Hallel: How Many Psalms?

Recitation of the Hallel

The Hallel psalms, numbered 113 to 118, are recited during the holidays of Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, and the eight days of Hanukkah. On the third through seventh days of Pesach and on Rosh Hodesh (the new moon), a shortened version known as the “Half Hallel” is recited.^[1]

The Half Hallel, as prescribed by Saadia and Rashi and recited by most Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities, omits the first eleven verses of both Psalms 115 (לֹא לָנוּ) and 116 (אָהַבְתִּי), reducing the number of recited verses from 85 to 63.^[2] In his Mishnah Torah, however, Maimonides (1138–1204) also omits Psalm 117 (הַלְלוּ) and 118:1–4 (הוֹדוּ), for a Half-Hallel of 57 verses.^[3]

Though each individual psalm is generally understood to be a complete and integrated work of poetry, the shortened versions of several psalms in the Half-Hallel assumes that these psalms may be recited incompletely and still convey meaning. The various Half-Hallel traditions may stem from different local customs, but the psalms of the Hallel themselves have also been preserved in different forms in various biblical manuscripts.^[4]

Before the development of the printing press, the scribes who hand-copied the Bible developed a variety of practices to ensure the fidelity of each manuscript.^[5] Hebrew manuscripts of Psalms (Sefer Tehillim) from the medieval period overwhelmingly contain the same text, from the opening lines of Psalm 1, אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים, “happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked,” to the final הַלְלוּ יָהּ, “Hallelujah” (Ps 150:6).

The segmentation of that text, however—that is, the places at which the complete Psalter or a unit within it is subdivided into individual psalms—varies with some regularity throughout the Psalter (predictably in sections with fewer psalm superscriptions).^[6] These boundaries are often marked only by white space or line breaks, as the psalms were not numbered in the ancient Hebrew scrolls, and the medieval Hebrew codices were numbered only inconsistently throughout their tradition.^[7] The Hallel has the highest concentration of segmentation differences. Such variation suffuses the manuscript tradition.

Medieval Masoretic Manuscripts

Few manuscripts of the Bible in Hebrew survive from the 2^nd through 9^th centuries C.E. From the 10^th to the 18^th century, however, hundreds of manuscripts from across Europe and the Middle East witness to the biblical text. Unlike the Dead Sea Scrolls, which attest to several variant Hebrew text traditions, medieval Bibles and Psalters in Hebrew all contain the text type known as the Masoretic Text (MT).^[8] The Masoretic Text was transmitted with great care, and displays a high level of fidelity in most books.

With this in mind, it is especially striking how much and how often Masoretic codices vary in their segmentation of the Hallel. Across four hundred medieval Hebrew manuscripts, I found no fewer than 59 different ways to divide the text of Psalms 113–118 into constituent psalms.^[9] A few manuscripts divide the Hallel into as few as three psalms:

1. Psalm 113;
2. Psalms 114:1–115:18; and
3. Psalms 116:1–118:29.^[10]

At the opposite end, some manuscripts have as many as eleven psalms for Hallel.^[11]

The most common segmentations contain five and six psalms, respectively. The five-psalm Hallel combines Psalms 114 (בְּצֵאת) and 115 (לֹא לָנוּ) into a single psalm. This segmentation is found in slightly more than a quarter of manuscripts, while the six-psalm Hallel identical to the Hallel in the modern Psalter appears in slightly fewer than a quarter.^[12] Thus, these two account for about half of all manuscripts.

The next most common is a seven-psalm segmentation that presents Psalm 118 (הוֹדוּ) as two separate psalms: verses 1–4 and 5–29. This segmentation is found in around an eighth of the manuscripts.^[13] Several manuscripts also divide Psalm 116 between verses 10 and 11, or between verses 11 and 12. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as it matches the subdivision of the psalm in the Half-Hallel.

Differences in segmentation can be traced back to the Septuagint and earlier.

