Throughout this fascinating work, Mowinckel carefully explores the relationship of the various psalm types to the congregation's devotional life, including hymns of praise from Israel's national festivals, psalms of lamentation and penitence, and personal or private psalms of thanksgiving. Other topics include the psalms' relationship to prophecy and wisdom, their composition and collection, their style and performance, and the technical terminology involved in Psalms study.
| Foreword: The Book of Pslams and Its Interpreters | xix | |
| Select Bibliography | xxxiii | |
| Translator's Preface | xli | |
| Author's Preface to the English Edition | xliii | |
| Volume I | ||
| I | The Psalms and the Cult | 1 |
| 1 | The problem | 1 |
| 2 | Testimonies about the cultic use of the psalms | 2 |
| 3 | Allusions to the temple cult in the psalms - song, music and dance | 5 |
| 4 | The cultic origin of psalmody as such, and the problem of the extant psalms | 12 |
| 5 | What is 'cult'? | 15 |
| II | The Method of the Cultic Interpretation | 23 |
| 1 | The form critical (form historical) view-point | 23 |
| 2 | The cult functional view-point | 29 |
| 3 | The sources for our knowledge of Israelite cult life | 35 |
| 4 | Preliminary classification of the psalms | 37 |
| 5 | Psalms outside the Psalter | 40 |
| 6 | Ancient oriental psalm poetry | 41 |
| III | 'I' and 'We' in the Psalms - 'Royal Psalms' | 42 |
| 1 | 'I' and 'we'. 'Corporate personality' | 42 |
| 2 | What are 'royal psalms'? | 46 |
| 3 | The ancient Israelite conception of the king | 50 |
| 4 | The place of the royal psalms in the cult | 61 |
| 5 | Royal and national psalms | 76 |
| 6 | National psalms in the 'I' form as royal psalms | 76 |
| 7 | 'Democratization' of religion | 78 |
| IV | The Hymn of Praise | 81 |
| 1 | Form and content, composition | 81 |
| 2 | Varieties of the hymn | 90 |
| 3 | The hymns and the annual festivals | 94 |
| 4 | Hymnic elements in other psalm types | 95 |
| 5 | The delineation of God in hymn and psalm | 97 |
| V | Psalms at the Enthronement Festival of Yahweh | 106 |
| 1 | The meaning of 'enthronement psalms' | 106 |
| 2 | The poetical situation (imagery): the enthronement of Yahweh | 107 |
| 3 | The cultic situation: the interpretation of the enthronement psalms | 109 |
| 4 | Enthronement psalms: the age of the literary type and of the corresponding festival | 116 |
| 5 | The enthronement festival | 118 |
| 6 | The pre-Israelite background and prototypes of the festival | 130 |
| 7 | The specifically Israelite character of the festival | 136 |
| 8 | The festal myths | 140 |
| 9 | Some of the main acts and rites of the festival | 169 |
| 10 | Form and content of the true enthronement psalms against the background of the experiences of the festival | 183 |
| 11 | The emotions and mood of the festival | 184 |
| 12 | The retrospective and prospective elements in the festival and its psalms | 186 |
| 13 | The relationship of the festival to the Jewish hope of restoration and the eschatology | 189 |
| VI | National Psalms of Lamentation | 193 |
| 1 | Days and rites of penitence | 193 |
| 2 | Psalms for such days of penitence and prayer | 194 |
| 3 | Form and content of the psalm of lamentation | 195 |
| 4 | Protective psalms; 'psalms of confidence' | 219 |
| 5 | Psalms for the annual days of penitence and prayer; petitions for the nation's return | 220 |
| 6 | Psalms of general petition | 221 |
| 7 | Intercessory psalms | 224 |
