The Book of Psalms—part 4

The Book of Psalms—part 4  

            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.

            The table and definitions of the names of God in the psalms have been provided to 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, this chapter has presented a lengthy discussion of the terms found in the Psalter.  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 interpretations of several of these terms have 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 songs of the one true God to popular secular "ditties" when they had available to them the original melodies written by the psalmists who wrote the poems.  

Thought for the Day   

There are more New Testament references and quotations to the Book of Psalms than to any other Old Testament Book.