Psalm 145
Psalm 145 is the 145th psalm of the Book of Psalms, generally known in English by its first verse, in the King James Version, "I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever". In Latin, it is known as "Exaltabo te Deus meus rex". It is the last psalm in the final Davidic collection of psalms, comprising Psalms 138 to 145, which are specifically attributed to David in their opening verses.
In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible, and in the Latin Vulgate, this psalm is Psalm 144. The psalm is a hymn psalm.
The psalm forms a regular part of Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant liturgies. It has often been [|set to music], notably by Antonín Dvořák who set several verses in Czech in his Biblical Songs.
Background and themes
This is the only psalm which identifies itself as a תְּהִלָה – as a psalm. The version in the Dead Sea Scrolls instead describes itself as a "prayer" although it does not contain any request.Psalm 145 is an alphabetic acrostic, the initial letter of each verse being the Hebrew alphabet in sequence. For this purpose, the usual Hebrew numbering of verse 1, which begins with the title, "A Psalm of David", is ignored in favor of the non-Hebrew numbering which treats verse 1 as beginning ארוממך.
The Dead Sea Scrolls version also ends each verse with the recurring refrain, "Blessed be YHVH and blessed be His name forever and ever" and adds at the end of the Psalm the tag, "This is for a memorial". The Dead Sea Scrolls version also preserves a line beginning with the letter nun.
Psalm 145 is the last Psalm attributed explicitly to David, and also the last of the nine acrostic Psalms in its placement in the Book of Psalms. Methodist writer Joseph Benson notes that the king praises "his king", "termed so by way of eminence: the King of kings, the God by whom kings reign".
O Palmer Roberton writes "The last Psalm has been set in place in preparation for the final crescendo of Praise in the Psalter.", which would be Psalms 146-150.
Uses
Judaism
- The majority of the prayer Ashrei that is recited thrice daily is Psalm 145.
- Verse 13 is found in the repetition to the Amidah on Rosh Hashanah.
- Verse 16 is found in the final paragraph of Birkat Hamazon. It is also recited while donning the tefillin a after the head tefillin is securely in place.
- Verse 21 is recited by some following Psalm 126 preceding Birkat Hamazon.
Book of Common Prayer
Musical settings
Czech composer Antonín Dvořák set verses 1–3, 5 and 6 to music in No. 5 of his Biblical Songs. Brian Shamash has recorded one of the most common traditional Jewish melodies for chanting Ashrei.Giovanni Bernardone, better known as Francis of Assisi, wrote a poem towards the end of his life, in 1225, based on Psalm 145 which Draper adapted to the song "All Creatures of Our God and King" in 1919.
Text
The following table shows the Hebrew text of the Psalm with vowels, alongside the Koine Greek text in the Septuagint and the English translation from the King James Version. Note that the meaning can slightly differ between these versions, as the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text come from different textual traditions. In the Septuagint, this psalm is numbered Psalm 144.The "missing verse"
Being an alphabetic acrostic psalm, the initial letter of each verse in Psalm 145 should be the Hebrew alphabet in sequence, but in the Masoretic Text there is no verse beginning with the letter nun, which would come between verses 13 and 14. A very common supposition is that there had been such a verse but it was omitted by a copyist's error. If so, that error must have occurred very early. By the 3rd century C.E., Rabbi Johanan Ha-Nappah is quoted in the Talmud as asking why is there no verse in Psalm 145 beginning with nun, and the explanation is given that the word "fallen" begins with nun, as in the verse of , and thus it is incompatible with the uplifting and universal theme of the Psalm. Since verse 14, the samech verse, contains the word "נֹּפְלִ֑ים", the Talmud conjectures that King David foresaw the destruction of Israel and omitted a verse starting with nun, while nevertheless hinting to it in the next verse, and verse 13, starting with "מַֽלְכוּתְךָ֗" ). The explanation may not satisfy modern readers, but it demonstrates that the absence of a verse beginning with that letter was noticed and was undisputed even in antiquity.However, the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Dead Sea Scrolls all provide a verse at this point which commences with nun—נֶאֱמָן
New Revised Standard Version
This verse is now inserted at the end of verse 13 in several Christian versions of the Bible including the New Revised Standard, the New American, the Today's English Version, the Moffat, and others. However, not everyone is convinced that this nun verse is authentic. It is, except for the first word, identical to verse 17 , and thus, as Kimmelman argues, may have been a post-facto attempt to "cure" the apparent deficiency. These ancient versions all have other departures from the traditional Hebrew text which make them imperfect evidence of the original text; for example, the Dead Sea Scrolls version ends every verse in Psalm 145 with "Blessed be YHVH and blessed is His name forever and ever". And no such nun verse is found in other important ancient translations from the Hebrew — the Aramaic Targum, the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion — nor is such a verse quoted anywhere in the Talmud. Additionally, there are other alphabetic acrostics in the Book of Psalms — specifically Psalms 25 and 34 — that also imperfectly follow the alphabet. It is plausible that a nun verse was not part of the original text.