Some thoughts on the Psalms

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1 TSSF Scottish study week (27th June - 1st July 2011) Some thoughts on the Psalms Br Joseph Emmanuel SSF This paper was prepared for a Novice session with Brs Desnond and Chris SSF. At the moment we are looking at the Bible and especially at the different types of genre present in the Bible. I looked at the Psalms and Wisdom Literature in the paper I gave to that session but have cut out the section on Wisdom Literature. I did, however, emphasise the Psalms forming, as they do, the backbone of our corporate prayer together in the Daily Offices. Before I begin to talk about the Psalms, however, I want to do, as it were, a B movie on the Masoretic text. We often read in commentaries about the Masoretic text and I will mention it within the course of this paper. The Masoretic Text As Biblical Hebrew (as opposed to colloquial Hebrew, Syriac, Yiddish, Gurshuni or any other variant) became increasingly obsolete it became clear to scholars that the Jewish people were in real danger of losing the sense of their fundamental manuscripts. Up to the 7 th Century Hebrew texts were presented without vowels because people were expected to know what was being said and therefore the consonants presented in any given manuscript was seen as an aide-memoir rather than a complete document. By the 7 th Century, however, this was becoming increasingly dangerous and therefore a group of Eastern Jewish scholars (that is to say Arab Sephardic Jews rather than European Ashkenazian Jews), keen to preserve their Tradition (Masorete is the Hebrew word for Tradition) decided to present a text with vowels in place. Not surprisingly they based their system on the Arabic and Syriac vowelling systems of the time and therefore rather than writing short vowels within the text they developed a system of dots and dashes placed under the consonant to indicate the vowel. That this is important can be demonstrated if one thinks about the Hebrew word תהלה which shows the consonants T, H, L and H. As it happens the consonantal root could mean one of two things; either Tehilia which means prayer or praise or Teheila which means mistake or sin! With the Masoretic vowel system in place Tehilia תהלה is (relatively) easily identifiable from.תהלה Teheila The Psalms If one were to describe the book of Psalms to someone completely ignorant of Judeo-Christian Tradition it would perhaps seem sensible to begin by saying that it is a corpus of poetic or hymnody literature which exteriorises, in the first place, the relationship of the people of Israel to God In Hebrew the Psalms are known as Tehillim which is the masculine plural of the word for praise. In Greek the word psalmoi is used, yet again a masculine 1

2 plural, this time of the word psallein, which would imply that these works were initially intended to be performed as liturgical songs (the term psallein literally means something which is accompanied with a plucked instrument e.g. a harp or a lyre). That this is the case seems to be supported by the Hebrew terminology used to designate many of the Psalms with some being designated as Shir (in Greek ode) which means song (it could, in fact, refer to a secular as well as a religious song); others as Mizmor (or in Greek psalmoi) [Pss58 etc] which implies an accompanied ode; Tehillim (see above) [Pss 145 etc] Michtam (a golden or precious Psalm [Pss 16, 56-60] or Shiggaion (also used to describe the song in Habbakuk 3), the term Shiggaion coming from the Verb Shaggah which means to reel with drink and could imply a work composed whilst the writer is in a state of great emotion. Furthermore in the superscriptions carried by many of the Psalms there are instructions to various choirmasters and Temple musicians. In modern usage there are 150 Psalms which are referenced by Chapter in both the Torah and the Bible with verse numbers (or letters of the Hebrew Alphabet) reflecting the verses within the Psalms themselves. Occasionally it is made clear even in the text of the Psalm e.g. Psalm 119 that the Psalm was meant to be split into verses in which case it retains its original Hebraic numbering (which uses the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet Aleph, Beth, Gimel etc as numbers). Within Jewish and Western Christian thought the Psalms can then be divided into five distinct groups like the Pentateuch although within Orthodox Christianity the book is divided into twenty kathismata. The Jewish/ Western division would be as follows: the first book consists of the first 41 Psalms (all of which with the exceptions of 1,2, 10 and 33 are ascribed to David); the second (with the last Psalm being traditionally described as a prayer written by David for Solomon); the third Pss 73-89; the fourth Pss and the last comprising the last 44 Psalms. The numbering of the Psalms is potentially confusing with notable differences between the Masoretic (or Hebrew tradition) and the Septuagint (or Greek Tradition): Masoretic/ Hebrew Numbering Septuagint/Greek numbering In addition to the above, some versions of the Septuagint contain Ps 151 (and a Hebrew version of this Psalm was found amongst the Nag Hammadi Scrolls) 1 and in the Syriac Peshitta there are 155 Psalms including the apocryphal Ps 151 noted above. 1 Interestingly this Psalm was included in the Grail Psalter following the Masoretic discovery. 2

