Scottish Psalter, 1650

The Scottish Psalter of 1650, formally titled The Psalms of David in Meeter, was an authorized Church of Scotland metrical psalter rather than the work of a single hymn writer. Its history began with Francis Rous, an English parliamentarian and later Provost of Eton, who issued a new metrical psalter in 1638. Parliament referred Rous's work to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which substantially revised it before the House of Commons approved the revised text in 1646.

Scottish commissioners carried that version to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1647. The Scottish church then subjected it to another sustained revision, involving committees, presbyteries, and comparison with Scripture and earlier psalters. The final text was approved on 23 November 1649 and appointed for public use from 1 May 1650. Surviving 1650 editions bear the title The Psalms of David in Meeter and state that the book was authorized for singing in congregations and families.

The result belongs to the Reformed tradition of metrical psalmody: biblical psalms were recast in regular English meters so whole congregations could sing them to familiar psalm tunes. The 1650 Psalter became one of the most durable monuments of Scottish Presbyterian worship. Its best-known texts include the metrical versions of Psalms 23, 46, 100, and 121, and its language continued to shape later Scottish psalters, hymnals, family devotion, and congregational memory.