PSALMS. BOOK OF. In the Canon of the Old ment (q.v.) the Book of Psalms (Hebrew Sepher tehillint; Greek Psalmoi) is one of the books of the Third Division or Hagiographa (q.v.). It is a collection of religious poems of various date, and also, though a large proportion of the poems were popularly ascribed to David, of various authorship. The ascription of so many psalms to David was due no doubt to his fame as a minstrel and to the tradition that he organised the worship and music of the temple. The Psalms are divided in the Hebrew Bible into five books, the five-fold division having perhaps been suggested by that of the Pentateuch. The five books are : (1) Psalms i.-xli.: (2) xlii.-Lxxii.; (3) lxxiii. lxxxix. ; (4) xc.-cvi.: (5) cvii.-cl. In the first three books (for the most part) many of the Psalms have titles or superscriptions. Often these are of the nature of musical directions. Sometimes they are notes as to authorship. Thus eleven psalms are said to be by or to belong to " the Sons of Korah " (xlii., xliv.-xlix., lxxxiv., 1xxxv., lxxxvii., and lxxxviii.). One psalm is ascribed to "Ethan the Ezrahite " (lxxxix.), and another group to " Asaph " (1., ]xxiii.-1xxxiii.). Such superscriptions indicate that there are psalters within the Psalter. This is clearly the case. There are a number of psalms each of which is called " a song of degrees (or ascents)." These are Psalms cxx.-cxxxiv. There are Jewish traditions which explain that they were so called because at the Feast of Tabernacles they were sung by the Levites on the fifteen steps or degrees leading from the temple-court of the women to that of the then. Robertson Smith, how ever, thinks (Encycl. Bibl.) that they must originally have been a hymn-book intended not for the Levites, but for laymen who went up to Jerusalem at the great pilgrimage feasts. He thinks that the title of this hymn book was simply " Pilgrimage Songs." Other groups of psalms have been distinguished and described as the Hodu-psalms (cv.-cvii.), the Hallelujah-psalms and cxlvi.-cl.) and the Hallel-psalms (exiii.-cxviii.). These gronps, apart from other considerations, indicate that the Psalter is a compilation. A large number of the Psalms were not composed by David. Prof. Cheyne writes (E. Bi.): " That the song of triumph in II. Sam.
xxii. (= Ps. xviii.) and the ' last words of David ' in
xxiii. 1-7 (both highly religious compositions) are Davidlc, is not, on grounds of criticism, tenable. Nor can any of the psalms in the Psalter be ascribed with any probability to David." But this is an extreme position. As O. C. Whitehouse and R. Kittel say, there is no reason why David should not have composed songs for religious worship (cp. II. Sam. i. 17 ff., iii. 33 ff.). However great David's shortcomings were, it may be claimed as a his torical fact, as Kittel says, that he was deeply religious. His biographers do not fail to tell us his faults. They also depict him in his greatness. " And when they do this, they describe him as a man of extraordinary genius, head and shoulders above his contemporaries, both as a man and as a religious personality. As a man full of genuine magnanimity, he laments the death of his bitterest enemy in accents of unalloyed sorrow, Is chival rously faithful to a friend even unto death, and he frankly admits his guilt to the prophet. And as a re ligious personality he is in keeping with the spirit of his day, which he truly reflects, and is not free from superstitions and eccentric religious tendencies. He reveals this side of his character in his lifelong child like simplicity, which was more pronounced perhaps in David than in any of his contemporaries—in this respect again proclaiming himself to be a man in the truest sense of the term. But this characteristic of his nature is due to the influence of true religion. It is the expression of strong, genuine, deep piety " (Kittel). H. Ewald has ascribed sixteen psalms to David (iii., iv., vii., viii., xi., xv., xviii., xix. 1-6, xxiv. 1-6, xxiv. 7-10, xxix., xxxii., lx. 6-9 [Heb. 8-11], lxviii. 13-18 [Heb. 14-19], cxliv. 12-14, cl.). The religious lyric in Israel no doubt goes back to an ancient date. " We find very early traces of religious poetry in Egypt, which has many affinities with the poetry of the psalms, and in the Babylonian penitential psalms we are taken back to a period prior to 3000 B.C." (R. Kittel). See S. R. Driver, The Parallel Psalter, 1898; F. Baethgen, Die Psalmen, 1904; T. K. Cheyne, Book of Psalms (translation), 1905: C. Cornill, Intr.; G. H. Box; O. C. Whitehouse; R. Kittel, The Scientific Study of the Old Testament, 1910.