Psalms (Overview)

Carroll Stuhlmueller writes:
Book One (Pss. 1-41) consists almost exclusively of ‘Psalms of David’ (except Pss. 1-2, 10, and 33) and is dominated by laments. Book One reflects the decadent or, at best, the despondent state of religion after the return from exile, as seen in Haggai and Isa. 56:9-57:13; 63:7-64:11. The fact that the royal Davidic psalms are scattered and that the titles refer to David’s shared humanity, not to his royal status, reflects the demise of the dynasty.

Book Two (Pss. 42-72) gives new attention to Jerusalem’s Temple liturgy in the psalms of Korah (Ps. 42-49) and Asaph (Ps. 50). These may date from the time of the religious reform of Ezra in the latter part of the fifth century B.C. (Ezra 7-10; Neh. 8-9) and the composition of the two books of Chronicles.

Book Three (Pss. 73-89) belongs almost exclusively to Asaph and Korah, while the slams in Book Four (Pss. 90-106) are almost completely untitled. Psalms 96-99 enhance the Temple liturgy as prefiguring the final or eschatological age. These books were added as the momentum of Ezra’s reform continued.

Book Five (Pss. 107-150) is the most liturgical of all, with attention to Jews in the Diaspora on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a situation possibly reflecting international stability and communication effected by the conquests of Alexander the Great. Psalms 120-134 constitute a booklet for pilgrims; Psalms 113-118, for the three major pilgrimage festivals. In Books Four and Five, composition of psalms has definitely passed from the control of the guilds under the names of David, Korah, and Asaph, to a wider group of worship leaders.
J. Alberto Soggin writes:
“While the Hebrew and Christian tradition tended to attribute the greater part of the Psalter to the pen of David, critical Introduction from the end of the last century and the first decades of this has taken the opposite course: in his commentary, B. Duhm argued that it was no longer a question of asking whether there were any psalms from the Maccabaean period, but rather of asking whether there were any earlier than this period, and the authority which his opinion enjoyed is amply demonstrated by the support given to it by R. H. Pfieffer’s Introduction and by the indecision of that of A. Lods. However, we have already seen that it is impossible to put the question in these terms, not only because of the recent discoveries from Qumran but also because of the studies made in the 1920s by S. Mowinckel, H. Gunkel and H. Schmidt. The second in particular advanced a more moderate argument, pointing out the absence of any convincing proof for such a late date and at the same time that there could be no question of ‘dating’ pure and simple or of the ‘origin’ of a given psalm. The task was, rather, to establish in as exact a form as possible the literary genre of each composition, and within the field of the literary genre, the use which was made of it.” (Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 369)
Samuel Sandmel writes:
“At Ugarit, twelve miles north of Latakia in north Syria, at a mound called Ras Shamra, many material remains were uncovered in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, revealing remarkably close parallels to the Psalms in content and in a language kindred to the Hebrew. The Ras Shamra tablets come from the sixteenth-fourteenth pre-Christian centuries. Therefore, the view that the Psalms must necessarily be late was proven untenable. The attempt to date the Psalms reverted to the scrutinizing of each psalm, and the ‘late dating’ was properly abandoned or at least used with discretion.” (The Hebrew Scriptures, p. 241)
Jay G. Williams writes:
“Just when the psalms were written is a matter of great dispute. Some scholars argue that nearly all of them are post-exilic in origin, while others maintain that many came from the pre-exilic period. Some would even argue for a pre-Davidic date for several of the psalms. Although it is impossible to reach any absolute certainty concerning the matter, it is becoming more and more evident that those who argue for a post-exilic date for the origin of all the psalms are having an increasingly difficult time defending their position. Surely, the Israelites must have had some sort of psalmic tradition even during the time of the judges, for virtually every ancient religion employed hymns of one sort or another to praise the gods or God. Furthermore, discoveries at Ugarit have shown quite conclusively that Israelite and Canaanite hymnody have many literary similarities. This means that the Israelite psalmic tradition must have originated when Canaanite influence was still strong. The mention of kings in various psalms (20:9; 21:1, 7; 45:1, 11, 14, 15, for instance) also seems to imply a date when kings still ruled Israel. All of this points to a pre-exilic date for many of the psalms.” (Understanding the Old Testament, p. 277)
James King West writes:
“Study of the Psalter has undergone significant changes during the present century, not the least of which is an altogether different approach to the question of the date and occasion of individual psalms. In years past interest centered on efforts to determine the specific occasion for which each psalm was composed, and the prevailing tendency was toward late dating. Most, if not all, psalms were assigned to the post-Exilic period, and it was not uncommon to date some as late as the Maccabean era (second and first centuries B.C.). The present trend is toward earlier dating, allowing for a considerable number of pre-Exilic psalms, but with a reluctance to fix precise dates. It now appears that there are few, if any, psalms for which the specific historical occasion is beyond doubt. Following the path-finding studies of Hermann Gunkel, the major aim of psalms scholarship has become the discovery of the peculiar functions served by the psalms in their separate settings (Sitzen im Leben). Since the Psalter found its primary use in cultic worship, this approach (form criticism) is concerned especially with liturgical forms.” (Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 385)
More
The psalms are notoriously tricky to date since each psalm has its own history, with many likely originating from specific shrines (divided, broadly, between northern Israel and southern Judah) and undergoing editorial activity.

