The Psalms in Hebrew

The Hebrew name of the book is תְּהִלִּים tehillim, praises, from the root הלל (h-l-l), to praise, the root you hear in hallelujah. That name surprises readers who have learned from the Hermeneutics and Old Testament Survey tracks that laments are the largest group in the Psalter. An earlier editorial note gives a different name to part of the collection: Psalm 72:20, 'Thus conclude the prayers of David son of Jesse,' where prayers is תְּפִלּוֹת tefillot. The book, then, is called praises and contains prayers, and both names are true to it. Many laments end in praise, and the whole collection ends with five psalms that begin and end with hallelujah.

That word is worth reading in the Hebrew once. Psalm 150:1 begins הַלְלוּ יָהּ hallelu yah. Hallelu is a piel imperative, masculine plural, of הלל: you all, praise. Yah is the short form of the divine name YHWH. So hallelujah is not a vague cry of joy but a command addressed to a congregation, telling them whom to praise. The BSB keeps it as the transliterated word Hallelujah, as at the end of Psalm 150:6, but in the Hebrew it is two words and a command.

Before you work in the Hebrew of the Psalms, you need to know one practical fact, because it will confuse you the first time you meet it. In the Hebrew Bible, and in the Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) that the free tools use, a psalm's heading is counted as part of verse 1, or, if it is long, as verses 1 and 2. So the Hebrew verse numbers often run one or two ahead of the English. The words The heavens declare the glory of God are Psalm 19:1 in the BSB and Psalm 19:2 in the Hebrew, because Hebrew verse 1 is the heading. Psalm 51 has a two-verse heading in Hebrew, so the words Have mercy on me, O God are 51:1 in the BSB and 51:3 in the Hebrew. The BSB itself joins the heading to the first verse, which is why its Psalm 19:1 begins with For the choirmaster.

Blue Letter Bible and STEP Bible both let you look up psalms by the English numbers, and show the Hebrew aligned to them, so on a phone you will rarely notice. But commentaries, Hebrew grammars and some scholarly articles cite the Hebrew numbers, and you will one day look up a verse a writer quotes and find the wrong line. When that happens, look one or two verses later. Some tools mark the Hebrew numbering in small print; if yours does, learn where it is shown.

All but thirty-four of the psalms carry a heading, and the Old Testament Survey lesson on the Psalms has already given you the most important question about them: what the little prefix le- in le-David can mean, and the two positions held on whether the headings record authorship. That lesson is the place for that debate. Here we read the other words in the headings, because they are the ones a student opening the Hebrew most often cannot place.

Take Psalm 4. The Hebrew heading reads לַמְנַצֵּחַ בִּנְגִינוֹת מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד lamnatseach binginot mizmor ledavid. Lamnatseach is the preposition le-, for or to, with the article, joined to a piel participle of the root נצח (n-ts-ch), to direct or lead: for the leader, which the BSB renders For the choirmaster. The word appears in fifty-five psalm headings and once at the end of Habakkuk 3. Its general sense is not much disputed, though its exact force was, and the Septuagint rendered it with a Greek phrase meaning to the end, which shows that by then its sense was no longer obvious. Binginot is with stringed instruments, from a root meaning to play on strings. Mizmor is a song with musical accompaniment, from the root זמר (z-m-r), to sing or make music, and it is the word the BSB renders A Psalm. Then ledavid.

Some heading words are understood reasonably well: shir, song; tefillah, prayer; tehillah, praise, the heading of Psalm 145. Others are not. Maskil, in the headings of thirteen psalms, is from a root meaning to be wise or skilful, so it may mean a skilful song or a teaching song, but no one knows which. Miktam, in six headings, is unexplained. Alamoth in Psalm 46 and Sheminith in Psalms 6 and 12 may name a pitch or an instrument, and tune names such as The Doe of the Dawn in Psalm 22 are, as the Old Testament Survey lesson notes, names we can translate but can no longer hear. When you meet one of these words, the honest thing to say to a congregation is that it is a technical term whose meaning has been lost. That is not a weakness in the text. It is evidence that these were real songs, sung in a real temple, with musical directions the singers understood.

The thirty-four psalms with no heading at all include Psalms 1 and 2. That fact matters for the next sections, because the two untitled psalms at the start of the book are bound together in the Hebrew in a way the English partly hides.

The word סֶלָה selah (H5542) occurs seventy-four times in the Hebrew Bible: seventy-one times in thirty-nine psalms, all but four of them in the first three books of the Psalter, and three times in the prayer of Habakkuk 3. It is never explained anywhere in scripture. The BSB, like most translations, transliterates it rather than translating it, which is itself a confession that no one knows exactly what it means.

