the 4th-5th centuries, collected and condensed the discussions of the Amoraim, and so consolidated the Gemara in much the same form as we now have it, though it was not completed by Rab Abina until cir. 500 A. D. Besides this Babylonian Talmud (Babli), there is also the Talmud Talmud Jerushalmi. Jerushalmi, the compilation of which began in the 3rd cen- Midrash tury. The Midrash Tillim, to which we occasionally refer, was well known in the first half of the eleventh century; the value, however, of the traditions contained in it, as regards their antiquity, is not adequately represented by the generally assumed date of its compilation.

Tillım.

Also, much useful information may be gained from the Jewish Commentators. Those to whom we have chiefly referred are Rabbi Sh❜lomo ben Yitschak, or Yitschaki, sometimes wrongly called Yarchi, of the 11th century (Rashi); Rashi. Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra (Ab. Ez.), of Toledo, who died at the age of 75 in the year 1168 (see MS. Add. 1014.

1. in Camb. University Library); and Rabbi David Kimchi, Aben Ezra. the great Hebrew grammarian and commentator of the Kimchi. 12th-13th centuries.

Latin

Unfortunately the Greek and Latin Fathers, with the Greek and exception of Origen and Jerome, were, on account of their Fathers. ignorance of Hebrew, entirely dependent upon the LXX. (or, later, the Vulgate) translation. Thus, though their

works are inexhaustible mines of devotional and homiletic wealth, they are seldom of much aid in the severer task of critical exegesis.

cient and

In connection with the interpretation of the Pss., one of Titles. the greatest difficulties with which the commentator meets is the explanation of the Titles or Superscriptions. It may be noticed that these appear much more frequently in the first three than in the last two books. With regard to Their antheir authority nothing is known, but that they are of great obscure antiquity is evident from the fact that the LXX. found them origin. in the text which they made use of, but were unable to explain them. In many cases, the titles in the LXX. differ Some aufrom those which we now have in the Heb. text, but chiefly erroneous. thentic, some by way of addition. Like the subscriptions to the Epistles in the N. T., the Hebrew titles of the Pss. occasionally record traditions of doubtful authenticity. The titles are

Different kinds of

various in their objects. Some refer to the style of composiinformation tion or give the name of the composer; others give the name afforded by of the musician or choir to whom the Ps. was assigned to be

Titles.

sung in the public services; others, again, refer to the different kinds of music and musical instruments then in use; while others are historical notices of the occasions on which the Psalms to which they are prefixed were composed. Of the three former classes of superscriptions we now proceed to give an alphabetical list, prefacing our explanations Knowledge of them by the remark of Kimchi, that though the art of music rose to great excellence among the ancient Jews, yet no knowledge of it is left to us of the present day. The force of this remark will be felt by the reader, when he sees how various are the conjectural interpretations of some of these titles in the following compendium, in which these and the various musical and liturgical signs of the Psalter are treated of in alphabetical order.

of Hebrew music lost to us. Interpretation of musical notices conjectural.

On soprano voices.

About hidden things.

Designation of the air.

Historical allusion.

Alamoth. In xlvi. H. by by, al aʼlâmôth, prob.=in soprano, or on virgin voices, a'lâmôth being plur. of almah, "a virgin." It evidently does not denote the instrumental accompaniment, as some have supposed, but rather the mode of singing, for in 1 Chron. xv. 20, 21 we read of the two bands of Levites being appointed to "lead the singing" (A.V. to excel, see under Precentor) respectively, al a'lâmôth, i.e. as we suppose "in soprano," to the accompaniment of lutes, and al sh'mînîth, i. e. probably "in the bass," to the accompaniment of harps. LXX. in Chron. expresses the Hebr. words thus-enì áλaμál, but in the title of xlvi. it rends. al a'lamôth vñèρ тŵν кρvpíwv, connecting it with alam, abscondit; the Targ. refers it to the same root, from which, indeed, many derive the word almah, “virgin.” Some regard almooth, ix. Title and xlviii. 15 (A.V. v. 14, “unto death"), as equivalent to al a'lâmôth, in soprano.

Al-tashcheth, lvii., lviii., lix., lxxv. H. nnwns, lit.: Destroy thou not, so LXX., un diapeeipns. Probably these are, as Ab. Ez. says, the initial words of some known song, to the melody of which these Pss. are to be sung, cf. Ayyeleth hash-shachar. The full title in this case would be al al-tashchêth, nnwn by; the prep. al, upon, must therefore be understood. The theory, that the words refer to

David's magnanimous act in restraining Abishai from killing Saul, using the very same verb al-tashchîthêhoo, “Destroy him not" (1 S. xxvi. 9), is absolutely controverted by the fact that two of the Pss. which have this title have additional historical notices appended, which refer them to occasions which were anterior to that event; lvii. is thus connected with the incident of 1 S. xxii. 1, and lix. with that of 1 S. xix. 11. Others have supposed that al-tashchêth indicates the burden of the Ps., and implies that the Psalmist being in trouble im- Allusion to plores God not to destroy him utterly, so Targ. (even in lxxv.) the Ps. contents of "On account of tribulation, what time David said, Destroy Thou not." This theory is, however, altogether incompatible with the subject-matter of lxxv.

Asaph. Twelve Pss., 1. and lxxiii.-lxxxiii., bear the title Ds, Asaph, lit. to Asaph. Although by Arabic writers Doubtful the prep. li is often used to denote authorship, yet the in- preposition. meaning of definiteness of the Heb. /', which merely indicates some sort of relationship, absolutely requires that such titles as l’Dâvîd, lib'nê Kôráh, l'Asaph, &c., should not necessarily imply that David, the sons of Korah, and Asaph, were respectively the writers of the Pss. to which these titles are prefixed. In the case of l'David we believe that such is invariably its meaning, though in some instances it is doubtless an erroneous tradition. Lib'nê Kôrâh on the other hand always denotes that the Ps. to which it is prefixed was delivered to the Sons of Korah to set to music or to sing in the public services. And so we see that it is possible to ascribe to the title l'Âsâph one of at least two meanings.

author?

