Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/39

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ARRANGEMENT AND INSCRIPTIONS.

and just so Ps 9 and Psa 10:1 which coincide in the expression יתות בצרה.
Closely connected with this principle of arrangement is the circumstance that the Elohimic psalms (i.e., those which, according to a peculiar style of composition as I have shown in my Symbolae, not from the caprice of an editor,[1] almost exclusively call God אלהים, and beside this make use of such compound names of God as יהוה צבאות, יהוה אלהים צבאות and the like) are placed together without any intermixture of Jehovic psalms. In Psa 1:1 the divine name יהוה predominates; it occurs 272 times and אלהים only 15 times, and for the most part under circumstances where יהוה was not admissible. With Psa 42:1-11 the Elohimic style begins; the last psalm of this kind is the Korahitic psalm Psa 84:1, which for this very reason is placed after the Elohimic psalms of Asaph. In the Psa 85:1 יהוה again becomes prominent, with such exclusiveness, that in the Psalms of the Fourth and Fifth books יהוה occurs 339 times (not 239 as in Symbolae p. 5), and אלהים of the true God only once (Psa 144:9). Among the psalms of David 18 are Elohimic, among the Korahitic 9, and the Asaphic are all Elohimic. Including one psalm of Solomon and four anonymous psalms, there are 44 in all (reckoning Psa 42:1-11 and Psa 43:1 as two). They form the middle portion of the Psalter, and have on their right 41 and on their left 65 Jahve-psalms.
Community in species of composition also belongs to the manifold grounds on which the order according to the subject-matter is determined. Thus the משׂכּיל   (Psa 42:1, Psa 44:1, Psa 45:1, Psa 52:1) and מכתּם (Psa 56:1) stand together among the Elohim-psalms. In like manner we have in the last two books the המּצלות שׁיר (Psa 120:1) and, divided into groups, those beginning with הודוּ (Psa 105:1) and those beginning and ending with הללוּיהּ (Psa 111:1, Psa 146:1) - whence it follows that these titles to the psalms are older than the final redaction of the collection.
It could not possibly be otherwise than that the inscriptions of the psalms, after the harmless position which the monographs

  1. This is Ewald's view (which is also supported by Riehm in Stud. u. Kirt. 1857 S. 168). A closer insight into the characteristic peculiarity of the Elohim-psalms, which is manifest in other respects also, proves it to be superficial and erroneous.