How many Psalms are in the Bible?

The number

The Book of Psalms — the Psalter — contains 150 individual psalms in the standard Protestant and Catholic canon. The numbering varies slightly between the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint (the LXX combines some psalms and splits others), but the total of 150 is the same.

Psalm 151

Some Eastern Orthodox traditions (Greek, Russian, Serbian, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian) include a 151st psalm — Psalm 151 — attributed to David and describing his selection and victory over Goliath. The psalm is found in:

• The Septuagint (which calls it “outside the number” of the standard 150).
• The Latin Vulgate (in some manuscripts).
• The Dead Sea Scrolls (where it appears in the Great Psalms Scroll, 11QPs(a), in a longer Hebrew form).

Psalm 151 is not included in the Protestant canon or the standard Catholic canon, though Catholics generally consider it apocryphal rather than canonical.

The five books

The 150 psalms are traditionally divided into five “books” of unequal length, each ending with a doxology:

• Book I: Psalms 1–41.
• Book II: Psalms 42–72.
• Book III: Psalms 73–89.
• Book IV: Psalms 90–106.
• Book V: Psalms 107–150.

The fivefold division mirrors the five books of the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) and is structurally significant: the placement of certain royal and messianic psalms at the seams (e.g., Psalm 72 closing Book II) appears intentional.

Other Psalm-counts

A small number of psalms exist in more than one location in the canon. Psalms 14 and 53 are nearly identical; portions of Psalms 18, 96, and 105 appear also in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. These are not duplicate entries in the Psalter but parallel material elsewhere.

See also

• /book/psalms/ — the Bible book guide to the Psalter.
• /curiosity/middle-chapter-of-the-bible/ — Psalm 117 is the middle chapter.