DISTRIBUTION OF PSALMS IN THE PSALTER
Charles P. Poole, Jr.
August 1996
CONTENTS
1.
Introduction
2.
General Instruction
3.
Ancient Liturgies
4.
Numerical Distribution of the Psalms
5.
Thematic Distribution of the Psalms
6.
Rationale for Psalm Distribution
7.
Cyclic Structure of the Psalmody
8.
Annotating the Psalter
9.
Learning the Psalm Types
10.
Conclusion
References
Tables
I to VI
1. INTRODUCTION
After my ordination as a permanent
deacon in June of this year I began to say Lauds or Morning Prayer and Vespers
or Evening Prayer every day, using the one volume edition Christian Prayer1. Then I added the Office of the Readings which
comes in a separate volume2, and I found this to be the best part of
the Divine Office. Finally I purchased
the four volume set Liturgia Horarum3
(Liturgy of the Hours) from Libreria Editrice Vaticana and found this
much more satisfactory to use. Each
volume contains the complete psalter with the four
principal parts: Office of the
As I read the psalms week after week I
was surprised to find repetitions in some of the selections from one week to
the next, and initially the arrangement of the psalms in the psalter did not make much sense. Somehow I felt that reciting the Office would
be a much more prayerful and meaningful experience if I understood the system
behind the structure of the Psalter.
The books, Christian Prayer and Office of the
2. GENERAL INSTRUCTION
The long introduction at the beginning
of volume I of the Four Volume edition of the office, called the General
Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours (GI) provides the following
information:
1) Lauds consists of a morning psalm,
followed by a canticle from the Old Testament (OT) and another psalm of praise [GI-43,136].
2) Vespers consists of two psalms, or two parts of a long psalm, followed by a canticle
from an epistle or Revelation [GI-43,
137].
3) The psalms of Lauds and Vespers are
selected so that they are suitable for celebrating with the people [GI-40,127].
4)
The 22 parts of psalm 119 are distributed among 22 days of Midday Prayer. Two other psalms, or parts of a long one,
complete Midday Prayer [GI-132].
5) The Office of the
6)
The psalms selected for Sunday are appropriate for the paschal mystery, and the
Friday psalms are fitting for the passion [GI-129].
7) Three psalms (58, 83 and 109) are
omitted because they are imprecatoria (involve doing
violence) [GI-131].
8) Long psalms are divided into 2, 3,
5 or 6 parts, and the antiphons can be omitted between two sections of a psalm
[GI-115].
These
statements, although helpful with criteria for psalm placement, only partly answer the
question as to how the psalms are distributed in the psalter.
3. ANCIENT LITURGIES
The liturgy of the hours has its roots
in the past, and its long history is detailed in the books by Taft4
and Bugnini5. We will point
out some of the salient features of this history that pertain to the present
arrangement of the psalter.
The fifth century Rule of the Master
lists Ps 95 in the invitatory, and today it is the main invitatory psalm. The classic vespers psalm that appeared in many
ancient liturgies is 141, and it is the first psalm to appear in the present
day psalter.
(Table I locates it in Saturday vespers of week IV, but in the office
itself this is vigil vespers of Sunday of the first week). St. Basil stated in the fourth century that
Ps 91 is recited at Compline, and today it is the Compline psalm for Sunday.
Psalms 51, 63, 90,and
148-150 were always prominent in morning prayer (matins or lauds), as they are
today. In particular Ps 51 is the first
psalm recited every Friday at Lauds, and the others are mainly on Sunday
Lauds. St. Ambrose from the fourth
century cites verse 148 of Ps 119 as a tradtional
component of cathedral morning prayer, and strophe 119s (XIX Coph), which contains this verse, is the only one of this
long psalm which appears three times in the present psalter
(twice in Lauds);
strophe 119n (XIV Nun) appears twice, and the other 20 strophes
only once.
4. NUMERICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE
PSALMS
To learn more about this distribution
of the psalms Table I was constructed by making a 28 box grid of the seven days
of the week versus the four weeks of the psalter for
each of the four 'hours', namely the Office of the
A number of psalms are repeated two or
more times, sometimes on the same day and hour of different weeks, such as
psalm 51 which is at the beginning of Lauds every Friday, sometimes they alternate weeks such as
psalms 23, 76 and 118 on Sunday of Midday Prayer, and sometimes there seems to
be no rationale for a repetition, such as the case of psalm 90 which appears in
the Readings on Thursday of week
The numbers in Table I might seem to
be somewhat random at first glance, but there is an important overall pattern
to them. They tend to increase in going
from top to bottom of most columns, and, excluding Sundays, they tend to
increase from left to right in the rows, although there are many exceptions to
the order. For example they are in the
order 6, 9, 31, 50, 73 on Mondays of the
Table I shows that the 22 strophes or
parts of the long acrostic psalm 119 (8x22 = 176 verses in all) are arranged
sequentially at the beginning of Midday Prayer starting on Tuesday of week I
and ending on Saturday of week IV. It is
curious that Friday of week
The quasi-sequential ordering scheme
of Table I is rather irregular because there are other
criteria to satisfy. For example, by 1)
above the second psalm of Lauds is one of praise, and by 6) Sunday contains paschal
type psalms, which could also be the praise kind. Table
5. THEMATIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE
PSALMS
We see from Table
Similar
tables could be constructed for the Songs of Ascent and psalms associated with
individuals such as David and the sons of Korah, but
these would not be useful since the assignments of these psalms are mainly due
to their individual types: HP, Lm, R, Th, W, etc.
There are probably a number of other
correlations that could be found, such as the appearance near each other of the
pair of complementary
psalms 20, 21 (Vespers, Tues., Week I), and also the pair 96, 98 (Lauds, Mon.
and Wed., Week
6. RATIONALE FOR PSALM DISTRIBUTION
Thus the psalm distribution is
determined by several competing factors, namely the overall numerical sequence
from beginning to end, the motifs of praise for Lauds, resurrection for Sunday
and penance for Friday, adding wisdom and royal psalms to Readings and Vespers,
sequencing Ps 119 during Midday Prayer, locating long psalms where their two or
three parts fit together, maintaining coherence during each individual 'hour',
conformity to ancient liturgies, etc.
The liturgists did a good job of establishing the order. Apparently days other than Friday and Sunday
have no motifs. We see from Table IV
that the Friday and Saturday psalm assignments in the Office of the
7. CYCLIC STRUCTURE OF THE PSALMODY
We are all familiar with the annual
cycle of the Divine Office called the Proper of the Seasons, and we are aware
of the daily cycle involved, for example, in saying psalm 95 every morning in
the invitatory, the gospel canticle of Zechariah during Lauds and the gospel
canticle Magnificat during Vespers. The psalms themselves come in a four week
cycle, although Sunday Midday Prayer has a two week repetition, and Ps 51 on
Friday Lauds has a one week cycle. The hymns
of Lauds and Vespers recur every two weeks, and the New Testament Canticles of
Vespers repeat every week, although the Old Testament Canticles of Lauds follow
the four week cycle, as indicated in Table V.
The complementary psalmody is a weekly one. It is good to be aware of these cyclic
characteristics of various parts of the psalmody. This cyclic structure is summarized in Table
VI.
8. ANNOTATING THE PSALTER
Now that these psalmodic
interrelationships and correlations have been deduced the question arises as to
their utility as aids in praying the Office.
I feel that just knowing them helps, but one can also use this knowledge
to make suitable annotations on each page of the Liturgy of the Hours where a
Psalm is found.
The first thing to do is to indicate
the type of psalm near its number and heading on the page, by writing, for
example, HP or W. Something appropriate
for setting the mood might be added, such as "pilgrimage to
Each of the psalms, except some
strophes of 119, already has a title and a NT or patristic quotation which help
the reader pray in a christological
sense [GI-111], but my experience is that the personal annotations can be more
helpful in setting the mood for praying a particular psalm.
