DID YOU KNOW?

Psalm 72 ends with a note: "The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended." How many psalms headed "Of David" come after it?

The answer

Eighteen. The note closes Psalm 72, and the book keeps going for seventy-eight more psalms, eighteen of them headed "Of David." The note belonged to one earlier collection. The Psalms are a collection of smaller collections, gathered from different times and places.

Why it’s interesting

The line saying David's prayers are over closes a psalm headed "Of Solomon": his son's psalm, not his.

Scholarly consensus

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