At different times, these psalms were arranged within collections, which were then arranged into bigger collections. Richard Clifford in NOAB calls Psalms an “anthology of anthologies.” In the final arrangement, these anthologies were structured to mirror the Pentateuch: “The book of Psalms is divided into five books, a deliberate parallel to the five books of the Torah or Pentateuch. Each of these five parts—Psalms 1–41; 42–72; 73–89; 90–106; 107–150—ends with a doxology or ‘word of praise.’ Psalm 1 introduces this collection by explicitly mentioning ‘the law (Heb torah) of the Lᴏʀᴅ.’”

Clifford goes onto to say that these five “books,” in turn, are home to even more collections—some dispersed for thematic purposes. For example, eighteen psalms are attributed to David; Pss 42–49; 84–85; 87–88 to the Korahites; Pss 50 and 73–83 to Asaph (a son of Korah); Ps 88 to Henen (a son of Korah); Ps 93–99 are themed on divine kingship; Pss 120–134 are each labeled “A Song of Ascents” (probably pilgrimage songs); and some are repeated (Ps 14 = Ps 53) indicating psalms were historically featured in more than one collection. Similarly, Ps 43–83 makeup what’s known as the “Elohist Psalter” because it prefers the name “Elohim” over “Yahweh” (which is otherwise dominant). Intriguingly, this psalter overlaps with Book 2 and Book 3.

It appears, too, that the various “traditions” in these sets have their own technique and approach. For example, similar to Gary Rendsburg (pg. 81), Karl Jacobson holds that the Jerusalem-repurposed Asaph psalms are northern in origin—however, he goes on to argue that a common thread in the Asaph tradition is reframing historical memory for recitation to shape the community in very specific ways. Their rhetoric and objective is distinctive. (pg. 8)

In terms of dating, little is certain, but it may be helpful to start at the end. Book 5 (Psalms 107–150) contain clusters of Old Persian loanwords commonly found in post-exilic literature (Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Daniel). Wilson-Wright dates these to 460 BCE onward (pg. 157). This does not mean only this section has the most recent works, however. Adele Berlin, in her exploration of Exilic literature, argues that many psalms in Books 1–4 can be traced back to the devastation of exile. Notably, among these she includes some classically “pre-exilic” psalms (including from within the Asaph set). But, she broadly cautions:
The dating of psalms is notoriously difficult, and opinions on the date of the aforementioned psalms diverge widely. Dating entraps us in a hermeneutic circle whereby we interpret the meaning of the psalm and then date it to the period when that meaning would be most relevant. Moreover, dating the psalms also follows more general trends in dating biblical texts, the favored period having moved from the Maccabean period, to the monarchal period, to the Persian period, wherein today much of the Hebrew Bible is thought to have taken shape. (pg. 66)
With all that said, chronological scattering is to be expected. John J. Collins, argues, for example, that the arrangement of the Psalms appears to be fluid in 2nd c. BCE, judging by Qumran—in their collection, the final third section was significantly in flux, both with full repositioning and different material. Because of this, Collins argues that the recognized form we have today wasn’t settled until after this date. (pg. 498) Likewise, Gerald Wilson observes that high-calibre Septuagint scholars (like Eugene Ulrich) have begun arguing that the Hebrew psalter wasn’t closed until the first century CE! (pg. 394)
Authorship
Crawford, “Scribes, Scrolls, and Qumran” (2019), mentions in passing that, “While much literature from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ugarit, and ancient Israel is anonymous, the product of centuries of shaping by scribes, Greek literature often carried the authority of a known author.” The Greek idea of authored works spread in the Hellenistic period, even where it was out of sync with ancient Near Eastern scribal culture. The individual authors of all the books of the Hebrew Bible are unknown, and the creation biblical books was a collective effort.