9. LEARNING THE PSALM TYPES
Now that the type of psalm has been
indicated at the beginning it is helpful to be aware of the characteristics of
the psalm type while reading it. This
information can be found in a commentary such as the New Jerome Biblical12
or the Collegeville13 ones, or a book on the psalms. Some helpful
reminders are:
1)
Hymn of Praise (HP): a call to worship, often with an
introduction to set
the tone, reasons for praise, and a
conclusion.
2)
Song of Zion (HP-Z): praise to the temple.
3)
Enthronement (HP-E): celebrating God's kingship.
4)
Lament (Lm): drama with 3 actors: psalmist, God, and the wicked one. A lament
often has six parts: Cry to Yahweh, Complaint, Expression
of trust, Petition, Words of assurance and Praise.
5) Thanksgiving (Th):
usually begins with an expression of thanks, describes rescue from the hands of
the wicked, and ends with Yahweh's glory acknowledged. 6)
Liturgical (Lg): perhaps a rite of entrance to the
temple.
7) Royal (R): with the king as speaker
or focus of attention.
8) Wisdom (W): characterized by
teaching, proverbs, the "better" saying, the "Happy the one who
...." formula.
9) Penitential (Pn):
emphasis on sin, suffering, repentance.
10)
Each strophe of the long acrostic psalm 119 contains most or all of eight recurring
synonyms for law. The Greek Septuagint
seems to be consistent in using only eight words: *46"4T:" [iustificatio,
mandatum; statute, decree], ¦<Jo80 [praeceptum, mandatum; command,
precept], 6D4:" [iudicium; ordinance], 8o(oH [sermo, verbum;
word], 8o(4" [eloquium; promise], :"DJLD4" [testimonium;
decree], <o:oH [lex; law] and Ò*oH [via; way]. As
we see by the words in square brackets neither the
Latin Vulgate (in the Office) nor the New American English translations are
consistent about using one particular word for each of the original eight. I do not know what the Hebrew Masoretic text does, and I could not find any pattern in
the occurrences of these eight words.
11) There are also historical,
messianic, acrostic and mixed categories of psalms, and some psalms that cannot
be readily classified.
If one is aware of the type of psalm
and its characteristics then it becomes easy to contemplate the theme and savor
the meaning while reading it. If the
relationships between the three psalm selections or two psalms and the canticle
are grasped then devotion will be enhanced for that 'hour'.
10.
CONCLUSION
The intent of the forestated
analysis of the psalms and their interrelationships is not to teach us
something intellectual about the psalms, but rather to provide insights which
can improve our devotion while we read the Divine Office. It is based on the proposition that the more
we know about the Lord and the scriptures, the more we are capable of loving
them. As we pray the Office the insights
that we have acquired and the interrelationships that we are aware of serve to
deepen our devotion. Marginal notations
call them to mind, and underlined passages highlight central thoughts to savor. Table
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank the
following for helpful discussions or comments on the manuscript: Most Rev.
David B. Thompson; Reverends
Gary. D. Dilly, Michael F. McCafferty,
Sam R. Miglarese, Thomas D. Timlin;
Deacons Billy J. Ellis, Frederick D. Hoffmann, James H. Johnson, Joseph P.
O'Connor, Paul F. Shook; Professors John D. Basil, Oswald F. Schuette, and Dr. Thomas R. Jackson. Perhaps I should also
acknowledge my background as a physicist as being partly responsible for this
detailed probing into the microstructure of the psalmody.
REFERENCES
1.
Christian Prayer, The Liturgy of the Hours,
Catholic Book Publ. Co, NY, 1976.
2. Office of
3. Liturgia Horarum, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1985.
4.
The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, Robert Taft S.J., Liturgical
Pr., Collegeville amn, 1986.
5.
La riforma liturgica
(1948-1975), Annibale Bugnini,
Edizioni Liturgiche, Roma,
1983; Engl. Transl. Liturgical Pr, Collegeville MN,
1990.
6.
Spiritual Potential of the Liturgy of the Hours, Sr. Janet Baxendale S.C., Origins Vol. 23, No. 22, p. 385.
