It is no exaggeration to say that for a Christian, the Psalter is the most precious book of the Old Testament. The Psalter is a book of prayers for all occasions: in sorrow, in a sense of hopelessness or fear, in disasters, in tears of repentance and in joy after receiving consolation, in the need of thanksgiving and for offering pure praise to the Creator. St. Ambrose of Milan writes: "In all Scripture the grace of God breathes, but in the sweet song of the Psalms it breathes predominantly." The Psalter received its name from the Greek word psalo, which means "to play the strings". King David was the first to accompany the singing of the divinely inspired prayers composed by him by playing a musical instrument called the "psalter", similar to a harp. The Hebrews call the Book of Psalms Tehillim, which means "praise." The Psalter, composed over the course of eight centuries from Moses (1500 B.C.) to Ezra and Nehemiah (400 B.C.), contains 150 psalms. King David laid the foundation for this book, compiling the largest number of psalms (more than 80). In addition to David's, the Psalter includes the following psalms: one of Moses (Psalm 89), three of Solomon (Psalms 71; 126; 131), twelve of Asaph the Seer and his descendants of the Asaphites; Haman is one (Psalm 87), Epham is one (Psalm 88), and the sons of Korah are eleven. The rest of the psalms belong to unknown writers. The Psalms are composed according to the rules of Hebrew poetry and often attain amazing beauty and power. Often at the beginning of the psalms there are inscriptions that indicate their content: for example, "prayer" (a psalm of supplication), "praise" (a psalm of praise), "teaching" (an edifying psalm). Or on the method of writing: "pillar", i.e. epigrammatic. Other inscriptions indicate the method of performance, for example: "psalm", i.e. with the accompaniment of the psalter on a musical instrument; "song", i.e. vocal performance by voice; "on string instruments"; "on the eight-string"; "about the winepress" or in the Russian Bible "on the Gath tool", i.e. on the zither; "on changeable", i.e. with the change of instruments. Above some of the psalms are inscribed the words of the song on the model of which this psalm is to be sung, something like "similar" in the evening and morning services.

The content of the Psalms is closely related to the life of King David. David was born a thousand years before the birth of Christ in Bethlehem and was the youngest son of a poor shepherd with many children Jesse. When King David became king in Jerusalem after Saul's death, he became the most prominent king who had ever ruled Israel. He combined many valuable qualities of a good king: love for the people, justice, wisdom, courage and, most importantly, a strong faith in God. Often David himself presided over religious holidays, offering sacrifices to God for the Jewish people and singing psalms.

With their poetic beauty and depth of religious feeling, David's psalms inspired many subsequent psalm compilers to imitate. Therefore, although not all the Psalms were written by David, the name that is often given to the Book of Psalms is still true: "The Psalter of King David."

The Book of Proverbs

The main author of the book of Proverbs was Solomon, the son of David, who reigned in Israel a thousand years before Christ. So Solomon can be called the main writer of the Book of Proverbs, like David of the Psalms. When Solomon, at the beginning of his reign, offered up his prayers and burnt offerings to God (sacrifices that were burned), God appeared to him at night and said: "Ask what I shall give thee" (2 Chron. 1:7). Solomon asked God only for wisdom. To govern the people of God. And God said to Solomon, "Because you asked this, and did not ask for yourself a long life, did not ask for riches... but he asked for reason... Behold, I will do according to thy word: behold, I give thee a heart of wisdom and understanding, so that there was none like thee before thee, and after thee there shall not arise one like thee. and what thou hast not asked for, I give thee, and riches and glory, so that there shall be none like unto thee... all your days. (1 Kings 3:1113). And, indeed, Solomon was famous for his wisdom, so that people from distant lands came to hear him. Many of Solomon's sayings were included in the Book of Proverbs. In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Proverbs is called Mishle Shelomo, in the Seventy Interpreters of Paremia, in the Slavonic Bible the Proverbs of Solomon. The Holy Fathers call it Panaretos Sophia, "The Wisdom of All Virtue." The book of Proverbs was written in the form of poetic parallelism. The book of Proverbs is full of practical instructions on how to wisely build one's life on the fear of God, on truth, honesty, work, and abstinence. These instructions are extremely truthful and accurate. They have a lot of imagery, liveliness, sharpness of mind.

The teaching of the Book of Proverbs about the hypostatic Wisdom of God prepared the ground in the Jewish people for faith in the Only-begotten Son of God.