Kugel, “How to Read the Bible” (2007), Chapter 26, pp.59-73, addresses two main issues about the book of Psalms and its authorship. One is that the expression ‘ledawid’, which can be translated as ‘for David’, ‘about David’, or ‘belonging to David,’ had long been taken to indicate Davidic authorship of the Psalms. But as scholars looked critically at the use of ‘ledawid,’ it could appear anachronistically, referring to things that only happened long after the time of David, and could not indicate his authorship, or be a scribal addition to a psalm.

Another contra-indicator of a single Judahite author comes from the language of individual psalms. Words change meaning over time, yet certain words were used in an archaic manner in some psalms, and in a much later way in others. There are also northern idioms from the Israelite kingdom in some places, and Judahite idioms in others. The psalms thus appear to be written in different times and places.

VanderKam, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 2nd ed.(2010), gives some additional food for thought with the scroll 11QPs (a). It contains a divergent arrangement of psalms in what are now the 4th and 5th books of the psalter. In that scroll, specifically the ones now numbered 101-151 (not a typo), along with some additional material, the different order seems to indicate that the book of Psalms wasn’t fully settled yet during the Greco-Roman period. (pp.172-176)
In ‘How to Read the Bible’, James Kugel points to linguistic evidence. “Some psalms use, like 1 or 119 or 145, used terms or expressions that were simply not found in the earlier parts of the Bible, but existed in abundance in latest datable books”. He also looks at words that had changed their meaning over time, like “shalal,” meaning “war spoils” in 2 Sam 3:22, but “wealth” or “treasure” in Ps. 119:162. Kugel also finds many northern Israelite usages and places, as opposed to southern, Judean, ones. “In short, the great chronological and geographical span indicated by the Psalms’ language ruled out a single author or even a single period: the Psalms were written in different places over a long span of time” Who did write them? After an extended discussion on the use of the Psalms in the Temple, he concludes, “Instead it now seemed most likely that the authors of most of the Psalms were people directly connected to the Temple setting–priests or Levites who worked there.”
The grammatical construction that shows up in the so called Davidic Psalms: “leDavid” does not necessarily ascribe authorship. It seems to be used this way usually, but not exclusively.

A helpful example: the Psalm 72 heading reads “leShlomo,” yet the contents of the Psalm seem to fit better with the understanding “(dedicated) to Solomon,” rather than “by Solomon.”

Also, there are significant questions in regard to the headings. Why do the LXX headings so often differ with the Masoretic text headings? I think this points to the fact that some (most?) headings are later than the Psalms they are attached to.

Also, grammatical style, lexical choice, or other linguistic or stylistic features would be a dicey thing to give much weight to. The book of Psalms is the most obviously edited book of the Bible, and has (comparatively) a lot of variation among the manuscripts. Psalm 51, for example, is part of the Elohistic Psalter, which is a portion of Psalms that use “Yahweh” infrequently, and “Elohim” frequently. But the Psalm is attributed to David (or at least bears his name; see above), who frequently uses “Yahweh” in other Psalms. A big deal can (and perhaps will be) made about that, but we must remember the life of the text. And especially since it is a song, the life of the pre-text. What David writes in 1000 BC will differ from what an editor includes in a collection hundreds of years later, which in turn may differ from what a scribe writes down 500 years after that. Also, as Psalms 14 and 53 show, the editor(s) had no problem with changing the divine name to Elohim, in what is otherwise an identical Psalm.