Psalms, Book of

Psalms, Book of (Gk. ψαλμoi, ‘songs, accompanied by string music’). The OT Book contains 150 Psalms, variously enumerated; for the most part the Greek and Latin (Vulgate) versions are one number behind the Hebrew counting, which is followed in the BCP and most non-Catholic English Bibles, so, e.g. Ps. 90 AV is Ps. 89 Vulg.

The Psalms are traditionally divided into five books, namely 1–41, 42–72, 73–89, 90–106, 107–50, but there are indications of earlier groupings which point back to independently existing collections. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the order of the Psalms was not fixed until the Christian era. Rubrics in the Massoretic text and in the Septuagint make it clear that in its present form the Psalter is essentially a liturgical book; it has often been described as the ‘hymn-book of the Second Temple’. The popular belief that David was the author of the whole Psalter can no longer be sustained. Most scholars believe that the Psalms come from a variety of authors and are of widely different dates. Many probably come from the early years of the Monarchy and in their original form may have been used for worship in the First Temple. It is unclear when the various collections were made, but they were probably all post-exilic.

Traditionally interpreted, the Psalms are held to cover the whole range of relations between God and man. This interpretation has been challenged in the last 100 years, some for instance arguing that the ‘I’ of the Psalms commonly refers not to an individual but to Israel as a nation.

In the Church the Psalter has been used both in public worship and in private prayer from very early times. In the Divine Office of the RC Church, until its recent reordering, the whole Psalter was recited every week, as it still is in the E. Church (here twice a week in Lent). See also PSALTER.