Book II of the Psalter · Psalms 42 to 72 · 31 psalms

The Elohistic Psalter

This book gathers the guild collections beside David's own. The sons of Korah open it, Asaph stands in the middle of it, and a second Davidic collection runs to the end, where a note says the prayers of David son of Jesse are ended.

Sealed by: Psalm 72:18-19
Where it stands in the argument: The book closes with Solomon's psalm for the king, asking that he judge the poor with righteousness and that all nations be blessed in him. The hope of the throne stands at its highest here, and Book III then tests it.
Who the headings name: The sons of Korah, Asaph, David, and Solomon at the close. Psalms 43, 66, 67 and 71 carry no name.

Every psalm in Book II

31 doors, coloured by the kind of psalm

Penitential 1
Imprecatory 2
Royal 2
Wisdom and Torah 2
Thanksgiving 1
Lament and trust 17
Praise 6

The colour is the psalm's primary kind, following the form-critical categories of Hermann Gunkel (Einleitung in die Psalmen, 1933) as set out in C. Hassell Bullock, Encountering the Book of Psalms (2001). A psalm that carries more than one kind is filed under one of them, and each kind this book holds is explained below.

Penitential: The prayers of a man confessing sin and asking to be forgiven. The church has read seven of them together since Cassiodorus in the sixth century, and the seventh, Psalm 130, stands under the ascents above.
Imprecatory: Prayers that ask God to judge the wicked, in words that shock a modern reader. They hand the case to God rather than to the one praying, and Psalm 137 is the hardest of them.
Royal: Psalms about the king the LORD anoints, set at the seams of the book. The New Testament reads Psalms 2, 45 and 110 of Christ, and Psalm 132 stands under the ascents.
Wisdom and Torah: Psalms that teach rather than petition: the two ways, the law as delight, the prosperity of the wicked, and the shortness of a life. Psalms 127 and 128 teach in the same way and stand under the ascents.
Thanksgiving: The song of a man who asked and was answered, telling the congregation what happened. The Hebrew word is todah, the thank offering put into words.
Lament and trust: The largest kind: prayer out of trouble, spoken to God in the second person by someone who expects an answer, together with the psalms of quiet confidence that grow out of it, among them Psalms 16, 23, 27 and 62.
Praise: The hymn: God praised for who He is and what He made, including the enthronement psalms that say the LORD reigns and the songs of Zion.

The collections inside it

4 gathered groups, in the order they stand

The sons of KorahPsalms 42 to 49
The temple singers descended from Korah, beginning with the deer panting for streams of water.
AsaphPsalms 50
One psalm of Asaph stands here; the rest of his psalms open Book III.
The second Davidic collectionPsalms 51 to 71
David again, opening with the confession he made after Nathan came to him.
Of SolomonPsalms 72
The prayer for the king that closes the book, followed by the note that the prayers of David are ended.

The name of God in this book

Elohim, God, is the name used here, where the same psalm printed twice in the Psalter uses the LORD in Book I: compare Psalm 14 with Psalm 53. That substitution is why this book is called the Elohistic Psalter.

What the kinds of psalm come to here

Penitential 1
Imprecatory 2
Royal 2
Wisdom and Torah 2
Thanksgiving 1
Lament and trust 17
Praise 6

The same nine kinds colour every psalm on this page and on the four other books of the Psalter.

The doxology that seals it

Psalm 72:18-19, Berean Standard Bible

18Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds.
19And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen.
Psalm 72:18-19, the closing blessing that marks the seam of the book.

Why the seam is marked

The doxology belongs to the collection rather than to the psalm it closes, which is how the five books can be seen in the text itself. The first four seams stand at Psalms 41:13, 72:18-19, 89:52 and 106:48, and the five psalms from 146 to 150, each opening and closing with Hallelujah, close the Psalter.