The Septuagint’s Psalter

The Septuagint’s (LXX) Greek translation of the Psalms (2^nd century B.C.E.)^[14] presents Psalms 9 and 10 as a single psalm.^[15] Thus, it numbers the psalms that follow one lower than modern Bibles, meaning the first of the six Hallel psalms in the LXX is numbered 112.^[16]

The LXX also segments the Hallel psalms differently. It combines Psalms 114 (בְּצֵאת) and 115 (לֹא לָנוּ), and presents Psalm 116 (אָהַבְתִּי) as two psalms: verses 1–9 and 10–19.^[17] In addition, where the placement of Hallelujah at the beginning and end of psalms in our Psalter is somewhat haphazard (113:1, 9; 115:18; 116:19; 117:2), the LXX consistently places “Hallelouia” at the beginning of each Hallel psalm (112–117).

Papyrus Bodmer XXIV (2^nd or 3^rd c. C.E.), another ancient Greek version, segmented its six-psalm Hallel quite differently, combining the first three verses of Psalm 115 (לֹא לָנוּ) with the previous Psalm 114 (בְּצֵאת), dividing Psalm 116 (אָהַבְתִּי) at verse 9, and presenting Psalms 117 (הַלְלוּ) and 118 (הוֹדוּ) as a single psalm.^[18]

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Hallel and its constituent Psalms are attested only partially among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The most relevant manuscripts in this case both come from Cave 4 near the site of Qumran.^[19] 4QPsalms^b (4Q84) preserves text from fifteen psalms, among them Psalms 115, 116, 118, and perhaps one word of 113.^[20]

Elsewhere on the scroll, the order of psalms differs dramatically from the modern canonical order, as Psalm 103 is followed directly by Psalm 112. The Hallel may not have appeared in its canonical form, therefore, but a section of it almost certainly did. Psalms 116 (אָהַבְתִּי) and 118 (הוֹדוּ) are preserved on a cluster of overlapping fragments, and Psalm 117 (הַלְלוּ, a short psalm of only two verses) is the likeliest candidate to fill the deteriorated section between them. It is likely, therefore, that at least Psalms 116–118 appeared together on this scroll in their canonical order.

All of the psalms preserved on this scroll are laid out in a similar manner, with one poetic colon (usually one-half or one-third of a poetic line) on each written line of the manuscript, making for tall, narrow columns.^[21] Psalm 118:1–24, however, is written with one poetic line (two or three cola) per line of writing. These longer lines are not restricted to a single column. They begin in column XXXIV and continue until about three-quarters of the way through column XXXV, where the text reverts to the shorter one-colon lines for the final verses of Psalm 118 (25–29) across the remainder of column XXXV and column XXXVI.^[22]

The significance of differentiating part of Psalm 118 in this way is uncertain. Was it intended to indicate boundaries between discrete psalms? Subdivisions within a single psalm? Or did it mark liturgical transitions? In Ashkenazi synagogues, verses 1–4 and 25–26 are recited by the cantor and congregation as a call and response; their distinctive literary form may have been associated with a different mode of recitation in antiquity as well.^[23]

4QPsalms^o

Two small fragments of 4QPsalms^o (4Q96) present firmer evidence of a segmentation that differs from the Hallel in the modern Psalter.^[24] The preserved text on line 1 of Fragment 1 is broken, but apparently preserves part of Psalms 114:7 and 115:1. Words in brackets are missing from the fragment, and have been reconstructed for comparison with the MT.^[25]

^קיד:ז [מלפני]

^{4Q96, frag. 1, l. 0 Ps 114:7} In the presence

[אדון חולי אר]ץ֯[ ]ו֯מלפני אלוה[ ]י֯עק[וב. ^קיד:ח ההופכי הצור אגם מים חלמיש למעיני]

¹ [of the Lord, tremble, O ear]th, at the presence of the God of Jacob. [^114:8 who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flinty rock into a spring]

[מים. ^קטו:א לוא] לנו י־הוה ולוא [לנו כיא לשמכה תן כבוד על חסדכה על

² [of water. ^115:1 Not] to us, O YHWH, not [to us but to Your name bring glory for the sake of Your love and Your]

[אמתכה....]

³ [faithfulness.]

On line 2, space between the right edge of the manuscript and the words לנו י־הוה ולוא has room for more than just the missing first word of Psalm 115. This suggests that the beginning of the second line may have included the final word of Psalm 114:8, and that the two psalms were presented as one.^[26] This segmentation is also consistent with the LXX, suggesting a common tradition of great antiquity.

Why Does Segmentation Matter?

At first, segmentation may seem like a minor kind of variation. On the page, it can look insignificant. As noted earlier, since many Hebrew manuscripts do not include psalm numbers, sometimes no more than a blank space or line break indicates the end of one psalm and the beginning of another.

