Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period 3110447746, 9783110447743

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Table of contents
Introduction
Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period
Part 1: Psalms, Prayers, and Embodied Religion
Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case
The Imprecatory Features of Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12
Toward a Genealogy of the Introspective Self in Second Temple Judaism
The Function of Prayers of Ritual Mourning in the Second Temple Period
Part 2: Psalms, Prayers, and Penitential Themes
“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean”: Psalm 51, Penitential Piety, and Cultic Language in Axial Age Thinking
Prayer and Remembrance in 4QSapiential Work (4Q185)
Lamentations: Time and Setting
Part 3: Material Issues and the Ordering of Psalms and Prayers in Collections
Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization: An Analysis of Scribal Features in a Selection of the Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls
Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions
Did David Lay Down His Crown? Reframing Issues of Deliberate Juxtaposition and Interpretive Contexts in the “Book” of Psalms with Psalm 147 as a Case in Point
Part 4: Psalms, Prayers, and Prophecy
Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms as Prophetic Text and the Formation of the Canon
Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns
Part 5: Psalms, Prayers, History and Identity
Those Who Pray Together Stay Together: The Role of Late Psalms in Creating Identity
Praying History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Memory, Identity, Fulfilment
Fathers and Sons: Family Ties in the Historical Psalms
Part 6: The Composition and Use of Psalms and Prayers
Speakers and Scenarios: Imagining the First Temple in Second Temple Psalms (Psalms 122 and 137)
Ben Sira’s Use of Various Psalm Genres
“There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3
Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological Psalm from the 20th Century
Bibliography
Index of Ancient Sources
Index of Modern Authors

Citation preview

Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Edited by John Barton, Ronald Hendel, Reinhard G. Kratz and Markus Witte

Volume 486

Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period Edited by Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner

ISBN 978-3-11-044774-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-044926-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-044853-5 ISSN 0934-2575 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck Typesetting: Dörlemann Satz, Lemförde ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements We wish to warmly thank the following people and institutions, without whom the present volume would not have been possible. The two workshops on the functions of psalms in 2015, where the papers in this volume were first presented, were generously funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS), the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, and the Academy of Finland Center of Exellence: Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT). This generous funding allowed us to assemble a talented group of international scholars for a two-part conference in Copenhagen and Helsinki. Our heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme, Dr. Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch, Dr. Årstein Justnes, Dr. Jessi Orpana, and Katri Antin for planning and organizing the conferences, the contributors for their hard work and commitment to participate, and the series editors at de Gruyter for accepting this volume in the BZAW series and for their guiding comments and suggestions. Finally, on a more personal note, we would like to thank Professor (emerita) Eileen Schuller for her tireless and generous support of her students and colleagues, for her outstanding commitment and contributions to understanding both ancient and modern worship, and for inspiring and teaching a generation of colleagues and students. It is to her that we would like to dedicate this volume. Mika S. Pajunen Jeremy Penner

Table of contents Introduction 

 1

Eileen Schuller Psalms, Hymns, and Prayers in Late Second Temple Judaism 

 5

Part 1: Psalms, Prayers, and Embodied Religion Jutta Jokiranta Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case   27 Rodney A. Werline The Imprecatory Features of Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12 

 48

Carol Newsom Toward a Genealogy of the Introspective Self in Second Temple Judaism 

 63

Angela Kim Harkins The Function of Prayers of Ritual Mourning in the Second Temple Period 

 80

Part 2: Psalms, Prayers, and Penitential Themes Else K. Holt “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean”: Psalm 51, Penitential Piety, and Cultic Language in Axial Age Thinking   105 Ingunn Aadland Prayer and Remembrance in Sapiential Work (4Q185)  Corinna Körting Lamentations: Time and Setting 

 137

 122

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 Table of contents

Part 3: Material Issues and the Ordering of Psalms and Prayers in Collections Kipp Davis Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization: An Analysis of Scribal Features in a Selection of the Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls   155 Joseph Angel Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions   185 David Willgren Did David Lay Down His Crown? Reframing Issues of Deliberate Juxtaposition and Interpretive Contexts in the “Book” of Psalms with Psalm 147 as a Case in Point   212

Part 4: Psalms, Prayers, and Prophecy Jesper Høgenhaven Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms as Prophetic Text and the Formation of the Canon   231 Mika S. Pajunen Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns   252

Part 5: Psalms, Prayers, History and Identity Marc Zvi Brettler Those Who Pray Together Stay Together: The Role of Late Psalms in Creating Identity   279 George J. Brooke Praying History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Memory, Identity, Fulfilment  Anja Klein Fathers and Sons: Family Ties in the Historical Psalms 

 320

 305



Table of contents 

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Part 6: The Composition and Use of Psalms and Prayers Adele Berlin Speakers and Scenarios: Imagining the First Temple in Second Temple Psalms (Psalms 122 and 137)   341 Marko Marttila Ben Sira’s Use of Various Psalm Genres 

 356

Marika Pulkkinen “There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3  Årstein Justness Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological Psalm from the 20th Century  Bibliography 

 425

Index of Ancient Sources 

 467

Index of Modern Authors 

 501

 384

 410

Introduction  The articles collected in this volume are the product of a two-part conference. The first was in Copenhagen in May, 2015, the second in Helsinki in September of the same year. As the title of this book suggests, the purpose of these gatherings was to bring together a diverse set of scholars to discuss psalms and prayers in the late Second Temple period and their various functions. Eileen Schuller notes in her perspicacious introduction to this volume, that in the last decade or two a shift in focus has occurred in approaching this literature, a shift “from questions of authorial intent, date of composition, and form-critical categories to matters of function and performance.” While the timing is right to explore these issues, the topic is still daunting. As in times past, today, too, scholars regularly comment on the fact that the language of psalms and prayers and their respective genres are resistant to the methods and tools at the historian’s disposal. Hermann Gunkel’s groundbreaking work Die Psalmen (HKAT) in 1926 in many ways “unlocked” or at least provided a way forward to think about the general settings in which psalms were used. But in many ways the finer details regarding the production, collection, and use of psalms in their historical settings has continually eluded scholars, and even today, the literary setting of a psalm is often confused with its historical setting(s) (cf., e.g., Berlin’s article in this volume). Moreover, with the discovery of new psalms and prayers – the lion’s share coming from the caves in the vicinity of Qumran – many scholars have realized and opined that the form-critical method established by Gunkel and his followers is alone not adequate for late Second Temple psalms and prayers, nor are the established psalm categories able to reflect the changing functions and settings in which psalms and prayers were read and performed. The optimism that once characterized scholarly approaches to the psalms, that the setting of a psalm could be reached through the text, has diminished somewhat, and instead scholarship today tends to focus on the multivalent and dexterous nature of psalms and prayers and their varied settings. To be sure, the work of Gunkel and other early form critics still remains indispensable, as it has provided the foundation upon which contemporary research has been built. Yet, by privileging the MT psalter, Gunkel set a standard for a psalms collection par excellence with which all others would be measured, and this legacy, too, has continued. As a scholar of the early 20th century he did not consider seriously those texts on the margin of standard forms, nor the gradual changes and innovations that took place in the use and composition of psalms and prayers. It was in the late Second Temple period, for example, that for the first time we begin to see the development of fixed daily prayers; we see, too, that psalms, through the process of scripturalization, were being read in new and creative ways, both in liturgical and non-liturgical contexts. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-001

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 Introduction

In addition to the changing fashions of scholarly study in the academy, what makes the topic of this volume possible is the vast new corpus of material, mostly from the Judean Desert, now fully available for study. The discoveries in the middle of the 20th century of previously unknown psalms and prayer texts, by some estimates roughly 200 new prayer texts, either liturgical, poetical, or both, have provided much new fodder with which to re-examine old questions that have continually surrounded psalms and prayer research of this period, and it has renewed scholarly questions surrounding issues of function. These new materials have also made it apparent that texts like the Septuagint Psalter and the psalms and prayers from the Cairo Genizah need to be examined anew. While the old historical-critical methods are indispensable to the historian, the addition of these newly discovered texts to the corpus of psalms and prayers from the late Second Temple period have provided new avenues for thinking about psalms and prayers, and have amply demonstrated the rich and often diverse and ver­ satile ways these texts could be used and read in their ancient setting(s). Some of these insights have also stemmed from the increasingly interdisciplinary work of the academia. The benefits gained from engaging in theology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, ritual, cultural and literary theory, and the cognitive sciences are immediately apparent from even a cursory reading of the articles included in this volume. Before concluding this introduction, a word about the term “function” may be appropriate. While some specialists in the fields of anthropology and ritual studies have rejected functionalist (capital “F”) approaches to rituals to explain the purpose of such acts, the term is still of some use within a discipline heavily text-dependent. It is true that historians cannot enter the minds of the authors and readers of these texts, but when surveying psalms and prayers and their usage in the late Second Temple period, it becomes apparent that many of the same texts were taken up and used differently in a variety of contexts. Psalms and prayers have a wide variety of functions: they can be vehicles for worship, they often promote certain aspects of identity formation, they can be read not only as history and mined for their assumed historicity, but also as prophecy, and were read with an eye to the future. Thus in the context of this volume, at least, the term “function” has been employed to point towards the varied contexts in which psalms are employed and their diverse purposes, and it is this particular aspect of function in which the term is used in this book. As such, the contributions contained herein are organized into six sections that are somehow related to the multifaceted nature of these types of literatures and their diverse functions. The fact that we could have invariably arranged the articles in this volume in a number of different sequences, and that many of the articles could have been placed in other sections, demonstrates the multifac-



Introduction 

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eted nature of this type of literature, and the varied purposes and approaches that have been taken up by the readers and performers of these texts in antiquity.   

Mika S. Pajunen Jeremy Penner August 30, 2016

Eileen Schuller

Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period It is an honor to present the “state-of-the-question lecture” to begin this conference.1 This is a specific genre, one that admits of some fluidity but is defined by certain expectations for form and content. The Sitz im Leben is most often the opening session of an academic conference. The genre bears at least a family resemblance to a related genre, the survey-of-literature essay, which is often found in written form in periodicals such as Currents in Biblical Research. Yet a state-of-the-question lecture is not quite the same thing, if only because rattling off summaries and bibliographic data in an oral presentation is inevitably stupefying rather than enlightening. The person chosen to give such a talk is usually an older scholar, often no longer on the cutting edge of research, not an innovator and a shaker but someone who has been around long enough to participate in at least some of the key milestones in scholarly research and to observe trends as they come and go. Some people will say that the genre is fundamentally and irremediably flawed and will soon disappear precisely for this reason: merely having been around for a long time does not necessarily guarantee special insight. Others worry that the genre is currently being stretched beyond what it can hope to deliver when applied to a field like ours in the throes of rapid and complex change. Yet this was the genre proposed to me for these opening remarks as we gather to reflect in this workshop on “Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period.” My task is both simple and daunting. It is simple, because this is a gathering of specialists, both senior and junior scholars, who are actually working on psalms and prayers in the late Second Temple period. I can – and will – assume that everyone knows the basic texts and is familiar with much of the bibliography so that I do not need to rehash standard introductory material. Indeed our field has been well served by regular surveys and various comprehensive works of analysis and synthesis. I made one of the first and very preliminary attempts to survey the field and articulate the questions as they were emerging at the time of the 1994 Notre Dame Conference, and then found myself called upon to give subsequent

1 I take this opportunity to thank Dr. Mika Pajunen and Dr. Jeremy Penner for the invitation to be part of this conference, and especially for agreeing to publish my remarks more-or-less as were given orally. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-002

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 Eileen Schuller

updates and reformulations at random intervals over the years.2 Similarly, Esther Chazon has produced influential summaries at key moments: in the first issue of Dead Sea Discoveries; at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls; in the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls; and most recently with a focus on situating the Scrolls within the study of Jewish liturgy.3 Daniel Falk has written the chapter on this topic in a number of major comprehensive volumes,4 and now newer scholars like Angela Kim Harkins are being invited to take up the task.5 Precisely because we have so many excellent precedents, it is daunting to know what to emphasize here. Given that the papers in the rest of the conference will for the most part look at a specific text or theme, here I will sketch with broad strokes, unapologetically choosing examples from manuscripts with which I have personally worked most closely (especially the Hodayot). By the nature of the genre, I am allowed to raise a lot of questions but not required to answer them – hopefully at least some

2 Eileen Schuller, “Prayer, Hymnic and Liturgical Texts from Qumran,” in Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Eugene Ulrich and James VanderKam, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity Series 10 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 153–171. This has been updated and reformulated: eadem,“Worship, Temple, and Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity: Part 5, The Judaism of Qumran. A Systematic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Alan Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce Chilton (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 125–144; eadem, “Some Reflections on the Function and Use of Poetical Texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Esther Chazon, STDJ 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 173–189; eadem, “Prayers and Psalms from the Pre-Maccabean Period,” DSD 13 (2006): 306–318. 3 Esther Chazon, “Prayers from Qumran and Their Historical Implications,” DSD 1 (1994): 265– 284; eadem, “Hymns and Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, vol. I, ed. Peter Flint and James VanderKam (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 244–270; eadem, “Psalms, Hymns and Prayers,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. II, ed. Lawrence Schiffman and James VanderKam (London: Oxford University Press, 2000), 710–715; eadem, “Shifting Perspectives on Liturgy at Qumran and in Second Temple Judaism,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages and Cultures, vol. 2, ed. Emanuel Tov, Armin Lange, and Matthias Weigold, VTSup 140 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 513–531. 4 Daniel Falk, “Prayer in the Qumran Texts,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. III, ed. William Horbury, William D. Davies, and John Sturdy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 852–876; idem, “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Study of Ancient Jewish Liturgy,” The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 617–651. 5 Angela Kim Harkins, “Hymns, Prayers, and Psalms,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, ed. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 753–757.



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answers will come in the course of the conference itself and with the subsequent publication of the papers. In any current discussion about psalms and prayers in the late Second Temple period, I see the same cluster of words repeated continually: change, fluidity, plurality, multi-faceted, diversity. Mika Pajunen has characterized the stateof-the question as “a fruitful state of flux.”6 But what is really changing? And, equally significant, though perhaps less an object of attention, what is remaining relatively stable? Let me start by discussing changes in the “what” question, the content that we study. I will then move to the questions we ask, followed by the methodologies we bring to bear, and the context in which we work. The most basic change over the years has been the dramatic increase in the amount of material available for study. I think we can agree that there is now a substantial and significant corpus of prayer and psalm material available for study, although it is surprisingly difficult to give an exact number or list of texts. Any attempt at delineating an exact number is arbitrary and dependent on multiple variables and subjective decisions (such as criteria for determining what to include, whether from the eleven Qumran caves specifically or from the entire Judean desert finds, and how to count multiple copies). In her programmatic 1990 article in the first issue of Dead Sea Discoveries, Chazon vetted the number of two hundred,7 a figure so often repeated that it has become the standard. To put this into the context of the finds as a whole, Russell Arnold has pointed out that “as many as one-quarter of the non-biblical texts can be classified as ritual or liturgical”8 – by any reckoning, this is a substantial amount. As has often been observed, the process of publishing this particular body of material has had a long, circuitous, and frustrating history. This is not the time nor the place to rehearse the full saga of publication, but just to recall some key points: that the Hodayot were among the very first scrolls to be published, the first columns in 1948/49 and the full text in 1954;9 the inclusion of more prayer and hymnic material (1QSb The Rule of Blessings, 1Q34 Festival Prayers, some very fragmentary hymnic materials, 1Q36–40) already in the first volume of Discoveries in

6 Personal correspondence. 7 Chazon, “Prayers from Qumran,” 265–270. 8 Russell Arnold, “The Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran and Ritual Studies,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, vol. II, ed. Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov, and Matthias Weigold, VTSup 140 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 550. 9 Eliezer Sukenik, Otzar ha-Megillot ha-Genuzot [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1954), and in English, idem, The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University, trans. Daniel A. Fineman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1955).

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the Judaean Desert in 1955;10 a dawning awareness of the diversity and complexity of “textes liturgiques,” along with the very poor state of preservation of so many of them that came with Maurice Baillet’s publication of DJD 7 in 1982;11 the fact that certain important texts were known but only in preliminary and sometimes partial publications throughout the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., the collection of apocryphal psalms against demons, 11QapocrPs, or selected parts of Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice12); the full release of all the materials in the 1990s (Poetic and Liturgical Texts Part 1 and Part 2, DJD 11 and 29, 1998 and 1999), and the publication of a reconstructed text of the Cave l Hodayot manuscript as the last volume of DJD 40 in 2009, bringing to full circle the publication of the Scrolls. More important than just the chronological history are the effects of this process, both direct and indirect, effects that still continue, perhaps even in ways that are unrecognized. A notable example is the prioritizing of Cave l documents that were the first published and thus defined the corpus of prayer materials for many years. How might our understanding have been different if the first prayer texts from this community that scholars read had been Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice or Berakhot? Or, even for the Hodayot, what if the 4Q427 manuscript (4QHa), a more liturgical collection, including the so-called Self-Glorification Hymn with its plural we-language and strong call to praise, had been the first poems we had read – and then we had to explain subsequently why the order and content of the Cave 1 copy (especially the so-called “Teacher Hymns”) were so different? What if the collections of psalms attributed to kings and prophets (4Q380–381) or the Barkhi Nafshi collection (4Q434–438) had been the first collections read that differed from the standard Masoretic Psalter? Would even the categorization of sectarian/non-sectarian, biblical/non-biblical have developed in the same way (at least for poetry)? The heuristic value of such “counterfactual” speculation may be limited, but there is a place for some of these “what if” questions, if only to help scholars of my generation become more consciously aware of how much we have been influenced

10 Dominique Barthélemy and Jozef T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1, DJD 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). 11 It is still worthwhile to read Maurice Baillet’s “Introduction,” in Qumrân Grotte III (4Q482– 4Q520), DJD 7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), xi–xiv to get a sense of both the magnitude of the task and the frustrations involved in sorting through literally thousands of tiny fragments. 12 Johannes P. M. van der Ploeg, “Le psaume XCI dans une Recension de Qumran,” RB 72 (1965): 210–217; idem, “Un petit rouleau de psaumes apocryphes (11QPsApa),” in Tradition und Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt. Festgabe für Karl Georg Kuhn, ed. Gert Jeremias, Heinz W. Kuhn, and Hartmut Stegemann (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 128–139; John Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran – 4QSerek Šîrôt ʽÔlat Haššabbāt,” in Congress Volume: Oxford, 1959, ed. George W. Anderson et al., VTSup 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 318–345.



