The Prophetic Side of the Psalms

Being a king and a prophet, as well as to a certain extent a priest, King David prefigured the greatest King, Prophet and High Priest – Christ the Savior, a descendant of David in the flesh. King David's personal experience, as well as the poetic gift he possessed, gave him the opportunity to prophetically inscribe the personality and podvig of the coming Messiah in a number of psalms with unprecedented vividness and vividness.

Here is a list of the most important prophetic psalms: about the coming of the Messiah: 17, 49, 67, 95-97. On the Kingdom of the Messiah: 2, 17, 19, 20, 44, 65, 71, 109, 131. On the Priesthood of the Messiah: 109. On the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of the Messiah: 15, 21, 30, 39, 40, 65, 68, 98:5 (40, 54 and 108 on Judas the Traitor). On the Ascension of Christ into Heaven: 23, 67. Christ is the foundation of the Church: 117. On the Glory of the Messiah: 8. On the Last Judgment: 96. On the inheritance of eternal rest by the righteous: 94.

In order to understand the prophetic psalms, it must be remembered that David, like the other great righteous men of the Old Testament, prefigured Christ. Therefore, what he says, for example, about his sufferings or about glory, is not an exaggeration, but refers to him only partially. It fully applies to Christ. We see such an understanding of the Psalms in the Apostles of Christ and in the Holy Fathers.

The Significance of the Psalter for Divine Services

In the Psalter there are many reflections, appeals to one's soul, many exhortations and words of consolation. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Psalter is used extensively in prayer. Not a single divine service, since Old Testament times, is complete without psalms. Psalms began to be used in the offering of daily sacrifices, on Saturdays and holidays. David introduced the use of musical instruments in psalmody: strings, winds and percussion - psaltery, tympanum, psalter, cymbals, trumpets and others. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed in the words of the Psalms, for example: "After the Last Supper, He sang, and went up to the Mount of Olives" (Matt. 26:30). Following the example of Jesus Christ and the apostles, in the Church of the first centuries of Christianity, the Psalter was often used for prayer (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Cor. 14:26). In the 4th century, for the convenience of reading at divine services, the Psalter was divided into 20 parts - "kathisma" (the word "kafiso" in Greek means "to sit").

Some of the psalms are read several times during one liturgical day. The entire Orthodox service is permeated with individual verses of psalms, in the form of prokeimenons, alleluaries, verses on "God the Lord," refrains to stichera and other brief appeals, supplicative, penitential, and praise. Christian prayers composed in the New Testament very often borrow expressions from the Psalms. The Psalter, in the full sense of the word, is Christianized. This means that the Church invests all expressions with a Christian meaning, and the Old Testament element present in it recedes into the background. The words in the Psalms: "Arise," "Arise, O Lord," raise our thoughts to the resurrection of Christ; the words about captivity are understood in the sense of sinful captivity; the name of the nations hostile to Israel in the sense of spiritual enemies, and the name of Israel in the sense of the church people; the call to beat up one's enemies as a call to fight the passions; salvation from Egypt and from Babylon — as salvation in Christ.

В настоящую брошюру мы поместили главным образом те псалмы, которые чаще других употребляются на наших богослужениях (смотри указатель в конце книжицы).

О переводах Псалтыри

Оригинальным языком Псалтыри, как и других книг Ветхого завета, является еврейский язык. В 3-м веке до Рождества Христова ветхозаветные книги были переведены с еврейского на греческий язык. Этот перевод получил название перевода 70-ти толковников и послужил в качестве главного источника для распространения Ветхозаветного Писания в апостольское время. С веками, из-за ошибок при переписке, как в еврейский, так и в греческий библейские тексты вкрались некоторые вариации. Эта разница в чтении, хотя мала и не существенна, все же местами оказывается довольно заметной для слуха. Различие в выражениях особенно чувствуется в псалмах потому, что они известны молящемуся человеку больше других ветхозаветных книг. Сравнивая различия в псалмах еврейского текста с греческим 70-ти толковников, многие библиисты дают предпочтение последним. Апостолы, которые проповедовали преимущественно среди язычников, понимающих греческий язык, в своих посланиях широко пользовались переводом 70-ти толковников. Таким образом, благодаря святым Апостолам и отцам Церкви первых веков христианства, Библия греческого перевода 70-ти толковников стала книгой Церкви.

По словам Нестора-летописца, Псалтырь была переведена с греческого перевода 70-ти толковников на славянский язык св. братьями Кириллом и Мефодием (в 9-м веке). Перевод псалмов на русский язык был сделан в Х1Х-веке “Православным Библейским Обществом.” В основу перевода был взят еврейский текст, который, с благословения Святейшего Правительствующего Синода, вошел в русскую Библию.