1-72 we have two occurrences of the same Psalm (Ps 14=Ps 53), which in itself indicates that in Pss 1-72 at least two hymn-books are combined. Again, Ps 53 differs from Ps 14 by the entire absence from it of the name ' Jahweh ' and the use in four places of the name ' God,' where Ps 14 uses 'Jahweh' (EV 'the Lord'). So also in Ps 70=Ps 4013-17 'Jahweh' is twice retained, but thrice it is replaced by 'God.' But the editorial activity thus implied proves on examination to have affected the entire group of Pss 42-83; tor the difference in the use of the names 'Jahweh' and 'God' between Pss 1-41 and Pss 42-83 is remarkable: in Pss 1-41 'Jahweh' occurs 272 times, 'God' (absolutely) 15 times; in Pss 42-83 'Jahweh' 43 times, but 'God' 200 times (see Driver, LOT' 371). Now this Elohistic Psalter, as Pss 42-83 are termed on account of the marked prefer-ence which is shown in them for the terra Elohim = ' God, ' is one of the earlier collections embodied in our Psalter; but it is itself in turn derived from differeiit sources; for it includes the group of David's Psalms which closes with the statement that the Prayers of David are ended — a statement which, though not true of the whole Psalter, is true of this earlier Psalter, for between Pss 73-83 no prayer of David occurs. It also includes Psalms 'of the sons of Korah' and 'of Asaph.' Very possibly' this Elohistic Psalter has not reached us in its original condition; for (1) the untitled Psalms may have been subsequently inserted; and (2) the Psalms entitled 'of Asaph' may have once stood all together: at present Ps 50 stands isolated from the rest (Pss 73-83).

In addition to the occurrences of Psalms in two recensions and the occurrence of similar titles or groups, another feature points to earlier independent books of Psalms: this is the occurrence of a doxology or suitable concluding formula at certain points in the Psalter, viz. 4113 at the end of the first group of Psalms entitled 'of David'; 72i»- " immediately before the statement that the Prayers of David are ended; and 89'^. See also 106*8 and 150, which last Psalm in its entirety may be taken as an enlarged doxology at the close of the completed Psalter. The doxologies at the end of Pss 41 and 72 occur at points which we have already