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even by the chronology of how we came to know the texts. I see a real difference in my current graduate students, for whom this is all past history; they are often genuinely puzzled about why I keep emphasizing when/how a certain text was published. What difference will it make when the majority of Qumran scholars are not burdened by or even aware of the “when” and “how” questions of publication but only know the corpus as a whole? They will be able to approach the texts in ways that my generation cannot. But will there also be something lost? Let me stay with the issue of Scrolls publication for just a moment more. It has become commonplace to say that we are in a new stage of scholarship with the completion of the DJD series. But I hesitate to make a too clear-cut distinction between the generation of editing and editors and a new generation that does not need to be involved in the same meticulous and painstaking philological, textual, grammatical, paleographical, and orthographic work, and can instead concentrate on acquiring technical skills in computer technology, digital enhancement, or in theory and interdisciplinary methodologies to be applied to these texts. The distinction is not so simple. Much basic work of re-editing is still required for Scrolls of all categories, and perhaps especially for the corpus of psalms and prayers. Pajunen’s recent dissertation and subsequent monograph on 4Q381 is an example of what can be accomplished by an in-depth and independent study of a previously published text.13 Instead of one hundred and ten separate fragments, only a few of which might be tentatively related to each other, Pajunen reconstructs the majority of nine columns from the end of the scroll; on the basis of this restored text, he proposes a re-interpretation of the content and social location of the work as a whole, and then uses this example to rethink the long-established categories of apocryphal, pseudepigraphical, and non-canonical. There are at least four major prayer and psalm collections where the task of re-editing is a major priority. For the Words of the Luminaries, fortunately we have at present “intermediate editions;” that is, the reconstruction of 4Q504 developed by Hartmut Stegemann that was presented by Chazon in 1991 in her Hebrew dissertation14 (a reconstruction that had been initially proposed in part by Baillet in DJD 7 and developed [with some small differences] by Émile Puech in his review of Baillet’s DJD volume15) is currently available in Dead Sea Scrolls

13 Mika Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381, JAJSup 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013). 14 Esther Chazon, “A Liturgical Document from Qumran and Its Implications: ‘Words of the Luminaries’ (4QDibHam) [Hebrew]” (Diss. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1991). 15 Émile Puech, “Review: DJD VII – Qumrân Grotte 4, III (4Q482–4Q520),” RB 95 (1988): 407– 409.

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Reader,16 Dead Sea Scrolls Handbook,17 and the Princeton series,18 but we still await Chazon’s complete and revised version. Another text in need of reworking is 4Q511, The Song of the Sage B. Joseph Angel first presented his reconstruction of the final sixteen columns at the Vienna IOQS conference in 2013 and a fuller written version in 2015.19 In addition to proposing an order for the fragments, on the basis of his reconstruction, Angel demonstrates that 4Q510 and 4Q511 are not just two copies, but different collections. Furthermore, the conjunction of fragments in columns 8 and 9 reveals an intriguing reworking of Isaiah 40:12–14 so that a series of rhetorical questions about the inability of mortals to know wisdom are refashioned into a statement about the revelation of divine wisdom to elect humanity. Thus, this passage, as reconstructed, can become an important text in current scholarly discussion about divine revelation, wisdom, and the human capacity for knowledge in sectarian thought. Thirdly, it has long been recognized that there is a need to re-edit two opisthographs, 4Q503/4Q512 and 4Q496/505, 506, 509, and Daniel Falk has recently taken up this project. The fourth major project is that of Martin Abegg to re-edit 1QM and 4QM War Scroll and War-Scroll related scrolls (4Q491–496) that involves much prayer material. The recent lengthy study of Daniel Falk on “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts at Qumran”20 is a reminder that however much the focus of much current study is turning to prayer as action, performance, and ritual, the prayers that we are dealing with do come to us as written texts and there is still much to be learnt from close attention to the material artifacts. Surveying the ninety one scrolls on which prayers were written, Falk challenges scholars to take full cognizance of four specific realia: (1) that liturgical prose prayers are more commonly written on papyrus than any other genre of texts at Qumran; (2) the large number of small “personal” scrolls; (3) instances where the same work occurs in both large and

16 Donald Parry and Emanuel Tov, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, vol. II: Calendrical Texts and Sapiential Texts, Poetic and Liturgical Texts, Additional Genres and Unclassified Texts, 2nd ed., rev. and expanded (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 490–510. 17 Devorah Dimant and Donald W. Parry, eds., Dead Sea Scrolls Handbook (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 714–722. 18 James Charlesworth, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls. Hebrew Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translation, vol. IVa: Pseudepigraphic and Non-Masoretic Psalms and Prayers, The Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 107–153. The fragments are presented in order (with slight variation) but without scroll columns. 19 Joseph Angel, “The Material Reconstruction of 4QSongs of the Sageb (4Q511),” RevQ 105 (2015): 25–82. See also his contribution in this volume. 20 Daniel Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts at Qumran,” in Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity, ed. Clemens Leonhard and Helmut Löhr, WUNT 2/363 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 33–87.



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small formats; (4) the fact that there is no case of more than one copy of the same prayer text by the same scribe.21 In addition to the desiderata for these major re-editions, many smaller texts have had little reexamination since the edition princeps, in terms of establishing better readings (especially with new photographic technology), the possibility of reconstructing the order of fragments, and overall interpretation. I am surprised that no one has taken up manuscripts such as 4QHodayot-like A, B and C (4Q433, 433a, 440) or ritual texts like 4Q502 (the so-called Marriage Ritual) or the many very fragmentary texts that have only been designated with such vague titles as Sapiential Hymn, Hymnic Work, or Hymnic Composition? (e.g., 1Q37–40, 4Q411, 4Q498). Even for a more substantial text like The Rule of Blessings (1QSb), there has been no substantial re-edition or commentary since the 1960s.22 Elisha Qimron has recently presented a new reading of some of these texts but with only the most minimal of explicatory notes.23 Recently the first two surveys of all the prayer materials preserved in Aramaic have appeared, one by Daniel Machiela24 and another by Ursula Schattner-Rieser,25 but both make no claim to be anything beyond preliminary and exploratory remarks. Clearly there is more work to be done.

21 This latter point is perhaps less certain than Falk presents it. 1QHb may have been written by the same Scribe A who wrote 1QHa; it is very difficult to come to a firm conclusion on the basis of the dozen letters of 1QHb that have been preserved. Early scholars (Sukenik, Milik, and Carmignac) treated the two fragments of 1QHb as part of 1QHa; once it was recognized that these are two separate manuscripts, Puech was more inclined to see them as from the same hand, whereas Stegemann from two different scribes. See the discussion of Schuller, “A Reconsideration of 1QHb (1Q35),” in the forthcoming Peter Flint Festschrift.. 22 Jacob Licht, The Rule Scroll: A Scroll from the Wilderness of Judaea, 1QS, 1QSa, 1QSb: Text, Introduction and Commentary [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1965), or Jean Carmignac, “Le Recueil des Bénédictions,” in Les textes de Qumran traduits et annotés, vol. II, ed. Jean Carmignac, Edouard Cothenet, and Hubert Lignée (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1963), 28–42. 23 Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. I [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2010); idem, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. II–III [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2013–2014). 24 Daniel Machiela, “Prayer in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls: A Catalogue and Overview,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken M. Penner, and Cecilia Wassen, STDJ 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 285–306. 25 Ursula Schattner-Rieser, “Emotions and Expressions of Emotion as a Didactic Guide as to How to Pray: Berakhot in the Aramaic Prayers of Qumran,” in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions: Emotions Associated with Jewish Prayer in and around the Second Temple Period, ed. Stefan C. Reif and Renate Egger-Wenzel, DCLS 26 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 273–296.

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 Eileen Schuller

Another area where there has been significant change over the last decades but where I see major and still unresolved questions is the matter of terminology. Of course, this issue has been raised before. Way back at the Notre Dame Conference in 1994, I observed that “there is at present little agreement about terminology, even for such basic designations as psalm, hymn, song, prayer.”26 At the first Symposium of the Orion Center in 1996,27 I floated the possibility of moving from the classical, form-critical, etic categories as established by Herman Gunkel and others to a more emic classification using biblical/Hebrew terms (tefillah, berakhah, mizmor, tehillah, shir), but since this proposal has not been taken up by anyone – even by myself – in the last twenty years, it is unlikely that this approach is to be the panacea. A few years later, at the third meeting of IOQS in Oslo in 1998 that was dedicated to sapiential, liturgical, and poetical texts, in his programmatic introductory lecture, Florentino García Martínez again raised the point that much of our terminology and classifications are “no more than vague designations, short-hand commodity labels, which need much more precision to be really useful.”28 As we look at the title of this conference: what tacit assumptions lie behind the wording “Psalms and Prayers”?29 Is “psalms” an allembracive term for “poetic compositions” as contrasted with “prayers” which are prose? Are there poetic compositions in the Scrolls (or in other Second Temple documents like Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities) that are not “psalms,” that is, not similar enough to the compositions now found in the canonical Psalter? Why does the recent reference work, The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, feel the need to adopt a triple division, “Hymns, Prayers, and Psalms”?30 Where do songs fit in? Somehow prayer seems a more self-explanatory category – until

26 Schuller, “Prayer, Hymnic and Liturgical Texts from Qumran,” 160. 27 Eileen Schuller, “The Use of Biblical Terms as Designation for Non-Biblical Hymnic and Prayer Compositions,” in Biblical Perspectives: Proceedings of the First Orion Center Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Michael Stone and Esther Chazon, STDJ 15 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 125– 144. 28 Florentino García Martínez, “Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo 1998. Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller, STDJ 35 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 7. 29 The term “functions” is also problematic. (I’m simply not sure, or perhaps there is a difference in American/European use of the term). The titles of the individual sessions introduce somewhat different terminology: “Methods, Liturgical Perspectives, History, Identity, Changing Settings, Social Values,” and the titles at least of individual papers hint at great diversity in how the contributors have understood “function.” 30 See the entry by Angela Kim Harkins, “Hymns, Prayers, and Psalms,” 753–757.



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we try to define it.31 I will not go through an extended comparison of various definitions of prayer, but the common element in most definitions is “an address to God.” So is a poetic composition that addresses God (texts like the Hodayot with their standard formulaic introduction “I thank you, O Lord,” or “Blessed are you”) to be put in the category of psalms or prayers? Is the important distinction on the level of literary form or function? I recognize that these are “old” questions that have been around in Scrolls scholarship for decades. The question I would press today is: what is at stake? Does it really matter if some scholars label the Hodayot “psalms,”32 while others prefer “hymns” and still others “prayers”? Further still, where do works labeled as incantations or exorcisms fit, such as the compositions found in 11QapocrPs (11Q11)? Can we, in fact, get along just fine with the “vague designations” that García Martínez queried? It will be interesting to see in the course of this conference how often a concern with nomenclature will arise spontaneously or with intent with regards to the specific texts that are taken up in the papers. Hindy Najman and Eibert Tigechelaar have recently taken up a call for more attention to naming and nomenclature, arguing that more is at stake than first meets the eye.33 Issues of terminology, especially designations such as apocryphon/apocryphal/pseudepigraphical, canonical/non-canonical, sectarian/nonsectarian are intricately tied up with fundamental assumptions about canon, scripture, authoritativeness and authority, and tradition rewritten and reworked. At first, it may have seemed as if the more focused attention to canon, authoritativeness, textual plurality and the transmission of tradition was most relevant to narrative texts (rewritten works such as Genesis Apocryphon, Jubilees), to halakhic materials (Temple Scroll, Ordinances), or to interpretation of prophetic texts (in both continuous and thematic pesherim); it has taken more time to see the implications for prayer and poetic texts. If it has become commonplace in the last decade to say in general that there was no “bible”/no established canon in the late Second Temple period and more specifically, perhaps not even a fixed and set “book” of Psalms,34 how does this affect how we approach the poetic composi-

31 At the time when I made this presentation in Copenhagen, a rancorous public discussion was going on in Canada after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled to disallow the saying of “a prayer” at the beginning of city council meetings. This sparked fascinating discussions in the public and social media about what counts as a prayer. 32 This is the terminology adopted in DJD 40; see the discussion in footnote 1 of the introduction. 33 Hindy Najman and Eibert Tigchelaar, “A Preparatory Study of Nomenclature and Text Designation in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” RevQ 103 (2014): 305–325. 34 For the most developed elaboration, see Mika Pajunen, “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSOT (2014): 139–163.

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 Eileen Schuller

tions found among the Scrolls that are not included in what came to be the MT Psalter? The assumed priority both diachronically and synchronically of the order and content of the Masoretic Psalter; a lack of attention to the Septuagint Psalter; the early publication of 11QPsa in 1965;35 the fact that other key manuscripts with non-Masoretic psalms and different orders and groupings (4QPsf ,11QPsb, and 4QPse) were published individually and in random sequence over many years; the fact that collections of only non-MT psalms were only published twenty and more years after 11QPsa (4Q38l in a preliminary edition in 1984;36 selections from the Barkhi Nafshi collection not until 1995/199637) – all these factors contributed to the well-known, but very particular, framing of the issue: was 11QPsa a “real” Psalter, a “true” Psalter (“true” has always seemed to me a particularly less than felicitous term), a “sectarian” (Qumranic) Psalter, or not a Psalter at all but a hymnbook (that is, a secondary liturgical compilation dependent on the MT Psalter). Today, most would readily agree that the contours of the discussion are changing. As Daniel Falk summarizes the current state-of-affairs, it is now considered “misleading to give [the canonical Masoretic Psalter] a prejudicial place in the historical study of psalmody in the Second Temple period.”38 But it is very difficult not to do so, even unconsciously, and the challenge is to be consistent in following through with the implications of a changed paradigm.39 That is, if

35 James Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa), DJD 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). 36 Eileen Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms from Qumran: A Pseudepigraphic Collection, HSS 28 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986); edition princeps in eadem, “Non-Canonical Psalms,” in Qumran Cave 4.VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1, ed. Carol Newsom and Eileen Schuller, DJD 11 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 75–172. 37 D. R. Seely, “The Barki Nafshi Texts (4Q434–439),” in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conference on the Texts from the Judean Desert, Jerusalem, 30 April 1995, ed. D. W. Parry and S. D. Ricks (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 194–214; idem, “4Q437: A First Look at an Unpublished Barki Nafshi Text,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Texts, Reformulated Issues, and Technological Innovations, ed. D. W. Parry and E. C. Ulrich, STDJ 30 (Leiden: Brill 1999) 147–160. 38 Falk, “The Contribution of Qumran Scrolls,” 632. 39 I speak first to myself on this point. When I first explored the relationship between 4Q380 and Ps 106 (Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms, 39, 248–55), I automatically assumed that Ps 106 was the vorlage that was then reworked by the author of 4Q380. Both George Brooke and Mika Pajunen have invited consideration of the opposite sequence: George Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” RevQ 14 (1989): 277–278; Mika Pajunen, “The Textual Connection between 4Q380 Fragment 1 and Psalm 106,” in The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Nóra Dávid, Armin Lange, Kristin De Troyer, and Shani Tzoref, FRLANT 239 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 186–202.



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we assume that many of the manuscripts that were once labeled “Psalters” are rather copies of individual psalms or smaller sub-collections, what are the consequences if the Psalter can no longer be counted (with Isaiah and Deuteronomy) as one of the three books with the most copies in the Scrolls?40 How important are the features of the manuscripts that are shared in common by all collections of poetic texts (the scribal practices, indentations, divisions, size of layout) versus those that are distinctive to certain poetic texts (stichometric arrangements, use of marginal notations)? Could we take all Second Temple poetry and organize it with no concern for a canonical/non-canonical division? And then what would be the organizational principle: chronology, even in a broad sense (pre-Maccabean versus post-Maccabean)? Genre? The proposed audience (works addressed to “all Israel” versus those directed to sub-groups and particular communities)? We are beginning to see attempts at such a major reorientation, and at this stage we probably need to see multiple proposals and different categorizations that we can evaluate and compare as to perceived benefits. As we become more accustomed to thinking of scriptural textual plurality and of the Proto-MT Psalter, Septuagint Psalter, and 11QPsa as transmission in different/variant literary editions (and I use even this latter terminology with caution, aware of the tautology and problems that George Brooke has recently pointed out41), our changing conceptualization of Psalters predisposes us to recognize, even anticipate, variant literary editions in other collections: the different editions of the Hodayot; that 4QBerakhota and 4QBerakhotb (4Q286 and 287) may not be exact copies though they follow a basic order; that 4Q510/511 Songs of the Sage A and B are not copies of an identical work but differing recensions of the same work or two different works, one of which has drawn upon the other or both of which have drawn on a common source; different recensions of the prayers in the War Scroll (e.g., 1QM 19:1–8, 4Q492 1 and the expanded version in 1QM 22:7– 1642). Should we assume that there are multiple versions and orders of the Festival

40 Pajunen, “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book,” 139–162. Eva Jain, in her monograph, Psalmen oder Psalter? Materielle Rekonstruktion und inhaltliche Untersuchung der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda, STDJ 109 (Leiden: Brill, 2014) reaches a similar conclusion based more on material reconstruction of manuscripts, namely that few manuscripts contained a 150-psalm collection. 41 George Brooke, “What is a Variant Edition? Perspectives from the Qumran Scrolls,” in In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes: Studies in the Biblical Text in Honour of Anneli Aejmelaeus, ed. Kristin de Troyer, T. Michael Law, Marketta Liljeström, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 72 (Leuven: Peeters, 2014): 607–622. 42 Roni Yishay, “Prayers in Eschatological War Literature from Qumran: 4Q491–4Q496, 1QM [Hebrew],” Megillot 5–6 (2007): 129–147.

