has struck into the Tôra, both as it regards the matter and the language. Concerning the circumstances of its composition, vid., on Psa 30:1-12.
The superscription מכתּם לדוד, Psa 16:1-11 has in common with Psa 56:1. After the analogy of the other superscriptions, it must have a technical meaning. This at once militates against Hitzig's explanation, that it is a poem hitherto unknown, an ἀνέκδοτον, according to the Arabic mâktum, hidden, secret, just as also against the meaning keimee'lion, which says nothing further to help us. The lxx translates it στηλογραφία (εἰς στηλογραφίαν), instead of which the Old Latin version has tituli inscriptio (Hesychius τίτλος· πτυχίον ἐπίγραμμα ἔχον). That this translation accords with the tradition is shown by that of the Targum גּליפא תריצא sculptura recta (not erecta as Hupfeld renders it). Both versions give the verb the meaning כּתם insculpere, which is supported both by a comparison with כּתב, cogn. חצב, עצב, and by חתם imprimere (sigillum). Moreover, the sin of Israel is called נכתּם in Jer 2:22 (cf. Psa 17:1) as being a deeply impressed spot, not to be wiped out. If we now look more closely into the Michtam Psalms as a whole, we find they have two prevailing features in common. Sometimes significant and remarkable words are introduced by אמרתּי, וימר, דּבּר, Psa 16:2; 58:12; Psa 60:8, cf. Isa 38:10-11 (in Hezekiah's psalm, which is inscribed מכתּב = מכתּם as it is perhaps to be read); sometimes words of this character are repeated after the manner of a refrain, as in Psa 56:1-13 : I will not fear, what can man do to me! in Psa 57:1-11 : Be Thou exalted, Elohim, above the heavens, Thy glory above all the earth! and in Ps 59: For Elohim is my high tower, my merciful God. Hezekiah's psalm unites this characteristic with the other. Accordingly מכתם, like ἐπίγραμμα,[1] appears to mean first of all an inscription and then to be equivalent to an inscription-poem or epigram, a poem containing pithy sayings; since in the Psalms of this order some expressive sentence, after the style of an inscription or a motto on a
- ↑ In modern Jewish poetry מכתם is actually the name for the epigram.
