Chapter XXI: Psalms. Lamentations

The Book of Psalms counts one hundred and fifty hymns, and this evidently by design, for the Greek Version, which sometimes unites in one what are two psalms in the Hebrew and divides one Hebrew psalm into two, comes out with the same number. It is divided into five books, as is indicated in the Revised English Version, vis. Book I., Pss. 1-41; Book II., Pss. 42-72; Book III., Pss. 73-89; Book IV., Pss. 90-106; Book V., Pss. 107-150, each book ending with a liturgical doxology. The rabbis were probably right in the opinion that this fivefold division was made in imitation of the five books of the Pentateuch, but in some cases, as we shall see, the limits correspond to those of older separate books. The psalter has not inaptly been called the hymn book of the second temple. We learn from Jewish tradition that certain psalms were used in the liturgy of the Herodian temple on certain days or at certain seasons, and to many of them musical or liturgical directions are prefixed and interludes are noted ("Selah"), from which, apart from tradition, such a use would be inferred. It is evident from the familiarity with the Psalms which is shown in the New Testament and in contemporary Jewish writings, both Greek and Hebrew, that, like our hymn books, the Psalter was largely used for private devotion and edification.

The poems contained in the Psalter are from different ages and authors, and of widely diverse religious worth and poetical excellence. Some of them are unsurpassed in the religious literature of the world; others are the tedious production of authors who, like so many hymnists of all climes, were neither born nor made poets. Thanks to the translators, such pieces are a great deal better, so far as expression goes, in the Authorized English Version or in Luther's, than the original.

A modern hymn book is seldom, if ever, a fresh compilation from the sources; it is habitually made up from collections already in use, with the addition, perhaps, of the editor's gleanings from the sources, or of recent poems. The names of the collections thus used may be given, and the names of the authors--often taken along without verification. Editors of hymn books have also generally allowed themselves great liberties with the text of hymns, altering them to suit their own taste or the religious and theological idiosyncrasies of their sect; abridging, transposing, expanding, without scruple; and only in very modern times has a tardily awakened literary conscience constrained them to give notice of such changes. In this way mediæval Catholic poets are made to sing good Protestant songs, or Calvinists and Methodists to drop their shibboleths and express themselves in a manner acceptable to Unitarians. The familiar hymn,

"O for a thousand tongues to sing my dear Redeemer's praise,"

has been adapted to Buddhist use as,

"O for a thousand tongues to sing my holy Buddha's praise,
The glories of my teacher great, the triumphs of his grace,"

with similar changes throughout, and if we did not know the Christian hymn, we might take the author for a good Shin-shu Buddhist, though an indifferent poet.

The editors of the Psalter proceeded in the same way, and the older recollections on which they worked can in part be recognized. It is observed that Books II. and III. of the Psalter (Pss. 42-89), or, more exactly, Pss. 42-83, must once have formed a collection by themselves, whose editor was averse to the use of the proper name Jehovah, and accordingly altered the text of the hymns where this name occurred by substituting the appellative God (Elohim), giving rise to such strange expressions as "O God, my God." Thus Ps. 53 is the same with Ps. 14, but wherever Jehovah stands in Ps. 14, "God" takes its place in Ps. 53; Ps. 70 is merely an extract from Ps. 40 (vss. 13-17) with the same change. In the latter, however, copyists, influenced by the parallel passage, have restored "Jehovah" in one (Greek) or two (Hebrew) places, as they have done in other of these psalms. This occurrence of the same hymn in two parts of the Psalter, of which another instance is Ps. 108 (made up of parts of two psalms in the elohistic book, lvii. 7-11, and lx. 5-12), is itself presumptive evidence that these parts once existed separately. At the time when the musical directions were prefixed to the psalms, the last two books (Pss. 90-150) seem not to have been included in the temple hymn book; for these directions, scattered through Pss. 1-89, are lacking from that point on, notwithstanding the fact that a larger proportion of the psalms in Pss. 90-150 were manifestly composed for public worship than in Pss. 1-89.