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 Eileen Schuller

Prayers, an operating assumption that on the one hand opens up more options for reconstruction, but on the other hand limits how one copy can to be used to reconstruct another? And if all these collections can be demonstrated to evidence multiple and diverse recensions, to what extent does this reinforce the predilection for assuming a similar dynamic at work in the so-called “biblical” corpus? Before moving on to the second and briefer part of my paper and shifting the focus to new methodologies, I want to make just one comment about the traditional approaches of form-criticism and genre theory. In the study of the biblical Psalter, the classic categories and divisions of Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinkel still have a place, but their application is in a state of flux: as William Bellinger, wrote recently: “the lines between categories are dotted rather than solid lines, and more than one answer to the question of genre is possible.”43 Already in the 1950s and early 1960s early scholars dealing with all these newly discovered prayer texts sensed, perhaps more intuitively than on the basis of sophisticated theory, that the standard biblical genres did not quite fit. It became clear, for instance, that much more attention needed to be devoted to penitential prayer as a significant category, though this corpus was rather minor in the biblical canon.44 Falk, in particular, called attention to the “genre-bending case of the covenant ceremony” in 1QS 1–2; the confession of sin points superficially to links with the penitential prayers of Nehemiah, Daniel, and Ezra but the absence of a petition for forgiveness signals that the same form serves a very different function, becoming “a ceremony of confirmation rather than a ritual of transformation.”45 In some recent scholarship, it has become almost de rigeur to disparage how earlier scholars imposed biblical categories on the texts from Qumran that were being read for the first time, but Carol Newsom has pointed out that this was both inevitable and necessary. How does one read a newly discovered text, without a reception history? It is the conceptual framework of genre that enables “comprehension through intertextual comparison.”46 It is only because we had been reading biblical psalms of thanksgiving that when the Hodayot showed up

43 William H. Bellinger Jr., “Psalms and the Question of Genre,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, ed. William P. Brown (London: Oxford University Press, 2014), 313–325. 44 A three-year Consultation (2003–2005) at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting issued in a three-volume series Seeking the Favor of God; Volume I The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism; Volume II The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism; Volume III The Impact of Penitential Prayer beyond Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, Rodney A. Werline, SBLEJL 21–23 (Atlanta: SBL, 2006, 2007, 2008). 45 Daniel Falk, “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls,” 619. 46 Carol Newsom, “Pairing Research Questions and Theories of Genre: A Case Study of the Hodayot,” DSD 17 (2010): 247.



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we could see similarities (e.g., first person address, language of thankfulness, articulation of the past danger from which one has been rescued) and differences (thanksgiving for spiritual gifts such as knowledge and fellowship with the angelic realm rather than for deliverance from bodily illness or enemies), and thus recognize that there was something “new” in what we were reading. Attention to a “family resemblance” model of genre can invite us to read the Hodayot not only along with the biblical psalms but with all first person poetry from the late Second Temple period (Psalms of Solomon, Odes of Solomon, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, the Magnificat) and even to cast our net further afield: is there Hellenistic poetry that can be brought into consideration? A recent challenge is how to combine traditional genre classifications with other modes of classification, such as Jeremy Penner’s delineation of clusters or streams of tradition on the basis of coherence and affinity of ideas (prayers influenced by apocalyptic thinking, with an emphasis on cosmology and angelology versus prayers with penitential theology aligned with Deuteronomy and priestly laws of reparation).47 Intrinsic to traditional form criticism is the move to establish a more-or-less precise Sitz im Leben, but this has proven to be surprisingly difficult for much of this prayer material, particularly for poetic compositions. There is general agreement that rubrical headings (for x day of the week […] x day of the month […] for x Sabbath on the x day of x month), plural forms, antiphonal responses, and double amens point to a liturgical usage, though for certain texts (such as Words of the Luminaries) liturgy and literature do not seem to be mutually exclusive categories.48 But for the major poetic collections the search for a Sitz im Leben has usually been framed as a dichotomy: either they are used in a liturgical setting or for private meditation/devotion/instruction. The liturgical context proposed for the Hodayot is most often the daily community meal, a setting first proposed by Bo Reicke in the 1950s49 and revived and sharpened by Newsom who envisions that common meals would be followed by the leader and other community members reciting Hodayot, with the written copies serving as models for the production of new texts.50 Other scholars, however, have situated the Hodayot as

47 Jeremy Penner, “Mapping Dead Sea Scrolls Prayer Texts onto Second Temple Period Judaism,” DSD 21 (2014): 39–63. 48 Esther Chazon, “4QDibHam: Liturgy or Literature?” RevQ 15 (1991–1992): 447–455. 49 Bo Reike, “Remarques sur l’histoire de la form (Formgeschichte) des textes de Qumran,” in Les manuscrits de la mer Morte: Colloque de Strasbourg 25–27 Mai 1955, ed. Jean Daniélou (Paris: Paris University Press, 1957): 38–44. 50 Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 202–203, 349.

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morning prayers (Moshe Weinfeld51), during the nightly study sessions described in 1QS 6 (Brooke52) or, for at least some of the poems, in the covenant renewal ceremony and initiation rites (Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn53). Before rereading much of the recent literature in preparing this paper, I somehow had gotten the impression that a liturgical setting for the Hodayot was now generally accepted but I see now that this is far from the case. For example, in Armin Lange’s classification as presented in DJD 39, the Hodayot (and virtually all poetic collections) are labeled as non-liturgical;54 Falk writes recently “a possible use in liturgy at Qumran remains uncertain;”55 in a recent monograph on the Hodayot, Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch is reluctant to say that they would be used liturgically;56 even Brooke, who is ready to acknowledge that the Hodayot “might well have been” part of the nightly sessions, notes that there were other sets of daily and festival prayers for such a venue and suggests that “more likely is their [the Hodayot] use for private devotion and reflection.”57 I am becoming more convinced that at least for much of the poetic material a dichotomic formulation of the options – liturgical or devotional – is not particularly helpful. In the first place, I am often not sure whether we are all talking about the same thing when the tag “liturgical” is invoked. When exploring the term in graduate seminars over the years, I am invariably struck by how much my students (and myself!) are influenced, often unconsciously, by our own religious background and vocabulary. Even the basic distinction of public/liturgical versus

51 Moshe Weinfeld, “The Morning Prayers (Birkhot Haschahar) in Qumran and in the Conventional Jewish Liturgy,” RevQ 13 (1988): 481–494. 52 George Brooke writes, “I consider that this time of blessing might well have been a suitable opportunity for the rehearsal of one or more of the Hodayot” in “Reading, Searching and Blessing: A Functional Approach to Scriptural Interpretation in the ‫יחד‬,” in The Temple in Text and Tradition: A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward, ed. R. Timothy McLay, Library of Second Temple Studies 83 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 153. 53 Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Enderwartung und Gegenwärtiges Heil: Untersuchungen zu den Gemeindeliedern von Qumran mit einem Anhang über Eschatologie und Gegenwart in der Verkundigung Jesu, SUNT 4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 31. 54 Armin Lange with Ulrike Mittmann-Richert, “Annotated List of the Texts from the Judaean Desert Classified by Content and Genre,” in The Texts From the Judaean Desert: Indices and An Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series, ed. Emauel Tov, DJD 39 (Oxford Clarendon, 2002), 138. 55 Falk, “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls,” 630. 56 Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch, Meaning and Context in the Thanksgiving Hymns: Linguistic and Rhetorical Perspectives on a Collection of Prayers from Qumran, SBLEJL 42 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 17. 57 George Brooke, “Aspects of the Theological Significance of Prayer and Worship in the Qumran Scrolls,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 48.



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individual/devotional may be a more modern dichotomy than we have realized. It may be important to give more attention to such elements as the performaticity of all texts in antiquity, the limited scope for private reading, the place of memorization in “writing on the tablets of the heart” (to use the lovely terminology of David Carr),58 and the didactic function of song/poetry throughout antiquity.59 In the Hodayot, some of the so-called liturgical signposts (for example, a rubricaltype heading, the use of the plural) are combined so closely with didactic components that it is difficult to see these as major divisions. For example, in column 5:12–14 the task following the lemaskil liturgical heading is a didactic one: “to give understanding to the simple” and “to give humankind understanding.” The parallel to the very liturgical sounding imperatives, the calls to praise in the plural in column 26, are the plural imperatives at the end of column 9 “hear, o wise” and a whole section of didactic instructions. There seems some close link between liturgy, reflection, and instruction in much of this late Second Temple material that we have not yet grasped but rather tried to separate. If I have concentrated to this point on certain recurring questions that have been around for some decades now but are still to some extent unresolved, I do not want to give the impression that these issues have not been recognized before nor that there have not been significant and even radical advances in the study of the functions of psalms and prayers, particularly in the last decade. Already at the time of the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1997, in his state-of-the-question lecture at the SBL plenary session, George Nickelsburg drew attention to what he termed “the intellectual parochialism” of much of Qumran studies,60 a point taken up by Newsom in her response and reformulated as a question for the future: “with whom should we be in conversation?”61 Now some fifteen plus years later, Qumran studies does have new, and very challenging, conversation partners, and I will highlight just three. All, in different ways, have contributed to shifting the focus from questions of authorial intent, date of composition, and form-critical categories to matters of function and performance, the very questions that are the focus of this conference.

58 David Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 59 Matthew Gordley, Teaching through Song in Antiquity: Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians, WUNT II:302 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). 60 George Nickelsburg, “A Response to the Respondents,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty: Proceedings of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature Qumran Section Meetings, ed. Robert Kugler and Eileen Schuller, SBLEJL 15 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 143–146 61 Carol Newsom, “A Response to George Nickelsburg’s ‘Currents in Qumran Scholarship: The Interplay of Data, Agendas, and Methodology’,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty, 119.

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It is well recognized that Newsom’s 2004 monograph The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran marked a significant turning point. In his review of the book, John Collins highlighted the broadening of conversation partners: “this book is very much a novelty in the world of scrolls scholarship. Her [Newsom’s] dialogue partners are M. M. Bakhtin and Michel Foucault rather than Lawrence Schiffman and James C. VanderKam.”62 Critical theory, discourse analysis, Kenneth Burke and Fredric Jameson are all brought into the dialogue in a way that is remarkably clear and accessible for scrolls scholars who have never plowed through much of the primary theoretical literature. Certain phrases coined by Newsom have become part of the standard discourse of Scrolls scholarship: “what do the hodayot do?” “how to make a sectarian?” “the construction of [the] self,” and “the masochistic sublime.” In subsequent articles, Newsom has continued to demonstrate the richness of the move from authorial intent to the effect on the reader/hearer as she widens her conversation partners to include theories of rhetorical criticism, both ancient and modern, genre theory, cognitive linguistics, cognitive study of metaphor, cognitive anthropology, and “indigenous psychology.”63 Other scholars have been encouraged by Newsom’s pioneering work to bring still more partners to the table, especially once it is admitted that no one partner has all the answers; by way of example, Hasselbalch’s venture into even more specialized linguistic subfields via systemic functional linguistics.64 It should be noted that these studies all concentrate on the Hodayot where, when the reconstructed 1QHa copy is supplemented by six fragmentary copies from Cave 4, we have almost 75% of a complete manuscript;65 to what extent this type of in-depth literary and rhetorical analysis will ever be possible when dealing with much more fragmentary texts remains to be seen. A second group of conversation partners in the last decade has come from the field of ritual studies. Rob Kugler began by cataloguing psalms and prayers using the taxonomy of Catherine Bell (rites of passage, feasts and fasts, calendrical rites, rites of affliction, political rites, and rites of communion) and introducing a

62 John Collins, “Review: Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran,” JBL 124 (2005): 170–173. 63 Carol Newsom, “Rhetorical Criticism and the Reading of the Qumran Scrolls,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John Collins and Timothy Lim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 683–708; eadem, “Flesh, Spirit, and the Indigenous Psychology of the Hodayot,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, 339–354. 64 Hasselbalch, Meaning and Context in the Thanksgiving Hymns, 41–62. 65 As calculated by Hartmut Stegemann, “Reconstruction of 1QHa ,” in Qumran Cave 1.III: 1QHodayota, with Incorporation of 4QHodayota-f and 1QHodayotb, ed. Carol Newsom, Hartmut Stegemann, and Eileen Schuller, DJD 40 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2008), 49.



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new set of terms: “ritual density” and “hegemony of rite.”66 Russell Arnold developed this approach in a full monograph and included other conversation partners (such as, Marcel Mauss, Roy Rappaport, Ron Grimes, and Harvey Whitehouse).67 If literary studies shifts focus from author to reader, ritual studies directs the focus of attention from words and their meaning to posture, gesture, non-discursive actions (putting on tefillin) and from the individual text (prayer or psalm) to the whole of a ritual act. We have become much more aware that all ritual practices are part of a system and cannot be viewed in isolation: to refer once again to the covenant renewal ceremony in the initial columns of 1QS, while the individual components have biblical precedence (confession of sin, blessings, curses) it is the specific combination that makes something new and unique. Ritual studies encourages us to ask new questions about the creation and expression of community identity and social cohesion in terms of sacred space (purity as access to sacred space) sacred time (calendars, priestly courses, festivals and Sabbaths), order and moments of change. While ritual studies has been a dialogue partner for well over a decade, the challenge now is to push what this methodology can contribute to recent revised conceptualizations of the Qumran movement as a whole. What does this “ritual density” and a “fully ritualized life” look like when the focus shifts from the isolated desert site of Qumran to multiple “camps”? From male celibate ascetics to married members with families? How might psalms and prayers, shared meals, rituals of joining and expulsion function – and in quite different ways – in multiple small units with a quorum of ten (see 1QS 6:3–7)68 or for a small core of elite religious virtuosoi living at the site of Qumran?69 I suspect that the most helpful models for future comparisons may not be that of traditional monasticism, as it has developed in either eastern or western forms, but the lived experience of contemporary movements that combine asceticism, communal and family life, like the Iona Community or so-called New Monasticism in Protestantism. The third new perspective is the study of religious experience. Many years ago, Bilhah Nitzan remarked that the Qumran texts formed a transitional stage between spontaneous expressions of emotions and religious feelings that she

66 Robert Kugler, “Making all Experience Religious: The Hegemony of Ritual at Qumran,” JSJ 33 (2002): 131–152. 67 Russell Arnold, The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community, STDJ 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 68 Alison Schofield, From Qumran to the Yahad: a New Paradigm of Textual Development for the Community Rule, STDJ 77 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 69 John Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

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associated with the prose prayers of the Hebrew Bible and the fixed, set, nonemotional prayers of the rabbinic period; she judged that most of “the descriptions in the Qumran scrolls lack the emotional power to touch the heart of man [sic] in all times.”70 In contrast, the work of Angela Kim Harkins begins with the assumption that these texts could and did generate an embodied experience in the reader/performer, specifically through the “arousal of emotion,”71 that is, “the rhetorical use of “I” combined with language of embodiment (…) function instrumentally to generate within an ancient reader a religious experience of transformation and ascent.”72 Harkins’s conversation partners are diverse: Jacques Derrida; Judith Butler for a theory of performativity; neurophysiologists especially Antonio Damasio, Constantine Stanislavsky for the method theory approach to acting; Lefebvre and Edward Soja for critical spatial theory; Aristotle and Pierre Bourdieu for ancient and modern habitus theory. For Harkins, religious experience in the Hodayot is linked to the visionary and the mystical, an ecstatic experience of ascent; by meditating on vivid intense, apocalyptic imagery the emotion of fear was aroused in the body of the reader to create new experiences that can result in the composition of a new poem and the experience of ascent to heavens and communion with the angelic world. This orientation to a vertical model of ascent, to an experience of the extraordinary and the ecstatic, has been typical of the study of religious experience in general and the study of religious experience in the Scrolls (which has focused on the Hodayot, somewhat less on Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice).73 Less attention has been paid to a descent to the depths, to an experience of loss, crisis, trauma, suffering, whether nationally or within a specific group or individually. At a recent conference at Aarhus in 2012 that dealt with experiences of trauma and traumatization, specifically the application of trauma theory to the study of biblical laments and lamentations,74 there was no paper on any texts from the Scrolls or Second Temple Judaism in general. Whether the same theore­tical framework can be applied to recover the more negative aspects of religious

70 Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry, 354. 71 Angela Kim Harkins, Reading with an “I” to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions, Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 3 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012). 72 Harkins, Reading with an “I”, 3. 73 Carol Newsom, “Review: Angela Kim Harkins, Reading with an “I” to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions,” DSD 21 (2014): 82–84. 74 Eve-Marie Becker, Jan Dochhorn, and Else Holt, eds., Trauma and Traumatiation in Individual and Colletive Dimensions: Insights from Biblical Studies and Beyond, Studia Aahusiana Neotestamentica (Sant) 2 (Vandenhoecht & Ruprecht, 2014).



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experience whether in the Hodayot, or exorcisms, expulsion rituals, the so-called apocryphal laments (4Q179) even in some way to fixed prayers of petition (which imply deprivation, loss, suffering) is still a work for the future. Finally, to return to the title of this conference, in different ways each of these three approaches to the “function” of psalms and prayers (literary/rhetorical analysis, ritual studies, and the focus on religious experience) bring us back to fundamental questions about what would have once been called “a theology of prayer” or “theology in prayer.” Here in this Nordic place, I cannot help recalling with appreciation the pioneering work by Helmer Ringgren so many years ago in his book The Faith of Qumran.75 Yet today most scholars no longer share his ready optimism that it is desirable, or even possible, to read the prayers and psalms in the Scrolls as a source of abstract theological ideas on nature, grace, dualism, predestination; we are so much more aware of the complex literary, socio-historical, emotional, and non-discursive factors at play. The new methodologies and our multiple conversation partners all are more interested in these dimensions rather than in theological ideas. Yet no matter how we approach our texts, we are brought ultimately into the realm of what Brooke has called the “spiritual intimacy” of the pray/er.76 How can we best discern what motivated the men and women who chose to adopt this distinctive way of life, who abandoned the security of the temple cult with its assurance of atonement through sacrifice for a life in which they alone had the responsibility for atonement, a life of intense discipline external and internal – and even more importantly, what sustained such a life day by day? Surely psalms and prayers played a major role and had a distinctive and central function, but exactly what and how is what this conference seeks to explore. At the IOQS conference in 1998 on poetic, liturgical and sapiential texts that I referred to early in my paper, García Martínez began his opening remarks with optimism: “it is my sincere hope that, if not all, at least some of [the questions] will be solved by the end of our congress.” By the conclusion of his state-of-thequestion survey, he is hoping that participants will leave “with the problems more clearly focused and with a clear consciousness of the urgency of the task before us.”77 As I come to the end of my state-of-the question introduction, I incline to the latter sentiment. My hope is that these remarks are of some help in focusing the problems and inspiring us for the task that lies before us.

