Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/570

* PSALM OF LIFE. 500 PSALMS. PSALM OF LIFE, A. A well-known short puciii by llenrv W. Longfellow, ])ublislied in the Knickciiiuckcr Magazine, October, 1838. PSALMS (from Gk. <(/a is, psalinos, psalm, liyaiii, boujj), UoOK of. Aceordinp to the Jewish canon, the first book of the third division of the Old Testament, known as Kethub'im or Hajio- graplia; in the Christian canon the second book of the section. The arrangement of the latter was adopted from the Scptnagint, hich jjlaced the books of .Job, Psalms, and I'roverbs in what was supposed to be the chronological order of their composition, under the inlluence of the tradition ascribing the first to Moses, the second to David, and the third to Solomon. The Hebrew title of the book is Tvhill'un, "songs of praise;' the English jisalms is from the Septuagint rendering of TvhilUm, fiafiol. The Book of Psalms is ]iro|)erly a collection of hymns which became a manual of the temple service at .Jeru- salem in the post-exilic period. The collection consists of 150 compositions, divided in the Hebrew Bible like the Pentateuch into five books: (1) Psalms i.-.xli.: (2) xlii.-lx.xii.; (3) Ixxiii.-lxxxix. ; (4) xc.-cvi. ; (5) cvii.-cl. The date of the final comjiilation, which, it must be borne in mind, is independent of llie question of composition, is now brought down close to the beginning of the Christian p]ra; but long ere this time there existed collections of psalms, and abundant remains of such collections arc found in the book which has been jjreserved to our time. ». In reality, however, a threefold division, ( 1 ) i.-xli.. (2) xlii.-lxxxix., (3) xc.-el., would be more rational. Of these divisions, again, it is only the first, in which all psalms except the first two are ascribed to Da^id (excluding the tenth, which is a continuation of the ninth, and the thirty-third, which the Septuagint ascribes also to -David), that may be said to consti- tute a uniform group. The second division has as a distinguishing mark the use of Elohim as the name of God instead of Yahweh in the main part of the division (xlii.-lxxxiii.). Tak- ing up these Elohim jjsalms, it is to be observed tliat they consist of (a) psalms ascribed to David, and (b) psalms ascribed to Levitical circles, viz. to Asaph or to sons of ICorah. The Davidic psalms are li.-lxxi., placed between a single Asaphite psalm (1.) and the main Asa- phite collection (Ixxiii.-lxxxii.), while the Ko- rahite collection is represented by xlii.-xlix. Lastly, Ixxxiv.-lxxxix. appear to be an apjiendix of a miscellaneous character, attached to the division. The third division includes Books IV. and v., which have so many features in common as to give evidence of having once formed a single collection. Of the three divisions, the first appears to be the oldest, and in the gradual formation of the Psalter, we may distinguish the following steps: (1) a Davidic collection. Book I.; (2) a second Davidic collection, li.-lxxii. (Ixxii. being an addi- tion) ; (3) a two-fold Levitical collection, (a) xlii.-xlix., (b) 1.. Ixxiii.-lxxxiii. : (4) a combina- tion of the second Davidic with the Levitical collections; (.5) a supplement to this collection, Ixxxiv.-lxxxix.: (tl) a third collection, xe.-cl. The last step consisted in the combination of the three collections, to which the anonymous Psalms i. and ii. were prefixed ; a division into five sections was then made in imitation of the 'Books of Moses,' each section provided with a doxology at the close. The purpose of the various collections is evident— to bring together religious hymns; the ascription of groups to members of the Levitical guilds may be regarded as sufficient evidence that the collections were to be used in the ritual. But while this may be lulmittcd. it does not follow that all of the hymns included in the collections were composed for the teiM])le ritual, nor do the considerations above set forth touch the core of the problem as to the date of comiiosifion of the hymns themselves. The natural starting point for the investigation of this problem is the headings in the traditional Hebrew text and in the Circek translation. Al- though we are obliged to pass beyond the data furnished by these headings, they cannot be altogether set aside, even though their late origin admits no doubt. These headings appear to ascribe the authorship of 73 psalms to David; 49 are anonymous; and the remainder are di- vided among a variety of authors as fcdlows: two are associated with Solomon, one with Moses, eleven with the sons of Korah. twelve with Asaph, one is attril)uted to Heman. one to Ethan. But the Hebrew preposition which is translated "to' is an ambiguous particle, and it by no means follows that the expression a 'Psalm to David' means necessarily a psalm composed by David. It may mean that, but the same preposition would be used to convey the idea that the psalm was a 'Davidic' composition, that is to say, belonging to a class of compositions called for one reason or another after David. In such an instance as the psalms of 'the sons of Korah,' it is quite evident that the preposition 'to' can- not indicate authorship, since it is highly im- probable that an entire family or guild should h.ave composed anv particular hymn. The same conclusion follows from the occurrence of several names at the head of a psalm, as e.g. xxxix. and Ixii., which have the names David and .Jeduthun attached, or cxxxvii., which in the Septuagint bears the heading David and .Jeremiah; or exxxviii,. which has three names. David. Haggai, and Zechariah. attached to it in the Septuagint text. The assumption, therefore, is justified that when the headings were first attached to the psalms, it was not done exclusively with the purpose of indicating authorship, but also to specify the character of the collection to which they belong, and indeed this may very well have been the original meaning of the preposition in this connection. To be sure, only in the case of the series of psalms bearing the name 'sons of Korah' can we be certain that we actually have a collection by several authors, but it is plausible to assume that there was also a 'Davidic' collec- tion designating not a series of hymns written by David, but for some reason called after him. It is natural that a later unscientific age which has created for itself a traditional David who differed largely from the historical one (see David) should have seized upon the existence of a Davidic collection as a support for its tradi- tions and converted David into the author of the 73 psalms bearing his name. While, therefore, the headings are of genuine ' importance in a study of the growth of the psnlm literature. 'we are thrown back upon in- ternal evidence and the careful study of the style and of the religious views reflected as a final means of determining the date of composi-