Hidden Treasures in the Titles of the Psalms

The Psalms is beautiful book in the middle of our Bibles was the most popular scroll in Jesus's time. In this study, we will examine the titles of psalms and their spiritual meaning.

In this study, we will examine the titles of psalms and their spiritual meaning. This beautiful book in the middle of our Bibles was the most popular scroll in Jesus’s time. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, forty-one copies of the Book of Psalms were found, more than of any other Bible book. These psalms are for overcoming. We should all know what we need “to overcome.” The Apostle Paul is very clear about this:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1-2).

Paul, therefore, exhorts us to renew our mind or our spirit. He sums up this chapter with:

Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21).

The Apostle John writes:

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5).

Jesus, of course, was the first to overcome the world in himself:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33).

Still, we need to overcome the devil, the adversary as well:

Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:8-11).

Overcoming By The Power of The Holy Spirit

How did Jesus overcome the world in himself? Through death, Jesus destroyed him that has the power of death, that is, the devil. As Samson overcame the lion, so Jesus too could only overcome the power of the devil or human nature with God’s help:

Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. (Judges 14:5-6).

Samson overcame the adversary by the Spirit of Yahweh. We, too, need the power of the Spirit to overcome. But, as we don’t believe that we have the Holy Spirit, as evangelicals claim they have, how can we be helped by the Spirit? We are even told that we must pray in the Holy Spirit: 

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit! (Jude 20).

How can we develop this Holy Spirit in ourselves? It is imperative that we do, for our salvation depends on it:

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:10-11).

Praying in the Holy Spirit

How, then can we pray in the Holy Spirit? Speaking for myself, I know that I am not alone, and we often feel inadequate in our prayers. We don’t always know what to pray for as we ought, in other words how to pray in an acceptable way. Solomon was also looking for the right words to pray. 

The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and written upright, words of truth. (Ecclesiastes 12:10).

In this study, we hope to show the pivotal role the psalms played in the life of Jesus and how they can help us develop the mind of Christ. We hope you will leave this study and be better equipped to approach God in prayer, overcome the “old man,” develop a sound mind, and go on to perfection. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” but hopefully, we will see that there are directives in the very titles of the psalms to guide us to victory and how to use the Spirit word to make intercession for us, for these titles are an integral part of the Psalms and therefore part of the inspired Word of God. 

Jesus overcame this by using the psalms. Several are recorded as he hung on the cross: Psalms 22, 31, 69-70, and more.

After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples:

And he said unto them, “these are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me, [or about me].” (Luke 24:44).

So, in the psalms, we have a record of the mind of Christ, as it also is mentioned in:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16).

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to Yahweh; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18-20).

Hidden Treasures in the Titles of the Psalms 

An English brother named Joseph Hobson taught us the truth in Israel. He used the psalms for his prayers and said they are our instruments for overcoming. He got this idea from the Hebrew titles of the psalms. The translation of the Hebrew first verses was quite a revelation, as it gave us an insight into the spiritual meaning or purpose of the psalms.

What is presented in the English Bibles as the title is actually the first verse of the psalm in the Hebrew Bible. That is how it appears in translations, such as the Dutch, French, German, Spanish, and the Good News Bible Translation, but not in the King James Version. 

David wrote most of the psalms during the time that he was persecuted by Saul. They give insight into David’s mind in his tribulations and in the joy of the salvation that God had promised him. Reading through the psalms, we see the daily struggles he had to cope with and how he overcame them:

David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of Yahweh spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. (2 Samuel 23:1-2).

Therefore, the words of the psalms are Holy Spirit words and Jesus used the psalms for his prayers. In the gospels, we have a record of all that Jesus did and what was done by him and to him, but it does not indicate what went through the mind of Christ. That information we can only learn from the psalms. Not only do the psalms contain the mind of Christ, but God Himself “dwells” in the psalms:

Thou art holy that inhabitest the praises of Israel. (Psalm 22:3).

The fact that the psalms are instruments for overcoming is hidden in the spiritual meaning of the first verses of the psalms. Most of these first verses have been left untranslated, as it was thought that they were just instructions for the conductor to follow a particular popular tune of the time. 

James Thirtle (1854-1934) wrote a booklet on the titles of the psalms.¹  He believed the titles of psalms contain musical directives. He understood the phrase “To the Chief Musician” to mean “To lead in music.” He suggested that this designation belongs to the previous psalm. Subsequent studies, however, have contested this view.²  That view is of little help to those who seek spiritual comfort in the psalms.

