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Rh very well stand between Judges and Samuel; and it did originally stand after the Book of the Judges, just as the Lamentations of Jeremiah stood after his prophecies. It is only on liturgical grounds that they have both been placed with the so-called Megilloth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, as they are arranged in our ordinary copies according to the calendar of the festivals). All the remaining books could manifestly only be classed under the third division of the canon, which (as could hardly have been otherwise in connection with תורה and נביאים) has been entitled, in the most general way, כתובים, — a title which, as the grandson of Ben-Sira renders it in his prologue [to Ecclesiasticus], means simply, or , and nothing more. For if it were intended to mean writings, written ברוח הקדשׁ, — as the third degree of inspiration which is combined with the greatest spontaneity of spirit, is styled according to the synagogue notion of inspiration, — then the words ברוח הקדשׁ would and ought to stand with it.

At the close of the seventy-second Psalm (ver. 20) we find the subscription: “Are ended the prayers of David, the Son of Jesse.” The whole of the preceding Psalms are here comprehended under the name תְּפִלּוֹת. This strikes one as strange, because with the exception of Ps. xvii (and further on Ps. lxxxvi, xc, cii, cxlii) they are all inscribed otherwise; and because in part, as e. g. Ps. i and ii, they contain no supplicatory address to God and have therefore not the form of prayers. Nevertheless the collective name Tephilloth is suitable to all Psalms. The essence of prayer is a direct and undiverted looking towards God, and the absorption of the mind in the thought of Him. Of this nature of prayer all Psalms partake; even the didactic and laudatory, though containing no supplicatory address, — like Hannah's song of praise which is introduced with ותתפלל (1 Sam. ii. 1). The title inscribed on the Psalter is תְּהִלִּום (סֵפֶר) for which תִּלִּים (apocopated תַּלּי) is also commonly used, as Hippolytus (ed.