Look first at where it falls. In Psalm 3 it comes after verses 2, 4 and 8, which are the ends of the psalm's sections and of the psalm itself. In Psalm 46 it comes after verses 3, 7 and 11, and verses 7 and 11 are the same refrain. That pattern suggests a marker at a break. But in Psalm 55:19 it falls in the middle of a sentence, and in Habakkuk 3:3 and 3:9 in the middle of a verse. Psalm 9:16 pairs it with another unexplained word, Higgaion. Any theory has to fit all of these positions, and none fits them all comfortably.

Here are the main proposals, each as its defenders put it. The first takes selah as a musical or liturgical direction, connecting it with the root סלל (s-l-l), to lift up or raise: a cue to raise the voice, for instruments to strike up, or for an interlude. The Septuagint translates it every time with diapsalma, a Greek word whose own meaning is uncertain but which most take to mean a musical interlude, so this view has the oldest translation on its side. Its weakness is that the derivation is a guess and does not explain the mid-sentence occurrences well.

The second proposal comes from ancient Jewish tradition, which took selah to mean forever or always. The Aramaic Targums render it that way, the second-century Greek translator Aquila rendered it with a Greek word for always, Jerome's Latin translation of the Psalms made directly from the Hebrew uses semper, always, and the Babylonian Talmud groups selah with two Hebrew words that mean forever. This view has the weight of a long tradition close to the language, and it fits some positions, such as the end of a psalm, very naturally. Its weakness is that forever makes little sense in the middle of some verses, and the tradition may record what later readers inferred rather than what the word meant to the temple singers.

The third group of proposals takes selah as a cue for the congregation: to respond, to bow, to repeat a line, or to say a benediction. These fit a temple setting well and are impossible to test. The popular sermon gloss, pause and think about that, belongs loosely to the first proposal and is harmless as a reading practice. What is not harmless is presenting it as the meaning of the word, or building a sermon point on it. What is settled is that the meaning is not known. The responsible thing to do when you read a psalm aloud is to decide in advance whether to read selah or leave it silent, and, if anyone asks, to say plainly that it is a musical or liturgical word whose sense has been lost, with a sentence on the main guesses.

The Hermeneutics lesson on poetry has introduced Hermann Gunkel's types of psalm and the anatomy of a lament, and the Pastoral Care track's lesson Teaching a Church to Lament shows how to use laments in a congregation. Two later scholars sharpened the picture in ways a Hebrew reader can use. Claus Westermann, in the book translated as Praise and Lament in the Psalms (expanded edition 1981), argued that the two basic modes of the Psalter are plea and praise, and that a lament almost always moves toward praise, which is why the book can be called praises at all. Walter Brueggemann, in The Message of the Psalms (1984), grouped the psalms as songs of orientation, disorientation and new orientation: life as it should be, life falling apart, and life given back. These are frameworks, not rules, and both scholars would say so. Psalm 88 has no turn, and some psalms mix types.

Now the markers. Laments often open with a question, and the commonest is עַד־אָנָה ad-anah, how long. Psalm 13:1-2 uses it four times in two verses: עַד־אָנָה יְהוָה תִּשְׁכָּחֵנִי נֶצַח ad-anah YHWH tishkacheni netsach, how long, O LORD, will You forget me forever? The turn toward trust is often marked by a pronoun placed first for emphasis. Psalm 13:5 begins וַאֲנִי בְּחַסְדְּךָ בָטַחְתִּי va'ani bechasdekha vatachti: but I, in Your loving devotion I have trusted, with the qal perfect of בטח (b-t-ch), to trust. The BSB renders it, 'But I have trusted in Your loving devotion.' Then 13:6 begins with a cohortative, אָשִׁירָה ashirah, a first-person form expressing resolve: let me sing, I will sing.

Hymns of praise have their own grammar. They usually begin with a plural imperative, a call to others to praise, and then give a reason, introduced by כִּי ki, for or because. Psalm 136:1 is the pattern in miniature: הוֹדוּ לַיהוָה כִּי־טוֹב hodu laYHWH ki-tov, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, where hodu is a hiphil imperative, masculine plural, of ידה (y-d-h), to give thanks or confess. Hebrew praise is rarely just enthusiasm. It almost always says why. When you open a psalm of praise in the interlinear, look for the ki, and you will usually find the theology of the psalm in the clause after it.