However, the importance of psalm segmentation relates to the nature of the psalms themselves. In other biblical books, chapter divisions are later impositions on a running text and do not necessarily align with original sense units or discrete pericopes. In the Psalms, chapter divisions demarcate the boundaries of discrete works: the various songs and poems that were combined like beads on a string to create the anthology we know as the Psalter.^[27]

Thus, variation in segmentation calls the integrity of individual psalms into question. The meaning of a psalm is a function of the beginning, the end, and all that comes between. When the same text is segmented differently, it combines and separates different stretches of text and creates different units of meaning.

Opening and concluding lines are particularly important in the feel and meaning of a poem, and moving the boundary by one or two lines here creates psalms with similar content but different character. The example of Psalm 116 is instructive. Between the Dead Sea Scrolls, LXX, and Masoretic manuscripts, this psalm can be treated as a whole or divided in two at three different locations. The first eight verses read:

‏^{תהלים קטז:א} אָהַבְתִּי כִּי יִשְׁמַע יְ־הוָה אֶת קוֹלִי תַּחֲנוּנָי. ^קטז:ב כִּי הִטָּה אָזְנוֹ לִי וּבְיָמַי אֶקְרָא. ^קטז:ג אֲפָפוּנִי חֶבְלֵי מָוֶת וּמְצָרֵי שְׁאוֹל מְצָאוּנִי צָרָה וְיָגוֹן אֶמְצָא. ^קטז:ד וּבְשֵׁם יְ־הוָה אֶקְרָא אָנָּה יְ־הוָה מַלְּטָה נַפְשִׁי. ^קטז:ה חַנּוּן יְ־הוָֹה וְצַדִּיק וֵאלֹהֵינוּ מְרַחֵם. ^קטז:ו שֹׁמֵר פְּתָאיִם יְ־הוָֹה דַּלּוֹתִי וְלִי יְהוֹשִׁיעַ. ^קטז:ז שׁוּבִי נַפְשִׁי לִמְנוּחָיְכִי כִּי יְ־הוָה גָּמַל עָלָיְכִי. ^קטז:ח כִּי חִלַּצְתָּ נַפְשִׁי מִמָּוֶת אֶת עֵינִי מִן דִּמְעָה אֶת רַגְלִי מִדֶּחִי.

^{Ps 116:1} I love YHWH for He hears my voice, my pleas; ^116:2 for He turns His ear to me whenever I call. ^116:3 The bonds of death encompassed me; the torments of Sheol overtook me. I came upon trouble and sorrow ^116:4 and I invoked the name of YHWH, “O YHWH, save my life!” ^116:5 YHWH is gracious and beneficent; our God is compassionate. ^116:6 YHWH protects the simple; I was brought low and He saved me. ^116:7 Be at rest, once again, O my soul, for YHWH has been good to you. ^116:8 You have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.

In 4QPsalms^o and the LXX, the psalm ends in verse 9,^[28] with the psalmist expressing hope for the future.

^{תהלים קטז:ט} אֶתְהַלֵּךְ לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה בְּאַרְצוֹת הַחַיִּים.

^{Ps 116:9} I shall walk before YHWH in the lands of the living.

Some medieval manuscripts end the psalm in verse 10, emphasizing both trust in YHWH and the psalmist’s dire circumstances:

^{תהלים קטז:י} הֶאֱמַנְתִּי כִּי אֲדַבֵּר אֲנִי עָנִיתִי מְאֹד.

^{Ps 116:10} I trust [in YHWH]; out of great suffering I spoke.

The Half-Hallel ends at verse 11, which conveys the psalmist’s complaint about his peers:

^{תהלים קטז:יא} אֲנִי אָמַרְתִּי בְחָפְזִי כָּל־הָאָדָם כֹּזֵב.

^{Ps 116:11} And said rashly, “All men are false.”

Notice how moving the boundary line by even a single verse or two can change the character of the resulting psalm.

Sometimes, seemingly simple questions turn out to touch on more fundamental questions about the nature of the Bible, which exists as both as an abstraction and as a collection of specific texts. In the end, any answer to the question “How many psalms are there in the Hallel?” will say as much about how the answerer defines a psalm as it does about the texts and manuscripts themselves.