7. Companion
to the New Breviary, Austin Flannery, Ed., Costello Publ.,
8.
Handbook on the Psalms, Robert G. Bratcher and William D. Reyburn, United Bible Societies,
9.
Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God, Pueblo Publ., New York, 1988.
10.
Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, New York, 1958.
11.
Liturgical Press has a series of books on the Psalms.
12.
The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Ronald E. Murphy, Eds., Prentice Hall, New
Jersey, 1990.
13.
The Collegeville Bible Commentary, Dianne Bergant
and Robert J. Karris, Eds., Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 1989.
Table I. Distribution of psalms by
number in the days and weeks of the Psalter. OTC
Office of the Readings
Week
Sun Mon Tue
Wed Thu Fri
Sat
1 6
10 18A 18B
35 131
I
2 9 A
A
A
A
132
A 3 12 A A
A
A
104 31
37 39 44
38 136
II
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
52 A A
A
145 50
68 89A
89B 69 107
A A
A
A
90 A A
24 73
102 103 44
55 50
IV
66 A A
A
A
A
A
A A
A
A
A
A
A
Week
Sun Mon Tue
Wed Thu Fri
Sat
118 19B
119a 119b 119c
119d 119e
I 7 13
17 25 26
34
A A
14 A A
28 A
23 119f
119g 119h 119i
119j 119k
II
76 40 53
55 56 59
61
A A
54 A 57
60 64
118 119l
119m 119n 119o
22 119p
A A
A
75 80 A
A
23 119q
119r 119s 119t
119u 119v
IV
76 82 88
94 128 133
45
A 120
A
A
129 140
A
Note:
Saturday and Sunday vespers' in this table appear in the Divine Office as
Sunday Vespers I and Sunday Vespers II, respectively.
Morning Prayer or Lauds
Week
Sun Mon Tue
Wed Thu Fri
Sat
63 5
24 36 57
51 119s
I
OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC
149 29
33 47 48
100 117
118 42
43 77 80 51
92
II OTC
OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC
.
150 19A
65 97 81
147B 8
93 84
85 86 87
51 119s
148 96
67 98 99
100 117
118 90
101 108 143
51 92
IV
OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC OTC
150 135
144 146 147A
147B 8
Evening Prayer or Vespers
Week
Sun Mon Tue
Wed Thu Fri
Sat
110 11 20 27
30 41 119n
I
114 15 21
“ 32 46
16
. NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC
110 45
49 62 72
116A 113
II
115 “ ”
67 “ 121
116B
NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC
110 123
125 126 132
135 122
NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC
110 136
137 139 144
145 141
IV 112 “A
138 “ ”
“ 142
NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC NTC
OTC
means Old Testament canticle, and NTC New Testament canticle
Table II.
Summary of distribution of psalms by length in the psalter. Some
psalms appear more than once with different strophe divisions, such as #136 (2
or 3), #118 (1 or 3) and #144 (1 or
2). Psalms 19, 116 and 147 are split
into two length 1 segments denoted by A and B, and psalms with 5 or 6 strophes
(89A,B and 18A,B, 78A,B) are split into two segments. Psalms 58, 83 and 109 are not included.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Number
of Office MP
Strophes* of Read Lauds Prayer Vespers atory Psalter
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1
9 44 24
32 1 9
9
2
6 0 12
10 0 0 0
3
23# 0 2
0 0 0 0
22
0 2 22
1 0 0 0
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* The A and B parts of Psalms are counted
separately.
# This includes all
the psalms listed in Table IV.
-------------------------------------------------
Number of
Length Psalms Comments
-------------------------------------------------
1 95 -
2 28 Ps 19A,B;
116A,B; 147A,B
3
20 -
5 1 Ps 89A,B
6 2 Ps 18A,B;
78A,B
22 1 Ps 119
-------------------------------------------------
Table
Office of the Readings
Week
Sun Mon Tue
Wed Thu Fri
Sat
W Pn Lm-I
R/Th
R/Th
- Lm-I
I
R Th-I R-Z
Lm