Book of Psalms

1000 – 500 BCE

In the original Hebrew text the book as a whole was not named, although the titles of many individual psalms contained the word mizmor, meaning a poem sung to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. The Greek translation of this term, psalmos, is the basis for the collective title Psalmoi found in most manuscripts, from which the English name Psalms is derived. A variant translation found in a 5th-century manuscript of the Septuagint is Psaltērion, whence the English name Psalter, which is often used as an alternative name for the Book of Psalms or for a separate collection of psalms intended for liturgical use. Rabbinic literature uses the title Tehillim (“Songs of Praise”), a curious hybrid of a feminine noun and a masculine plural ending.