The Orthodox Psalter: The Psalms According to the Seventy

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The Orthodox Psalter: The Psalms According to the Seventy

The Orthodox Psalter: The Psalms According to the Seventy is an edition of the Book of Psalms translated from the Septuagint, the Greek text of the Old Testament received and used by the Orthodox Church. It presents the Psalms in the form and numbering familiar to Orthodox liturgical life and personal prayer.

The Psalms are the heart of Orthodox devotion. They are chanted at Vespers, Matins, and the Divine Liturgy, prayed through the Hours, and read beside the departed. For the faithful who want to live with the Psalms at home, this Psalter offers the text as the Church has received it rather than from later Hebrew-based translations.

St. Basil the Great writes that the Book of Psalms "frames laws for life — it is the common treasury of good teachings — for the old wounds of souls it cures completely, and to the recently wounded it brings speedy restoration; the diseased it treats, and the unharmed it preserves. The psalms take away, as far as is possible, the passions, which subtly exercise dominion over souls, and it does this with a certain orderly persuasion and sweetness which produces sound thought."

This edition is well suited to Orthodox Christians building a rule of prayer, catechumens and inquirers becoming familiar with the Septuagint Psalms, clergy and readers, and anyone who wants to pray the Psalter daily or read it cover to cover.

It also makes a meaningful gift for baptisms, chrismations, namedays, ordinations, and monastic tonsures, or for family members who keep the Psalms near at hand in times of sickness, grief, and thanksgiving.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly… in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.”— Colossians 3:16