To hit the OP, with the other points as reference....
The psalter is the backbone of Christian worship - Latin, Coptic, etc. even to my understanding the traditional Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed traditions.
This is no less true for our "Byzantine" tradition, though the monstic experience has given us hundreds of extra hymns, and Canons to be tacked on. (when done in full, like in monasteries - kathismae, canons - Orthros generally lastas 2-3 hours)
I personally (note I'm no one's spirtual father) think that praying the psalms is excellent. The kathismae divisions are an excellent way to do this daily.
That said, they can definitely be a slog for someone who's new to them. It also takes I think 30-some minutes in the AM and 15 in the PM most days. (and maybe 50 minutes on Sundays, as psalm 118/119 is supposed to be said before the evlogitaria). That in terms of time and ability to spiritually focus is a lot. However, I found that as I become more familiar with the psalms it becomes much easier.
A few things that might lighten things (from which you can work up)
- doing only one stasis of the kathisma a week
- doing this suggested abbreviation:
- doing them by audio - I personally do this on weekdays; I have each kathisma in a playlist on my phone and play them in the car in the AM/PM. My commute just about allows me to get in the full kathisma of 25-30 minutes. This is sort of like hearing the reader recite the kathismae in a monastery - but on the downside in the car you should be focused on driving. Personally, I find at least outside the monastery that I focus best when I'm either directly reading at home, or if I'm driving while listening (listening at home does not work for me at all!). Also, you need to find an audio bible of your prefered translation (more below), you need to definitely be sure to find a the recording with minimal dramatization (generally hard because the recordings are done generally by evangelical protestants or other such groups who want drama in their audio), and does not have stuff like relaxation music or waterfalls in the background (I'm not kidding). Youtube is your friend here.
You also run into the problem of interpretation. Many things in even the psalms do not yield themselves to an easy, immediately obvious meaning. The biggest one probably are the various damnation-type verses, which can be very hard for some. (some Latin Catholic monasteries claim they don't use these passages because of this, to which one is tempted to slap the abbot in the face....) - the quick answer, IMO, is that "Israel" is the Church, and the enemies of the Church who we want to be damned or whose children we want to kill are not any specific person - to say nothing of the historical whomever-ites - but are
rebellion from God and his goodness, be it philsophical, demonic, or (especially) that with which we contend in our own hearts.
As far as which translation of the psalter to use........the ideal one would be the one used by your jurisdiction in Vespers, Orthros, and Divine Liturgy. That said, while the Greek quotes the septuagint psalter, I've found that most English translations did not first pick a psalm or Bible translation and build from there; rather most liturgical translations are idiosyncratic: they use one translation here, another translation there, assuming they don't just straight up translate each psalm verse in its own way in that liturgical setting. (Holy Transfigration Monastery is an exception in that they spent an enormous amount of time and effort to translate the psalms and then apply them in the various liturgical services consistently. For their broader liturgical texts they've also translated in a consistent manner of high quality, and may be the only critical edition of the services books out there in any language as they compared several Greek and when necessary Slavonic, etc. editions - and spent a lot of time thinking about their translations)
So, I'd look at your situation first and ask your parish priest/spiritual father.
Beyond that, I'd use a translation that uses a decent degree of "formal" equivalence. (vice "dynamic" equivalence which in practice IMO turns out to be generally various western Christians translating it to what they fairly imaginatively think it spiritually means). Thus I recommend the older English translations (Douay-Rheims, KJV, etc.) and more conservative newer versions (RV, ASV, RSV, RSV-CE, NKJV, NIV, ESV, etc.*)
My thoughts on the various translations I've tried:
I personally find it very convenient for the psalms to be their own separate volume, vice part of a bigger Old or New Testament, for portability. This to my knowledge disqualifies the Orthodox Study Bible and the New King James that it's derived from as that doesn't exist. (and even if you used the OSB, the pages in my edition are tissue thin and I'm sure they wouldn't stand more than two weeks of my daily use)
My favorite is the "kathisma psalter with nine canticles revised according to the septuagint" by Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery (OCA IIRC) in Otego NY. This is the psalter from the Revised Standard Version, slightly revised to conform with Orthodoxy, and (most importantly) arranged into Kathismae, and with the 9 Biblical Odes at the end.** This is fairly clear modern English. The book is basically laid out by pre-windows WordPerfect, on printer paper, spiral bound at somewhere like Fedex Office - but perfectly adequate.
https://holymyrrhbearers.com/catalog/ [not working for me as I type this]
https://svspress.com/the-kathisma-psalter-with-the-nine-canticles/
Holy Transfiguration Monastery - this is a translation direct from the septuagint into Elizabethan English, and probably in particular from one or another Greek psalter (Phos or Apostoliki Diakonia; the preface may mention which one but I don't have a copy here). The septuagint translation is probably fairly literal (haven't done much checking) and even then HTM sometimes tries to out-Elizabethan English the real Elizabethans, yielding phrases that are often really odd or sometimes outright bad***. If can get around that or if you like that, the bigger blue edition is nicely laid out, with good fonts and paper (which is what you expect from them) and I would recommend it. I don't recommend the smaller green edition because it lacks the Odes.
Psalter for Prayer - this advertises itself as an Orthodox-zed Coverdale Psalter [which IIRC was translated from the Vulgate?[. Now, having attended some High Church Morning and Evening Prayer sessions according to the 1662 Prayerbook in liturgically well endowed cathedrals and parish churches in England, I'm not sure anyone's done a more beautiful translation than Coverdale. That said, this is only partly Coverdale IME; I thought a few sounded off and when I did a close look at a few of the psalms I found it was a mix of Coverdale, HTM, and the author's own corrections. (no idea off the top of my head what translation it uses of the Odes, though it might be in the preface somewhere). I also don't like a lot of the extra material; so for me it's a bit of a disappointment, IMO. But I do recommend it to those who like Elizabethan English.
* note that even this limited cross section of fairly conservative shows the modern "Bible Babel" that IME is heavily sectarian. Years ago I brought my RSV to an otherwise NIV/KJV evangelical Bible study at work; we all chuckled at places where it was clear the only reason differences existed was because the translators wanted to be different. Also note that even different ones are preferred by different denomination, and sometimes split among different countries; to my understanding for instance the NIV is prefered by US evangelicals while the ESV by Commonwealth evangelicals.
** our "Byzantine" tradition theoretically has nine poems from other parts of the Bible attached to the Psalms; these each precede each ode of a canon like the Akathist Canon, Paraklisis, or the 100s of canons in the various services books I mentioned elsewhere above. IMO, these canons only make their full sense when thought of in reference to the Biblical Odes.
*** IMO the worst example is "Arouse Thyself O Lord My God" - used in the Second Mode Orthros prokimenon, from I think one of the psalms in the 2nd Kathisma but I'm not going to dig it up right now. I'm sure they'd give good reason why they translated this, quoting their own and otherwise undone critical septuagint edition work, Greek philology, and the Oxford English Dictionary. And they're right, it's just that the translation DOES NOT WORK in the way "arouse" is used these days.....
All that said, the psalter is the oldest and worst of HTM's translation for this reason, while the Menaion is at least a step better, while the recent Pentecostarion and Holy Week books are IMO translated very, very well.
