This version has peculiar titles taken from Eusebius and Theodore of Mopsuestia (see Nestle, in Theol. Literaturz., 1876, p. 283). (C) The Jewish Aramaic version or Targum is probably a late work.[1] The most convenient edition is in Lagarde, Hagiographa chaldaice, 1873. (D) The best of all the old versions is that made by Jerome after the Hebrew in 405. It did not, however, obtain ecclesiastical currency—the old versions holding their ground, just as English churchmen still read the Psalms in the version of the “Great Bible” printed in their Prayer Book. This important version was first published in a good text by Lagarde, Psalterium juxta hebraeos hieronymi (Leipzig, 1874).
Exegetical works.—While some works of patriotic writers are still of value for text criticism and for the history of early exegetical tradition, the treatment of the Psalms by ancient and medieval Christian writers is as a whole such as to throw light on the ideas of the commentators and their times rather than on the sense of a text which most of them knew only through translations. For the Psalms, as for the other books of the Old Testament, the scholars of the period of the revival of Hebrew studies about the time of the Reformation were mainly dependent on the ancient versions and on the Jewish scholars of the middle ages. In the latter class Ḳimhi stands pre-eminent; to the editions of his commentary on the Psalms enumerated in the article Ḳimhi must now be added the admirable edition of Dr Schiller-Szinessy (Cambridge, 1883), containing, unfortunately, only the first book of his longer commentary. Among the works of older Christian scholars since the revival of letters, the commentary of Calvin (1557) full of religious insight and sound thought-and the laborious work of M. Geier (1668, 1681 el saepius) may still be consulted with advantage, but for most purposes Rosenmuller’s Scholia in Psalms (2nd ed., 1831–1822) supersedes the necessity of frequent reference to the predecessors of that industrious compiler. Of more recent works the freshest and most indispensable are Ewald’s, in the first two half-volumes of his Dichter des alten Bundes (2nd ed., Göttingen, 1866; Eng. trans., 1880), and Olshausen’s (1853). To these may be added (excluding general commentaries on the Old Testament) the two acute but wayward commentaries of Hitzig (1836, 1863–1865), that of Delitzsch (1859–1860, then in shorter form in several editions since 1867; Eng. trans., 1871), and that of Hupfeld (2nd ed. by Riehm, 1867, 2 vols.). The last-named work, though lacking in original power and clearness of judgment, is extremely convenient and useful, and has had an influence perhaps disproportionate to its real exegetical merits. The question of the text was first properly raised by Olshausen, and has since received special attention from, among others, Lagarde (Prophetae chald., 1872, p. 46 seq.), Dyserinck (in the “scholia” to his Dutch translation of the Psalms, Theol. Tijdschr., 1878, p. 279 seq.), and Bickell (Carmina V. T. metrice, &c., Innsbruck, 1882), whose critical services are not to be judged merely by the measure of assent which his metrical theories may command. In English we have, among others, the useful work of Perowne (5th ed., 1833), that of Lowe and Jennings, (2nd ed., 1885), and the valuable translation of Cheyne (1884). The mass of literature on the Psalms is so enormous that no full list even of recent commentaries can be here attempted, much less an enumeration of treatises on individual psalms and special critical questions. For the latter Kuenen’s Onderzoek, vol. iii., is, up to its date (1865), the most complete, and the new edition now in preparation will doubtless prove the standard work of reference. As regards the dates and historical interpretation of the Psalms, all older discussions, even those of Ewald, are in great measure antiquated by recent progress in Pentateuch criticism and the history of the canon, and an entirely fresh treatment of the Psalter by a sober critical commentator is urgently needed.
The bibliography up to this point is taken from the article Psalms by the late Professor W. Robertson Smith (Ency. Brit., 1886), large portions of which are incorporated in the present article. It was the belief of Professor Robertson Smith that the second (Elohistic) collection of psalms originated in a time of persecution earlier than the time of Antiochus Epiphanes which he referred to the reign of Artaxerxes III. Ochus. This theory, which he set forth with all his accustomed learning and force, is still accepted in many quarters, many other passages of the Old Testament being likewise assigned to the same date. In the judgment of the present writer however, the results of Old Testament study (particularly in the Prophets) since Professor Robertson Smith’s death have shown that this theory is untenable. Notwithstanding his reverence, therefore, for the great scholar with whose name it is associated, and to whose memory he would pay both grateful and humble tribute, he has ventured to omit or rewrite all those portions of the original article which he considers no longer tenable, while retaining every word which is still valuable.
