Greek Psalmic Additions

The Greek Psalmic Additions — Witness Note

[Witness note. It sets out where the Greek Psalter adds to, or differs from, the Hebrew, and cross-refers each added text to its home.]

The Greek Psalter (the Septuagint) is not simply a translation of the Hebrew; it carries its own additions and a numbering of its own. Three things should be kept in view so that nothing is overlooked.

First, the numbering. Because the Greek joins and divides certain psalms differently from the Hebrew, most Greek psalm numbers run one behind the Hebrew through the body of the Psalter; the count is brought back into agreement only near the end. A psalm cited by its Hebrew number will often stand under a different number in the Greek.

Second, the added psalm. After Psalm 150 the Greek Psalter sets Psalm 151, expressly marked as standing “outside the number” of the hundred and fifty. This is the same psalm restored at its own home; the Greek is one of its chief witnesses, beside the Hebrew and the Syriac.

Third, the appended Odes. In many Greek manuscripts the Psalter is followed by a collection of Odes — songs and prayers gathered from across Scripture for use in worship. These are not new compositions but texts whose homes lie elsewhere; they are listed here so the Greek liturgical shape is not lost:

the Song of Moses at the sea, and the Song of Moses before his death;

the Prayer of Hannah; the Prayer of Habakkuk; the Prayer of Isaiah; the Prayer of Jonah;

the Prayer of the Three Young Men and their Song in the furnace (filed with the additions to Daniel);

the Prayer of Manasseh (filed under the penitential prayers);

and the later songs of Mary, of Zechariah, and of Simeon (filed with the gospel witnesses).

Each of these is restored once at its own home. This note records that the Greek Psalter gathered them as Odes, so that the worshiping shape of the Greek tradition is preserved even though the texts themselves are filed elsewhere.