The Book of Ecclesiastes

The Greek word Ecclesiastes comes from Ekklesia "church" and means "church preacher." In Hebrew it is called Kohelet from kahal "assembly". Thus, the book is a collection of the words of a church preacher. As can be seen from the book itself, Ecclesiastes is the pseudonym by which the son of David, who reigned in Jerusalem, called himself. This circumstance points to Solomon as the author of Ecclesiastes. The following description of his wisdom, wealth, fame, and luxury corresponds to this (see Ecclesiastes 1:1218; 1 Kings. 4, 29). The main subject of the content of the Book of Ecclesiastes is the depiction of the vanity and emptiness of all earthly labor, knowledge, wealth, luxury and pleasures without faith in God and the afterlife. The book teaches about the fear of God, about the keeping of His commandments as conditions for possible happiness in the midst of a vain world. It is valuable that the writer expounds this doctrine on the basis of his personal long experience and deep analysis. In the book one can feel the great wisdom of the author, enlightened by God's revelation. At the beginning of his discourse, Ecclesiastes explains what the vanity (fruitlessness) of human affairs actually consists in. The earth and all the natural phenomena on it revolve in a cycle, and nothing is added from all their work, either in the quantity of matter or in the quality of the active forces. The first desire of a person to know. Therefore, Ecclesiastes tried to acquire knowledge like no one else. But the result of the acquired knowledge was a languor of the spirit, for knowledge does not make up for what is lacking, does not correct the will perverted by sin. Thus, with the increase of knowledge, sorrow increases. The other desire is for contentment and pleasure. For this purpose, Ecclesiastes acquired riches and indulged in sensual pleasures, but everything turned out to be vanity, because the accumulation of goods is accompanied by hard work and cares, and the enjoyment of them does not depend on man, but on God, in Whose hands life itself. Further, Ecclesiastes depicts vanity in the sphere of human life. Without God, all the phenomena of earthly life are limited by time and, just as in soulless nature, represent a cycle: birth and death, joy and sorrow, truth and falsehood, love and hatred. But man's striving for life, for truth, goodness, and beauty is placed by the Creator in the spirit of man. From this there is no doubt that He will also satisfy His aspirations there beyond the grave. Their satisfaction here is hopeless because of the cycle of opposites. A person on earth must believe in God and humbly submit to His commands, must diligently fulfill religious and moral duties and not be carried away by the deceptive blessings of this world. Only in such a mood will a person find peace. From this Ecclesiastes concludes that the purpose of human life is the moral education of the afterlife, where the correspondence between happiness and the moral dignity of man will be established.

Ecclesiastes concludes his observations with an exposition of the teaching on the significance of man's earthly life for preparation for the future: while making moderate use of earthly goods, one must take care to do good deeds. For this purpose, God created man. The time of writing the book of Ecclesiastes refers to the last years of Solomon's reign, when he experienced many things, understood and felt many things, and brought repentance to God, knowing the futility of physical pleasures. The book of Ecclesiastes is full of deep thoughts, which the reader, who is not versed in abstract concepts, is not immediately able to understand and appreciate.

Book of Song of Solomon

This book was written by Solomon in the best years of his reign, soon after the temple was built. In form, it is a dramatic work consisting of conversations between the Beloved and the Beloved. At the first reading, this book can only appear to be an ancient artistic lyrical song: this is how it is interpreted by many free interpreters who do not bind themselves to the voice of the Church. It is necessary to proceed to the reading of the prophets in order to see that in the Old Testament the image of the Beloved and the Beloved is used in the sublime sense of the union of love between God and believers. If this book was included in the codex of the sacred books of the Jews, it was because the Old Testament tradition understood it in this way, in a sublime symbolic sense, and prescribed that it be read on the feast of Passover. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul uses the same symbol, only without the use of poetic form, when, speaking of the love of a husband for his wife, he compares Christ's love for the Church with her (Eph. 5, 2232). The same image of the bride and groom is often heard in church hymns, as a symbol of the ardent love of the Christian soul for its Savior. Such an outburst of love of the soul for Christ is also found in the writings of Christian ascetics.

It is instructive to compare the following passage of the Book of Song of Songs with a similar portrayal of love in the Apostle Paul.

Put me like a seal on your heart, like a ring on your hand: for love is as strong as death; jealousy is as fierce as hell; her arrows are fiery arrows; She is a very strong flame. Big waters cannot extinguish love, and rivers will not flood it. If a man gave all the riches of his house for love, he would be rejected with contempt (Song of Songs 8:67).

Who will separate us from the love of God: tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? as it is written, For Thy sake we are slain all day long, and we are reckoned as sheep destined to be slaughtered. But we overcome all this by the power of Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:3539; 1 Cor. 13).