Of the works on the Psalms which have appeared since the first publication of Professor W. Robertson Smith’s article the following may be specially noticed: Cheyne, The Book of Psalms (1888), The Origin of the Psalter, Bampton Lectures (1391), and the article Psalms (in Ency. Bib., 1902); Bickell, Die Dichlungerl der Hebräer (3 der Psalter, 1883), from a revised and metrically arranged text; Baethgen, in Nowack’s Hand-Komm. (1892); Wellhausen, in Sacred Books of the Old Test. (Eng. trans. by Furness, J. Taylor and Paterson, 1898); Duhm, in Marti’s Kurzer Hand-Comm. (1899); Kirkpatrick, in Cambridge Bible for Schools (1893-1895); W. T. Davison, in Hastings’s Dict. Bible (1902); Driver, The Parallel Psalter (1904); C. A. and E. G. Briggs, “Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Psalms,” vol. i. (1906), vol. ii. (1907), in International Critical Commentary. (R. H. K.)
PSALTERY, Psalterion, or Sawtrie (Fr. psaltérion, salteire; Ger. Psalterium; Ital. salterio, istrumento di porco), an ancient stringed instrument twanged by fingers or plectrum, and mentioned many times in the English Bible; a favourite instrument also during the middle ages in England, France and Italy. It is exceedingly doubtful whether the word was ever applied during the classic Greek period to any individual instrument; there is,
moreover, no trace in the monuments of that time of the psalter ion
in any of the forms in which it afterwards became known
during the middle ages. It is also puzzling to find no fewer than
four different instruments translated psalterion in the Septuagint,
i.e. Nebel, Psanterin, Ugab (organ) and Toph (Job xxi. 12). On
the other hand the Aramaic word Pisantir or Psanterin (Dan. iii.
5, 10, 15) generally translated psalterion, and by some scholars
claimed, as a loan word from the Greek, corresponds to the
Santir, a stringed instrument represented on Assyrian monuments
of the 8th century B.C. (when as yet the word had not
been used in Greek for a musical instrument) and still in use in
Persia at the present day by the same name. The instrument
itself, moreover, a dulcimer, which in its earlier forms differed
from the psalter ion mainly in that its strings were struck by
curved sticks instead of being plucked, must in the absence of
contrary evidence be considered as the prototype of the medieval
psalter ion or psaltery. Early medieval writers generally connect
the psalterium and the cithara, probably because the strings of
both were set in vibration in the same manner, by plucking or
twanging.
The medieval psaltery consisted of a shallow box-sound chest over which strings varying in number were stretched, being fastened at one side to pegs and at the other to wrest pins. In the early rectangular form the strings, numbering 10 or 12, were, as in the cithara, of uniform length, the pitch being varied by the thickness and tension of the strings. When the triangular form succeeded the rectangular, the stringing was that of the harp, pitch being dependent on the length. The trapeze form, clearly borrowed from the oriental Kanon, and the curious Italian istrumento di porco, were the latest types to survive. In these later forms the vibrating length of the strings was regulated by means of two wooden bridges, converging as the strings became shorter. The psaltery was held in an upright position against the chest of the performer, until, owing to the increasing number of strings, it grew too cumbersome, and was placed flat on a table or on the knee. The German zither is the sole European survivor of the medieval psaltery. (K. S.)
PSAMMETICHUS (Egypt. Psammetk), the name of three
kings of the Saite, XXVIth Dynasty, called by Herodotus
respectively Psammetichus, Psammis and Psammenitus. The
first of these is generally considered to be the founder of the dynasty; Manetho, however, carries it back through three or four predecessors who ruled at Sais as petty kings under the XXVth, Ethiopian, Dynasty. The name is frankly written so as to mean “the man of methek,” i.e. “mixed drink,” whether as a tippler or as a vendor of strong drink. The Egyptian scribes do not conceal the opprobrious elements, but it has been suggested that the name may be due to false etymology of a foreign name (though all the names throughout the dynasty appear to be Egyptian), or that Methek may have been an unknown
deity. The story in Herodotus of the Dodecarchy and
the rise of Psammetichus is fanciful. It is known from cuneiform texts that twenty local prince lings were appointed by Esarhaddon and confirmed by Assur-bani-pal to govern Egypt. Niku (Necho), father of Psammetichus, was the chief of these kinglets, but they seem to have been quite unable to hold the Egyptians to the hated Assyrians against the more sympathetic Ethiopian. The labyrinth built by a king of the XIIth Dynasty is ascribed by Herodotus to the Dodecarchy, or rule of 12, which must
- ↑ It contains, however, elements which are as early as the time of the New Testament. Cf. Ps. lxviii. 18 with Ephes. iv. 8.
