Scriptures & Texts
Psalm 151
Apocrypha
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A short psalm, supernumerary to the 150 of the Hebrew Psalter, in which David speaks in the first person of being the youngest of his brothers, taken from the sheepfold and anointed, and of his combat with the Philistine. It stands at the end of the Greek Psalter under a heading marking it as outside the number and ascribing it to David, and a Hebrew form of it, in fact two Davidic compositions that the Greek has combined and compressed, was recovered among the great Psalms scroll at Qumran, showing the Greek to rest on a genuine Hebrew original. The Eastern Orthodox churches receive it as canonical and print it in the Psalter; the Catholic and Protestant traditions do not include it, though it appears in some editions among the Apocrypha. Judaism does not receive it. It is the standard example of a psalm canonical in one communion and outside the count in the others.
Facts
Origins
Era of Composition Attributed Author / CompilerAn anonymous psalm, extant in Hebrew at Qumran, c. Hellenistic period (critical) 1 Attributed Author / CompilerKing David (traditional superscription) 1 Status
Canonical StatusSourced to the subject's own accountDeuterocanonical 2Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Canonical StatusNon-canonical 3Tradition: Judaism Canonical StatusNon-canonical 3Tradition: Roman Catholicism Text
Literary Form Structure
StructureA single supernumerary psalm (on David and Goliath) 3 StructureBeyond the 150 of the Masoretic Psalter 3 Learn More
David's Extra Psalm
Psalm 151 is a short psalm found at the end of the Greek Psalter, one more than the 150 psalms of the Hebrew Bible, and headed with a note that it is "outside the number" and attributed to David after his single combat with Goliath. In it David recalls, in the first person, how he was the youngest of his brothers, a shepherd tending his father's sheep, who made a musical instrument with his own hands; how the Lord passed over his taller and more handsome brothers to choose and anoint him; and how he went out against the Philistine champion and, with God's help, cut off his head, "removing disgrace from the people of Israel." It is thus a poetic, autobiographical retelling of David's election and his victory over Goliath. For most of history the psalm was known only in Greek, and later Syriac, so that its origin and original language were uncertain, and it was often dismissed as a late Greek composition.
Qumran and Canon
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls transformed the picture. Among the scrolls from Qumran Cave 11 the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) preserved a Hebrew version of the material of Psalm 151, in fact two originally separate short poems (labelled 151A and 151B by scholars) that lie behind the single Greek psalm, showing that it rests on genuine Hebrew compositions of the Second Temple period, not merely a Greek invention.
Canonically the psalm is received as Scripture by the Eastern Orthodox churches, which print it in their Psalters, and it is honoured in the Syriac and other Eastern traditions; it is not part of the Jewish, Roman Catholic or Protestant canons, though Protestant Bibles that carry the Apocrypha may include it. Psalm 151 is valued today both as a small window onto the fluid state of the Psalter in the late Second Temple period, when collections of psalms could still differ in content and order, and as evidence, furnished by Qumran, that a "Septuagint plus" could preserve authentically ancient Hebrew material that the later rabbinic canon left out.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the Eastern Orthodox Psalter beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic canon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Excluded from Canon
Anabaptism, Denominations This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Baptist, Denominations This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
The Church of Sweden does not include Psalm 151 in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and Psalm 151, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not include Psalm 151 in its Bible. Its Old Testament follows the Lutheran Reformation's return to the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Bible, and Psalm 151, read as scripture within Eastern Orthodoxy and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, falls outside that narrower canon along with the rest of the deuterocanonical and apocryphal writings.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Lutheranism, Denominations Lutheranism does not canonize Psalm 151. Luther placed the deuterocanonical books in a separate section of his 1534 Bible as good and useful to read, but not equal to scripture.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Protestantism, Denominations The Protestant confessional consensus holds a thirty-nine-book Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, against the wider canon affirmed at Trent in 1546 and at Jerusalem in 1672. Lutheran and Anglican practice retains several of these books as edifying reading while denying them authority to establish doctrine.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Psalm 151, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Sources
1. The Dead Sea Scrolls Today
James C. VanderKam, William B. Eerdmans, 2010Hebrew original in 11QPsa; Greek in the SeptuagintView the Source 2. The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)
Synod of Jerusalem, Eastern Orthodox Church, 1672On the Greek Psalter received in the Orthodox churchesthe holders' own accountView the Source 3. An Introduction to the Apocrypha
Bruce M. Metzger, Oxford University Press, 1957The chapter on Psalm 151 and its heading as outside the numberView the Source The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
The Westminster Confession of Faith
The Belgic Confession
The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority
Lee Martin McDonald, Hendrickson, 2007On Psalm 151 in the Greek Psalter and the Hebrew form found at QumranView the Source Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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