degree Summary and Overview

DEGREE' . This word is used to signify rank or station. Ps 62:9; 1 Tim 3:13. The phrase "song, or psalm of degrees," which forms the title to Psalms 120-134 inclusive, has been variously interpreted; some suppose it has reference to the elevated voice in which they were sung, others to the time when they were sung-viz. at the annual festivals, when the Jews went up to Jerusalem, and that in this sense they were called "odes of ascension." The Rabbins suppose they were sung by the Levites as they ascended the 15 steps which separated the men's court from the women's in the temple; and others again suppose that the word "degree" denotes the peculiarly climacteric style of these Psalms-viz. that the thought or expression of one verse is resumed and carried forward in the next succeeding verse, as in Psalm 121; but this is improbable.