Introduction

This collection of Songs includes songs, poems, chants, and prayers that the Hebrews used in their meditation and worship, and then those eventually got added to this collection. We have chosen not to use the name ‘Psalms’ which comes from the Greek word ‘ψαλμός’ which means ‘a song sung to the harp’, because most English readers don’t even know that meaning. The title ‘Songs’ isn’t perhaps ideal, but does at least suggest that they were sung, read, or chanted with music.

There are many classes of the songs for believers in God: there are songs of praising and worshipping God, there are prayers requesting help or rescue from situations, requesting forgiveness, songs thanking or blessing God, and requests to curse their enemies. These prayers are sometimes personal and sometimes on behalf of the entire nation.

Seven of these songs/poems are acrostic poems, i.e., the first verse starts with the first Hebrew letter (alef) and the second with the second Hebrew letter (beyt), etc. We have chosen to display those Hebrew letters to help the English reader understand that there is that acrostic background to the poem. The seven songs are Song 25, Song 34, Song 37, Song 111, Song 112, the longest Song 119, and Song 145.

Yeshua (Jesus) and other contributors to The Messianic Update (The New Testament) used these songs and valued this collection for use in church worship since the beginning.

The one hundred and fifty songs are divided into five sub-collections.

There are a hundred and fifty songs, poems, and prayers in this collection that were used by the Hebrews in their worship. Many seem to have been written in the time of King David and others around the time of the end of David’s kingdom. These songs and prayers are still important today for use by Jewish believers in their worship. These songs reveal the inner emotions of the author like anger and sorrow, happiness and trusting, and hope.

This is still a very early look into the unfinished text of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check the text in advance before using in public.