The Psalter and its names

As I noted in my first post on this book, Delitzsch begins by placing the Psalter 'among the writings'. 

Then he introduces several possible names for the poetry in the Psalter, asking 'What are the psalms called?'  He cites first Psalms 72:20

colu tpilot // dvid bn-iwi which he translates as Are ended, the prayers of // David, the son of Jesse.

So are they prayers? But only a few, he says, are called prayers. Also note that the break in the line, the rest in the music comes right in the middle of the construct. [If it is feminine plural, then it maybe is not construct. The placement of the rest gives me pause.] 

Dr D. concludes that prayer is a good name for the contents:

The essence of prayer is a direct and undiverted looking towards God, and the absorption of the mind in the thought of Him. Of this nature of prayer all Psalms partake; even the didactic and laudatory, the containing no supplicatory address, — like Hannah's song of praise which is introduced with וַתִּתְפַּלֵּ֤ל (1 Sam. ii. 1).

Something to think about - perhaps that is why the Psalms move us to such an extent. 

The title thlim also we might think is strange, 

for the Psalms for the most part are hardly hymns in the proper sense: the majority are elegiac or didactic; and only a solitary one, Ps. cxlv, is directly inscribed thlh. But even this collective name of the Psalms is admissible, for they all partake of the nature of the hymn, to wit the purpose of the hymn, the glorifying of God.

The footnote here was interesting: Hippolytus (ed. de Lagarde p. 188) testifies: Έβραίoι περιέγράφαν τὴν βίβλoς Σέφρα θελείμ.* - Just what are those last two words? You guessed: Aramaic transliterated into Greek letters. The footnote shows the first use of transliteration into Latin letters (a thoroughly disciplined transcription is followed in the SimHebrew Bible.) *Jerome (in the Preface to his translation of the Psalms juxta Hebraicam veritatem) points it still differently: SEPHAR THALLIM quod interpretatur volumen hymnorum.

So the psalms are prayers, praises, and hymns.

He takes time to correct a colleague:

It is an erroneous opinion of Buxtorf in his Tiberias and also of Jewish Masoretes, that the Masora calls the Psalter hlila (hallèla). It is only the so-called Hallel, Ps. cxiii—cxix, that bears this name, for in the Masora on 2 Sam. xxii. 5, Ps. cxvi. 3a is called kbro dhlila [ed. his partner in the night?] (the similar passage in the Hallel) in relation to xviii. 5a.

Anyone else have an idea as to what kbro dhlila signifies?

He concludes this section with another thought - the psalms are lyric poems in the strictest sense - the name deriving from the word for lyre.

In Hellenistic Greek the corresponding word ψαλμοί (from ψάλλειν = zmr) is the more common; the Psalm collection is called βίβλoς ψαλμων; (Lk. xx. 42, Acts i. 20) or ψαλτήριον, the name of the instrument (psanterin in the Book of Daniel) *** being transferred metaphorically to the songs that are sung with its accompaniment. Psalms are songs for the lyre, and therefore lyric poems in the strictest sense.

And the footnote is all about the instruments. 

Ναβλα — say Eusebius and others of the Greek Fathers — παρ Εβραιοις λεγεται το ψαλτηριον, και δη μονον των μουσικων οργανων ορθοπαιον, και μη συνεργουμενον, εις ήχον εκ των κατωτατω μερων, αλλ' άνωθεν έχεις τον υπηχουντα χαλκον. Augustine describes this instrument still more clearly in Ps. xlii and elsewhere: Psalterium istud organum dicitur quod de superiore parte habet testudinem, illud scilicet tympanum et concavum lignum cut chorda; innitentes resonant, cithara vero id ipsum lignum cavum et sonorum ex inferiore parte habet. In the cithern the strings pass over the sound-board, in the harp and lyre the vibrating body runs round the strings which are left free (without a bridge) and is either curved or angular as in the case of the harp, or encompasses the strings as in the lyre. Harps with an upper sounding body (whether of metal or wood, viz. lignum concavum i. e. with a hollow and hence sonorous wood, which protects the strings like a testudo and serves as a tympanum) are found both on Egyptian on Assyrian monuments. By the psalterium described by Augustine, Cassiodorus and Isidorus understand the trigonum, which is in the form of an inverted sharp-cornered triangle; but it cannot be this that is intended because the horizontal strings of this instrument are surrounded by a three-sided sounding body, so that it must be a triangular lyre. Moreover there is also a trigon belonging to the Macedonian era which is formed like a harp (vid. Weiss' Kostümkunde, Fig. 347) and this further tends to support our view.

Part of the interest for me has been the need to search online resources to restore the correct Greek and Latin. I have many options for the Hebrew or Aramaic, but Greek is mostly Greek to me. During the process I uncovered a host of useful sites taking me back to Philo, Eusebius of Caesurea, Hippolytus, Epiphanius, Basil, and the very useful google search often interpreted obscure characters.

During this searching, I came across the Catholic Encyclopedia with some square letter errors. 

The Hebrew name is תתלים [sic]‎, "praises" (from הלל‎, "to praise"); or םפר תתלים [sic]‎, "book of praises". [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Psalms]

This should read thlim תהלים in both cases, not ttlim, a word that doesn't exist in Biblical Hebrew. And as we can see - praise הלל names only one psalm, and prayer פלל fewer than a half-dozen, but they are all prayers תהלים and indeed praises תפלים.

The emerging epub is here. Feedback/corrections/ideas can be tweeted via DM or otherwise to @drmacdonald or as a comment on this post.