What the asterisk (*) asks of us is to pause and pay attention. Of course, in our modern printings, Psalms are divided into verses these divisions are actually based on the way the verses of Hebrew poetry is written. Psalms are designed for vocalization that is, to be sung or spoken. The Psalms are a collection of liturgical poetry that has been entrusted to Christians for worship from the original Hebrew scriptures in Hebrew, they are known as Tehillim (simply, “praises”). So, how does the asterisk work in the Psalms? They are sometimes attached to an athlete’s statistics in a record book, denoting something extraordinary about those numbers. They point to a footnote at the bottom of the page of a book, leading us to learn more about a topic we are reading. Maybe the voice should say “asterisk” instead…Īsterisks are meant to be attention-getting. I’ll wager that most of you have been kept on hold on the telephone while listening to a menu of options, after which the pre-recorded voice says, “To repeat this menu, press the STAR key”. The word asterisk comes from Greek and means “little star,” for obvious reasons it’s the same root word from which we get the name for the daisy-like wildflower called the Aster. A question that I’m sometimes asked is, “Why are those asterisks in the Psalms?” If you’ve ever taken a closer look at the Psalms as they are printed in the Book of Common Prayer or in our worship bulletins, you’ve probably noticed an asterisk (*) separating verses of text.
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