Day 28

The Crane is saying, "Give thanks to God with the lyre; make music to him with the ten-stringed harp." (Ps. 33:2)

Many psalms begin with the phrase mizmor leDavid. Sometimes the word order is inverted: leDavid mizmor. The two phrases seem to mean the same thing, and contemporary translations typically render both as "a psalm of David" (i.e., "written by David" or "belonging to David").  The Talmud, however, makes an imaginative distinction. It understands the phrase leDavid not as "of David" but as "to David," referring to the Shekhinah, the inspiring divine Presence, which came "to David." The word order signifies whether the song was begun as a response to divine inspiration or whether divine inspiration came as a result of beginning the song. "Where the psalm commences leDavid mizmor, the Shekinah first rested upon David and then he sang the psalm, but where it commences mizmor leDavid he first sang the psalm and then the Shekinah rested upon him." (Pesachim 117a).