The
argument over the Book of Psalms being one book or five books is basically
"much ado about nothing" and does not in any way significantly affect
the utilization of these great songs.
But it is generally accepted that the Book of Psalms is a collection of
collections and that the final collection was made by Ezra around 450 B.C. well
before the time of the Maccabees.
A
serious study of the nine names of God used in the Sepher Tehillim will aid the student of the Psalter in
understanding the God about whom the psalms are written. Also, the church musician should be familiar
with the figures of speech and parallelisms used in the Psalms. Finally, an understanding of the terms found
in the Psalter is absolutely necessary in order to avoid misunderstanding and
misinterpreting the various psalms. Although some of these terms are obscure
they are not all as difficult to understand as is generally believed by some
non-musicians who have written extensively about them. Probably the worst traditional interpretation
of several of these terms has been to consider them as the words or tune names
of ancient secular songs. It seems
credulous to believe that the chief musicians would have sung these great
psalms about the one true God to popular secular "ditties" when they
had available to them the original melodies (te’amim) which were probably composed by the psalmists who wrote
the poems.
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