de Lagarde p. 188) testifies: Ἑβραῖοι περιέγραψαν τὴν βίβλον Σέφρα θελείμ.[1] This name may also seem 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 תהלה. 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 narrative Psalms praise the magnalia Dei, the plaintive likewise praise Him, since they are directed to Him as the only helper, and close with grateful confidence that He will hear and answer. The verb הִלֵל includes both the Magnificat and the De profundis.
The language of the Masora gives the preference to the feminine form of the name, instead of תהלים, and throughout calls the Psalter ספר תהלות (e.g. on 2 Sam. xxii. 5).[2] In the Syriac it is styled ketobo demazmûre, in the Koran zabir (not as Golius and Freytag point it, zubir), which in the usage of the Arabic language signifies nothing more than writing (synon. Aitdb: vid. on ili. 1), but is perhaps a corruption of mizmor from which a plural mezdmir is formed, by a change of vowels, in Jewish-Oriental MSS. In the Old Testament writings a plural of mizamor does not occur. Also in the post-biblical usage mizmorim or mizmoroth is found only in solitary instances as the name for the Psalms. In Hellenistic Greek the corresponding word ψαλμοί (from ψαλμοί = זִמֵּר) is the more common; the Psalm collection is called βίβλος ψαλμῶν (Lk. xx. 42, Acts i. 20) or ψαλτήριον, the name of the instrument (psantērîn in the Book of Daniel) [3] being
- ↑ In Eusebius, vi. 25: Σέφηρ θιλλήν; Jerome (in the Preface to his translation of the Psalms juxta Hebraicam veritatem) points it still differently: SEPHAR THALLIM quod interpretatur volumen hymnorum. Accordingly at the end of the Psalterium ex Hebreo, Cod. 19 in the Convent Library of St. Gall we find the subscription: Sephar Tallim Quod interpre tatur volumen Ymnorum explicit.
- ↑ It is an erroneous opinion of Buxtorf in his Ziberias and also of Jewish Masoretes, that the Masora calls the Psalter הלילא (halléla). 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. 3 a is called תברו דהלילא (the similar passage in the Hallel) in relation to xviii. 5 a.
- ↑ Νάβλα — say Eusebius and others of the Greek Fathers — παρ’ Ἑβραίοις λέγεται τὸ ψαλτήριον, ὃ δὴ μόνον τῶν μουσικῶν ὀργάνων ὀρθότατον