75 Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963). 76 George Brooke, “Aspects of the Theological Significance of Prayer and Worship,” 35–54. 77 García Martínez, “Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran,” 6 and 11.

Part 1: Psalms, Prayers, and Embodied Religion The first section of this volume, “Psalms, Prayers, and Embodied Religion,” is comprised of articles in which the authors are especially interested in questions related to human experiences in the ancient world. While philology and formcritical questions are of course necessary and related, they are not the end goal. In these articles there is an attempt to move beyond the form-critical priorities of previous scholarship to highlight the fact that the words of psalms and prayers are meant to leave the page and affect the worshipping community. In some cases psalms and prayers form parts of rituals that confirm one’s present status or create a new one; in other cases, psalms and prayers take up older traditions and are imbued with new meaning. In her article “Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case” Jutta Jokiranta, asks the question of how the cognitive sciences might help us understand the power of blessing. The basic premise that allows her to read ancient literature with some of the insights gained in the cognitive sciences is that the neurological architecture of the human brain has not changed significantly in the interim, certainly not in the last two thousand years. There are certain human phenomena that are spread across cultural boundaries and resist cultural relativity. Rodney Werline, while not overtly relying on the natural sciences like Jokiranta to guide his question, nonetheless has a similar aim in mind when he examines “The Imprecatory Features of Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12.” Like the act of blessing, performing imprecatory curses can function to shape group dynamics and imbue them with a sense of identity. Carol Newsom, too, weaves together work done by such thinkers as Charles Taylor, and includes a number of studies in psychology and neuroscience to gain a better understanding of the introspective self (“Toward a Genealogy of the Introspective Self in Second Temple Judaism”) and how the poetic literature of the time contributed to this development. In Angela Kim Harkins’ article, “The Function of Prayers of Ritual Mourning in the Second Temple Period,” she discusses the possible function of ritualized mourning practices and unpacks some of the social complexities associated with revelatory experiences and prayer.

Jutta Jokiranta

Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case 1 Introduction Blessings consist of words that carry power. The Hebrew root brk (‫ )ברך‬is especially intriguing for the study of blessing because it denotes two different yet related actions: it is used for both praising God and for mediating God’s favor to humans. What does this mean for the cognitive perception of the blessing? How does the human mind employ, process, and use the idea of blessing? What intuitions does the mind rely on, and what cultural variables can be identified? The act of blessing also involves more than words. What kind of power does the human mind attach to blessing? This contribution focuses on some of the insights gained from the cognitive sciences to advance our understanding of blessing as behavior. Cognition is basically anything in the human body and nervous system that helps us get along in the world – to process the perceptual information around us, to move purposefully, to predict and anticipate events, to communicate with fellow humans, and to select relevant information from an infinite amount of data around us. The study of blessings is often about semantics and linguistic use, and this is especially true of historical study where the only major sources are textual and the preserved words and phrases lend themselves to analysis. But here I am interested in the underlying belief structures that these concepts are based on and might trigger, and in blessings as ritual acts in ritual contexts, even though any in-depth description of ritual acts through the extant textual sources is not possible. For any historical study of blessings to be useful and structured, it is important to be clear about the levels of analysis in which blessings can be discussed. Since at least some types of blessing can be categorized as prayer, Armin Geertz’s more general theory of prayer as communication and as behavior might help us as a starting point to specify the different levels of blessing.1 Geertz first distinguishes three levels of analysis when prayer is considered as an act of commu-

1 Armin W. Geertz, “Comparing Prayer: On Science, Universals, and the Human Condition,” in Introducing Religion: Essays in Honor of Jonathan Z. Smith, ed. Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon (London: Equinox, 2008), 113–139. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-003

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nication. In terms of his taxonomy, blessing can be analyzed in terms of: (1) the words of blessings themselves; (2) the act of blessing and its performance; and (3) blessing as a subject of discussion with a specific tradition (that is, how blessing is spoken of, instructed, and prescribed). Geertz then continues with prayer as behavior. From this perspective, blessing can be analyzed as: (1) social behavior – bodily movements within time and space, and other contextual conditions; institutional and power relations are also important to consider; (2) psychological behavior – the mental and psychological states and effects the act of blessing produces on these faculties; and (3) neurobiological behavior – neural activity and stimulation in connection to blessing behaviors.2 An analysis of these different levels does not mean that the levels could not be connected with each other and shown to influence each other. Rather, having analytical tools that provide answers to distinct questions is the precondition for comparative work, and analytical comparison is a way to understanding. I will first briefly discuss blessing in terms of communication and then introduce a discussion on the cognitive perspectives of magic that are needed to study blessing in terms of behavior, especially at the social and psychological (cognitive) level. In the final section, I will compare some blessing texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls in light of these perspectives.

2 Blessing is Communication: Semantics and Speech Acts In a religious studies context, three basic components of blessing are often discussed: consecration (understanding something or someone as empowered to bring benefits), benediction (bestowing good will or favor on someone), and eulogy (glorifying, approving, granting of favor, and aspiring towards good).3 To unpack the phenomenon of blessing further, the uses of the Hebrew root brk are primarily divided into three categories when we consider to whom the blessing is addressed and by whom: humans blessing other humans (or pronouncing objects

2 Geertz, “Comparing Prayer,” 137–139. 3 Prapod Assavavirulhakarn, “Blessing,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, vol. 2, ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan, 2005), 979–985. In this general view, all three meanings are seen to derive from one concept of “a benign power able to confer benefits upon humanity, individually or collectively” and thus this power also automatically invites humanity to offer praise.



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as blessed), God blessing humans and things, and humans (and/or angels and natural objects) blessing God. According to James Aitken, when both the subject and object are humans, brk denotes “the expressing of the favour conferred on the person by God.” When God is the subject, brk denotes “[a declaration] (and thereby) making the object as specially favoured and prosperous.” When the subject is human and the object is God, brk means “to praise.”4 Whether the meaning of the Hebrew root brk “to praise” is a later derivation from “to bless” or not is debated.5 The translation of brk into “to praise” instead of “to bless,” is especially influential in theologically laden discussions that attempt to distinguish blessings directed towards God from blessings directed towards humans. But is this distinction justified: is praising God a unique activity, strictly different from other blessing acts? It will be demonstrated in this article that some of the ancient sources do not seem to appreciate such a division, at least not in a way similar to what the English assumes. Intriguingly, there are also contemporary theological voices that emphasize a close connection between praising and blessing: blessings bestowed upon creation meet their final destiny in the blessings offered to God.6 This view is in line with the suggestion that whatever the blessing activity

4 James K. Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing in Ancient Hebrew, ANESSup 23 (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 96–102, 11–17. Aitken further identifies two formulaic uses of the root: “profane” blessing where people declare each other blessed in the form of greeting (Ruth 2:4), and covenantal use, where the lists of blessed items and persons potentially became obscured from the original appeal to the divine being to ensure the covenantal agreement. Finally, there is the euphemistic use of the root to denote “to curse” (pp. 113–114). According to Aitken, the association of the root brk “to bless/praise” with the root brk “to kneel” is largely abandoned (pp. 6–7, 93–94). See also David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol II: bet–waw (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 267–271; Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, ed., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol. I: 'alef–het. Translated and edited under the supervision of M.E.J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 159–160; Carl A. Keller (I–III) and Gerhard Wehmeier (IV–V), “Brk pi. to bless,” in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol. 1: 'āb–ḥnp, ed. Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997), 266–282. 5 See Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 94. In the Septuagint, the standard rendering of the Hebrew brk is the verb εὐλογέω “to speak well of”. Jan Joosten, “Jewish Greek in the Septuagint: On εὐλογέω ‘to praise’ with Dative,” in Biblical Greek in Context: Essays in Honour of John A. L. Lee, ed. James K. Aitken and Trevor V. Evans, Biblical Tools and Studies 22 (Leuven: Peeters, 2015), 137–144, suggests that the use of εὐλογέω primarily derives from its use in liturgy and worship and was then extended to translate other forms of blessing in scripture. 6 This is suggested, for example, by Daniel G. van Slyke, “Toward a Theology of Blessings: Agents and Recipients of Benedictions,” Antiphon 15 (2011): 47–60, in a largely Catholic framework. In later rabbinic prayers, petitions are often mixed with praises (e.g., Amidah), see Esther G. Chazon, “Looking Back: What the Dead Sea Scrolls Teach Us about Biblical Blessings,” in

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performed in everyday life – whether praising God, asking for God’s blessing, or performing blessing – it is an act that fosters a realization of the divine-human relationship and thus brings the divine sphere into the mundane. Another explanation of the connectedness between “praising” and “blessing” is that they are corresponding parts of a reciprocal act: a human being presents a gift (sacrifice, praise) to the divine and the divine accepts the gift by granting favor to the human being. The parties are deemed worthy of the exchange.7 This does not mean that significant differences do not exist. A question that emerges from the uses of the root brk is whether God is always involved in blessings and in which ways. For example, the formulaic use of blessing in greetings or farewells may denote merely good aspirations and wishes rather than invoking the divine agent.8 But also when humans bless God, it can be asked if such praise-blessing is perceived as including two or three parties: does the speech act take place only between the human and the divine, or is a human/angelic audience necessary for the praise-blessing to be effective?9 In any case, both forms of blessing – that is, the act where humans wish each other well and the act where humans bless God – actually represent a eulogy type blessing (i.e., “blessed are you” or “I bless you”). This type of speech act is realized at the moment of its pronouncing: persons are spoken well of when they are blessed. Blessing in this sense is similar to vows or promises that have accomplished their complete action at the moment of their saying.10 At the same time, when humans such as priests bless other humans in the form of a benediction (“May the Lord bless you […]”), the blessing is only partially fulfilled: something is expected to be realized in the future that is not yet evident or has not yet taken place, although uttering the plea for blessing is an important step in being blessed.

The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Nóra Dávid et al., FRLANT 239 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 155–171. Another aspect to consider is that when praising is blended with petitions of benediction, an avenue may be opened to understandings that include misfortune and suffering as part of the mystery of blessing. 7 Thus, Kent Harold Richards, “Bless/Blessing,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. I: A–C, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 753–755, thinks that the benefits of blessing are secondary and the relationship between parties is primary. Keller and Wehmeier, “Brk pi. to bless,” 268, present as a starting point for the definition of the pi. of brk as “to gift someone with health-creating power or to declare someone so gifted.” 8 Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 113–114. 9 If blessing is perceived as including three, rather than just two parties, a person pronouncing blessing – whether to another person through divine power or to the divine being through human acknowledgement – is not merely an act of dialogue but rather conversation or performance. 10 Assavavirulhakarn, “Blessing,” 980.



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These sorts of differences have been sought and identified through speechact theory, especially the various types of illocutionary acts that speech utterances are seen to do: humans do various things by speaking words, such as assert, promise, express, declare, commit, and direct.11 The utterance of the words involves performing the act.12 Words do what they say in so far as they are deemed to be well suited to the situation. For a speech-act to be effective, it must be uttered by the appropriate person in an appropriate situation and with the appropriate intent by the person.13 The famous example of the “I do” wedding vow illustrates this point: the vow completes the act of marrying only in certain circumstances, by a certain person, and when certain conventions are accepted. Similarly, for utterances like “blessed are you” or “may he bless you,” the social conventions of each cultural setting determine if/when the speech acts accomplish what they state (who can pronounce this, in what situations, and with what intentions).14 According to Aitken, the application of speech-act theory in the study of biblical blessings and curses has diminished earlier tendencies to identify magical

11 For the classic theory, see John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976); John R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). For the Hebrew blessing, see Andreas Wagner, Sprechakte und Sprechaktanalyse im Alten Testament: Untersuchungen im biblischen Hebräisch an der Nahtstelle zwischen Handlungsebene und Grammatik, BZAW 253 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 253–286. For example, a praiseblessing such as “Blessed are You, O my God, who has opened to knowledge the mind of Your servant” in the final hymn of 1QS (11:15–16) as an illocution (words accomplishing things through their utterance) can be asserting or declaring that the speaker has received knowledge from God, and as perlocution (words effecting a response), may be affirming the speaker’s authority as the knowing one among the audience. Praise-blessings can also be a promise to the audience concerning divine acts in the future: for example, in the midst of the battle, the people in the War Scroll are said to be praising: “Blessed is the God of Israel, who guards loving kindness for His covenant and the appointed times of salvation for the people He redeems (1QM 14:4). Then again, in a text like the Barkhi Nafshi, the speaker first exhorts himself to bless (“Bless, O my soul, the Lord…”), expressing commitment, followed by the actual blessing. Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 113, is fairly brief about the types of speech-acts but seems to consider the Qal passive of brk not as declarative but as expressing volition: an indication that God will be praised. I think that the use of the Qal passive with relative clauses provides more nuances to study the speech-acts. 12 According to Austin, How to do Things with Words, 159, blessings and curses are reactive performances: acts that present a reaction to someone’s good or bad behavior. 13 Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 14. 14 Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 18–19, notes some semantic conventions that help determine the force of an utterance, such as the attention-grabbing particles hinne and ʿatta (now!), and the markers of immediacy of command -na, long imperative.

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ideas in the act of blessing and cursing.15 While speech-act theory teaches us that words have power, this power is not thought of as magical or intrinsic to the words, but is explained as effective speech acts. As a result, blessings have been increasingly understood as prayers and petitions, rather than spells or invocations. Earlier scholarship typically created models of evolution whereby early or “primitive” forms of religion were imbued with a much greater sense of magic. In one model, for example, the Hebrew Bible was thought to reflect three stages of evolution: first, a magical stage, where blessings and curses are self-fulfilling and contagious; second, a cultic stage, where certain ceremonies are required to evoke God to action; and in the final stage, blessings or curses come directly from God, and they are dependent on the ethical values proclaimed by the prophets.16 Earlier scholarship is noteworthy for its resistance to applying the concept of “magic” to anything that was deemed to be a “genuine” act of blessing.17 This rejection of magic is, however, based on an outdated dichotomy between magic and religion, where one was seen as more developed (religion) than the other (magic), one as representing “our” religion, and the other “their” magic.18

15 Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 13. This is also noted by Jeff S. Anderson, “Curses and Blessings: Social Control and Self Definition in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, vol. I, ed. Armin Lange et al., VTSup 140 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 47, who sees the magical properties and performative power as two alternatives: “(…) blessing and curses were potent, but not because of the magical power of words or the soul, but as performatives uttered in proper ritual contexts” (p. 59). I will question whether these two are exclusive alternatives, or rather work at different levels of analysis (one more profoundly cognitive, the other sociolinguistic; both of them having to do with ritual context). Jesper Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic (Lanham: Altamira, 2007), 22–23, objects to any theories that distinguish between causal thinking and performative thinking as two opposite modes. Thus to ask whether ritual blessing is perceived as truly effecting a change or merely expressing or persuading a change may not be helpful. 16 Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 9, referring to J. Hempel’s theory from the 1960s. 17 E.g., Josef Scharbert, “BRK,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol II: bdl–gālāh, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 286, 293, 303. See also Aitken, The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing, 11, on Gerhard von Rad and the view that the idea of blessing poured out like fluid is pre-Israelite. Often patriarchal blessings that transferred the power and inheritance to the next generation were referred to as having an old magical basis. 18 For a critique of the use of magic as a pejorative term, see, for example, Ilkka Pyysiäinen, Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist's Perspective (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2004) and István Czachesz, “Explaining Magic: Earliest Christianity as a Test Case,” in Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography, ed. Luther H. Martin and Jesper Sørensen, Religion, Cognition and Culture (London: Equinox, 2011), 141–165, esp. 142–143. However, Pyysiäinen does not suggest



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Therefore, it is time to revisit magic from a cognitive perspective and see what implications this has on studying blessing.19

3 Blessing is Action: Cognitive Perspectives Cognition is not only about processing information but also entails predictions. Jesper Sørensen’s cognitive theory of magic starts with a discussion of the existence of distinct ontological domains in the human mind (physical, biological, psychological) – that are innate or develop normally in early childhood – from which we make assumptions and/or generate expectations of our environment. Physical objects do not have any innate kinetic energy in them, and their movements are usually explained by mechanical causality (billiard ball moving another ball). In the biological domain, actions are explained by teleological or instrumental causality: an agent with a goal exerts force on an object. People, of course, may mistakenly identify any moving thing as an animate agent. It is important, however, to distinguish between a thing that is moved and an animate thing that moves itself. Further, humans more often ascribe an essence to things in the biological domain than in the physical domain: changes in the outward properties of creatures do not necessarily mean similar change in their essence. In the psychological domain, humans have representations of other minds (theory of mind), and a tendency to ascribe causal-intentionality to explain actions (belief-desire reasoning).20

getting rid of the distinction between “magic” and “religion” but re-using it. In magical thinking, counterintuitive agents are thought to act upon the world, whereas in religious thinking, humans are thought to act upon the supernatural world. Magic needs religion, a symbolic meaning system to explain ineffective ritual or to prescribe rituals that will be performed despite the impossibility of verifying them. “Magic has the potential to provide individual motivation, while religion provides a context of meaning and helps to avert failures in the practice of magic” (p. 111). 19 Florentino García Martínez, “Magic in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Qumranica Minora II: Thematic Studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, STDJ 64 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 107–130, notes that the magic represented in the Qumran texts “is not magic of the marketplace and cannot be dismissed as an accidental expression of popular religion” (p. 110). The magic in the scrolls is learned magic, and expresses the elaborate worldview of the authors. García Martínez categorizes magic in the scrolls in two groups: texts that refer to magical practices or divination and texts that can be considered to function themselves in magical practices, such as incantations, exorcism, and apotropaic prayers. Here, a cognitive perspective on magic potentially brings forward a much broader understanding of magic than the one employed by García Martínez. 20 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 32–38. At the same time, the human mind has domain-general properties that enable flexibility and similar representational formats across distinct domains, see pp. 38–43.

