Origin of the Collection of the Psalms

Modern day church choir psalm singers can be forgiven for not seeing the Psalter as a sequential book. Snippets and favorites sung through the year are not conducive to seeing a historical whole. It is clear from both Forbes and Delitzsch and via Delitzsch, many earlier writers also, that the sequential coherence of the psalms is not a new idea in the 20th century.

This text has been transcribed and corrected in a number of places on the web already - e.g. here, so when I continue this exercise, I will be a bit freer and probably include some translation for readers  (like me) without Greek, or others without Hebrew, or Latin.

The origin or formation starts with the idea that the five books of the Psalms are a deliberate imitation of the five books of Moses.

The Psalter, as we now have it, consists of five books. Τοῦτό σε μη παρέλθοι, ω φιλόλογε — [Let it not pass, O philologist] says Hippolytus, whose words are afterwards quoted by Epiphanius — ότι και το ψαλτήριον εις πέντε διείλουν βιβλία οι Εβραίοι, ώστε είναι και αυτό άλλην πεντάτευχον [That the Jews also divide the psalter into five books, so that it also is another fivefold]. This accords with the Midrash on Ps. i. 1: Moses gave the Israelites the five books of the Thôra and corresponding to these (cngdm) David gave them the book of Psalms which consists of five books (spr thlim bo kmwh sprim). The division of the Psalter into five parts makes it the copy and echo of the Thôra, which it also resembles in this particular: that as in the Thôra Elohistic and Jehovistic sections alternate, so here a group of Elohistic Psalms (xlii-lxxxiv) is surrounded on both sides by groups of Jehovistic (i-xli, lxxxv-cl). The five books are as follow: — i-xli, xlii-lxxii, lxxiii-lxxxix, xc-cvi, cvii-cl.

He notes particularly in the doxologies that "The amn vamn coupled with v (cf. on the contrary Num. v. 22 and also Neh. viii. 6) is exclusively peculiar to them in Old Testament writings."

This comment on the time of the Chronicler certainly has come curiosities in the English translation of the German - like the use of pontificate.

Even in the time of the writer of the Chronicles the Psalter was a whole divided into five parts, which were indicated by these landmarks. We infer this from 1 Chron. xvi. 36. The chronicler in the free manner which characterises Thucydidea or Livy in reporting a speech, there reproduces David's festal hymn that resounded in Israel after the bringing home of the ark; and he does it in such a way that after he has once fallen into the track of Ps. cvi., he also puts into the mouth of David the beracha which follows that Ps. From this we see that the Psalter was already divided into books at that period; the closing doxologies had already become thoroughly grafted upon the body of the Psalms after which they stand. The chronicler however wrote under the pontificate of Johanan, the son of Eliashib, the predecessor of Jaddua, towards the end of the Persian supremacy, but a considerable time before the commencement of the Grecian.

 Comparing 1 Chr 16:36 with Psalms 106:48:

bruç ihvh alohi iwral mn-hyolm vyd hyolm // viamru cl-hym amn vhll lihvh w 
Bless Yahweh the God of Israel from the everlasting and unto the everlasting,
and let all the people say amen and praise Yahweh. W

bruç ihvh alohi iwral mn-hyolm vyd hyolm vamr cl-hym amn hllu-ih [no rest in the psalter]

Bless Yahweh the God of Israel from the everlasting and unto the everlasting and let all the people say, Amen. Hallelu Yah. [no vav and a different word form for the name. The people are singular collective where in 1 Chr, the people are taken as plural.]

But overall - this does seem to imply a fivefold Psalter at the time of the Chronicler. I wonder why it does not seem to have been noted at the Oxford conference of 2010.

Dr. D raises a number of questions on the end of book 3: what is the collection of prayers referred to as David's at the end of the psalm 72 beginning 'of Solomon'?  Did the primary collection contain only Davidic psalms?

If we adopt the latter supposition, one is at a loss to understand for what reason only Ps. l. of the Psalms of Asaph was inserted in it. For this psalm is really one of the old Asaphic psalms and might therefore have been an integral part of the primary collection. On the other hand it is altogether impossible for all the Korahitic psalms xlii-xlix to have belonged to it, for some of them, and most undoubtedly xlvii and xlviii were composed in the time of Jehoshaphat, the most remarkable event of which, as the chronicler narrates, was foretold by an Asaphite and celebrated by Korahitic singers. 

An obvious question is - Does he attribute Psalms 1 to Asaph? - no it's an OCR error. Should be l = 50. And clearly there are several psalms within 1-72 that are marked as 'of the children of Korah'.

It is therefore, apart from other psalms which bring us down to the Assyrian period (as lxvi, lxvii) and the time of Jeremiah (as lxxi) and bear in themselves traces of the time of the Exile (as lxix, 35 sqq.), absolutely impossible that the primary collection should have consisted of Ps. ii-lxxii, or rather (since Ps. ii appears as though it ought to be assigned to the later time of the kings, perhaps the time of Isaiah) of Ps. iii-lxxii.

To summarize the remaining points of development: (in his words)

• The chief bulk of the oldest hymn book of the Israelitish church is contained in Ps. iii-lxxii.  
• The two groups iii-lxxii, lxxiii-lxxxix, although not preserved in the original arrangement, and augmented by several kinds of interpolations, at least represent the first two stages of the growth of the Psalter.
• The after portion of the second group was, at the earliest, added in the time of Jehoshaphat... with a greater probability of being in the right we incline to assign them to the time of Hezekiah
• of Hezekiah it is recorded, that he brought the Psalms of David and of Asaph ... into use again (2 Chron. xxix. 30 - [And Hezekiah the king and the nobles said to the Levites to praise Yahweh with the words of David, and Asaph, the visionary]).
• In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah the collection was next extended by the songs composed during and (which are still more numerous) after the Exile. [Some substantiation of this claim later on in his introductory paragraphs.]
• On the whole there is unmistakeably an advance from the earliest to the latest; ... in Ps. i-xli the real bulk of the Davidic and, in general, of the older songs is contained, in Ps. xlii-lxxxix predominantly songs of the middle period, in Ps. xc-cl the large mass of later and very late songs.

I expect from a brief search before correction of my source, that Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah play a significant role in his theory of the formation of the Psalter. I must say that Dr. D is not the easiest author to read. Like many of his time, his paragraphs are long, and there appears to be a great breadth of knowledge focused on the issue.

We have often already referred to one chief point of view of this arrangement according to matter, viz., the imitation of the Thôra...

I first encountered this idea of "David's Torah" in Kimhi's commentary. I am really happy to see it here. The later books of the Bible are keys to reading the earlier books. This becomes clearer and clearer as the historical critical methods and other analysis uncover the composition and internal reception history of the 1000 year period in which the body of the work was written.

I invite readers to look further in the emerging book. I think I will have to look at the detail of his psalms to understand more fully why he expresses himself this way in the summary - itself likely written and revised after many years of thought and detail work. If I live long enough, this could be my entry into a complete update and revision of Seeing the Psalter.