Psalms

Interpreting the Psalms

the question of context

Structure of the Psalms

some proposals...

Torah

One indication that it is a book of teaching is the way it divides into five books ... In five books, the Torah told Israel about what God had done and about the way of life that should issue from what God had done; in five more books, the Psalter told people how God was involved with them now, how to respond in worship to what God had done and does, how to urge him to do it again, and what kind of life people were committed to, outside their life of praise and prayer.

John Golidingay (An Intro to the OT, p. 288)

Torah

It is very probable that the fivefold division of the Psalter was based on an analogy with the five books of the torah. The Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 1:1 says ‘Moses gave Israel the Five Books, and David gave Israel the five books of the Psalms.’

Ernest C. Lucas (Exploring the OT, Vol. 3, p.26)

Wilson

• Book 1: Covenant Proclaimed

• Book 2: Covenant Passed On

• Book 3: Covenant Failed

• Book 4: Answer to the problem of Ps 89:

  • YHWH is King

  • God is a refuge independent of the monarchy

  • Trust the Lord

• Book 5: not sure but: Ps 119 is central, and the book is an answer to the plea of the exiles to be gathered from the diaspora

Walton

• Pss. 1-2: Vindication of the Righteous Theocratic Sponsorship of the Israelite (Davidic) King

• Book 1 (3-41): David's Conflict with Saul

• Book 2 (42-72): David's Reign

• Book 3 (73-89): Assyrian Crisis

• Book 4 (90-106): Introspection about
                                         Destruction of Temple and Exile

• Book 5 (107-145): Praise/Reflection on Return and New Era

• Pss. 146-150: Praise relating to Themes of Psalter

Psalms: a cantata about the Davidic covenant, JETS 34/1 (March 1991) 21-31

Seam Psalms

• 41:13

• 72:18-20

• 89:52

• 106:48

18 Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel,
    who alone does marvelous deeds.
19 Praise be to his glorious name forever;
    may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen.

20 This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse.

Hebrew Poetry

Hebrew Prose

based on actual data*

vs

Parts of Speech

Verb Types

Clause Types

“Prose Particles”

The Genre of Psalms

The Question of Genre

Hermann Gunkel

• Hymns

  • YHWH’s enthronement

  • Songs of Zion

  • General

• Lament

  • Communal

  • Individual

    • General

    • Protesting Innocence

    • Confession

    • Cursing and Vengeance

    • Trust

• Royal

• Thanksgiving

• Wisdom

• Smaller Genres and Mixed Types

  • Pilgrimage

  • Israelite History

  • Liturgy

  • Miscellaneous

  • Mixed

The Psalms: A Form-Critical Introduction, 1967

Genres in the Psalms

• Thanksgiving
  • Praise
• Lament
  • Imprecatory
• Community
• Individual
• Royal
• Wisdom

Case Study

Psalm 139

Poetry

Poetry

Internal Structures

Chiasm (Ps 109:29, 2:1-12)

Inclusio (Ps 8, 106, 139)

Acrostic (Ps 119, Lam 3)

Poetry

Terseness

Missing “Prose Particles”

Elision / Ellipsis

Poetry

Rhythm and Meter

Poetry

Imagery, Simile and Metaphor

Poetry

Parallelism

Roberth Lowth

• Synonymous
  • Ps 33:10-11
• Antithetic
  • Ps 30:5
• Synthetic
  • Ps 23 ...

“parallelism is a matter of correspondence”

Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews

Delivered in Latin 1741 (published 1753)

Kugel

“A is so, and what's more B”

(“seconding”)

Petersen & Richards

As one recent contributor [i.e. David Clines] to the discussion has said, “The whole [bicolon] is different from the sum of its parts because the parts influence and contaminate each other.” Parallelism is not something that is predictable, and no mechanical system or set of categories can confine it.

Petersen & Richards (Interpreting Hebrew Poetry, p. 35)

Longman III

Adele Berlin

Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism