Kavanot: The Moses Psalms

Before we finish the תהילים of David, I want to look at some of the תהילים that are explicitly attributed to others.

Eleven perakim are attributed to Moshe:

Rashi gets this from the midrash:

(I think that דברי נבואה shouldn’t be taken literally; ספר תהילים is in כתובים. Moshe sometimes writes ברוח הקרש, not at the level באספקלריא המאירה.)

These are the eleven:

90. תפלה למשה איש האלקים
91. ישב בסתר עליון
92. מזמור שיר ליום השבת
93. ה׳ מלך גאות לבש
94. א־ל נקמות ה׳
95. לכו נרננה לה׳
96. שירו לה׳ שיר חדש
97. ה׳ מלך תגל הארץ
98. מזמור שירו לה׳ שיר חדש
99. ה׳ מלך ירגזו עמים
100. מזמור לתודה

We spoke about these a little in AltNeuLeid, when we looked at David bringing the ארון to ירושלים. He initially brought it on an ox-drawn wagon, to complete the journey it had started when it was returned from the Philistine captivity:

The gemara is struck by the verb וַיִּשַּׁרְנָה; it seems to be a verbing of ישר, ”they went straight“; but then it should be וַיֵּשַׁרְנָה, with a long vowel under the י to indicate that it is part of the שורש. So the gemara aggadically interprets it as “they sang”.

בראשית רבה נד:ד offers other options, תהילים צו or תהילים צז. Taking this aggadah seriously but not literally, the gemara is telling us that these were the songs of the restoration of the ארון to its rightful place, and I hypothesized that they were in fact the original תהילים that were sung in the משכן that Moshe built. תהילים ק is similar, explicitly written for the קרבן תודה.

We looked at תהילים צו in AltNeuLeid, תהילים צה and תהילים צח in Variations on a Theme, and תהילים ק in Gratitude in that light, as תהילים of the משכן. We will look at תהילים צג,‎ צז and צט, the “מלך” psalms, in the same way. The other four are different, and we will look at them now.