Psalms are common in Catholicism and Judaism.
Psalm is a concept that comes from the Latin word psalmus . The term is used to name a composition that is pronounced or intoned to praise a divinity .
The traditional psalms of Catholicism and Judaism are compiled in a series of books that are part of the Old Testament and the Tanakh . It should be noted, however, that the Babylonians , Sumerians and other ancient peoples also had their own psalms.
Types of psalms
It is possible to distinguish between different types of psalms: didactic psalms , psalms of thanksgiving , psalms of wisdom and others. It should be noted that the traditional psalms, as a whole, are mentioned as part of the Book of Psalms of David . The Book of Psalms of Solomon , for its part, is a work that would have been created in the year 60 BC and that Catholics classify as apocryphal.
Within the aforementioned works of the psalms, it should be noted that the documents collected there can be classified according to the genre to which they belong. And there are many that are included, especially highlighting the following:
- The supplications . In this group are all those psalms that address the requests and prayers of an individual person about what the community would be. Specifically, among them the best known stands out: "My God, why have you abandoned me?" , which is psalm number 22 .
- The royal psalms . They are called that because they have to do with royalty. More precisely, some deal with the figure of King David and others revolve around divine royalty . In the first group is, for example, Psalm number 45 and in the second is Psalm 93 .
- The songs of Zion . As their name indicates, they deal with the glories of Zion and narrate events that have biblical figures as protagonists, such as Moses .
- Didactic psalms , as their name already makes clear, are those that are made with the clear objective of teaching. Specifically, they usually revolve around Israelite ethics.
- Hymns , which appear in both the Old and New Testaments and have the particularity of not including any type of supplication or request. They are simply songs of praise.
Salmo trutta is the scientific name for the common trout.
The term associated with fish
In another sense, a genus of fish that is part of the salmonid family is called psalm. This genus includes freshwater and saltwater species in various regions of the world: some species of the salmo genus, in fact, are born in a river, migrate to the sea and then return to freshwater for reproduction.
Salmo salar (common salmon), Salmo trutta (common trout), Salmo carpio (carpione) and Salmo platycephalus (turkey trout) are some of the species included in the salmo genus. It is common for animals in this group to be targeted by fishermen, either as a sport or for consumption as food.