RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Psalms
Ixxxiv-lxxxv., Ixxxvii.-lxxxviii.), and Heman and Ethan with Pss. lxxxviii.-lxxxix. The historical
value of these titles is now rightly in i. The question. The condition of the text Titles. shows that the titles were not originally
a part of the text, therefore not by the authors of the psalms, and that they are probably the work of the collectors and arose out of a late tradition and hence have but the value of an early supposition. Proofs are at hand. In the Hebrew text Pss. cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii., and cxxxviii. are ascribed to David, while some Jerome, or the Targum, or other witnesses regard as not Davidic; on the other hand, early testimony claims Ps. xxxiii. as Davidic while in the Hebrew text it is anonymous. This manifests a weakening of early tradition. In the Septuagint a number of psalms are ascribed to David which are not so ascribed in the Masoretic text, and Ps. cxxvii. is moreover ascribed to Solomon. This indicates that in the time of the Seventy there was working a tendency to increase the number of Davidic psalms, although there was also a tendency to deny the tradition which gave him certain others. The source of the first tendency may be found in the prominence occupied by David in the Messianic expectation of a later time. This went to its extreme in Rabbi Meir's claim of Davidic authorship for all psalms. The position arrived at by criticism of the text is confirmed by study of the contents compared with the titles. Without going into a minute investigation it is sufficient to note that of the seventythree attributed to David by the Masoretic text a considerable number can not be his because the historic conditions presented point away from David's times, such as those which involve the existence of the Temple (v. 7, lxix. 9) or those which presuppose the exile (xiv. 7, li. 18-19). Pertinent is the fact that Asaph was a contemporary of David, yet the Asaphic psalms belong in large part to a late period. Of the attribution of psalms to David it is possible to give an explanation. Just as the psalms of the Korahites, a gild of singers, were attributed to their founder through the name of the collection being given to the individual psalms, so a collection named after David came to have its individual compositions called after the celebrated organizer of worship — possibly in the process of compilation into a larger collection. If this is the case, the superscriptions or titles often represent a tradition relatively late, sometimes oscillating and in many cases actually erroneous, perhaps sometimes arising through misunderstanding and consequently inconclusive. They may possibly point rightly to David as the author, but as evidence they are inadequate; only when title and internal evidence accord, or at least do not conflict, can the title play an important part.
In recent times the question of authorship has assumed an entirely different form. It is no longer, how many psalms are preexilic and how many must be postexilic ? but, are there any preexilic psalms ? And the next question is, necessarily, was there a preexilic religious body of lyrics in Israel, and had it any relation to the Psalter? The first answer must come from Ps. cxxxvii. 3-4, where it is clear
that the " songs of Zion " are " Yahweh songs," presumably dealing with the relations of Yahweh and his people. A second piece of evidence is Amos v. 23, which unmistakably deals with 2. Modern songs of worship, showing that in the Phase of the early prophetic days songs (psalms) to
Problem, harp accompaniment belonged to the essentia of divine worship in the northern kingdom. Testimony is seen by some also in Lam. ii. 7- The force of these passages is disputed by William Robertson Smith, and perhaps rightly in the citation from Lamentations, on the ground that it deals not with official and regulated worship, but with the free spirit of worship by private individuals. But the passage in Amos, as evidently as Isa. i. 11 sqq., deals with the official worship for the benefit of the community. To be sure, Amos speaks of the service in the Northern kingdom; but it is not to be called in question that what was usual in divine service in the north was present in Jerusalem. The sanctuaries which were celebrated in the times of David and Solomon in all probability embodied the chief forms of worship customary at Jerusalem, and this is borne out by the already cited passage in Ps. cxxxvii. and by the lists in Ezra-Nehemiah of the returning gilds of Temple singers (Ezra ii. 41; Neh. vii. 44), mention of whom would be unintelligible if they had not in preexilic days had that position. Any other interpretation involves the strange hypothesis that the gild was modeled in exilic times after the Babylonian pattern. The conception of a preexilic Temple worship of song is the more reasonable since other themes had been richly treated in early times — one's memory fights upon David and Deborah — and undoubtedly song had been made a part of divine service (II Sam. vi. 5). It is therefore a priori probable that when Solomon made provision for worship in the new sanctuary, he included sacred song as a part of that worship, and Isa. xxx. 29 looks like the continuance of such an adjunct to divine service. The least that can be said is that song has a very close relationship to the cult of the period, as an essential part thereof.
This does not, however, involve necessarily that psalms in the present Psalter are preexilic. It is possible that all trace of preexilic psalms is lost, that the present Psalter has in it only postexilic compositions. But it can not be said that it is a probability, in view of the evident presence of song in the Temple and 3. Are in view of the strong tradition of
there Pre- David as a hymnist, that no single exilic psalm survived the exile. And when
Psalms? the work of redaction is taken into account, and editorial changes of the text are considered, the improbability grows. Indeed many of the psalms, especially in the earlier parts of the Psalter, are best explained by referring them to Solomon's Temple (so the royal psalms xx., xxi., xlv.). With reference to Pss. xx. and xxi. it is to be remarked that only in preexilic times and after 105 B.C. did Israel possess a king, and it would take convincing evidence to refer a psalm to the later period. The exegesis which so relates them is forced not by the text but by a presupposition against their preexilic origin. Internal grounds
Psalms