I found George Fenwick’s book on the titles of the psalms a most helpful exposition on this subject.³ His book is one of the earliest publications to endeavor to translate the psalm titles directly. Thirtle never referred to this book. With Fenwick, I believe that the Hebrew titles have a spiritual meaning and, therefore, rightly belong to the first verse of the psalm.

For example, the so-called title of Psalm 18 is quoted in 2 Samuel 22:1 as the first verse. There is no reason to depart from this Biblical example. Thirtle’s idea that psalm titles belong to the end of the previous psalm comes from Habakkuk 3:19:

Yahweh God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the Chief Musician upon Neginoth.

However, if we translate this verse from the Hebrew, it reads:

Yahweh God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places to victory on my stringed instruments.

Stringed instruments are Neginoth in Hebrew. The phrase “To the Chief Musician upon Neginoth,” occurs in the first verses of Psalms 4, 6, 54-55, 67, 76.

In Hebrew, the ending of Habakkuk 3.19 is identical to the “title” of Psalm 4: “To the chief musician on Neginoth.” The contents of the psalm clearly indicate that David was struggling with the “sons of men” who distressed him, turned his glory into shame, and loved vanity:

To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David. Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that Yahweh hath set apart him that is godly for himself: Yahweh will hear when I call unto him. Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in Yahweh. There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:1-8).

David said this prayer as he contemplated his difficulties that day, just before he went to bed. As did Daniel, David prayed three times a day:

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. (Psalm 55:17).

Psalm 55 was a prayer about “the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked.” (v. 3). In this case, it was Ahitophel who joined the rebellion of Absalom against David. David had called him “a man mine equal, my guide and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company.” (vv. 13-14). 

There is no reason we couldn’t say this prayer, too, when we are in difficulties, which are often caused by those near us. David’s suffering didn’t change his attitude toward God; it strengthened it: “As for me, I will call upon Elohim, and Yahweh shall save me.” (Psalm 55:16). In the Hebrew, David spoke in the future tense: “I will call… Yahweh shall save…” After he had prayed to God three times a day, he could say: 

[God] has delivered my soul (Heb: redeemed my soul in peace) from the battle that was against me, for there were many with me. (Psalm 55:18).

David’s confidence in adversity is described in an earlier psalm:

I have set Yahweh always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. (Psalm 16:8-9).

This psalm was used by Jesus to get the confidence to continue unto the end, even unto the death of the cross. This is what Peter said on the day of Pentecost:

Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, “I foresaw Yahweh always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.” (Acts 2:23-28).

Hebrew Meaning Of “To The Chief Musician”

Many psalm titles begin with “To the Chief Musician,” despite the fact that no Chief Musician is mentioned anywhere in the Bible. The only times that this word is used are in 2 Chronicles 2:2, 18 and 2 Chronicles 34:13, where it is translated as “overseers.” I suppose the idea of a Chief Musician is derived from the fact that a conductor “oversees” a choir or orchestra. 

What does “To the Chief Musician” mean? Was it just a directive to a non-existing conductor? 

In Hebrew, “To the chief Musician” is le-menatseach, and it is used in the first verses of fifty-five psalms. This word comes from the root natsach, and is used first in 1 Samuel 15:29, where Samuel calls Yahweh the “Strength of Israel.” In the margin, it is rendered “Eternity” or “Victory.” In 1 Chronicles 15:21, this word is translated “to excel:” 

Mattithiah, and Elipheleh, and Mikneiah, and Obededom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah, with harps on the Sheminith to excel. 

These men used harps as instruments for overcoming. They were among the 288 people “instructed in the Song of Yahweh,” as mentioned in 1 Chronicles 25:1-7. We would also benefit from being instructed in the Song of Yahweh.

In 1 Chronicles 29:11, this word is indeed translated as “victory”:

Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. (1 Chronicles 29:11).

This word “victory” forms the basis for the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.

This word netsach is also used in the well-known passage in Isaiah 25:8:

He will swallow up death in victory; and Yahweh GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for Yahweh hath spoken it.

