Saul attempts to kill David (the harpist of Israel) — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Psalms — The canon's longest book — 150 Psalms edited into five doxology-bookended books, composed across a millennium, attributed to David, Asaph, Korah's sons, Moses, Solomon, Heman, Ethan, and anonymous voices. A ''Torah of David''; the Bible's longest continuous liturgical-devotional corpus.
Canon
Old Testament
Author
David principally (73 Psalms + 2 NT-cited); Asaph, Sons of Korah, Solomon, Moses, Heman, Ethan; ~50 anonymous.
Date
Composed c. 1400 BC (Mosaic Ps 90) through the post-exilic period (Ps 126 ''when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion''). Roughly a millennium of composition; editorial compilation likely into the Persian period.
“Ver. 5. A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. Once men were renowned for felling the cedars and preparing them for building the temple, but now the axe finds other work, and men are as proud of destroying as their fathers were of erecting.
“Famous - The temple was so noble a structure, that it was a great honour to any man to be employed in the meanest part of the work, though it were but in cutting down the trees of Lebanon.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765evangelical
Word doors
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first — the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
He is the son of a woman from the daughters of Dan, and his father is a man of Tyre. He is skilled in work with gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and…
Send me, therefore, a craftsman skilled in engraving to work with gold and silver, with bronze and iron, and with purple, crimson, and blue yarn. He will work with my craftsmen in Judah and…
Now therefore, order that cedars of Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants whatever wages you set, for you know that there…
Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants have skill to cut timber there. And indeed, my servants will work with yours
The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.
He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.
Now therefore, order that cedars of Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants whatever wages you set, for you know that there are none among us as skilled in logging as the Sidonians.”
He is the son of a woman from the daughters of Dan, and his father is a man of Tyre. He is skilled in work with gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, purple, blue, and crimson yarn, and fine linen. He is experienced in every kind of engraving and can execute any design that is given him. He will work with your craftsmen and with those of my lord, your father David.