0 Psalms in our Prayers
"As Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis unfolded, Jews turned to prayers designed for moments of danger"
Philissa Cramer January 15, 2022
(Visited January 2022)
“What is the right prayer for people in peril?” asked Ron Lieber, a New York Times columnist, on Twitter, tagging several rabbis in the process.
Among the responses: Psalm 121, which includes the lines, “God is your guardian. God is your protection.” Psalm 130, which begins, “Out of the depths I cry to you.” And Psalm 142: “Free me from prison, that I may praise your name.”
"Joyous Festivals 5721" (Fall 1960) stamp - 0.25 Israeli lira - Kings of Israel: David.
By Designer: A. Kalderon - Israeli postage stamp catalog, Catalog Number: 231, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94165345
King David Playing the Harp (1622), by Gerard van Honthorst
Found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David
By Gerard van Honthorst - dQFEnSBuziiUpQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110608360
1 About Psalms
- Where is this book found in Tanach?
- What do the English word 'psalms' and the Hebrew word Tehillim mean?
- How many chapters are in Psalms? Is Psalms organized into sections?
- Do we know who wrote Psalms?
- Do we know when Psalms was written?
- What are the Psalms about?
- What difference does it make that the Psalms are poems?
- What does the book of Psalms have to do with prayer?
About Psalms: Where is the book found in Tanach?
In Hebrew, the book of Psalms is called Tehillim / תהלים. Usually it opens the third section of Tanach, Ketuvim (Writings, Hagiographa).
"a text from the Dead Sea Scrolls...speaks of 'the books of Moses and the books of the Prophets and David,' thus indicating its status." - Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, "Psalms: Introduction," The Jewish Study Bible, p. 1265.
To learn more about Ketuvim, the third section of Tanach, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible.
About Psalms: What do the English word 'psalms' and the Hebrew word Tehillim mean?
Psalms from Greek Psalmoi - songs played to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument (apparently, this is parallel with the Hebrew מזמור / Mizmor, which is a word that appears at the beginning of many psalms.
Tehillim / תהלים - 'praises'. Only one psalm is called a Tehillah/תהלה - Psalm 145 ("Ashrei") - it happens to be one of the most well-known.
About Psalms: Number of Chapters? Divided into sections?
There are 150 chapters in Psalms. They are never called "chapter 1, chapter 2" but "Psalm 1, Psalm 2." In Hebrew, Mizmor Aleph, Mizmor Beit. In Yiddish, "kapitel," pronounced kah-PI-tl, from the Latin word for chapter.
There are 5 books of Psalms: 1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 107-150. There is a short praise of God at the end of books I-IV.
...משה נתן להם חמשה חומשי תורה. וכנגדם נתן להם דוד ספר תהלים שיש בו חמשה ספרים.
Midrash Tehillim, also referred to as Midrash Shocher Tov, is a midrash on the Book of Psalms. Compiled in Narbonne (France) between the 11th and 15th centuries.
...Moses gave [the Jews] the Five Books of the Torah. Parallel to them, David gave them the Book of Psalms, in which there are five books.
About Psalms: Do we know who wrote Psalms?
"An ancient and pervasive tradition, going back to the Bible itself, attributes the authorship of Psalms to David. ...
"Davidic authorship, however, on the basis of linguistic and contextual evidence, is not accepted as historical fact by modern scholars, but is viewed as a way the ancients linked biblical writings with the appropriate inspired well-known biblical figure, thereby confirming the divine inspiration and the authority of those writings..."
- Berlin and Brettler, JSB, p. 1266
Psalms are attributed to David, the sons of Korah, Asaph, Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman the Ezrahite, Solomon, and Moses. Many are not attributed.
About Psalms: Do we know when Psalms was written?
Traditionally, Psalms was written by David or by the individuals mentioned in the superscription of a particular psalm. Academic scholars are uncertain about dating.
"While many modern scholars believe that at least some, perhaps even many, of the psalms are from the preexilic period (before 586 BCE), none can be dated on linguistic grounds to the 10th c. BCE, the period of David." - Berlin & Brettler, JSB, p 1267.
About Psalms: What are they about?
