1. Psalm Structure
Most psalms consist of three parts:
- a
superscription,
- the song itself,
and
- a
subscription.
Perfect examples of this order may be seen in Habakkuk 3:1-19
and Isaiah 38:9-20; in these places the psalm is isolated from other psalms
— so there is no question to which psalm the superscription and
subscription belong.
The Hebrew text of the Psalms carries no distinctive breaks
between the psalms, only a number in the margin; and in the AV translation the
mistake was often made of placing the musical direction at the beginning of the
next psalm, instead of at the end of the preceding psalm.
Consider Psalm 68, for example: The superscription is
“a Psalm or song of David”. (“To the chief musician”
belongs to 67.) The subscription is “To the chief musician upon
Shoshannim”. (“A Psalm of David” belongs to 69.)
A good general rule is that the historical or other
introduction belongs to the psalm following it; the musical instruction often
appearing at the beginning of a psalm is properly the subscription to the
previous psalm.
This approach has been suggested by that eminent scholar, J.W.
Thirtle, in his work The Titles of the Psalms. He wrote: “The key
[to the Psalm titles] was lost very early.” Further, he quotes Franz
Delitzsch concerning the misplacement of the musical terms: “The LXX found
them already in existence, and did not understand them; they cannot be explained
even with the aid of the Books of Chronicles (including the Book of Ezra, which
forms a part of these) in which much is said about music, and in which they make
their appearance, like much else, as the revival of choice old expressions, so
that the key to their comprehension must have been lost very
early.”
And Thirtle again: “When the Septuagint translation came
to be made (about 250-200 BC), the work fell to men who knew nothing of the
liturgical use of the Psalms in the Temple service of praise. The glorious
tradition of bygone years had passed out of mind, and the translators were, in
consequence, without safe and effective guidance.”
Under the heading “The Key Found”, Thirtle writes:
“The so-called musical titles have come down to us, alike in the
Massoretic recension of the Hebrew text (copies about AD 900) and in the Greek
and other early versions (codices dating from about AD 400) in a form that has,
even to the present day, caused great confusion. Yet, all down the ages, the
Canonical Scriptures have supplied us with a psalm, which, standing by itself,
claimed to be studied as a model in all its various features, literary and
musical. That psalm appears in Habakkuk 3.
“It opens with:
‘A Prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon
Shigionoth’
and it ends with:
‘To the Chief Singer on my stringed
instruments’.
“In other words, at the head of the psalm we have a
statement of its class (a Prayer), its author (Habakkuk), and its special
character (Shigionoth). These particulars are literary; they deal with the
writer and the writing.
“At the end, we have a statement that is musical, and
exclusively so: The psalm has been adopted by the Chief Singer (the same word
that has been rendered ‘Chief Musician’ in the Psalms), and it is
one for orchestral rendering in the worship of God.”
The notes on the titles of the psalms in the work that follows
will, for the most part, take into account the ground-breaking work of J.W.
Thirtle — to whom all subsequent students of the Psalms owe a great
debt.