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Home > Magazines > Bible Review > August 1993

Songs of the Heart

Understanding the Book of Psalms

By Nahum M. Sarna

The Hebrew Bible has three parts: the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the Writings (Kethuvim). The Book of Psalms is part of the Writings. In the Law and the Prophets, God reaches out to man. The initiative is his. The message is his. He communicates, we receive. Our God-given free will allows us to be receptive, to be accepting, or to turn a deaf ear, to reject. In the Psalms, human beings reach out to God. The initiative is human. The language is human. We make an effort to communicate. He receives. He chooses to respond or not, […]

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Footnotes

1.

See also Suzanne Singer, “The Power of the Psalms in Our Time,” BR 02:03.

Endnotes

1.

Midrash Tehillim to Psalms [18:1], ed. Solomon Buber, (1891; repr. 1966), p. 135.

2.

Berakhot 57b.

3.

Martin Gilbert, Shcharansky, Hero of Our Time (New York: Viking, 1986), pp. 363, 392f., 401f., 412, 416.

4.

Rabbi Israel Lau reported this in the Jerusalem Post; it was reprinted by the Wexner Heritage Foundation in its Jewish News Anthology, June October, 1988.

5.

This was pointed out by Y. Kaufmann, Toledot Ha-‘Emunah Ha-Yisre’ elit, vol. 2, pp. 476–478: Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, pp. 302–304.

6.

Ezra 3:2, 10; Nehemiah 12:24, 45–46; 2 Chronicles 23:18; cf. 2 Chronicles 8:12–14.

7.

Bava Batra 14b; Avodah Zarah 19a; Palestine Talmud, Sukkah 3:12 (53rd); Palestine Talmud, Ketubbot, 12:3 (35a) (shortened).

8.

Only Psalm 145 hits tehillah in the title.

9.

Philo of Alexandria, De Vita Contemplativa 3:25.

10.

For a list of such works, see Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Scripture (Hamden, CT: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1976) pp. 17–20.

11.

See Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: Schocken, 1970) xvii–xix.

12.

The original Hebrew text of this supernumerary psalm turned up in Qumran; see James A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa), pp. 53–64.

13.

With Psalm 106:47–48, cf. 1 Chronicles 16:36.

14.

Noted by H. B. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge, UK: 1902), p. 254.

15.

See M. Haran, “The Four Blessings and Five ‘Books’ in the Book of Psalms” [Hebrew], Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences, 8, 1 (1989), pp. 1–32.

16.

See S. Buber, Midrash Tehillim, 1[2], p. 3.

17.

1 Chronicles 16:4–5. The psalms that bear his name are 50 and 73–83.

18.

Numbers 26:10–11; 1 Chronicles 16:22. The psalms that bear their name are 42, 44–49, 84–85, 87–88.

19.

Psalm 121 has shir la-ma‘alot.

20.

It should also be pointed out that the Psalms Scroll from Qumran (11QPsa) contains selections from “Book Five.” However, this scroll may not be a canonical text but a liturgy or hymn book.

21.

If this is the correct meaning of Hebrew la-menatse‘ah.

22.

Psalms 122, 124, 131, 133.

23.

Codex Vaticanus (GB) also adds Psalm 67, making 14 more than the Hebrew.

24.

Psalms 72 and 127; Psalm 90; Psalm 88; Psalm 89.

25.

So called in Avodah Zarah 24b. Psalms 39, 62 and 77 carry “Jeduthun” in the superscription, but the first two also add le-david; Psalm 77 adds le-‘asaph. The Greek adds “Jeremiah” to Psalm 137, and “Haggai and Zechariah” to Psalms 138, 146, 147:1, 147:12 and 148.

26.

Bava Batra 14b, referring to Psalms 139:16, 110:1, 89:1 (Ethan is identified with Abraham), 90:1, 88:1, 39:1 et al., 50:1 et al.