The Literature of the Old TestamentMoore, George Foot
Religion
The Literature of the Old Testament
Moore, George Foot
Bible. Old Testament -- Introductions
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
Book II. (51-65, 68-70, with 72), which probably stood immediately
after Ps. 41. For it will be noted that the second (elohistic) part of
the present Psalter (Pss. 42-89) is made up of Korahite, Asaphite, and
Davidic psalms, and that in their present position the Davidic
psalms, say Pss. 51-72, are thrust into the otherwise solid group of
Asaphite hymns Pss. 50 ... 73-83. Further, the transposition of the
Davidic psalms to the beginning of the book would bring the hymns of
the guilds together. The elohistic recension does not extend
consistently beyond Ps. 83; and Pss. 84-89 (Korahite) may therefore be
regarded as a supplementary extract from the guild book.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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