The Book of Psalms

Front Cover
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 - 242 pages
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION IV THE BOOK OF PSALMS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 1. The origin of the Psalter.?Another and a very different form of literature will come before us in the present section: a fresh example of the great variety of religious writings contained in that wonderful collection of books which we call the Bible. For this section is to be dedicated to the Psalms. And the Psalms present us with a phase of religious thought and expression unlike the utterances of sage and prophet and story-teller to which we have already listened. A few Psalms have already been given at the end of Part I and in the story of David; these will now find their proper place among their fellows, and be gladly read again by all who read them before. The Book of Psalms has been most succinctly defined as ' a collection of religious and devotional poetry. It is made up mainly of prayers and songs of praise, with a certain number of didactic pieces.' The total number of Psalms is 150. The Hebrew name for the book is Tehillim, and means ' Praises' or ' Songs of Praise.' And the name expresses the purpose for which the three or four collections that now compose the Psalter were originally made. After the reforms of Ezra, the services of the Temple of Jerusalem became more and more carefully and elaborately organized. These services comprised not only sacrifice, but song. And gradually the songs were almost as systematically arranged for as the sacrifices. Before the Babylonian captivity, it would seem that such singing as took place in the Temple worship was not officially organized. Various references in pre-exilic literature, as well as the total lack of any allusion to Psalms or to trained choirs, make it highly probable that such music as accompanied the sacrifices did not proceed from ' of...

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