An Introduction to the Book of Psalms John F. Hobbins
[email protected] The book of Psalms is actually a collection of five books each of which ends with a note of praise. Known as “the book of praises” in Jewish tradition, almost every composition in it is suffused with praise, culminates in praise, or anticipates offering praise to the national deity of Israel. A doxology closes Book 1 (Psalms 1-41), Book 2 (Psalms 42-72), Book 3 (Psalms 73-89), and Book 4 (Psalms 90-106). Several psalms of praise close Book 5 (Psalms 107-150). In the Psalms, the chief calling of God is to respond to the needs of his creatures. The chief calling of his creatures is to offer him praise and spread abroad his greatness. The psalms are also characterized by raw passions and an emotional logic that are alien and familiar to moderns at the same time. Faith in God is something that always comes to expression in the psalms, even if it manifests itself as protest and rage against God. Scansions and translations of a few of the psalms are offered on this site: Psalms 2, 6, 104, 111-112, and 137; also, Jonah 2:3-10, a psalm outside the Psalter. Psalms manuscripts recovered from the caves of Qumran demonstrate that the book of Psalms as passed on to posterity by rabbinic Judaism is not identical in contents and arrangement to psalms collections in existence before the standardization of the biblical text became an accomplished fact in the first and second centuries CE.