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Magical thinking is based on the blending and mixing of basic ontological categories in ways not expected in everyday life. In common experience, the essence of a thing does not change from one category to another, nor is the relation between things changed except through physical laws of causality. In magical thinking both are possible. Human categorization involves both iconicity (identity on the basis of outward perceptual similarity) and indexicality (identity on the basis of assumed intrinsic properties revealed by outward signs), and these mechanisms play a role in the ways the human mind connects the “sacred” domain (with non-intuitive properties) with the “profane” domain (with intuitive properties).21 The sacred domain is associated with the profane domain by employing ideas of their outward similarity (iconicity) or of their “inner” similarity (indexicality; e.g., transferring sacred power by contagion). “Similarity and contagion enable representations of ‘causal’ connection between two otherwise distinct domains of reality.”22 Sørensen distinguishes two ideal types of magic: 1) manipulative magical action, in which the state of affairs inside one domain is changed by manipulating elements in another domain; the relation between elements is changed (e.g., a voodoo doll has a special relation to the person harmed, exorcism, evil eye), and 2) transformative magical action, in which essential qualities from one domain are transferred to another domain (e.g., ingestion of the body of Christ during the Eucharist; an amulet transfers properties to its carrier).23 Magical actions thus involve such theories of why and how the magic works.24 István Czachesz objects to Sørensen’s ideal types and argues that such analogical reasoning of how distinct domains are linked in magical action often occurs only retrospectively and not as an underlying mechanism of magical action. He defines magic in etic terms as something that can (normally) be falsified through modern scientific methods: it is “illusory manipulation of visible or invisible realities” which can be shown to be based on false causal connections. The magical effects to be studied have implications in the natural world, not (only) in the heavenly or spiritual reality (such as salvation, removal of sins, spiritual healing).25 Furthermore, in his view, magic does not necessarily involve supernatural agents: for example, healing can be ascribed to human or natural

21 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 43–44, 63–64. 22 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 4–5. 23 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 95–139. 24 István Czachesz, “A Cognitive Perspective on Magic in the New Testament,” in Mind, Morality, and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. István Czachesz and Risto Uro (Durham: Acumen, 2013), 166. 25 Czachesz, “Explaining Magic,” 141–165, 147; idem, “A Cognitive Perspective on Magic,” 164– 179.



Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case 

 35

agency but yet be proven illusory. Nevertheless, supernatural agents were seen to be all-present in the ancient world, so the worldview itself could be labelled as “magical” but such an etic label does not help in the analytical work on magic, that is, in the attempt to identify certain kinds of cause-effect relationships.26 In the following analysis, therefore, the investigation includes asking to what extent the act of blessing in general may have included the blending of domains, if something sacred is transferred or a domain is manipulated to change another, and what the effects are, and where in particular this blending takes place in ritual actions that are ascribed supernatural agency. In general, Czachesz’s understanding of the necessary cognitive ingredients in magical thinking aligns with Sørensen’s: magic relies on superstitious conditioning and on innate intuitions about agency and contagion.27 The role of superstitious conditioning can be especially helpful: as demonstrated in many experiments, people easily create beliefs that their behavior has a correlation with some stimulus, even though the stimulus may occur quite randomly or at regular intervals.28 It is to be noted that ritual settings are learning environments for such conditioning since links may be actively implied or even taught there: raising hands makes the blessing more effective, or receiving the blessing at a correct time is believed to be better than at another time.29 Ritual actions are characterized by following mysterious, not everyday rules; as being rigid; as taking place at a specific time, place, and in a prescribed manner; and as being non-intentional in the sense that the sub-actions cannot be changed or modified in order to reach the desired goal.30 Rituals differ from ordinary actions in that they are removed from the ordinary instrumental domain (goal-demotion): regarding a blessing, a person is not made prosperous in the normal manner by giving him gifts, training his skills, or curing him, but by some other invisible and mysterious means. Cognitively, thus, belief in the efficacy of the ritual action depends on many human

26 Czachesz, “Explaining Magic,” 146. Thus, for example, baptism could be seen both as nonmagic (the effect is forgiveness which is not verifiable or falsifiable) or magic (the effect is, e.g., protection from disease). 27 Czachesz, “Explaining Magic,” 151–55; idem, “A Cognitive Perspective on Magic,” 171–174, also takes note of the role of miracle stories in early Christianity: miracle stories spread successfully because of their counterintuitive properties, and their success again provides schemas for interpreting new events. 28 Czachesz, “A Cognitive Perspective on Magic,” 166–167. 29 Not all blessings are necessarily embedded in ritual settings; yet the purpose is here to investigate what happens when they are. 30 This understanding relies heavily on Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 110 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

36 

 Jutta Jokiranta

cognitive capacities, such as tendency to the overestimation of causality (“better safe than sorry”) and the search for agency. We may initially ask when a blessing might occur as an action where sacred properties are blended with the mundane. The practice of wearing amulets, like the famous Ketef Hinnom priestly blessing on silver plates, or tefillin, implies the idea that the inscribed words mediate the transference of sacred, protective power to its carrier; such instruments enable human intuitions of contagion, that is, belief that positive (or negative) qualities can be transferred through contact.31 Also, the laying on of hands in blessing (Gen 48:17; Lev 9:22) is an intuitive bodily gesture in terms of mediation. However, when God is blessed, the transformative logic does not seem to work, at least not theologically. In biblically oriented traditions, humans cannot transfer any sacred power to God. Yet blessing God can be understood as creating a “channel” to the sacred domain that enables a change in the cosmic world and its order. In apotropaic hymns, the praising of God is even explicitly said to frighten evil spirits: And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendor so as to frighten and to te[rrify] all the spirits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons (…) (4Q510 1 4–5).32 Moreover, when a congregation is imitating heavenly worship, as in Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400–407), the similarity of the earthly domain to the sacred domain triggers in the minds of the worshippers the idea of a manipulative relationship between the domains: by imitating the angelic life, humans may change the relations between the otherwise distinct domains. Rituals as actions are “performed in order to change some part of the world, and as such they involve exertion of force.”33 Ritual actions are actions in the sense that they include representations of agency (someone/something doing

31 See Gabriel Barkay et al., “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation,” BASOR 334 (2004): 41–71. Tefillin do not contain direct blessings, but Yehudah B. Cohn, Tangled up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World, Brown Judaic Studies 351 (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2008), argues that they functioned as long-life amulets on the basis of the promise in Deut 11:21. 32 The verb brk is not used in this sentence but is found [reconstructed] in 4Q510 1 1 in titular usage: “[…] praises. Ble[ssings to the K]ing of Glory. Words of thanksgiving in psalms of […] to the God of knowledge” as well as in 4Q511 (e.g., 1 3–5). Translations follow, with possible minor modifications, Emanuel Tov, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library: Texts and Images (Partially based on The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, ed. Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, morphological analysis by Martin Abegg, Jr., produced by Noel B. Reynolds, associate producer Kristian Heal [Leiden: Brill], 2006). 33 Jesper Sørensen, “Charisma, Tradition, and Ritual: A Cognitive Approach to Magical Agency,” in Mind and Religion: Psychological and Cognitive Foundations of Religiosity, ed. Harvey Whitehouse and Robert N. McCauley (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2005), 173. This definition may



Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case 

 37

something), often of instruments (by which something is done) and patients (on or to whom something is done), and purposeful movements. Agency involves the representation of force, and some aspects of rituals are special – they belong to the sacred domain, special agency. Utilizing Thomas Lawson’s and Robert McCauley’s ritual theory, Sørensen distinguishes between agent-based, actionbased, and object-based (instrument-based) magical agency in rituals according to where the emphasis of divine presence and sacred sphere is placed.34 I will use this framework to analyze agency in variations of blessing in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

4 The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Case Study: Magical Action and Special Agency The well-known priestly blessing in Numbers 6:22–27 is brief and somewhat loose from its context: it comes after the Nazirite law (Num 6:1–21) and before the consecration of the tabernacle and its altar (Num 7–8). In that textual setting, it underlines the priestly hierarchy over the Israelites, as priests have an important role both in Nazirite rituals and in the tabernacle.35 But it tells little about the underlying cognitive mechanism on which such ritual action would have relied. In comparison, the priestly blessing in the covenant ceremony in the Qumran Community Rule (1QS 1–3) is more elaborate as will be seen below. In the covenant entry setting, it is marking boundaries of who is in and who is out: the lot of God is blessed and the lot of Belial is cursed. As suggested by Jeff Anderson, blessings and curses also have other social functions: they function as a means of expressing power in a situation where the persons most likely lacked power and as a means of social control in a social movement where commitment is important.36 But what happened to a person who was blessed? Were the blessings perceived as having magical force in the covenant ritual or elsewhere?37 Where might the special agency lie in the case of blessings?

also embrace rituals that are meant to preserve order, to prevent the world from changing: rituals can exert force that cancels the otherwise expected change. 34 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 64–74. 35 The priestly privilege is probably late in biblical texts. In Deut 27:12–13, the task of blessing belongs to all the tribes, Keller and Wehmeier, “Brk pi. to bless,” 270–280. 36 Anderson, “Curses and Blessings,” 52–54. The covenant ritual combines the priestly blessing (Num 6) with the covenant blessings and curses (Deut 28), as already in Joshua (8:33‒34). 37 That the entry into the covenant was perceived to have efficacious elements is clearest in the Damascus Document. According to CD 16:4–5, on the day the member entering the covenant

38 

 Jutta Jokiranta

4.1 Agent-based Agency Priests, divinely distinguished personnel, who bless a person once a year can be intuitively ascribed more efficacy than when a person who blesses him/herself daily, provided that one grows up seeing the priestly class as having special privileges in society and comes to believe that they are selected by God for their task. This seems to be a prerequisite in the covenant renewal text of 1QS 1–3: While the initiates are being inducted into the Covenant, the priests and the Levites shall continuously bless the God of deliverance and all His veritable deeds. All the initiates into the Covenant shall continuously respond “Amen, amen.” (1QS 1:18–20) Then the priests are to bless all those foreordained to God, who walk faultless in all of His ways, saying “May He bless you with every good thing and preserve you from every evil. May He enlighten your mind with wisdom for living, be gracious to you with the knowledge of eternal things, and lift up His gracious countenance upon you for everlasting peace.” (1QS 2:1–4)

The sacred priestly lineage created a link to the sacred domain.38 The priests in 1QS are higher in hierarchy than the Levites who pronounce the curses (cf. 1QS 2:19–22). Even though in reality their lineage is a construction, such as the sons of Zadok title elsewhere may suggest,39 the title of priest is an index pointing towards the mythic past. It is also noteworthy that the blessing is pronounced collectively by the priests. One could argue that if people were categorized according to their

gives the oath, the angel Mastema will leave him; covenant commitment was tied to the cosmic sphere. In the case of the covenant ritual in 1QS, there are many other actions involved: recounting God’s deeds, praising God, confession of sins, blessing and cursing, entering in hierarchical order, and purification by water. Magical agency could be believed to lie in any of these, or in a combination of these. 38 There is a considerable amount of attention on the priestly interest in the scrolls. For the “priestly magnetism” during this period, see Joseph L. Angel, “The Traditional Roots of Priestly Messianism at Qumran,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls at 60: Scholarly Contributions of New York University Faculty and Alumni, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and Shani Tzoref, STDJ 89 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 27–54. That the priestly lineage, however, was not the reason for the emergence of the movement is argued now, e.g., by John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 46–48. According to the Temple Scroll (11Q19 60:9–11), it was a priestly duty to bless. 39 Charlotte Hempel, “The Sons of Aaron in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez, ed. Anthony Hilhorst et al., JSJSup 122 (Leiden Brill, 2007), 207–224, provides a study of priestly terminology in S: “Aaronite/sons of Aaron” was both a generic, traditional name for the priestly class and a community-specific term for priestly leaders, along with the (probably later) “Zadokite/sons of Zadok.”



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 39

(assumed) tribal past, “priestly” entrants into the covenant may have claimed a right to join in pronouncing these blessings. It is more likely, however, that the priests represent a leadership class here. In any case, it is not one individual, a high priest, but a class of priests that is relied on. In comparison, a different agency is present in the Rule of the Blessing 1QSb, where several blessings are inscribed to the maskil, the wisdom teacher or wise one.40 He is to bless several groups of people: those who fear God; the sons of Zadok, the priests; and the prince of the congregation. The one pronouncing the blessings is not, at least explicitly, a priest. Instead, the priests are themselves being blessed. Words of blessi[ng] belonging to the maskil, by which to bless those who fear [God, those who do] His will and keep His commandments, (…) “May the L[ord] bless you [from His holy habitation …]” (1QSb 1:1,3) Words of blessing belonging to the mas[kil, by which to bless] the Sons of Zadok, the priests, chosen by God to uphold His covenant for[ever, …] “May the Lord bless you from His [ho]ly [habitation]! May he set you, perfected in honor, in the midst of the Holy Ones; [may He re]new for you the [eternal] covenant of the priesthood. May He make a place for you in the holy [habitation.] May He ju[dge a]ll princes by the measure of your works, all [leaders] of the nations by what you say. May He make the firstfruits of [every pleas]ing thing your inheritance; may He bless all mortal counsel by your hand!” (1QSb 3:22–23, 28)

Yet there is a clear priestly hegemony in that the priests come before the prince. The priests are blessed but they are also said to be mediators of blessing to others. Different actors are also present in the War Scroll. In 1QM 13, the ones pronouncing blessings (to God and those who serve him) are “(…) his brothers the [pr]iests, the Levites, and all the elders of the serekh with him” (1QM 13:1). The wartime blessings and curses and other ritual activities are orderly, led by high cultic and military personnel together. These variations show that there are other alternatives to priests as agents of blessing. Could the agency also be in those who receive the blessing?41 The recipients in 1QS are characterized as the “lot of God” – they are already chosen by divine

40 See Robert Hawley, “On Maskil in the Judean Desert Texts,” Hen 28 (2006): 43–77, for a suggestion that the title is used in the sense of a section marker “for instruction,” rather than an office title (thus, the beginning could be translated as “words of blessing, for instruction, to bless […]”). Nevertheless, someone is expected to pronounce these blessings upon groups of people. 41 Although Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 75, identifies agent, action, and object as the most important agencies where blending takes place, he also notes that time, location, and participants can be connected to sacred space.

40 

 Jutta Jokiranta

will and knowledge and thus the blessing is efficacious because the recipients have a correct relationship to God. However, cursed is also the person who enters the covenant “with idols in his heart” and blesses himself (hitp. brk), saying “Peace be with me, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart” (1QS 2:11‒12, cf. Deut 29:18–19). Even though being a recipient of the priestly blessing, his inner being has not changed; the power of the blessing turns to a curse for those whose heart does not enter the covenant with their body and whose inner behavior does not correspond to their outer behavior.42

4.2 Action-based Agency If magical agency occurs through the act, it would not matter who performs the action on whom; the action must only be correctly performed. Aitken notes that the archaic language that is used in many rituals evokes beliefs in the effectiveness of the ritual. Similarly, Sørensen explains that ritual effectiveness is often seen to lie in nonsense words or rigid forms of liturgies.43 However, the Aaronic blessing, while referring to a well-known archaic model, is not rigid and without variation in the Scrolls. The contents of the Aaronic blessing are noteworthy in 1QS 2:1–4. They are pronouncedly immaterial: wisdom, knowledge of eternal things, everlasting peace:

42 In the two-spirit discourse section of 1QS (3:13–4:26), the lots are described differently: each person has a part both in the spirit of truth and spirit of falsehood, which are like essences in a person and produce their fruit accordingly. If these spirits are predetermined, the question of what difference any petition or blessing can make arises. The texts do not state this directly. From a ritual perspective, it is conceivable that specific ritual practices arose in order to mitigate this anxiety or affirm that participants who follow the ritual fully and correctly are among the right lot. The problem reminds one of the challenge in apotropaic intercession: it requires persuading the audience that divine beings are still supposed to be in charge but yet danger can be averted, see Marian W. Broida, Forestalling Doom: “Apotropaic Intercession” in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, AOAT 417 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2014). Daniel C. Timmer, “Sectarianism and Soteriology: The Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6,24–26) in the Qumranite Community Rule (1QS),” Bib 89 (2008): 389–396, argues that in 1QS the election for God’s lot replaces the covenant fidelity as means of obtaining blessings. However, he ignores the ambiguity in the matter: those entering the covenant among God’s lot might also be cursed if they do not show covenant fidelity. 43 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 4.



Towards a Cognitive Theory of Blessing: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Test Case 

Numbers 6:24–2644

‫ָיְב ֶר ְכָך יְ הוָ ה וְ יִ ְׁש ְמ ֶרָך‬ ָ‫יחּנֶ ּך‬ ֻ ִ‫יָ ֵאר יְ הוָ ה ָּפנָ יו ֵא ֶליָך ו‬

‫יִ ָּׂשא יְ הוָ ה ָּפנָ יו ֵא ֶליָך וְ יָ ֵׂשם ְלָך ָׁשלֹום‬ 1QS 2:2‒445

‫יברככה בכול טוב וישמורכה מכול רע‬ ‫ויאר לבכה בשכל חיים ויחונכה בדעת עולמים‬ ‫וישא פני חסדיו לכה לשלום עולמים‬

 41

May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. May He bless you with every good thing and keep you from every evil. May He enlighten your mind with wisdom for living, and be gracious to you with the knowledge of eternal things. May he lift up His gracious countenance upon you for everlasting peace.

    These additions to the priestly blessings are significant: the traditional words carry a special character in terms of the Aaronic blessing but, at the same time, these blessings could be seen to be fulfilled in the movement where one was to study and learn. What supports the belief in the efficacy of this blessing is confirmation bias: the tendency to seek evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis and to ignore other information.46 So even if the blessed one were to face misfortunes, one would seek confirmation in what the blessing as a knowing one with an enlightened heart meant, rather than what would speak against it.47 In contrast, very different contents of the blessing are found in 11QSefer ha-Milḥamah. “Blessed be you (referring to Israel) in the name of God Most High”

44 See Timmer, “Sectarianism and Soteriology,” 390, for the three bipartite blessings. 45 For the scriptural phraseology in the additions to the priestly blessing, see George J. Brooke, “Reading, Searching and Blessing: A Functional Approach to Scriptural Interpretation in the ‫יחד‬,” in The Temple in Text and Tradition: A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward, ed. R. Timothy McLay, LSTS 83 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 140–156, esp. 151–152. 46 Czachesz, “A Cognitive Perspective on Magic,” 170–171. 47 Furthermore, metaphors have been suggested to be important in making ritual language effective in tying together two distinct domains; see Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 21–22. The blessing itself is filled with metaphors: Herbert Chanan Brichto, “Priestly Blessing,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 16, 2nd ed., ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), 510–511, suggests that the primary model in the “shining” of the face is that of a court when the king grants an audience to the subject and thus will see the face of the king. The “lifting up the face” may have to do with facial expressions: it is the opposite of putting the face down, i.e., frowning. For light as a metaphor of the law in the Qumranic blessing, see Brooke, “Reading, Searching and Blessing,” 152.

