Ancient paratext

I was pondering lately, paratext. Take our Bible. It's a translation but never mind that for now. Even in translation it would be a difficult read, let's say. We put each "book" in this text in its own section. We also have chapter and verse numerations. We agree in which order to present these books. In Christendom these arrangements can get pretty involved - like those Marcionite and antiMarcionite prologues, or like the Eusebian apparatus. Judaism meanwhile has Chumash, wherein lections of Torah might get a Haftorah from elsewhere. Paratext, in short, is well on its way to commentary.

Start with the Psalter. Several psalms helpfully point to scenes in (say) David's life when that psalm was uttered, like Psalm 3 in MT, when David fled Absalom. Psalm 18 entered 2 Samuel/Reigns 22, but Psalm 3 stayed in the Psalter alone.

I've been getting the impression that cantillated haftorah has moved from lections, like (lately) the Chumash, into paratext, yea even unto text. We could cite here those songs of Moses in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Also Hannah's song and the Lament Of The Bow in the Samuel-Saul-David cycle - perhaps back when these books were Scripture, when "Torah" was not yet the Jews' first text (because its form and use were different).

Sometimes Israel had inherited a song that these authors simply couldn't fit anywhere. The song of Deborah (who was not of Judah!) was homeless in narrative and couldn't be used in early Psalters. in such cases, narratives were writ to provide the context. Thus: Judges 4, to introduce our Judges 5.

As prose goes I am also pondering introductory phrases. The obvious one is amara YHWH, usually translated "thus saith the LORD" but - to my overly-Arabic mind - 'mr connotates more "command" or at least "decree" than simple speech (wouldn't that be q'l? or נְאֻ֤ם?) Psalm 2 drops this on us in v. 7; Psalm 2 thereby becomes a prophetic oracle. For narratives, here-and-there I see אֵ֣לֶּה תֹּלְד֣וֹת in Genesis 37:2 and Numbers 3:1, "this is the account of -" Jacob and Aaron/Moses. For poems, the famous Psalm 110 נְאֻ֤ם יְהֹוָ֨ה לַֽאדֹנִ֗י.