3 Questions of Authorship Traditionally it was stated that David was the author of the Psalms and this belief was very much present at the time of the New Testament (in the book of Acts and in the Synoptic Gospels David is credited with authorship). Interestingly, although this belief has been somewhat questioned by modern Judeo-Christian scholarship it is still thought within Islam that the Psalms (known in Arabic as zabur and equivalent to the Hebrew word Zimra) were received by David in the same way that Muhammad reputedly received the Qu ran: in aya (Chapter) 163 of the Surah al-nisa it is written that We have sent thee inspiration, as We sent it to Noah and the Messengers after him: we sent inspiration to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, to Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron, and Solomon, and to David We gave the Psalms Similarly, in aya 55 of the Surah al-isra We did bestow on some Prophets more (and other gifts) than on others: and we gave David the Psalm. A study of the superscriptions of the Psalms shows quickly why this is often thought to be the case with seventy-three Psalms referring explicitly to David, however, the Hebrew particle Le is used in all of these superscriptions could in fact mean of by for or concerning and therefore David s role in their authorship is at best unclear. In his book The Prayers of David, Michael Goulder has argued that the Psalms were written by one of David s many sons and that they describe from his father s perspective the events which occurred during David s reign. However the majority of scholars would tend to suggest that the book of Psalms is, in fact, a compilation of a number of books written by unknown people or groups of people at a time also unknown. Various arguments have been produced which suggest that the Psalms were post-exilic i.e. after 538 BCE but others suggest that they were written as a homage to David shortly after the Davidian period i.e. 970 BCE. Other names associated with authorship are: the Temple choirmaster Jeduthun (c.f. 1 Chronicles 16.41) (39,62 and 77); Asaph (referring to other Asaphite musicians in the Temple) (50, 73-83) and the sons of Korah (42, 44-49, 84, 85, 87 and 88) who seem to have fulfilled the role of choristers in the Temple (c.f. 1 Chronicles 6.31&32). Quite what their individual contributions or who they were can only be guessed at. Generic Questions. Hermann Gunkel ( ) applied the discipline of form criticism to the book of Psalms and identified six different genre: Hymns (of Divine Kingship [Ps29]; Creation [Ps104] and Hymns charting God s relationship with the people of Israel [Ps 105&106]), Laments (both communal and individual), Royal Psalms, Thanksgiving Psalms, Wisdom Psalms and others. Walter Bruegemann b.1933, building on Gunkel s work identified another way of categorising the Psalms: (Psalms of) Orientation; Disorientation and Reorientation. The Psalmic Structure. 3

4 Thus far we have identified various questions regarding the corpus of Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures but how does a Psalm work? As already mentioned we can tell that it was originally meant to be sung (and in certain cases who it was meant to be sung by) but we can not, unfortunately, be certain what these would actually sound like were they to be performed today, Temple worship effectively ceasing in AD70. Synagogue Worship, for all its beauty, should not be seen as attempting to reproduce the worship of the Temple and to suggest otherwise would be akin to suggesting that we can get some sense of worship in the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople by attending a Christian Union House Group! We can, however, make some basic structural observations about the Psalms. The most obvious feature within Psalmody is that of parallelism whether synonymous parallelism e.g. Ps 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? or antithetical parallelism e.g. Ps 1:6. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. We can not be absolutely certain about podiastric considerations (i.e. how the rhythmic structure of the Psalms works) because of the lack of vowels in the pre-masoretic text and because Biblical Hebrew is a dead and therefore unspoken language but it seems sensible to suggest that, like Egyptian and Ugaritic verse, the number of sentence accents and syllables within the Psalm is the mainstay of the poetic form rather than a rhyming scheme as seen within some English poetical forms (although English poetical forms do, of course, also concern themselves with questions of metre!). Ps.1 A close analysis of Psalm 1. [1] Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; [2] but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. [3] He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. [4] The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. [5] Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; [6] for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. This Psalm comes within the genre of Wisdom Psalm identified by Gunkel. It has a notably didactic character and seeks to instruct the reader of the benefits of the virtuous life as opposed to the perdition which awaits those 4

5 who stray. It has a two part chiastic (which could be equated in musical terms to a crescendo and then a decrescendo) structure based on both synonymous and antithetical parallelism. Part A: vv.1+2 The righteous man engaged in the study of Torah Part B: (simile) he is like a tree planted by streams of water. Part B (antithetical simile) the wicked are not like this; they are like chaff which the wind blows away [therefore] Part A (antithesis) the wicked will not stand in the judgment. The two chiastic parts are linked by an inclusio in verse 6: The Lord knows the way of the righteous BUT the wicked will perish. This sort of binary distinction is common in Biblical literature and seen for example in Deuteronomy 30: Liturgical use of the Psalms. As already mentioned that Psalms form a major constituent of our life as Religious (as well as forming the backbone of Jewish worship and being treated with great reverence within Islam); they are without doubt the bread and butter of our corporate prayer life. But why do we use them? George Guiver CR writing in Company of Voices suggests the following reasons: constancy (we are continually drawing on the corpus of the Psalms for our enrichment and in so doing are (a) constant within our own usage and (b) constant within the Judeo-Christian Tradition); rhythm (the recollected antiphonal recitation of the Psalms causes us to slow down); the humanity of the Psalms in this way it is possible to see the Psalms as holding before us our real selves and laying them before God ; the thematic content of the Psalms; the psalms prompt us to reflect on the interaction of the Divine with the human and lastly, the hymnic capacity of the Psalms. Looking at the Psalms from a Spiritual rather than an academic point of view one can also see Christ in the Psalms for their human experience and our human experience is also his human experience and their Eschatological dimension seen as a type can be seen as that world for which we long to come. We could do worse, when reflecting on the Psalms, to remember Luke 24:27 when Our Lord interpreted for [the disciples] every passage of Scripture which referred to him The Psalms are not, however, our soul experience of prayer and that is right. However, they do provide for us the springboard from which our own life of prayer and praise derives as Caeserius of Arles remarks: What good does it do you to sing the Psalms faithfully if, when you stop chanting, you do not want to entreat God? Let any one who has ceased chanting pray and entreat the Lord with all humility, so that what he utters with his lips he may deserve with God s help to fulfill in deed. Just as singing the Psalms, brethren, is like sowing a field, praying is like the sower who cultivates it by burying and covering the ground So whenever a person stops chanting, let him not stop praying if he wants a harvest of divine mercy to grow in the field of his heart 2 Br Joseph Emmanuel SSF 2 Cited Guiver Company of Voices London 1988 p.156 5