42 

 Jutta Jokiranta

(11Q14 1ii:3–4) seems to rely on the rare epithet of God, God’s special name.48 But now the blessings are mostly earthly, referring to agricultural prosperity, good health, and safety from wild beasts, as in this passage: “God Most High will bless you and shine his face upon you (…) to give you frui[t], produce, grain, wine and oil in abundance; and the land will produce for you [d]elightful fruit so that you will eat and grow fat. vacat And none will miscarry in your land, and none be sick, no blight and mildew will be seen in its grain (…)” (11Q14 1ii 7–12). Such misfortunes would be much harder to explain away. In comparison, the blessings in 1QSb are very elaborate. Some Aaronic overtones are heard but not very explicitly. Locations, places, and movement seem now more pronounced: God blesses from his holy habitation, he opens the heavens, he sets the blessed ones in the midst of holy ones, and he lifts up the blessed prince. There are some sections with repetition that suggest special force for the words. For example the word ‫“ יחונכה‬may he grace you” is repeated in almost every line in 1QSb 2:22–28. This redundancy removes the symbolic, referential interpretations of the word, and instead strengthens its efficacious character.49 Furthermore, a peculiar blessing is found in Damascus Document (4QDa), whereby a rebellious member of the Qumran movement is expelled by pronouncing a praise-blessing to God: Being in rebellion let him be expelled from the presence of the Many. The priest appointed [ov]er the Many shall declare, saying: Blessed are you, Almighty (God) (‫) ֯ברוכ̇‏ את אונ הו הכול‬,50 in your

48 This form of the name, El Elyon, is found in the Hebrew Bible only in the blessing of Abraham by Melchizedek in Gen 14, but is frequent in Jubilees and in Genesis Apocryphon, and also found in 1QHa (e.g., 12:31). The name too is a means/instrument of blessing here; see below on objectbased agency. 49 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 23,87–90. Many other examples are found, most prominent among the Dead Sea Scrolls perhaps being the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The lengths of the songs are without any proportion to the information transmitted, and the repetitive, highly formulaic, and redundant language encourages focusing on the saying, rather than on what is said. Each song is dated to a specific Sabbath (13 songs). It is thus the time, the place, and the words that here possess special character. Cf. also the sixfold repetition in Deut 28:3–6 that according to Keller and Wehmeier, “Brk pi. to bless,” 269, “clearly indicates the character of the effectual, energizing word.” Cf. the statement by Broida, Forestalling Doom, 25, that “words operate more or less as things.” Blessings are something that attach themselves or move into a person. In thinking about an abstract concept such as blessing, the human mind may easily create representations of an essence that flows into one’s body, or of peaceful, protective space around oneself. 50 However, there are problems in readings here. The second scribal hand is probably responsible not only for the interlinear additions but also for the word ‫“ אונ‬strength” (note the medial nun in-



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 43

hand is everything, and who makes everything. You established [pe]oples in accordance with their families and tongues for their nations, but made them go astray in a trackless void. But our ancestors you did choose and to their descendants you gave your truthful statutes and your holy laws, which if a man does them, he shall live. You have set boundaries for us and cursed those who transgress them, for we are the people of your redemption and the sheep of your pasture. You cursed their transgressors but preserved us. (Thereupon) the one being expelled shall depart. (4Q266 11:7–14)

By praising God who has set this order, established clear boundaries and cursed transgressors, the speaker is transferring all responsibility to God, and moving the member from an insider-membership status to that of an outsider.51 In the actual ritual, participants may also have cursed the apostates (4Q266 11:17–18), but in this textual representation, the expulsion takes place by praising. This may be symptomatic of the role praise-blessings take in this period, and the uses of blessings for warding off evil.

4.3 Object-based Agency The Scrolls give us hardly any explicit evidence of items or instruments used in rituals that would have been thought to carry special properties. As seen above, in some settings words could have been perceived as things that mediate the force needed for the desired result. This was reinforced by the belief that God created these words and opened a fountain for praise, as found in 1QHodayot and 4QInstruction: vacat You created breath for the tongue, and You know its words. You determined the fruit of the lips before they came about (…), so that all who know You might bless You according to their insight forever [and ever.] vacat (1QHa 9:27–31) (…) [for the utterance of] your lips He has opened up a spring so that you may bless the Holy Ones, and (so that) as (with) an everlasting fountain you may praise His n[ame. (4Q418 81+81a 1)

stead of final nun). This would be a peculiar name for God. Also, in the new digital image (Leon Levi Digital Dead Sea Scrolls, Plate 706, frg 1, B-370995, http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il), the interlinear reading does not look like ‫רוכ את‬ ‫ ֯ב ̇‏‬, as read by Joseph M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–4Q273), DJD 18 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), but the first word is rather ‫ ֯כרוב‬or ‫ ֯ברוב‬and the second seems to have had a lamed that was erased. Isaiah 40:26 might suggest an original reading as something like ‫(“ רוב אונים‬God is) great in strength.” Even if the blessing formula is not in the text, the passage still contains praise and direct address of God. 51 In terms of a speech-act, this is an indirect act, since it does something other than the speech itself implies.

44 

 Jutta Jokiranta

Yet, there is one potentially significant medium present in the 1QS ritual setting: water. What is at play here is the belief system that demanded purification from impurities but, at the same time, presented a claim that not all purification was effective (1QS 3:4–6). Furthermore, there is evidence of blessings in purification rituals. In 4QRitual of Purification A, a person may even utter the blessings while in the water and praise God who has himself uttered words that distinguish the pure person from an impure person.52 And afterwards he will enter the water[ and wash his body and bless.] He will recite and say: Blessed are y[ou, God of Israel, ] by what comes of Your lips [the purification of all (people) has been required. To be separated(?) from all] impure people according to their g[uilt, they could not be purified in water of purification     ]. (4Q414 2ii+3,4 5–8)

From the viewpoint of an outside observer, the event of pronouncing praiseblessings in connection with the water and appealing to prior divine utterings for the effectiveness of the purification could encourage an interpretation where the blessings were affecting the water to make it produce the desired purification. We can only speculate whether or not this was believed to take place during the ritual. Concepts that are based on intuitive magical thinking may also “feel right,” are cognitively easy to transmit forward and are intuitively satisfying – “blessed water” could be one such concept. 4QRitual of Purification A only gives hints towards this direction but is nevertheless a significant testimony of connecting praise-blessings with water purification. Another aspect to pay attention to is the blending that occurs in connecting the concept of purity with the concept of blessing. Human conceptualization is constrained by its ability to form mental images only at a medium level: one can form a mental image of a “cup” (on the basis of experience of individual and different cups) but one cannot form a mental image of “tableware” without a collection of individual pieces of cups and plates.53 In the same way, to imagine the concept of “blessing” one must imagine it as being constituted of some sort of life-giving essence or its effects as being constituted of several things (such as health, long life, protective essence). “Praise-blessing”, for its part, is constituted of verbal acts of acknowledgement. Blending together the concept of purity with the concept

52 The text is fragmentary, and it is also possible that the blessings were pronounced after the immersion. In 4Q512 29–32 4–5, the association between the water and the blessing is made on the basis of the words “[in] water” in line 4 and “he blesses there” in line 5. Cf. also 4Q512 33+35 5–6. The connection with water is also clear in the metaphor of a spring within a person that pronounces blessings; see above 4Q418 81+81a 1. 53 Sørensen, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, 39–40.



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 45

of blessing adds another mental image with which to understand the phenomenon of blessing: that of being pure and clean. The passage above does not directly connect the purified person to being blessed, but the inference is not far, as the person who blesses God is purified whereas the outsider who does not bless is not.

5 Implications and Conclusions Blessing as communication and blessing as (ritual) action are rich areas of study that cannot be fully explored in the scope of one article. What I aimed to do here was to pay attention to the various levels of analysis and outline what a cognitive perspective on blessing has to offer. Even in the study of textual sources, scholars may focus on different questions, such as varying blessing formulations (words), the performative tasks the blessings fulfill (speech acts), or the ways in which blessings are spoken of (tradition), noting, however, that these are written representations and snapshots of a much wider oral world. Semantically, the Hebrew root brk is used in many ways, and a single translation “to bless” does not work in all situations, but neither does a strict division between “blessing” and “praising.” Studying blessings not merely as communication but also as behavior is much more difficult from literary sources, but at least some of the belief structures and conceptual alternatives can be inferred from the texts that envision a ritual setting. The aim of introducing some new cognitive perspectives was to ask fresh questions of the available data and to facilitate comparative work. The cognitive model presented in this article offers at least some correctives to the scholarly embarrassment and the tendency to marginalize magical efficacy in connection with blessing. Whereas the earlier scholarship associated magical beliefs in blessings to primitive religion, later scholars have turned to speech-act theory to show that words do carry power when applied according to agreed conventions. But this level of analysis alone is not sufficient, since, especially in a ritual setting, the human mind is directed toward searching for magical agency and seeing ordinary actions as producing unordinary effects. Rituals are learning environments for superstitious conditioning whereby certain behavior is ascribed a causal connection to some stimulus. Therefore, it was asked how blessings might have been seen in such a ritual framework and where the magical agency could be located. In Jesper Sørensen’s cognitive theory of magic, the most efficacious ritual would be the one in which a shaman (agent) uses magic tools (object) to perform a strictly prescribed set of actions (action). The theory suggests that magical agencies are often combined, but analytically, these can be separated and investigated

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as to whether the ritual setting may encourage one type of agency over another. One central textual representation of a ritual in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the covenant renewal ritual in the Qumran Community Rule (1QS) and especially its priestly blessing, was thus analyzed and compared to other texts with blessing activities. In the covenant ritual, the agency was most probably meant to be a combination of different special characteristics that blended the ordinary domain with the sacred. (1) It was agent-based to the extent that only divinely chosen priests could perform the blessing, but the magical agency also lay in the timing of the ritual and in the participants and their ability to participate in the ritual event wholeheartedly, follow the desired order in the covenant movement, and thus receive the blessing for the lot of God. Some other blessings in other texts were clearly not so priestly-centered. (2) The covenant ritual was also action-based to the extent that the words and actions recalled past mythic events, but were also sufficiently flexible to allow adding elements in significant ways. The ancient priestly blessing was seen to extend from the distant past to the present elect ones so that they, despite possible marginalization and distress, were blessing God for his good gifts, which now often were identified as intellectual and immaterial gifts. Some other blessings relied much more on repetitive language and references to otherworldly beings in order to create a special aura for the action. (3) The covenant ritual was also object-based to the extent that purification by water was given special significance or functioned as a locus for receiving efficacious purification as a result of following the correct divine order and blessing God. A perception of contagion is easily triggered in relation to a medium like water. In the course of the analysis, I have hopefully shown how this analytical tool might be used to illuminate differences and similarities in texts. The priestly blessing is actually quite rare. Instead, there is a general growth of praise-blessings in the Second Temple literature to the extent that humans are seen to have been created for the purpose of praising (Festival prayers 1Q34+34bis 3i 6‒7).54 In 1QS 10:10–16, the first person speaker recounts how blessing and praising God characterize every action he takes. Evidently, there are more texts about pronouncing a curse than a blessing (benediction) on humans, so that even in texts where you would expect benedictions as a counterpart to cursing, the only preserved instances of brk may be about praising God (such as 4QBerakhot).55

54 See further Jeremy Penner, Patterns of Daily Prayer in Second Temple Period Judaism, STDJ 104 (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Mika S. Pajunen, “The Praise of God and His Name as the Core of the Second Temple Liturgy,” ZAW 127 (2015): 475–488. 55 Mika S. Pajunen, “Creation as the Liturgical Nexus of the Blessings and Curses in 4QBerakhot,” in Ancient Readers and their Scriptures: Reading the Hebrew Bible and its Versions in Jewish



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If blessing action in general is more frequently about humans praising God than humans pronouncing blessings on humans, the question arises as to whether such praise-blessings are ascribed magical or causal efficacy. We may return to the Damascus Document (4Q266): should we conclude that the reason for “expelling a member by blessing/praising God” is that that the praising of God increased to the extent that it replaced the “magical” blessings and curses? This example suggests that praise-blessings were not only symbolic action transmitting information about divine properties or sacred traditions but could have been perceived as action through which one gained the things for which one praised God. The blessing action in the form of praising God was the “new magical skill” ascribing authority to its speaker.56 We might expect that the more such blessings adopted formality, fixity, and rules as is characteristic of ritual actions, the more these rituals were believed to be efficacious. According to Sørensen, however, there is always a tendency to diminish the efficacy of beliefs, too. There is a universal tension between the intuitive tendency to ascribe ritual efficacy to special aspects of rituals and the tendency to diminish that efficacy and ascribe symbolic meanings to rituals, which often demands reflective thinking. Thus, this tension may also be evinced in the Scrolls: some blessings could have been more receptive to ascriptions of efficacy (blessings tied to infrequent rituals; blessings connected to expected change; repetitive, structured, or carefully timed blessings), and others to reflective symbolic thinking (blessings with little ritual context; blessings that carried information rather than affected a change). Blessings were part of the rich corpus of material for studying and learning what was valued in this movement, but hardly would have survived and flourished without any magical beliefs attached to them.

and Christian Antiquity, ed. Garrick Allen and John Dunne (forthcoming), argues that the blessings in 4QBerakhot correspond to the created world order of the creation story – thus again, creation was created to bless, and the curses are a response to those parts of creation that do not participate in the praising. 56 Furthermore, the general increase of the second person personal address to praise God, instead of the third person form, reflects the tendency to personalize prayer; Chazon, “Looking Back,” 155–171.

Rodney A. Werline

The Imprecatory Features of Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12 The authors that produced the Psalms of Solomon and their audience had enemies and opponents. One enemy they shared with nearly all in Judea – the Romans. Pompey’s armies captured Jerusalem in 63 BCE during a moment of contention between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II about who should assume leadership in Jerusalem. When Aristobulus disobeyed Pompey’s directions and marched back to Jerusalem, the Roman general understood this as defiance and pursued him and attacked the city.1 The Psalms of Solomon refer to these events in psalms 1; 2; 8; and 17, the psalms (along with psalm 7) that George Nickelsburg labels “psalms of the nation.”2 The psalms, however, undoubtedly passed through later editing before they reached their current form. The final form of psalm 2 arose sometime after Pompey’s death, as the author generally knows features of the general’s death at Pharsalus in Egypt in 48 BCE (Pss. Sol. 2:25–30). Aspects of psalm 17 suggest that psalm went through a second editorial process sometime after Herod the Great came to power in 37 BCE. Herod seems to be especially in view in Psalms of Solomon 17:7b: “[F]or there rose up against us a man alien to our race.” Then, the psalm summarizes the Idumean’s systematic elimination of the Hasmonean line: “According to their actions, God showed no mercy to them; he hunted down their descendants, and did not let even one of them go” (17:9).3 As Kenneth Atkinson has explained, the poetic allusion to a famine in 17:18b–19 may refer to the famine that occurred during Herod’s assault on Jerusalem.4 Finally, the description of the invader’s stay in Jerusalem better suits Herod’s reign than Pompey’s brief stint in the city.5

1 For the account in Josephus, see Ant. 14.3–4; J.W. 1.6–7. 2 George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 238–244. 3 All English translations come from Robert B. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983–1985), 2:636–679. For the Greek text, see Alfred Rahlfs, ed. Septuaginta, id est Vetus Testamentum graeca iuxta LXX interpretes (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935/1979) as it appears in Bible Works 9, the electronic version copied into this essay. Translations of the Bible are from the NSRV and are also taken from Bible Works 9. 4 See Kenneth Atkinson, “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalms of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 443 n. 21. Cf. Josephus, J.W. 1.17–18; Ant. 14.16. 5 Cf. also, Rodney A. Werline, “The Psalms of Solomon and the Ideology of Rule,” in Conflicted DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-004



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Second, the adherents to the teachings of these psalms had enemies and rivals among their Jewish contemporaries. This group, though, displays no evidence that the people responsible for the production and preservation of the collection withdrew from Second Temple Jewish society. In earlier work, I have argued that the community’s problems arose in part because of the shift in power within Judean society that resulted from the beginning of Roman rule.6 Features of the Psalms of Solomon suggest that the authors were scribes, members of the retainer class. Scribes generally served a patron, and their fate was tied to the fate of that patron. In a shift of power like that at the beginning of the Roman era in Judea, these scribes’ patrons may have lost standing and, thus, power. The polemical language of psalms 2 and 8 hint that the group had engaged in some sort of halakhic disagreements with groups such as the Jerusalem priestly elite (2:3; 8:11–13). However, a determination of the exact features of the debate about contested practices becomes difficult because the language of psalm 2 is minimal and the complaints in psalm 8 contain typical polemical language that can be found in other Jewish texts from that era (cf, e.g., Jub. 1:12,14; 23:19,21; CD 5:6–8). Nevertheless, several verses reveal that the authors and their community suffered as a group (Pss. Sol. 4:9–13,20–22; 5:1–5; 17:5–7). Given their social struggles, the political shifts and uncertainties, and their use of polemical language related to halakhic disagreements, the appearance of curse petitions in the Psalms of Solomon is not surprising. Curse texts and practices appear throughout ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman culture.7 Anne Marie Kitz in her extensive analysis of curses in the ancient Near East observes the following: “Maledictions were ubiquitous in the ancient Near East. (…) [E]verything could be cursed, the deities, human beings, animals and things.”8 People in antiquity generally thought of curses as a method for coaxing the divine to intervene in human affairs, obviously for the good of the person casting the malediction and bad for the object of the imprecation. That language serves as the focus of this essay. This imprecatory language occurs especially in Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12. As this essay explains, the lan-

Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism, ed. Benjamin G. Wright III and Lawrence M. Wills, SBLSymS 35 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 70–71. 6 Werline, “The Psalms of Solomon and the Ideology of Rule,” 69–87. 7 For a sample of curses in Greco-Roman culture and extensive bibliographies, see John G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Hendrik S. Versnel, “Prayer and Curse,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek Religion, ed. Esther Eidinow and Julia Kindt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 447–461. 8 Anne Marie Kitz, Cursed are You!: The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014), 200.