"According to the outlook of Psalms, the main religious function of human beings is to offer praise to God, to proclaim His greatness throughout the world. ... If there is one primary underlying assumption of the book of Psalms, it is the potential efficacy of prayer." - Berlin and Brettler, JSB, p. 1268-9
"Most psalms fall into three general categories (sometimes a psalm partakes of more than one category): hymns of praise; complaints or pleas for help (sometimes called laments); and thanksgiving psalms. Other subcategories, like wisdom psalms (see Ps. 1) or royal psalms (see Ps. 2) have also been discerned." - Berlin and Brettler, JSB, p. 1268
[Teacher's note: We will be referring to Psalm 78 in connection with our text (Psalm 23). Psalm 78, the second longest poem in Psalms, is a didactic psalm about God's acts on behalf of Biblical Israel, a lesson from history.]
Examples:
- The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; those crushed in spirit He delivers. - Psalms 34:19, Additional Morning Psalms for Shabbat & Holidays
- The LORD is gracious and beneficent; our God is compassionate. - Psalms 116:5, recited as part of Hallel on Holidays
- Let all that breathes praise the LORD. Hallelujah. - Psalms 150:6, Daily Morning Psalms
About Psalms: What difference does it make that the Psalms are poems?
"A major characteristic of Hebrew poetry is parallelism of lines in which the second line can be synonymous, antithetical, or synthetic of the first. ...
"...in synonymous parallelism, the second line repeats in different words what has already been expressed in the first; in antithetic parallelism, the second line presents the same idea as the first by way of contrast or negation; and synthetic parallelism completes or expands the idea of the first part in the second part. Parallelism slows the pace of the poem and sets up resonances between lines."
-- Richard J. Clifford, Introduction to Psalms, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, p. 782
"The psalms are of course poems written out of deep and often passionate faith. What I am proposing is that the poetic medium made it possible to articulate the emotional freight, the moral consequences, the altered perception of the world that flowed from this monotheistic belief, in compact verbal structures that could in some instances seem simplicity itself." -- Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, Basic Books, 1985, p. 113.
About Psalms: What does the book of Psalms have to do with prayer?
(יח) בָּר֤וּךְ ׀ ה' אֱ֭לֹקִים אֱלֹקֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל עֹשֵׂ֖ה נִפְלָא֣וֹת לְבַדּֽוֹ׃ (יט) וּבָר֤וּךְ ׀ שֵׁ֥ם כְּבוֹד֗וֹ לְע֫וֹלָ֥ם וְיִמָּלֵ֣א כְ֭בוֹדוֹ אֶת־כֹּ֥ל הָאָ֗רֶץ אָ֘מֵ֥ן ׀ וְאָמֵֽן׃
(כ) כָּלּ֥וּ תְפִלּ֑וֹת דָּ֝וִ֗ד בֶּן־יִשָֽׁי׃
(18) Blessed is the LORD God, God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things; (19) Blessed is His glorious name forever;
His glory fills the whole world.
Amen and Amen.
(20) End of the prayers of David son of Jesse.
“There is a scholarly debate about the extent to which the canonical psalms represent actual liturgical pieces written for and used in the cult. … as is often the case with liturgical texts, actual usage and inner meaning are not always apparent from the bare text, because the same words can be applied to many, and ever-changing, circumstances. This fact…no doubt partially accounts for the great popularity of the book of Psalms to this day.” --
Stephen A. Geller, The Jewish Study Bible, "The Religion of the Bible," p. 1993, col. 1
"For about two thousand years the 150 Psalms have been a lovingly memorized prayer book, transposing to the daily life of Jews and Christians the meeting of Israel and its Lord. They were prayed from antiquity onward by the founders of rabbinic Judaism, the early Christians, the fathers of the church, and the medieval synagogue and church. They are today a treasure shared by Jews and Christians. The psalms' power lies not only in being sacred scripture but also in their reflecting human feelings before God and expressing them directly, concretely, and skillfully." -- Richard J. Clifford, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, p. 783.
"When someone reads the words of a psalm as an act of worship, he or she takes over, in a sense, the psalm's authorship. It may have been written by an ancient Levite, but at the moment of its recitation, its words become the worshiper's own: they speak on his or her behalf to God. ... The true author is now the worshiper himself." - James L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible, Free Press, 2007, pp. 472-3.