“In victory” in Hebrew has the prefix le attached, so this verse actually says, “He will swallow up death to victory.” Jesus was victorious, not only over his own death but over death itself, so that we also can be saved from the power of death. This verse is, of course, quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:54, and here the Greek word for victory is nikos (as in Nike shoes, Nikon cameras). Christ was the first to gain victory over death, as it is written in Hebrews 2:14: “That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”

Natsach means victory or to overcome. In modern Hebrew, when you have won a game, you say: Nitsachti!—I have won, or I have the victory, I am victorious.

“To the Chief Musician” therefore means: “To the victor, or: To him that overcomes.” As we said before, Jesus was the first to have victory over sin and death, but in his letter to Laodicea, Jesus says: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” (Revelation 3:21).

The rewards for overcoming are too exciting to miss. They are mentioned in Revelation Chapters 2-3. It seems obvious that there is a connection between “Him that overcometh” (o nikon) of Revelation and the “Chief Musician” (menatseach) of the psalms.

Neginoth—Stringed Instruments

The title of Psalm 4 continues with “on Neginoth.” It means “stringed instruments.” The Hebrew is derived from nagan, which means to play on an instrument with strings, especially the harp. These instruments, which were used by David, were the vehicle used by Yahweh to reveal his Spirit, as David said:

Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of Yahweh spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. (2 Samuel 23:1-2).

When an evil spirit of Yahweh came upon Saul, David played for him on the harp, and his spirit was refreshed:

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. (1 Samuel 16:23).

Saul was probably refreshed more by the Spirit words that David composed on the harp rather than the music that David made, although that must have been attractive as well. We can be sure that Jesus also used these instruments to refresh his spirit. As he made these words his own they became the “Word of Christ,” as the Apostle, in Colossians 3:16, calls the “Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,” which are in the middle of our Bible. That is our true Hymn Book. Why should we not use it?

The Prayer of God 

Luke 6:12 records that Jesus “continued all night in prayer to God.” What is the point of saying that if we don’t know how he prayed and what he prayed for? How can we imitate the Son of God if we are left in the dark in the matter of prayer? Well, the Greek text is a lot clearer. It says that Jesus continued all night in “The Prayer of God.” Jesus did not spend the night composing his own prayers, but he made full use of those provided by God for him through the “Spirit Words of the Psalms.” David suffered so much that Jesus could use his words at the right time. David must have wondered sometimes about “What, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” (1 Peter 1:11). We find an example of this in the title of Psalm 18, where David is delivered from the hand of Saul, but Jesus is delivered from the hand of Sheol—the grave. Both words are the same in Hebrew.

Psalm 18 

Psalm 18 must have been a great source of strength to Jesus when “The sorrows of hell (Sheol) compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.” (Psalm 18:5). The faith of Jesus is expressed in verse 6, which is   written in the future tense in Hebrew 

In my distress I will call upon Yahweh, and I will cry unto my God: he will hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry will come before him, even into his ears. 

God’s answer was evident in Luke 23:44: “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.” It is so comforting to read this. Jesus knew from Psalm 18:9 that God would come down to witness the death of His Son and shield him from prying eyes by the darkness that came over all the earth. It gives us an insight into the feelings of God, who, as a father, saw His beloved son die on the cross.

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. Yahweh also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, Yahweh, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. (Psalm 18:7-15).

Jesus knew that God would save him: 

He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but Yahweh was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me. Yahweh rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of Yahweh, and have not wickedly departed from my Elohim. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath Yahweh recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight. (v. 16-24).

Psalm 22 

Psalm 22 is one of the psalms that Jesus prayed on the cross, and it helped him overcome the power of death itself. That is the meaning of the title: 

To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. (Psalm 22:1).

It means “to him that overcomes over the power of darkness.” Jesus referred to this psalm when he said to the chief priest and to the captains of the Temple, and the elders that had come to arrest him in Gethsemane:

When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. (Luke 22:53).

When he was hanging on the cross, Jesus did not only say the first verse of Psalm 22, but he also undoubtedly prayed the whole Psalm to God, who was able to save him from death. Through his death, Jesus has also delivered us from the power of darkness:

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. (Colossians 1:13).

The Apostle Paul tells us how we should change our lives because we are also delivered from the powers of darkness:

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:10-14).

We have seen how David and Jesus overcame by using the psalms. The more we become familiar with the psalms, the more they can help us to overcome. Once those beautiful expressions become ours, we can also use them in our prayers.

Leen Ritmeyer,
Cardiff Ecclesia, UK