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guage functions more broadly within the Deuteronomic ideology that permeates the collection. Further, the language draws on the biblical Psalms, and it also fits with the practice of contrasting the righteous and wicked that appears within many texts that draw on the “two way” theology. This language also appears in Psalms of Solomon 14, as the author compares the deeds of the righteous to the wicked in a manner that bears resemblance to biblical Psalm 1 and to the juxtaposition of the righteous to the wicked throughout Proverbs and Sirach. Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12 also contain blessings for the righteous. This feature somewhat aligns these texts with the blessing and curse features of the Deuteronomic covenant (Deut 28), as well as the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 12:1–3), traditions that appear in many Second Temple texts. Kitz explains that a close relationship exists between blessing and cursing, because the end result of a curse is a blessing for the one pronouncing the curse.9 However, this essay also intends to move the discussion of these psalms and the role of the curse petitions beyond genre analysis and history of ideas. The interpreter, at some point, must also ask how these maledictions fit within the lived experience of the petitioners and the community as a whole. After all, these imprecatory petitions belonged among the community’s embodied practices, and they were probably performed in gatherings or perhaps even in some worship services. As the community members pronounced the curses they understood them as enactments of piety and to be effective in some way.

1 Basic Curse Forms and the Curse Petitions in the Psalms of Solomon Actions that occur with frequency typically acquire basic structural forms of speech and action. Sheldon Blank, in his form critical assessment of curses in the Hebrew Bible, identified three basic linguistic forms of curses, the last of which displayed a historical development from the other two forms: 1) “the simple curse formula,” the structure of which is “a nominal sentence made up of (a) a ḳal passive participle of the verb ‫ ארר‬and (b) the subject of this passive participle”; 2) “the composite curse,” which “contains the curse formula continued with curses freely composed”;10 and 3) the curse which is “freely com-

9 Kitz, Cursed are You!, 4, 199. 10 Sheldon H. Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” HUCA 23 (1950–1951): 74–75.



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posed without the formula.”11 According to Blank, “[t]hese curses also are made up of one or more main clauses, each in itself a curse, and the main verb in each main clause is in the third person, the subject of each such verb being the person cursed.”12 As he explains, generally God is not directly addressed. Instead, “[t]he main verbs are modal imperfects.”13 This form occurs especially in the biblical Psalms, and Blank argues that the formal similarities between the classic and early curse form and the curse form that appears in many of the biblical psalms “shows that the freely composed curse had as its model the curse formula and developed from the formula by way of the transitional composite curse.”14 For Blank, once the “freely composed curse” departed from the standard curse form, it took on a life of its own. This history of the form of the curse is important for Blank because he can then track how imprecatory psalms in the Hebrew Bible developed.15 Kitz explains that curses, because they are forms of wishes, are always “future oriented”: “This means that curses are, at best, predictive. Grammatically then, the tense of verbs used in curses is modal future and the mood, ‘optative.’ The voice may be either active or passive.”16 In Hebrew, according to Kitz, “[t]he imperfect verb that characterizes curses in Hebrew is in reality an indirect imperative or the jussive in the third person (…) the passive participle may also be used.”17 The primary manuscripts for the Psalms of Solomon are in Greek.18 Syriac texts of the collection also survive.19 Scholars generally hold that the Greek represents a translation of a Hebrew Vorlage, so an analysis of the curse language must consider this and rely on comparisons with the LXX.20 As will be

11 Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” 80. 12 Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” 80. 13 Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” 80. 14 Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” 81. 15 Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” 81–82. 16 Kitz, Cursed are You!, 64. 17 Kitz, Cursed are You!, 65. A classic example for her appears in Neh 5:13. 18 While many errors crept into the constructed Greek text for the Pss. Sol. in Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts Series 1 (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), the introductory material remains quite valuable and provides extensive bibliographical material about studies on the manuscript tradition. See pp. 11– 28. See also, Robert B. Hahn, The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon, SBLSCS 13 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982). 19 See Joseph L. Trafton, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation, SBLSCS14 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985). 20 Recently, however, a few scholars have raised questions whether the text originally appeared

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examined below, Psalms of Solomon 4 most resembles Psalms 69 [68 LXX] and 109 [108 LXX].21 However, the LXX translates the jussive forms in the Hebrew text of these biblical psalms with third person imperatives, which are generally translated “Let …”: e.g., ‫ׁש ְכנָ ה‬ ֣ ַ ‫( ֶּת ְח‬Ps 69:24) / σκοτισθήτωσαν (Ps 68:24); ‫( ְּת ִהי‬Ps 69:26) / γενηθήτω (Ps 68:26); ‫( ִּת ְהֶי֥ה‬Ps 109:7) / γενέσθω (Ps 108:7);‫יִ ְֽהיֽ ּו‬ (Ps 109:8) / γενηθήτωσαν (Ps 108:8); ‫( יִ ְֽהיּו‬Ps 109:9) / γενηθήτωσαν (Ps 108:9); ‫( יָ נ֣ ּועּו‬Ps 109:10) / μεταναστήτωσαν (Ps 108:10); ‫( יְ נַ ֵ ּ֣קׁש‬Ps 109:11) / ἐξερευνησάτω (Ps 108:11); ‫( וְ יָ ֖בֹּזּו‬Ps 109:11) / διαρπασάτωσαν (Ps 108:11). Psalms of Solomon 4 primarily uses the optative for the curse formula and not third person imperatives, as one sometimes finds in the biblical imprecatory psalms. However, this verb form occurs in other imprecatory and blessing constructions. The optative occurs in LXX Psalm 11 [12] in a petition closely related to the content of Psalms of Solomon 12: ἐξολεθρεύσαι κύριος πάντα τὰ χείλη τὰ δόλια καὶ γλῶσσαν μεγαλορήμονα (Ps 11 [12]:4). The Aaronic Blessing provides a ready example of the use of the Greek optative for the Hebrew jussive in a blessing formula: ‫הו֖ה וְ יִ ְׁש ְמ ֶ ֽרָך׃‬ ָ ְ‫ָיְב ֶר ְכָך֥ י‬ ‫יח ֶּנ�ּֽךָ ׃‬ ֻ ‫הו֧ה׀ ָּפ ָנ֛יו ֵא ֶל֖יָך ִ ֽו‬ ָ ְ‫יָ ֵ֙אר י‬ ‫הו֤ה׀ ָּפנָ ֙יו ֵא ֔ ֶליָך וְ יָ ֵ ׂ֥שם ְלָך֖ ָׁש ֽלֹום׃‬ ָ ְ‫יִ ָ ּׂ֙שא י‬ εὐλογήσαι σε κύριος καὶ φυλάξαι σε, ἐπιφάναι κύριος τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ σὲ καὶ ἐλεήσαι σε, ἐπάραι κύριος τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ σὲ καὶ δῴη σοι εἰρήνην (Num 6:24–26).

in Hebrew or Greek. See, Jan Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 31–47; Eberhard Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 49–58. 21 Wright, “Psalms of Solomon,” 656, also recognizes the similarities between Pss. Sol. 4 and Pss 69 and 109.



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2 Observations on Psalms of Solomon 4 2.1 The Object of the Curse Psalms of Solomon 4 begins with a reference to a “profaner” who sits in the “council of the pious” (βέβηλε κάθησαι ἐν συνεδρίῳ ὁσίων). This character will become the object of the curses that will follow. While some have worked to determine the identity of this individual, the text does not offer enough evidence to uncover this information. Kenneth Atkinson has neatly summarized the possibilities of a historical person as the following: Alexander Janaeus (Wellhausen), Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II, and Herod (Schüpphaus).22 Atkinson himself settles on Aristobulus II as the most likely identity of the “profaner” because he believes that features of the psalm best fit the setting leading up to Roman conquest.23 There is always the possibility that the psalmist is actually not referring to a specific person at all, but to a type whom he constructs as a kind of straw man. Even so, the psalmist may have seen this kind of behavior exhibited by individuals of this type, which means that the profaner’s actions may have some grounding in real actions carried out by people perceived as the wicked by the authors and audience of the Psalms of Solomon. The “profaner” gathers in the “assembly of the pious” (συνεδρίῳ ὁσίων). There is some question about the correct understanding of the term συνεδρίῳ. The term can be applied to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, but it seems that the term was also used to designate other local assemblies. The LXX uses the word several times when a local assembly seems to be in view, especially in the Psalms (e.g., Pss 11:13; 15:22; 22:10; 24:8; 25:4; 26:26; 27:22; 31:23; Jer 15:17; 2Macc 14:5). Josephus’ first use of the term occurs as he is explaining Galbinus’s, governor of Syria, division of Palestine into five districts, or synedria, in 57 BCE.24 Apparently, after Julius Caesar’s visit to Syria in 47 BCE and the confirmation of Hyrcanus II as high priest, the Jerusalem Sanhedrin’s power encompassed all of Palestine, including Galilee.25 This has led some interpreters to identify the “profaner” as Hyrcanus II. After some deliberation, Atkinson opts to take the word in the Psalms of Solomon as a reference to the Jerusalem Sanhe-

22 Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 96–104. 23 Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 105. 24 Ant. 14.91; see Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Sanhedrin,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 5 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 5:104. 25 Schnabel, “Sanhedrin,” 5:104.

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drin.26 However, a firm identification of the historical figure and assembly seems impossible to me.

2.2 The Content of the Curses As the author of Psalms of Solomon 4 lays the groundwork for the profaner’s actions that justify the pronouncement of the malediction, the interests and the tendencies of the community as a whole come to light. In public, the “profaner” is ostentatious in speech and appearance, as he attempts to convince people of his righteousness (vv. 2–3a). In the first set of curses, the speaker refers to God in third person, which makes the appeal somewhat indirect in speech, but certainly not in intent, for the speaker assumes God is listening to the petitioner’s desires. The supplicant hopes that God will reveal the hypocrisy of the opponents by revealing their sins to the public (vv. 4–5). The psalmist knows that the “profaner’s” eyes indiscriminately fall on “every woman” (v. 4a), and, in a later verse, upon “a man’s peaceful house” (v. 9a). Some of his sins he carries out at “night” and “in hiding” (ἀποκρύφοις), under the cover of darkness (ἐν νυκτὶ; v. 5). While only the psalmist, and perhaps his circle, can perceive the “profaner’s” deception at work, the author is confident that God sees. God’s ability to see sins performed in secret could be considered a theme in the collection, for the corpus opens in Psalms of Solomon 1 by describing the sins that the nation committed in secret that led to the Roman attack. The author plays this out as he takes up the voice of mother Zion who expresses surprise at the sounds of war coming from Jerusalem, when the city and the population seem to be so affluent (Pss. Sol. 1:3–4). Within the world of Deuteronomic logic, such success should be a sign of righteous living. However, Zion soon learns that the people had been sinning in secret. In language reminiscent of the taunts in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28:31–32 (cf. also Dan 11:40–45), the psalmist explains that the people’s sins are in private: They exalted themselves to the stars, they said they would never fall. They were arrogant in their possessions, and they did not acknowledge (God) Their sins were in secret (ἐν ἀποκρύφοις), and even I did not know. Their lawless actions surpassed the gentiles before them; they completely profaned (ἐβεβήλωσαν) the sanctuary of the Lord. (Pss. Sol. 1:5–8)

26 Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon: Pseudepigrapha, SBEC 49 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellon Press, 2001), 76–77.



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 55

While the theme of secret sins is not unique to this corpus, its presence in these two passages demonstrates that this was a favorite motif for this group. In some ways, the community needed this theme because members saw the prosperity and social success of those whom they understood to be wicked. In other words, the apparent weakness of Deuteronomic ideology needed addressing – why do the wicked prosper and go unpunished, as in the instance of the “profaner,” while the righteous suffer? The psalmist specifically seeks for the public exposure of the clandestine sins of those who wish to impress people through their hypocrisy: ἀνακαλύψαι ὁ θεὸς τὰ ἔργα ἀνθρώπων ἀνθρωπαρέσκων καταγέλωτι; καὶ μυκτηρισμῷ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ “May God expose the deeds of those who try to impress people; (and expose) their deeds ridicule and contempt” (Pss. Sol. 4:7). Psalms of Solomon 4, therefore, looks forward to the moment when the wicked are separated from the righteous, and the difference becomes manifest: ἐξάραι ὁ θεὸς τοὺς ἐν ὑποκρίσει ζῶντας μετὰ ὁσίων ἐν φθορᾷ σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ πενίᾳ τὴν ζωὴν αὐτοῦ “May God remove from the devout those who live in hypocrisy; may his flesh decay and his life be impoverished” (Pss. Sol. 4:6). With this attack on the profaner’s flesh, the text may hint at a lex talionis form of punishment, i.e., a correspondence between sinful activity and punishment for it. As will be indicated below, the psalmist clearly applies this principle in curses to come. This hope for a clear separation between the two groups occurs in other texts. While not situated within a curse formula, the Parables of Enoch opens with a promise that the wicked will be driven from the righteous: “When the hidden things of the righteous are revealed, the sinners will be judged, and the wicked will be driven from the presence of the righteous and the chosen” (1En. 38:3). While the language and description differ, later in the Parables the kings and the mighty are driven from the presence of the Lord of Spirits, where they are sent to punishment, part of which is to become a “spectacle for the righteous and chosen ones” (1En. 62:9–12).27 The second set of curses in Psalms of Solomon 4 falls into two basic types of requests: 1) that God take comfort and social honor from the wicked (vv. 14–18);

27 The ceremony in 1QS includes the final punishment of the wicked as part of the curse that is pronounced against “all the men of the lot of Belial” who think that they can hear the words of the covenant while “walking in the stubbornness of his heart.” “May God’s anger and wrath of his verdicts consume him for everlasting destruction. May stick fast to him all the curses of this covenant. May God separate him for evil, and may he be cut off from the midst of all the sons of light because of his straying from following God on account of his idols and obstacle of his iniquity. May he assign his lot with the cursed ones forever” (1QS 2:15b–17). All quotations from the Dead Sea Scrolls are from Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition: Volume One (Leiden: Brill, 1997).

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and 2) that God give the wicked a horrible and disgraceful death (vv. 18–22,24). For the sake of brevity, I will only point out a few features of these two sets of curses. First, the opening imprecation of this section plays with the notion of inheritance: “Lord, let his part be in disgrace before you (γένοιτο κύριε ἡ μερὶς αὐτοῦ ἐν ἀτιμίᾳ ἐνώπιόν σου). The term “portion” or “part” (μερίς / ‫ )חלק‬frequently occurs in the LXX in discussions about a part of an “inheritance” (κληρονομία; e.g., Num 18:20). Thus, the twist of the curse lies in the wicked person inheriting dishonor before God rather than an award. The following curse reverses the blessing from Psalm 121:8:28 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from (κύριος φυλάξει τὴν εἴσοδόν σου καὶ τὴν ἔξοδόν) this time on and forevermore. (Ps 121 [120]:8) [M]ay he go out groaning and return cursing (ἡ ἔξοδος αὐτοῦ ἐν στεναγμοῖς καὶ ἡ εἴσοδος αὐτοῦ ἐν ἀρᾷ). (Pss. Sol. 4:14)

The formulation of a curse by reversing a blessing reserved for the righteous is not unique in the literature of the era. For example, the curses against the “men of the lot of Belial” in the covenant ceremony in the Community Rule invert the Aaronic blessing: May God not be merciful when you entreat him. May he not forgive by purifying you iniquities. May he lift the countenance of his anger to avenge himself on you, and may there be no peace for you by the mouth of those who intercede. (1QS 2:8b–9)

Echoes of the Aaronic blessing and its reversal apparently shape the language of the promised blessings and curses that will come upon the righteous and the wicked in 1Enoch 1:8 and 5:6–7.29 While the curse language in 1Enoch 1–5 is rich, one explicit description of the curses to come upon the wicked inverts the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12:3:30 “Then your names will become an eternal curse for all the righteous; and by you all who curse will curse; and all the sinners and ungodly will swear by you” (1En. 5:6a). Other maledictions in Psalms of Solomon 4 have parallels in biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature. For example, the psalmist requests that sleepless-

28 Cf. Herbert Ryle and Montague R. James, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΝΤΟΣ: Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891), 47. Available in public domain at https://archive.org/stream/psalmoisolomnto01jamegoog#page/ n146/mode/2up. 29 See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 147–148. 30 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 161.



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ness come upon the wicked: “May sleep be taken away from his temples at night” (Pss. Sol. 4:16). Kitz cites a malediction from Esarhaddon’s adȇ-agreement which includes this plague: “May Anu, king of the gods, let illness, fatigue, malaria, sleeplessness, worries and ill health rain upon all your homes.”31 Furthermore, the request for “childlessness” to be the fate of the wicked follows the standard curses for infertility and resulting loneliness and social disgrace: “May his old age be in lonely childlessness until his removal” (Pss. Sol. 4:18). The curse might also be a wish for the profaner to suffer the loss of children so that he bereaves until the end of his life. A similar theme is a foundational aspect of the curses in two biblical imprecatory psalms – Psalms 69 and 109. The righteous psalmist pronounces the following over the wicked: “May their camp be a desolation; let no one live in their tents” (Ps 69:25). The construction of Psalm 109 is somewhat unique because the speaker quotes all the curses that the wicked are speaking against him, and then he asks that their maledictions be turned on them just as they have pronounced them upon the psalmist (Ps 109:20).32 May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg; may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil. May there be no one to do him a kindness, nor anyone to pity his orphaned children. May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation. May the iniquity of his father be remembered before the LORD, and do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the LORD continually, and may his memory be cut off from the earth. (Ps 109:9–15)

The curses of Psalms of Solomon 4:18–19 imagine the disgrace of a violent death in the open, which exposes the body to scavenging animals because no one properly buries the dead body. May the flesh of those who try to impress people be scattered by wild animals and the bones of the criminals (lie) dishonored out in the sun.

