1 This Psalm is a genuine one of David, though supernumerary, composed when he fought in single combat with 1Goliad.
I was small among my brethren, and youngest in my father's house: I tended my father's sheep. 2 My hands formed a musical instrument, and my fingers tuned a psaltery. 3 And who shall tell my Lord? the Lord himself, he himself hears. 4 He sent forth his angel, and took me from my father's sheep, and he anointed me with the oil of his anointing. 5 My brothers were handsome and tall; but the Lord did not take pleasure in them. 6 I went forth to meet the Philistine; and he cursed me by his idols. 7 But I drew his own sword, and beheaded him, and removed reproach from the children of Israel.
- 1 v. 1 Alex. Goliath.
About this text. This is Sir Lancelot Brenton’s 1851 translation of the Septuagint — the Greek Old Testament the Orthodox Church reads, rather than the Hebrew text behind most English Bibles. It is in the public domain. Words in italics are ones Brenton supplied that the Greek does not have; he marked them so that a reader could tell the difference, and they are kept that way here. The numbered notes are his own. Its English is Victorian, and does not match the modern English of the New Testament pages on this site.
On the numbering. The Psalms are numbered here as the Septuagint numbers them, which is how Orthodox service books cite them. From Psalm 10 onward that is one behind a Hebrew-numbered Bible: Psalm 50 here is the Psalm 51 of most English Bibles. The Septuagint also carries a hundred and fifty-first Psalm, which those Bibles do not.