That Asaph was an Musician or author we know for a fact from 2 Chron. xxix. 30, where it is said that, at the restoration of the temple services and sacrifices, Hezekiah commanded the Levites to sing praise unto Jehovah "in the words of David and of Asaph the seer." (Asaph is again mentioned in connection with David, though without any direct intimation of his being also a Psalmist, in Neh. xii. 46, “In the days of David and Asaph [there were] chiefs of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God." Some unwarrantably bring forward this passage as additional evidence that Asaph was a Psalm writer.) But, though he certainly composed Pss., it does not by any means follow that his compositions have come down to us and are

included in the books of Pss. There is not, however, any obvious objection to the supposition that Asaph is the author of Ps. 1., and indeed the character of that Ps., inculcating, as it does, the superior importance of the oblation of the heart, to the mere formal offering of the legal sacrifices, might render its recital appropriate to the occasion referred to in 2 Chron. xxix. 30. But of the other Pss. which bear the title l'Asaph, lxxiv., lxxv., lxxvi., lxxviii., lxxix. and lxxxiii. cannot, we think, for historical reasons (see Introductions to these Pss.) be assigned to Asaph the contemporary of David; lxxiii. and lxxvii. do not bear the least resemblance to Ps. 1. (lxxiii. indeed has much more in common with xxxvii. and xlix.); and the supposed point of contact between Pss. 1. and lxxxii., consisting in "somewhat long judicial addresses from the Almighty (Del.), quite disappears in our view of lxxxii. Neither does the national affliction lamented in Ps. lxxx. give any support to the theory of its having been written by the Asaph of David's time. Ps. lxxxi. indeed, as teaching spiritual rather than formal obedience, might be thought to recall Ps. 1.: in other respects it resembles Pss. lxxvii. and lxxviii. (which, however, we believe to be post-Asaphic), but in any case such resemblances cannot be taken as grounds for assigning its authorship to Asaph, for they do not counterbalance the fact that in other Pss. so entitled, Asaph cannot be the author (vide e. g. lxxiv., lxxix.). We conclude on the whole that none of the Pss. lxxiii.-lxxx., lxxxii. nor lxxxiii. were written by Asaph, the contemporary of David, that Ps. 1. possibly is and lxxxi. probably is not his comThe Title, if position. We must demur to the popular theory that understood l'Asaph denotes that these Pss. were written by descendants authorship, of Asaph, or by some person or persons bearing the name

to denote

must be

taken in

its strictest sense.

Asaph, since in our opinion for any one to place the name of so famous a man over his own compositions, without any qualifying statement to shew that he was not the Asaph, would be little less than a literary forgery. Or for others, knowing the author, though bearing the name Asaph, to be other than the Asaph of David's time, to superscribe his Pss. l'Asaph, would be an unpardonable misleading of posterity. But many, while they admit that most of these Pss. were not written by the Davidic Asaph, have started the untenable

In

theory that they were written upon the model of Ps. 1. support of this theory Delitzsch urges (1) that there is frequent mention of Joseph and the tribes descended from him in many of these Pss. (cf. lxxvii. 15, lxxviii. 9, 67, lxxx. 1, 2, lxxxi. 5), a circumstance in each instance satisfactorily accounted for in our Introductions and notes to those Pss. (2) That these Pss. delight to vary the designations for the people of God, a point which is surely not peculiar to these Pss., and in which, so far from agreeing with Ps. 1., they utterly differ from it, for there the nation is simply spoken of as God's people, Israel. (3) That in them the relationship of Jehovah to Israel is set forth under the fig. of the shepherd and his flock rather than any other (cf. lxxiv. 1, lxxvii. 20, lxxviii. 52), a feature which is entirely absent from Ps. 1. and may be observed in many other Pss., and, in fact, originates in Gen. xlviii. 15, see Introd. to Ps. lxxx. (4) Del. in support of this supposition argues moreover from the use of the Divine Names, “Of compound name of God,” says he, “ÊI Elôhîm y'hôvâh (only besides in Josh. xxii. 22) in the Psalter, and E'lôhîm Ts'bâôth in the Old Test. Scriptures generally, are exclusively peculiar to them" (i.e. to what he calls the Asaphic Pss.), whereas as a matter of fact the former compound-name occurs in the Bk. of Pss. in Ps. 1. only, and the latter, which occurs in Ps. lxxx. only, of the Asaphic Pss., does occur in Pss. lix. and lxxxiv., which are not of this number. Thus holding as we do that l'Âsâph, if it refers to authorship, must be intended to ascribe these Pss. Asaph did to the Asaph, and believing that in the case of eight of the not write any, except eleven Pss., lxxiii.—lxxxiii., it is historically impossible that perhaps Ps. l. he should have been the writer, and that in the case of five more there is no adequate reason for supposing that he was the author, and that one only (Ps. 1.) can with any degree of probability be ascribed to him, we decide that (except in Ps. 1. where see Introd.) l'Âsáph does not indicate authorship. And we are the more inclined to this opinion from the fact that Asaph, although likewise a Psalmist and a Seer (2 Chron. xxix. 30), was by profession a Musician. In 1 Chron. xv. 19, xxv. I, we read that David appointed Asaph the founder of a Heman the Kohathite [not the same as Heman the Ezrachite musical (lxxxviii. Title), Asaph the Gershonite, and Ethan (see under school.