The titles of Psalms give the names of other collections from which individual psalms were taken. Thus twelve psalms, Pss. 42, 44-49, 84, 85, 87, 88, are hymns or songs of the Korahites, and eleven, Pss. 50, 73-83, of Asaph, who were according to the Chronicler--a good authority on the worship of his time--families, or hereditary guilds, of temple musicians, and seem, in this capacity, to have had special hymn books containing psalms which they sang, and which may also have been composed by members of the guild. The fact that the Korahite and Asaphite psalms are not scattered through the present Psalter, but appear in groups, and only in the elohistic hymn book (Pss. 42-89), confirms this view. When they were incorporated in the collection, the source was indicated by prefixing the name of the guild book to the individual psalms.

Another group of fifteen psalms (Pss. 120-134) bear in their titles, "The Song of the Ascents," a phrase which, by the irregularity of its form, shows that it was transferred mechanically from the title of the collection ("The Songs of the Ascents") to the individual poems. The ancient interpretation makes the "ascents" the fifteen steps, or ascending platforms, on which the levitical orchestra stood at the festival of the water-drawing on the evening after the first day of Tabernacles (hence the Authorized Version, Song of Degrees, i.e. Steps). We need not discuss the question; that these psalms constitute a liturgical unit selected for a specific ceremony is plain.

A considerable number of psalms have loosely prefixed to them the words Hallelu Jah (Praise ye Jah), which in the Hebrew text are frequently found at the end, having been erroneously carried back from the beginning of a following psalm. When this displacement (which is later than the Greek translation) is corrected, the Hallelujah psalms are 105-107, 111-118, 135, 136, 146-150. Here also a liturgical collection is naturally inferred. Jewish tradition informs us about the use of the "Hallel" (Pss. 113-118) and the "Great Hallel" (Ps. 136) at the festivals, and the name Hallel is also sometimes given to Pss. 146-148. Both the Hallels and the Songs of Degrees, it will be observed, are in the last of the three parts of the Psalter (Pss. 90-150).

Of greater interest is the large collection of psalms which bear individually the name of David. This name is found in the titles of all the psalms in Book I. (Pss. 1-41), except Pss. 1 and 2, 10 (properly a part of 9, as in the Greek Bible), and 33 (in the Greek Bible Davidic); further, in Book II., two groups, Pss. 51-65, 68-70, and thereafter, scattering, Pss. 86, 101, 103, 108-110, 122, 124, 131, 133, 138-145--73 psalms in all, or almost half the Psalter. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible add a varying number of others, and other versions do the same.

In the light of the phenomena we have already observed, we may confidently infer that there was once a collection of religious lyrics bearing some such title as "Hymns of David." So long as this book had a separate existence, the name would naturally not be repeated at the head of the individual poems in it; such repetition became necessary, however, when psalms from this book were taken up into a larger hymn book containing not only psalms from the Korahite and Asaphite collections but many anonymous hymns; just as the name of Charles Wesley would be attached to one of his hymns only when it was taken out of his own volume and included in a composite hymn book. By good fortune we have the colophon of this Davidic Psalter in Ps. lxxii. 20, in the words of a scribe: "The Prayers (an older name for Psalms) of David son of Jesse are finished," that is, the roll containing them is copied to the end--a very common Oriental form of colophon. Curiously enough, the hymn to which this note is annexed is said in its title to be by Solomon, to whom Ps. 127 (one of the Songs of Degrees) is similarly attributed. In both cases the ground of the ascription is plain: the editor thought that Ps. cxxvii. 1 referred to the building of the temple, while the prayer for wisdom with which Ps. 72 begins suggested to him Solomon's dream, 1 Kings 3.

From this Davidic hymn book came what is now the first book of the Psalter entire, except Ps. 1 and probably 2; further the groups in