These markers do not replace reading the whole psalm, and you should not classify a psalm from a single word. But they are quick to find on a phone, they tell you where the psalm turns, and they will save you from preaching a lament as if it were a hymn, or skipping the turn in a lament that the poet worked hard to earn.

Now the anchor, from the WLC. אַשְׁרֵי־הָאִישׁ ashrei-ha'ish: O the happiness of the man. Ashrei is a plural noun form used as an exclamation; it declares a person to be in a fortunate, flourishing state. אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים asher lo halakh ba'atsat resha'im: who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked. וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד uvderekh chatta'im lo amad: and in the way of sinners has not stood. וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב uvmoshav letsim lo yashav: and in the seat of mockers has not sat. Halakh, amad and yashav are all qal perfects, third masculine singular.

Notice the tense. The verbs are perfects, which a beginner might render has not walked. The BSB renders them in the English present, does not walk, and that is right, because here the perfect describes a settled pattern of life, a general truth, which English expresses with a present. The Verb System module of this track discusses the perfect and imperfect, and whether the Hebrew verb is best described by tense or by aspect; Psalm 1:1 is a clear case where a past tense in English would mislead.

Then the English word blessed, which is the most important translation question in the verse. The BSB uses blessed for two different Hebrew words. Ashrei, here, describes a state: this person is fortunate, his life is going well in the deepest sense. It is a declaration about how things are, it occurs twenty-six times in the Psalms, and it is never said of God. בָּרוּךְ barukh, as in 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD' (Psalm 118:26), is a passive participle of the verb barakh, to bless. It speaks of someone who receives blessing, and it is said of God as well as people: Psalm 18:46 cries, 'blessed be my Rock!' Some translations render ashrei as happy to keep the two apart; others keep blessed for both to avoid making ashrei sound like a feeling. Both choices are defensible. Only the Hebrew shows you that a choice was made.

What about the movement from walking to standing to sitting? Here readers genuinely differ. The more common reading sees a progression of deepening involvement: first a person follows the advice of the wicked, then he lingers in the way of sinners, then he settles down among those who mock. On this reading the verse warns that compromise grows by stages. The other reading sees a merism, like day and night in Psalm 19:2: walking, standing and sitting are the postures of a whole life, as when Deuteronomy 6:7 speaks of when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. On this reading the verse says that the happy man keeps clear of the wicked in every part of his life, not that sin advances by steps. The Hebrew allows both, and a preacher may teach either if he says that it is a reading.

Last, the frame. Psalm 1 begins with ashrei, and Psalm 2 ends with it: 'Blessed are all who take refuge in Him' (Psalm 2:12). The two untitled psalms are bracketed by the same word, an inclusio of the kind you met in lesson 3. And there is a second link that only the Hebrew shows. Psalm 1:6 ends with the way of the wicked that will perish, תֹּאבֵד tovad. Psalm 2:12 warns the kings וְתֹאבְדוּ דֶרֶךְ vetovdu derekh, and you perish in the way, the same verb and the same noun. The BSB renders 2:12 as perish in your rebellion, which is a fair rendering of the sense but hides the echo. Psalm 2:12 also contains the much-debated phrase Kiss the Son, which module 8 of this track takes up. For this lesson, notice that the two psalms that open the Psalter are joined at both ends, the happy way of the one who delights in the law and the perishing way of those who will not, and that the book's doorway is one structure in two parts.

If your practice poem or capstone passage is a psalm, use it. If it is poetry from another book, choose one psalm you love and do this exercise on it as well, because the Psalms will be the poetry you preach most often.

On a new notebook page headed Psalm, write four short entries. Heading: copy the heading from the BSB, then open the interlinear and write down each Hebrew heading word with its Strong's number and one line from the lexicon on how certain its meaning is. If there is no heading, write None, and note whether the psalm next to it might be joined to it. Numbering: check whether the Hebrew verse numbers in your tool run ahead of the English, and write down the offset.

Selah: write down every verse where it occurs and whether it falls at a break, at the end, or in the middle of a sentence. Do not write a meaning for it. Markers: look for ad-anah, how long; for a pronoun placed first to mark a turn, such as va'ani, but I; for cohortatives of resolve such as ashirah, I will sing; and for ki clauses giving reasons for praise. Write each with its verse, and then write one sentence on what kind of psalm the markers suggest and where it turns.

Last, find every word your psalm uses that the BSB renders blessed, and check which Hebrew word lies behind each. Keep the Psalm page with your Lines, Images and Structure pages. Next week you will use all four on one whole poem.