In | Names and Titles of Authors in the Psalms

When you think of the Psalms you may think of David, but many other names appear in the titles of Psalms. 

One of the difficult things about tracking titles and names in the book of Psalms is that even when we identify who is associated with each Psalm, we’re not sure how to understand these connections. 

When Psalm 3 identifies itself as “A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom,” we don’t know what that meant. It could mean that David was the author, the patron who commissioned it, or that it was written at a later time after the pattern of David’s hymns—or just as an attempt to tell a part of his story. There’s no way to know, and really the question is much less important than what we do know about this book. 

We know that Psalms is one of the most read and quoted books in history, and also that it is the product of centuries of reflection about God’s relationship with His people. It represents a high point of personal testimony in the Bible and some of its most profound expressions of human emotion. Jesus Himself will quote many times from this book during His trial and execution, as we’ll see in the Gospels.