Psalm / Chapter

When referring to a Psalm you do not need to say both “Psalms” and “Chapter”.

Example: For Ps 83 you do not need to say:

Psalms chapter 83

You merely need to say:

Psalm 83

Since the word Psalm refers to one of the Psalms, adding the word chapter is being redundant. Just to be clear; one is a Psalm, and multiples are Psalms. And the abbreviation for a single Psalm is Ps, while the abbreviation for multiple Psalms is Pss. (e.g. Pss 83:15-84:2)

Verse / Stanza

One may also be under the assumption that the verses would more accurately be referred to as stanzas. A stanza is a set of rhyming lines, which can include as many lines as the poet or song writer wishes. A long song or poem can even be a single stanza if the rhyming form continues throughout.

When the 5 books of Psalms were broken up into verses in the 15th century the stanzas were not taken into consideration. For instance, the 119th Psalm has 176 verses, but only 22 stanzas, each stanza containing 8 verses (each labeled with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet), while it-1 p. 563 tells us that verse 5 of Psalm 150 contains two stanzas.

So whether the verse makes up only part of a stanza or contains multiple stanzas, using the term “verse” is appropriate when referring to a numbered portion of a Psalm.