Liturgy as Psalms!
Ruth Langer, "The Bible in the Liturgy," The Jewish Study Bible, p. 2063, col. 2
Rabbinic Liturgy - 3. Biblicizing Prayers
"...the language of these prayers [such as the Amidah and Birkat HaMazon] retains a close connection to the Bible... it is richly allusive to the language of the Bible, drawing on its vocabulary and imagery for almost every phrase. Because most of these allusions are to Psalms or other poetic texts, the result is a highly poetic prose."
2 Our Text: Psalm 23
(1) A psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd;
I lack nothing.
(2) He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me to water in places of repose;-a
(3) He renews my life;
He guides me in right paths
as befits His name.
(4) Though I walk through a valley of deepest darkness,-b
I fear no harm, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.
(5) You spread a table for me in full view of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my drink is abundant.
(6) Only goodness and steadfast love shall pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for many long years.
3 Commentaries, Sources, Themes
Illustration for Psalm 23
An 1880 Baxter process illustration of Psalm 23, from the Religious Tract Society's magazine The Sunday at Home
Uncertain, but: Most likely: Edmund Evans (1826–1905)
Found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalms
A Contemporary Jewish Musical Rendition
Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot Sings "Mizmor Ledavid" (Psalm 23) at Barclays Center With Itzhak Perlman
58,550 viewsMar 1, 2013
Music composed by Ben Zion Shenker (1925-2016). "Ben Zion Shenker (1925–2016) was a world-renowned[1][2][3][4] American Hasidic composer and hazzan, associated with the Modzitz hasidic dynasty. Shenker was born in the heyday of the American hazzan.[2]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Zion_Shenker
Translations
Digital Collections, Library of the University of Michigan
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB)[and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I.The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, an intertestamental section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. Noted for its "majesty of style", the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. (Source: Wikipedia, "King James Version")
[1] The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
[2] He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
[3] He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
[4] Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
[5] Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
[6] Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
JPS 1917 Translation
1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul; He guideth me in straight paths for His name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Comments and Inspirations
Meditation for Psalm 23
"A strange calm has come over me. It is not that my troubles are gone. They are still around, believe me. But I have given them over to a 'Higher Power.' That relieves me from a lot of pressure. I have more freedom to solve my problems by myself."
Comment to Psalm 23
"Our psalm is certainly the most well-known psalm of all. Its words are calming and reassuring. Its message is one of trust and hope."
-- Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, The Koren Tehillim, Koren, 2015
"The psalm combines two distinct images of God: shepherd (vv. 1-4) and host of a banquet (v.5)..."
--Clifford, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Commentary to Psalm 23, p. 800
"Oil was used to wash away the grime of a long journey and was placed on the heads of guests at banquets."
--Berlin & Brettler, JSB, Commentary to Psalm 23:5, p, 1293
(52) He set His people moving like sheep,
drove them like a flock in the wilderness. (53) He led them in safety; they were unafraid;
as for their enemies, the sea covered them. (54) He brought them to His holy realm,
the mountain His right hand had acquired.
(15) He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink as if from the great deep. (16) He brought forth streams from a rock
and made them flow down like a river.
(17) But they went on sinning against Him,
defying the Most High in the parched land. (18) To test God was in their mind
when they demanded food for themselves. (19) They spoke against God, saying,
“Can God spread a feast in the wilderness? (20) True, He struck the rock and waters flowed,
streams gushed forth;
but can He provide bread?
Can He supply His people with meat?”
Jewish Lists of Psalms for personal devotion
My Jewish Learning - "Psalms as the Ultimate Self-Help Tool: These 150 biblical poems offer a spiritual reservoir in difficult times." by RABBI SIMKHA Y. WEINTRAUB
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/psalms-as-prayer/
Aish.com. https://www.aish.com/atr/Recommended-Tehillim-Psalms-Lists.html
Chabad.com https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1228223/jewish/Psalms-and-Jewish-Prayer-for-Healing.htm
Tikkun HaKlali ("The General Remedy"), a selection of ten Psalms - Rabbi Nachman of Breslov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikkun_HaKlali