Reading the Psalm Verses Every Day
The 150 Psalms of the Psalter are divided into five parts or books: I Book, Psalm 1-40; II Book, 41-71; III Book, 72-88; IV Book, 89-105; V Book, 106-150.
Most Psalms have a caption, which refers either to the author, or to the circumstances of their composition or to the way they are sung. These headings, even if they have not been part of the primitive text, are anti-chysimos; otherwise the Greek version of the Seventy would not put them. According to these, the main author of the Psalter is David; being attributed to the Royal Prophet, in the Latin text, 85 Psalms, 84 in Greek and 73 in Hebrew. More than David is mentioned as authors of Psalms: Moses, Solomon, Asaf, Heman, Titan, and the sons of Kora. The Christian tradition which calls the book of Psalms 'Salterio de David' cannot therefore reasonably be dismissed, because the other authors are so few and the tradition in favor of the Davídic Psalms is so ancient that it can rightly put its name at the head of the whole collection. In particular, the davidic origin of those Psalms quoted in the holy books expressly with the name of David cannot be denied; for example, Psalms 2, 15, 17, 109 and others (Decree of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of May 1, 1910.)
Needless to say, the literary genre of the Psalms is poetic. Hebrew poetry does not rhyme or metro in the rigorous sense of the word, although it does have a certain syllabic rhythm; but what constitutes its essence is the rhythm of thoughts, repeating the same thought two and up to three times. This symmetrical system of phrases is called 'member parallelism'.
As for the Latin text of the Psalms of the Vulgate (and the Breviary), it should be noted that this does not correspond to the version of Saint Jerome, but to the pre-Jerónimiana translation taken from the Seventy, and disseminated mainly in the Gauls, for which it was called 'Psalterium Gallicanum'. Dr. Maximus was only able to revise this version in some parts, because it was already introduced to the Liturgy.
Recently, the selfless investigations of modern exegetes (Zorell, Knabenbauer, Miller, Peters, Wutz, Vaccari) managed to complete the work of St. Jerome, reconstructing a text that corresponds as much as possible to the original Hebrew text.
On 24 March 1945 Pope Pius XII authorized for the prayer of the Divine Office a new Latin version made by the Professors of the Biblical Institute of Rome on the basis of the original texts.
This translation follows the same principles as the edition of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and completes it with a critique of the text, founded on the best modern editions. In this way the "dark passages" of the Psalter have ceased to exist almost all, and clergy and lay people can enjoy the delights that the inspired genius of the Prophet King brings us.
