To the Hodu Ps 118, written in gnome-like, wreathed style, is appended the throughout gnomico-didactic Psalms 119, consisting of one hundred and seventy-six Masoretic verses, or regarded in relation to the strophe, distichs, which according to the twenty-two letters of the alphabet fall into twenty-two groups (called by the old expositors the ὀγδοάδες or octonarii of this Psalmus literatus s. alphabetites); for each group contains eight verses (distichs), each of which begins with the same consecutive letter (8 x 22 = 176). The Latin Psalters (as the Psalterium Veronense, and originally perhaps all the old Greek Psalters) have the name of the letter before each group; the Syriac has the signs of the letters; and in the Complutensian Bible, as also elsewhere, a new line begins with each group. The Talmud, B. Berachoth, says of this Psalm: “it consists of eight Alephs,” etc.; the Masora styles it אלפא ביתא רבא; the Midrash