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6 de Lagarde p. 188) testifies: This name may also seem strange, for the Psalms for the most part are hardly hymns in the proper sense: the majority are elegiac or didactic; and only a solitary one, Ps. cxlv, is directly inscribed . But even this collective name of the Psalms is admissible, for they all partake of the nature of the hymn, to wit the purpose of the hymn, the glorifying of God. The narrative Psalms praise the magnalia Dei, the plaintive likewise praise Him, since they are directed to Him as the only helper, and close with grateful confidence that He will hear and answer. The verb  includes both the Magnificat and the De profundis.

The language of the Masora gives the preference to the feminine form of the name, instead of, and throughout calls the Psalter (e.g. on 2 Sam. xxii. 5). In the Syriac it is styled ketobo demazmûre, in the Koran zabir (not as Golius and Freytag point it, zubir), which in the usage of the Arabic language signifies nothing more than writing (synon. Aitdb: vid. on ili. 1), but is perhaps a corruption of mizmor from which a plural mezdmir is formed, by a change of vowels, in Jewish-Oriental MSS. In the Old Testament writings a plural of mizamor does not occur. Also in the post-biblical usage mizmorim or mizmoroth is found only in solitary instances as the name for the Psalms. In Hellenistic Greek the corresponding word (from  = ) is the more common; the Psalm collection is called  (Lk. xx. 42, Acts i. 20) or, the name of the instrument (psantērîn in the Book of Daniel) being