Next to this application of the beracha of the Fourth boox by the chronicler, Ps. Ixxii. 20 is a significant mark for de- termining the history of the origin of the Psalter. The words: “are ended the prayers of David the son of Jesse", are without doubt the subscription to the oldest psalm-collection, which preceded the present psalm-pentateuch. The collector certainly has removed this subscription from its original place close after lxxii. 17, by the interpolation of the beracha \xxii.18sq., but left it, at the same time, untouched. The collectors and those who worked up the older documents within the range of the Bibli- cal literature appear to have been extremely conscientious in this respect and they thereby make it easier for us to gain anin- sight into the origin of their works, — as, e.g. the composer of the Books of Samuel gives intact the list of officers from a later document 2Sam. vili.16—-18 (which closed with that, so far as we at present have it in its incorporated state), as well as the list from an older document (2 Sam. xx. 23—26); or, as not merely the author of the Book of Kings in the middle of the Exile, but also the chronicler towards the end of the Persian period, have transferred unaltered, to their pages, the statement that the staves of the ark are to be found in the rings of the ark “to this day”, which has its origin in some annalistic document (1 Kings vii. 8, 2 Chron. v. 9). But unfortunately that subscription, which has been so faithfully preserved, furnishes us less help than we could wish. We only gather from it that the present collection was preceded by a primary collection of very much more limited compass which formed its basis and that this closed with the Salomonic Ps. lxxii; for the collector would surely not have placed the subscription, referring only to the prayers of David, after this Psalm if he had not found it there already. And from this point it becomes natural to suppose that Solomon himself, prompted perhaps by the liturgical re- quirements of the new Temple, compiled this primary col- lection, and by the addition of Ps. lxxii may have caused it to be understood that he was the originator of the collection.
But to the question whether the primary collection also
contained only Davidic songs properly so called or whether
the subscribed designation (
Hebrew characters) is only intended 4 po-
tiori, the answer is entirely wanting. If we adopt the latter
supposition, one is at a loss to understand for what reason