| VII | National Psalms of Lamentation in the I-form | 225 |
| 1 | The king ('I') as the people's representative in the properly national psalms of lamentation | 225 |
| 2 | Royal psalms of lamentation and petitions on the occasion of public disaster or danger | 225 |
| 3 | The lament over wicked tongues and false accusers | 227 |
| 4 | Style, form, and content | 229 |
| 5 | Need or danger envisaged as a dwelling in the realm of the dead, a concept common to psalms of both lamentation and thanksgiving | 239 |
| 6 | Real suffering or cultic 'mock sufering'? | 241 |
| 7 | Analogies with Babylonian 'I' psalms | 246 |
| Volume II | ||
| VIII | Personal (Private) Psalms of Lamentation | 1 |
| 1 | Are there such psalms? | 1 |
| 2 | Psalms of sickness. The conception of sickness in Israel | 1 |
| 3 | Ritual remedies for sickness and uncleanness | 4 |
| 4 | Ritual psalms of sickness; enemies and 'awen | 5 |
| 5 | Possible other psalms of sickness | 8 |
| 6 | Psalms of sickness for the king's use | 8 |
| 7 | Content, form, and style | 9 |
| 8 | The psalmists' conception of sin | 11 |
| 9 | Sickness as an image of need and danger or as a secondary suffering | 15 |
| 10 | Possible other occasions for personal psalms of lamentation | 16 |
| 11 | I-psalms of lamentation (and psalms of thanksgiving), their relationship to the cult | 18 |
| IX | Public Thanksgiving Psalms | 26 |
| 1 | The Victory Song | 26 |
| 2 | The festival of thanksgiving and the occasional psalm of thanksgiving | 27 |
| 3 | Public psalms of thanksgiving in the I-form | 28 |
| 4 | Royal psalms of thanksgiving | 29 |
| 5 | General psalms of thanksgiving of the community at the regular festivals | 29 |
| X | Personal (Private) Thanksgiving Psalms | 31 |
| 1 | Festivals of thanksgiving and psalms of thanksgiving; the occasions | 31 |
| 2 | Content and form | 32 |
| 3 | Communal thank-offering festivals | 42 |
| 4 | The individually experienced and felt | 43 |
| XI | Psalms of Blessing and Cursing | 44 |
| 1 | The blessing and the cursing word in the cult | 44 |
| 2 | The blessing word in the psalms | 50 |
| 3 | The cursing word in the psalms | 51 |
| 4 | Two-way blessing and cursing formulae | 52 |
| XII | The Prophetic Word in the Psalms and the Prophetic Psalms | 53 |
| 1 | The cult oracle and the temple prophets | 53 |
| 2 | Oracular promises in conjunction with psalms of lamentation | 58 |
| 3 | Royal oracles | 61 |
| 4 | Oracles at the annual festivals | 62 |
| 5 | Why mere promises? | 63 |
| 6 | The condition for the promises: obedience to Yahweh's command | 65 |
| 7 | Religious and moral conditions and the 'decalogical tradition' | 68 |
| XIII | Mixed Style and Liturgical Compositions | 74 |
| 1 | Varying 'types' in one and the same psalm an expression of the religious life in the cult | 74 |
| 2 | Cultic liturgies | 75 |
| 3 | Disintegration of style and mixture of styles | 77 |
| XIV | Psalm Singing and Psalm Singers | 79 |
| 1 | The guilds of singers at the temples | 79 |
| 2 | Temple singing | 82 |
| XV | The Psalmists | 85 |
| 1 | The temple - or private conventicles? | 85 |
| 2 | The psalmists' relationship to the temple in Jerusalem | 89 |
| 3 | The psalmists belonged to the temple singers | 90 |
| 4 | The genuine traditions about the psalmists | 95 |
| 5 | 'David' in the psalm titles | 98 |
| 6 | 'Moses' and 'Solomon' | 101 |
| XVI | The Learned Psalmography | 104 |
| 1 | The wise and the wisdom poetry | 104 |
| 2 | Some non-cultic poetry and song in Israel | 106 |
| 3 | The petition as an expression of the life of piety and its dependence on the traditional forms of cultic poetry | 108 |
| 4 | Psalm composition a pious, inspired task | 109 |
| 5 | Non-cultic psalms in the Psalter | 111 |
| 6 | Post-canonical psalm composition | 114 |
| 7 | The Poems of Ben Sira | 116 |
| 8 | The Psalms of Solomon | 118 |
| 9 | Hodhayoth, the Qumran psalter | 120 |
| 10 | Early Christian psalm composition | 122 |
| XVII | Traditionalism and Personality in the Psalms | 126 |
| 1 | Attachment to tradition and poetic independence | 126 |
| 2 | The poets and the narratory 'I' | 133 |
| 3 | The poet and the 'I' in certain later private thanksgiving psalms | 141 |
| XVIII | The Antiquity of Psalmography and the Psalms | 146 |
| 1 | The rhythmical cult word | 146 |
| 2 | The witness of earlier literature to cultic psalm singing and composition | 146 |
| 3 | National temples and psalm composition | 150 |
| 4 | Psalms preserved from the time of the monarchy, or even of David | 152 |
| 5 | Psalms from the days of Judaism | 154 |
| 6 | Psalms from Maccabean times? | 154 |
| 7 | A history of psalmography? | 155 |
| XIX | The Metre of the Psalms | 159 |
| 1 | Sense rhythm and imposed rhythm | 159 |
| 2 | Fundamental problems in Hebrew metrics | 161 |
| 3 | The basic form | 162 |
| 4 | Thought rhyme (parallelismus membrorum) | 166 |
| 5 | Rhythmical and logical units | 169 |
| 6 | Strophes | 170 |
| 7 | Uniform or mixed metres? | 172 |
| 8 | Changes of metre | 174 |
| XX | Israelite and Oriental Psalmography | 176 |
| 1 | A common oriental psalm style older than Israel | 176 |
| 2 | Comparison with Israelite psalms. Hymns | 179 |
| 3 | Psalms of lamentation and of petition | 182 |
| 4 | Thanksgiving psalms | 185 |
| 5 | Canaanite and Israelite psalmography | 187 |
| 6 | Babylonian and Egyptian models | 189 |
| 7 | The metrical forms | 190 |
| XXI | Earlier Collections. The Compilation of the Psalter | 193 |
| 1 | Testimony to gradual collection | 193 |
| 2 | The various smaller collections | 193 |
| 3 | The completion of the Psalter | 196 |
| 4 | The five-fold division is quite secondary and does not reflect the history of the compilation | 197 |
| 5 | How many psalms in the Psalter? | 197 |
| 6 | When was the Psalter compiled? | 198 |
| XXII | The Purpose of the Psalter | 202 |
| 1 | The collection used as a temple hymnal | 202 |
| 2 | The purpose of the separate earlier lesser collections: the Asaph psalms, the Korah psalms, the second Davidic Psalter, the Elohistic Psalter, the pilgrim songs, the enthronement psalms, Hallel; the first Davidic Psalter; the psalms in the fourth and fifth 'books' | 203 |
| 3 | In what circles was the Psalter compiled? The 'learned' as traditionalists and canonists | 204 |
| 4 | The purpose of the collection | 204 |
| 5 | Consequences of the collection and canonisation of the Psalter. An end to cultic psalmography. Collective interpretation of older individualistic psalms | 205 |
| XXIII | Technical Terms in the Psalm Headings | 207 |
| A | Expressions indicating type of psalm | 207 |
| B | Musical indications | 210 |
| C | Information as to the psalms' liturgical purpose and use | 211 |
| D | Expressions referring to the accompanying rite | 213 |
| E | Expressions of doubtful significance | 215 |
| Additional Notes I-XL | 218 | |
| List of Abbreviations | 268 | |
| Bibliography | 271 | |
| Subject Index | 290 | |
| Index of Scripture Passages Treated | 296 | |
| Index of Authors | 300 |
Overview