Introduction to the Old TestamentMcFadyen, John Edgar
Religion
Introduction to the Old Testament
McFadyen, John Edgar
Bible. Old Testament -- Introductions
These greater groups rest, however, upon other smaller ones, some formally
acknowledged, e.g. the so-called Psalms of Ascent or Pilgrim psalms
(cxx.-cxxxiv.), the Psalms of David, Psalms of the Korahites (xlii.-xlix.,
etc.), Psalms of Asaph (lxxiii.-lxxxiii., etc.), and others not so obvious
in a translation, e.g. the Hallelujah Psalms, cxi.-cxiii., cxlvi.-cl.
These groups must often have enjoyed an independent reputation as
groups, and even been invested with a certain canonical authority, for
occasionally the same psalm appears in two different groups (xiv.=liii.,
xl. 13-17=lxx., cviii.=lvii. 7-11 +lx. 6-12). Such repetition proves that
the final editors did not consider themselves at liberty to make any
change within the groups. The principle of the arrangement of individual
psalms within the group was probably not a scientific one: e.g. xxxiv.
and xxxv. seem to be placed together for no other reason than that both
refer to "the angel of Jehovah," xxxiv. 7, xxxv. 5. Sometimes a psalm
has been wrongly divided into two (cf. xlii., xliii., originally one
psalm) and occasionally two psalms have been united, usually for
reasons that are transparent (so perhaps xix., the revelation in the
heavens and the revelation in the Scriptures, and xxiv., the entrance
of Jehovah into His temple, and the essential conditions for the
entrance of man).
The original order of the groups themselves appears to have been
dislocated. Whoever added the subscription to Psalm lxxii. can hardly
have been aware of the eighteen psalms which, in the subsequent books
of the Psalter, are ascribed to David; nor is it natural to suppose
that the Asaphic (l.) and Korahitic psalms (xlii.-xlix.) stood in the
second book when that subscription was written. It is not improbable
that Psalms xlii.-l. originally belonged to the third book, along
with the Asaphic group, lxxiii.-lxxxiii., and that lxxii. 20, "The
prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended," was intended as the
subscription of all the Davidic psalms that had then been collected
(Book I, except Pss. i., ii., x., xxxiii., and book 2, Pss. li.-lxx.).[1]
The first two books originally represented a Davidic hymn-book; they
probably represent, as a whole, the oldest part of the Psalter.
[Footnote 1: Psalms i. and ii. were placed at the beginning as
prefatory to the whole Psalter. They deal with the two cardinal
points of Judaism--the law and the Messianic hope. Psalms ix. and x.
originally constituted _one_ alphabetic psalm, and xxxiii. is
ascribed to David in the Septuagint.]
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