Psalms
Many of the psalms contain attributions to the name of King David and other Biblical figures including Asaph, the sons of Korah, Moses and Solomon.
Over a third appear to be musical directions, addressed to the "leader" or "choirmaster", including such statements as "with stringed instruments" and "according to lilies".
Many carry the names of individuals, the most common (73 psalms) being 'of David', and thirteen of these relate explicitly to incidents in the king's life.
It is generally admitted that Psalms 9 and 10 (Hebrew numbering) were originally a single acrostic poem, wrongly separated by Massorah and rightly united by the Septuagint and the Vulgate.
This loss of the original form of some of the psalms is considered by the Catholic Church's Pontifical Biblical Commission (1 May 1910) to have been due to liturgical practices, neglect by copyists, or other causes.
By far the most common type of psalm, they typically open with an invocation of God, followed by the lament itself and pleas for help, and often ending with an expression of confidence.
[3] According to Jewish tradition, the Book of Psalms was composed by the First Man (Adam), Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah.
Robert Alter points out that the address to "sons of God" at the opening "[is] best thought of [as] the flickering literary afterlife of a polytheistic mythology" but that "belief in them...is unlikely to have been shared by the scribal circles that produced Psalms".
[35] The contrast between the Psalmist's theology and the surrounding area's polytheistic religion is well seen in Psalms 104:26,[36] in which locals' mythical fierce sea-god—such as the Babylonian Tiamat, Canaanite Yam and the Leviathan which also appears in the Hebrew Bible—is "reduced to an aquatic pet with whom YHWH can play".
He pointed out that there was a progression of ideas from adversity through the crux of the collection in the apparent failure of the covenant in Psalm 89, leading to a concert of praise at the end.
He concluded that the collection was redacted to be a retrospective of the failure of the Davidic covenant, exhorting Israel to trust in God alone in a non-messianic future.
[42] Walter Brueggemann suggested that the underlying editorial purpose was oriented instead towards wisdom or sapiential concerns, addressing the issues of how to live the life of faith.
[46] Mitchell's position remains essentially unchanged, but he now sees the issue as identifying when the historical beginning of the Psalms turns to eschatology.
[54] Cantillation signs, to record the melody sung, were in use since ancient times; evidence of them can be found in the manuscripts of the oldest extant copies of Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls and are even more extensive in the Masoretic text, which dates to the Early Middle Ages and whose Tiberian scribes claimed to be basing their work on temple-period signs.
[57] In spite of this, Mitchell has repeatedly defended it, showing that, when applied to the Masoretic cantillation of Psalm 114, it produces a melody recognizable as the tonus peregrinus of church and synagogue.
From Rosh Chodesh Elul until Hoshanah Rabbah, Psalm 27 is recited twice daily following the morning and evening services.
When a Jew dies, a watch is kept over the body and tehillim (Psalms) are recited constantly by sun or candlelight, until the burial service.
Historically, this watch would be carried out by the immediate family, usually in shifts, but in contemporary practice this service is provided by an employee of the funeral home or chevra kadisha.
In addition, many Jews (notably Lubavitch, and other Chasidim) read the entire Book of Psalms prior to the morning service, on the Sabbath preceding the calculated appearance of the new moon.
(Relatedly, the Hebrew verb for prayer, hitpalal התפלל, is in fact the reflexive form of palal פלל, to intervene, petition, judge.
The Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Anglican Churches have always made systematic use of the Psalms, with a cycle for the recitation of all or most of them over the course of one or more weeks.
In the early centuries of the Church, it was expected that any candidate for bishop would be able to recite the entire Psalter from memory, something they often learned automatically during their time as monks.
[96] Orthodox Christians and Greek-Catholics (Eastern Catholics who follow the Byzantine rite) have long made the Psalms an integral part of their corporate and private prayers.
In the twentieth century, some lay Christians have adopted a continuous reading of the Psalms on weekdays, praying the whole book in four weeks.
Early Catholics employed the Psalms widely in their individual prayers also; however, as knowledge of Latin (the language of the Roman Rite) became uncommon, this practice ceased among the unlearned.
The work of Bishop Richard Challoner in providing devotional materials in English meant that many of the psalms were familiar to English-speaking Catholics from the eighteenth century onwards.
John Calvin himself made some French translations of the Psalms for church usage, but the completed Genevan Psalter eventually used in church services consisted exclusively of translations by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze, on melodies by a number of composers, including Louis Bourgeois and a certain Maistre Pierre.
Martin Luther's "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A Mighty Fortress Is Our God") is based on Psalm 46.
In the early 17th century, when the King James Bible was introduced, the metrical arrangements by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins were also popular and were provided with printed tunes.
Q38:28); Jesus (Īsā) the Gospel (Injeel); Muhammad received the Qur'an; and Abraham (Ibrahim) the Scrolls of Abraham;[101] meanwhile, the Tawrat is the Arabic name for the Torah within its context as an Islamic holy book believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, and often refers to the entire Hebrew Bible.
