Introducing the Psalms Cheat Sheet
Hey you! Yes you, with the thirst for Bible knowledge and a positive attitude in class discussions. Have I got a little goodie for you. This here is a little cheat sheet on some of the most useful factoids about the Bible's biggest book (by chapter count, calm down, erudite), the Psalms.
Read till the end to have a handy visual aid that i find super useful when thinking about the big picture of these ancient songs.
With these insights you'll be sure to knock the socks off your Sabbath School Superintendent or your money back!
pastorelionline makes no such guarantees and is in no such position to make such claims. This information is not for sale, nor is it an attempt to resell. Side-effects may include: worship, prayer, reciting psalm 23, enthusiastic outbursts, and a slight swelling of the cranium. discontinue use immediately and seek pastoral care if you experience a sabbath school discussion tangent lasting longer than 4 hours.
How many?
150 individual psalms
The psalms in ancient times would have been preserved as scrolls, 150 psalms would have made for quite the large and unwieldy scroll so they organized them into 5 smaller scrolls which we now call Books in our modern translations.
Book I 41
Book II 31
Book III 17
Book IV 17
Book V 44
Who Authored?
Attribution is given to a whole lot of people, The main Contributors are David, Asaph and the Korahites, with a third having anonymous attribution. Here’s a list of how many attributed psalms an author has.
David 74
Anonymous 51
Asaph 12
David (LXX) 12
Korahites 12
Haggai (LXX) 3
Zechariah (LXX) 3
Solomon 2
Ethan the Ezrahite 1
Heman the Ezrahite 1
Moses 1
You’ll notice some names have LXX next to them, these are psalms that had no clear attribution in the Hebrew text, but the Septuagint (LXX) translators were very certain it was authored by that person and included such in headings of their translation of the Hebrew Bible. The LXX was the bible translation that the disciples used to quote scripture in the time of and after Jesus.
What Genres?
The subject matter of the psalms is broad and varied, but the Genre can be divided into 7 categories
Hymn 17
Lament 59
Praise 41
Royal 10
Thanksgiving 8
Trust 6
Wisdom 9
Amazingly, “praise” is not the majority but rather “lament!”
Book 1 has the most psalms of lament at 22, but Book 2 has a slightly higher percentage. Book 2 is 58 percent lament, and Book 1 is only 53 percent and has a bigger variety of genres.
BONUS
The psalms of David, (including those attributed by the LXX) are mostly lament, with the majority of the lamenting in all of the psalms being done by him. Also, David only contributes one single psalm in Book 3, Psalm 86, and you guessed it, it’s Lament! However, King David is the only single contributor to write about every major Genre.
Hymn 6
Lament 46
Praise 16
Royal 6
Thanksgiving 4
Trust 6
Wisdom 2
As one last super bonus, check out this helpful graphic that shows the distributions of genres across the five books of Psalms. This is a great way to see just how much lament the first three books have.
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