David's name is so closely associated with the book of Psalms that we may well consider his relationship to these familiar and beautiful poems. As printed in the King James Version of the Bible, they appear to be in prose; but many more recent translators set them down in metrical form.
While more than seventy of the one hundred and fifty psalms are described as psalms "of David," especially in the headings preceding many of the poems, the Hebrew phrase le Dawid can as literally be rendered either "to David" or "for David." This suggests that some, at least, were not composed by David himself but were dedicated to him. Some of the psalms, indeed, presuppose historical situations earlier than David's day. Others clearly refer to events occurring long after his time.
The writer of II Samuel in reporting "the last words of David" (23:1), describes him as the "sweet psalmist of Israel"—the most famous poet in Jewish national history. The rabbis even went so far as to ascribe all the psalms to him. It may well be that we do owe to this poet-king the nucleus of this inspiring collection of early Hebrew hymns. Yet many authors, named or unnamed, seem to have contributed to the collection, as occurs in the compilation of hymnals in our own time, many of which still draw upon the Biblical Psalter.