31 Kitz, Cursed are You!, 200. 32 Cf. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon,” 656.

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Let the crows peck out the eyes of the hypocrites, for they disgracefully empty many people’s houses and greedily scatter them. (vv. 19–20)

Such deaths may have been part of the Roman invasion witnessed by the authors of the Psalms of Solomon. However, this kind of rhetoric filled war speeches and curses, for example, in Goliath’s warning to David (1Sam 17:44) and David’s response to the giant (v. 46). The scattered bones of the wicked evokes Psalm 53: “For God will scatter the bones of the ungodly; they will be put to shame, for God has rejected them” (Ps 53:5b [4]). The psalmist has also, once again, linked the curse to the sinful activity of the wicked person, an example of lex talionis. In a sense, the wicked have attempted to present themselves in an impressive manner, but soon their bodies will be left disgraced and decaying in the sun, eaten by scavenging animals. They also set their “eyes on a peaceful man’s house,” but soon the crows will be pecking out their eyes. The final two lines of the curse also tie the punishment to their activities. As Kitz explains, “the goal of a curse and blessing could not be more obvious. A curse seeks death. A blessing seeks life. (…) While all maledictions may aspire to one end, death, this end can also fortify the opposite, life.”33 In this regard, the mixture of blessings and final curses that conclude the psalm offer a fitting conclusion (vv. 23–25). If God does, in fact, “banish” the wicked, this would certainly mean blessing, peace, and life for the righteous.

3 Observations on Psalms of Solomon 12 3.1 Object of Curse In another psalm in which curse statements appear, Psalms of Solomon 12, one again finds a constructed type of character as the object of the curse. In this psalm, the author does not directly address the enemy as in Psalms of Solomon 4:1 (“O profaner”); rather, the “criminal and wicked man” is the focus of a petition addressed to God (Pss. Sol. 12:1). The primary problem for the psalmist is the tongue of the wicked man. The tongue has the power to slander, lie, and spread deceit (v. 1). The lying tongue destroys the peace within homes and sets households to fighting (v. 3). Interestingly, when the curse petitions begin in Psalms

33 Kitz, Cursed are You!, 199.



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of Solomon 12:4, plural nouns arise in the text, which lends confirmation to the notion that the author may have had in mind a type of person and not a specific historical figure.

3.2 Content of the Curses The imprecations in this psalm are not addressed to God directly in second person speech. In this regard, psalm 12 resembles the first set of maledictions in psalm 4; the second set of curses in psalm 4 addressed God directly. The opening malediction, “May God remove the lips of the criminals in confusion far from the innocent” (Pss. Sol. 12:4), most likely draws on the language of Psalm 12:3–4: “May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own – who is our master?’” The second line of the curse, however, immediately revisits the language of exposed bodies on the field of slaughter after a battle or the destruction of a city, which also appeared in Psalm of Solomon 4:19, a parallel to Psalm 53:5b [4]: “[A]nd (may) the bones of the slanderers be scattered far from those who fear the Lord” (Pss. Sol. 12:4b). This curse incorporates the removal of the wicked from the righteous that also occurred in Psalms of Solomon 4, and which forms an important part of the blessings and curses related to the final destination of the righteous and the wicked in 1Enoch and the covenant ceremony in the Community Rule. The theme of removal of the wicked continues in the curse that follows: “May he destroy the slanderous tongue in flaming fire, far away from the devout” (Pss. Sol. 12:4c). The reference to “flaming fire” suggests a final punishment like that imaged in eschatological judgment texts in 1Enoch, though the Psalms of Solomon does not develop this idea nor provide many hints at the authors’ understanding of this. As in Psalms of Solomon 4, this curse also employs the practice of lex talionis. In verse 2, the psalmist describes the potential of the wicked person’s use of the tongue in the following manner: “([T]hey are) as a fire among a people which scorches its beauty.” The emphasis on the destruction of people’s homes or households also connects the themes of psalms 4 and 12.

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4 The Anthropological Role of the Curses in the Psalms of Solomon and Concluding Observations Beyond form analyses and basic interpretations of the content of the curse material in the Psalms of Solomon lies the question of the role of these curses in the collection and for the community. Because the language for the curses arises so immediately from authoritative traditions within Second Temple Judaism, those who pronounced the curse petitions placed themselves squarely within traditional rhetoric and language. Indeed, those who said the imprecations may have seen themselves as faithful guardians of the moral tradition of the people. For this religious group, the sound of the language and its execution itself partakes in the qualities of timelessness and transcendence. Following John Austin, Roy Rappaport asserts that the ritualized words and the act of speaking them carry more than simply cognitive messages; they become part of the event.34 “[The] words of liturgy can connect that which is present to the past, or even to the beginning of time, and to the future, or even to time’s end. In their invariance itself the words of liturgy implicitly assimilate the current event into an ancient or ageless category of events (…).”35 The echoes of traditional language, therefore, offered speaker and audience an experience of being grounded in ancient tradition while also being tied to a certain future. All of this impinged on the present moment of the enunciation. This tradition is anchored within Deuteronomic theology. At the heart of this theology is the assertion of God’s righteousness acting in the world – that God punishes sin and rewards righteousness. However, the realities of life could sometimes test this worldview, for the righteous sometimes suffered while the wicked seemed to prosper. Further, the righteous might suffer along with the whole nation. The Psalms of Solomon addresses this in part by making a distinction between the way in which God responds to the misdeeds of the righteous and the wicked. When the righteous sin, God responds with discipline, which God intends as a means to correct the righteous person and thus achieve salvation. The wicked, however, stumble and do not recognize their sins nor change their lives. As a result, the wicked person “adds sin upon sin,” which eventually leads to his destruction (Pss. Sol. 3:9–12).

34 Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 110 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 151. Here Rappaport reveals a combination of Austin and Leach. 35 Rappaport, Ritual and Religion, 152.



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The authors of the Psalms of Solomon, however, also know that appearances do not always reflect God’s perspective at any particular given moment, and that the present is not always an indication of future destruction or reward. As we noticed, this is apparent in the opening psalm when the author, who has taken the voice of mother Zion, expresses surprise that the enemy armies have advanced against Jerusalem and have overtaken it. Mother Zion thought that the people’s prosperity indicated righteousness. However, the sins of the people were in secret. Further, Pompey’s arrogance in the capturing of the city might have suggested that the wicked general had somehow avoided God’s punishment. The righteous narrator’s voice rises in psalm 2 for God to quickly punish Pompey, and the petitioner does not “have to wait long” until God’s punishment is unleashed in the world, as news of Pompey’s death reaches the Jewish people (vv. 26–31). The community related to the production of the Psalms of Solomon would have expected God to act in a similar manner in regards to the profaner in Psalms of Solomon 4 and the wicked in Psalms of Solomon 12. Punishment against these people cannot be too far into the future. We can only imagine that these curses are as potent as the petitionary prayer for Pompey’s punishment, which resulted in his death! The curses, at one level, become an oral expression and affirmation of God’s judgment against the wicked, and through their enunciation the righteous participate in God’s actions. God will punish the wicked so that they suffer destruction. By participating in the performance of these curse petitions, the righteous place themselves on God’s side. Thus, the curses might have provided a cathartic effect in helping the authors and community deal with daily struggles, social pressures, and disappointments that they may have faced. Clifford Geertz noticed this about the power of ritual, and I have investigated this function of liturgical action in connection with the enunciation of the Gerichtsdoxologie – the declaration of God’s righteousness (“You are righteous, O Lord”) throughout the Psalms of Solomon. Geertz has argued that rituals might especially assist people who are suffering to make sense of their world. Through ritual, the sufferer can express pain and in the process also come to understand it and be able to live with it.36 An interpreter must wonder if there is a degree of amelioration of cognitive dissonance in this proclamation.

36 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973), 104. See Rodney A. Werline, “The Experience of God’s Paideia in the Psalms of Solomon,” in Experientia, Volume 2: Linking Text and Experience, ed. Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, SBLEJL 35 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 17–44.

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The enunciation of the curses in Psalms of Solomon 4 and 12 may have also tapped into the understanding of the power of the spoken word present in some antique cultures – in the speaking of the curse, the punishment became activated in the world. The words unleashed a power that could effectively execute the malediction. This sort of force of word and action is most vividly portrayed in Jeremiah’s smashing of a clay pot (Jer 19:1–15). The smashing of objects and accompanying speech, in fact, were curse acts in ancient Near Eastern cultures, as Kitz has noted.37 Blank also recognized the power of the spoken word in imprecatory prayer, and he summarizes its force in the following manner: “Since the imprecatory prayer developed from the curse formula, an understanding of the formula contributes to an understanding of the prayer. The evidence already adduced has led to the conclusion that the curse formula was thought to derive its power from the potency of the spoken world.”38 Finally, curses could also have an educational function. Jeff Anderson’s social function analysis of curse texts in the Hebrew Bible highlights several important social features of curses, and some of his observations particularly apply to these two psalms. Relying on Benjamin Ray, Anderson explains that curses sometimes teach social values. First, curses can project “negative [social and ethical] traits onto the (…) source of the curse, thus making that individual a human representative of societal evil.”39 “A second way that curses convey societal values is by designating which types of behavior are offensive enough to incur a curse upon enactment of these offenses.”40 While the Psalms of Solomon assumes the basic form of psalm, the collection nevertheless contains pedagogical elements.41 As is well known, the term paideia and its cognates hold a prominent place throughout the corpus. The term, in this case, derives from the Jewish educational setting. The term could apply to many forms of knowledge or wisdom, but it certainly includes wisdom about proper moral action within society. As I have argued elsewhere, for the authors of the Psalms of Solomon, God functions as the cosmic teacher, paideutes, who disciplines the righteous.42 The imprecations in these psalms provided one more mode of community instruction. As a result, the authors and the community could certainly distinguish the righteous from the wicked.

37 Cf. Kitz, Cursed are You!, 86. 38 Blank, “Curse, Blasphemy, Spell and Oath,” 82–83. 39 Jeff S. Anderson, “The Social Function of Curses in the Hebrew Bible,” ZAW 110 (1998): 229. 40 Anderson, “The Social Function of Curses,” 230. 41 For more, see Rodney Werline, “The Formation of the Pious Person in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 133–154. 42 Werline, “The Experience of God’s Paideia,” 17–44.

Carol A. Newsom

Toward a Genealogy of the Introspective Self in Second Temple Judaism The standard histories of the origin and development of the western introspective self, such as those of Charles Taylor and Jerrold Siegel, typically begin their genealogies with Greek thought, not with the Israelite and early Jewish accounts of the self.1 This approach has mostly seemed warranted, since pre-exilic Israelite models of the self were generally agreed to be, as Robert DiVito described them, “altogether lacking in a sense of ‘inner depths’” and exhibiting no “inner conflict and self division.”2 While that may or may not be accurate for First Temple culture, it does not do justice to the more complex ways of conceptualizing the self that one finds in certain Second Temple sources, particularly in firstperson singular prayer traditions. It is, in fact, possible to document the emergence in this period of a variety of distinctive but related models of the self that deserve to be described as introspective selves, though models that are distinct from the Greek models that develop contemporaneously. Both trajectories – the Greek and the Second Temple Jewish one – flow into the early Christian discourse about the nature of the self that becomes so important for subsequent western culture.3 By giving an account of the development of the Second Temple Jewish interior self models we can fill a gap in the story of the sources of the western self. Before beginning to consider relevant texts, certain preliminary issues must be addressed. The very category of the “self” requires some justification in light of the critique brought by cultural anthropologists of the 1980s against the hegemonic imposition of modern western notions of the self in the study of other cultures.4 Hebrew Bible scholars have been commendable in their early recogni-

1 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 111–142; Jerrold Seigel, The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe Since the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 45–55. 2 Robert DiVito, “Old Testament Anthropology and the Construction of Personal Identity,” CBQ 61 (1999): 221, 230. 3 Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desires (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 128– 29, similarly makes the case for the significance of including rabbinic reflections on anthropology in discussions of the changes taking place in late Antiquity. 4 These critiques largely attacked the assumption of a stable transcendental ego as the definition of the self, championing instead models of the self as fluid, fragmentary, and not self-integrated (see, e.g., Deborah Battaglia, Rhetorics of Self-Making [Berkeley; University of California DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-005

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tion of the very different “body-based” understanding of the self in First Temple sources.5 But what I want to draw attention to here is how Second Temple sources build on this bodily means of conceptualizing the self to construct a model of the self with a distinctive “inwardness,” that aspect of the modern western self that Charles Taylor identifies as developing in classical Greek culture and in early Christian reflection. The other issue that requires some preliminary reflection is just what one means by “inwardness” and an “introspective self.” Here, Taylor’s discussion is helpful. In speaking of the modern notion of the self, he observes that it is constituted by “a certain sense (or perhaps a family of senses) of inwardness,” a sense of possessing “inner depths; with partly unexplored and dark interiors.”6 He acknowledges that, in a minimal sense, all humans have a sense of “me” and “mine” as opposed to someone else. And he agrees that “there is a sense of ‘inside’ which designates the thoughts or desires or intentions which we hold back for ourselves, as against those which we express in speech and action.”7 We see this also in the biblical recognition of the hypocrite and the dissembler, familiar figures in Proverbs, Psalms, and other texts (Lev 5:21; Isa 32:17; Jer 9:2–5; Pss 12:3–5; 28:3; 52:4–5; Prov 6:12–14; 12:10–22; 26:24–26; etc.). But cognitive theorists, such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Philosophy in the Flesh, have also argued for the likely widespread, if not universal, differentiation in speech and thought between the “subject,” the one who says “I,” and one or more semi-

Press, 1995], 2), though, ironically, this is also a model of the self with a significant western pedigree (see Dwight Murray, “What is the Western Concept of the Self? On Forgetting David Hume,” Ethos 21 [1993]: 2–23). One common approach within anthropology is to consider the self simply in terms of self-representation, using culturally shaped categories and concepts. Naomi Quinn, “The Self,” Anthropological Theory 6 (2006): 365, 376, describes this approach as “widely accepted, even normative, in cultural anthropology today,” though she argues for an approach that takes more account of the integrative aspects of the self as a “neurobiological entirety.” 5 The classic study is that of Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testaments (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1973); English translation in: Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974). Wolff’s contributions are placed in a historical context by Bernd Janowski, “‘Anthropologie des Alten Testaments’ vor und nach H. W. Wolff: Eine forschungs- und problemgeschichtliche Skizze,” in Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testaments: Mit zwei Anhängen neu herausgegeben von Bernd Janowski (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2010), 373–414. The most valuable recent study is Thomas Staubli and Silvia Schroer, Die Körpersymbolik der Bibel (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998); English translation in: Body Symbolism in the Bible (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2001). 6 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 111. 7 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 113.



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objectified “selves,”8 an observation that goes back to William James.9 Similarly, biblical authors can often speak in the first person of their nepeš (‫ )נפׁש‬or their lēb (‫ )לב‬in ways that represent the self (e.g., Ps 42) or even as a private inner place for thoughts that may not be shared by others (e.g., Judg 16:15; Ps 119:11).10 These basic differentiations are doubtless necessary correlates of the self-conscious, social brain of all humans. Indeed, neuroscientists have documented the neural correlates of self-awareness and self-regulation that humans use to know themselves, perceive how others respond to them, detect threats, “inhibit their impulses, stifle their desires, resist temptations, undertake difficult or unpleasant activities, banish unwanted and intrusive thoughts, and control their emotional displays, all of which are difficult to do but are necessary for staying in the good graces of others.”11 I want to distinguish, however, between the biologically informed cognitive universals and the ways in which these universals may or may not become culturally salient. A sense of inner and outer, the experience of inner conflict, and the hard work of self-regulation is a universal reality; but only some cultures cultivate attention toward these phenomena and develop categories by which they may be organized and made accessible for reflection. In First Temple sources we recognize the basic inner/outer division and the ability for the subject to objectify its “self,” but DiVito is correct in saying that there is no cultivation of inner conflict as a cultural problem or preoccupation, nor is there a development of the self as a space of interiority. By the time one reaches the first century BCE, however, both of these features have become part of the cultural self of at least some segments of early Judaism and are represented in a variety of texts of different provenance and genre. To be sure, the models of an interior self that are attested in these documents are not the same as those developed in Greco-Roman sources, but the Second Temple models represent their own distinctive fashioning of a subjectivity of interiority. Although there may be many ways for cultures to develop an introspective self, it is not surprising that in ancient Judaism this process takes place largely around the problem of moral agency. Similarly, though one can find the emergent models in a variety of genres, first person poetic prayer texts are particularly

8 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 269–289. 9 William James, Psychology (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1893), 176–216. 10 Staubli and Schroer, Die Körpersymbolik, 44–46 (ET: 44–46); Wolff, Anthropologie, 51–55 (ET: 23–25). 11 Todd F. Heatherton, “Neuroscience of Self and Self-Regulation,” Annual Review of Psychology 62 (2011): 366.

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important places. The process of the development of an introspective self, as it can be traced in Second Temple Judaism, involves two coordinated things: first, in the distinction between subject and self the “self” elements become objectified in a new way. Second, these self aspects become problematic in a manner that creates what I would describe as “self-alienation.” That is to say, certain aspects of the self become “other” to the subject, and not just “other,” but a feared and rejected other. The ideal self, constituted through the rejection and elimination of these problematic aspects, becomes a concern of significant urgency. One hesitates to identify a single historical moment as the point of origin for this process, but it is clear that the fall of Judah to the Babylonians, entailing the terrible destruction of the temple, Jerusalem, and the surrounding territory, as well as a series of exiles and flights from Judah, was a traumatic watershed in the experience of the Judeans.12 It is widely credited as the impetus for the decadeslong, if not centuries-long, processes that led to the formation of the Torah and that resulted in fundamentally changed models of nationhood. More immediately, it provoked something of a crisis in the understanding of moral agency. In preexilic texts free moral agency is the default model that is used to conceptualize both the individual and the nation, metaphorically conceived of as a moral agent.13 In First Temple texts the critiques of failed moral agency and the remedies proposed address the person as a unified self whose moral organs are neither defective nor compromised, but whose understanding, desires, and will require discipline and training. The problem is not explored as an intra-psychic division.14 Although this

12 Though, as Jacob Wright, “The Commemoration of Defeat and the Formation of a Nation in the Hebrew Bible,” Proof 29 (2009): 433–473, points out, the experience of defeat is a prolonged experience, sometimes anticipated for many years and not always recognized even after it has happened (p. 440). The cumulative effects of the experience are fundamental shapers of new cultural forms and identities. Nevertheless, the fall of Judah to the Babylonians stands apart from other previous events of destruction. It could not be distanced as a warning, as the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel was (see 2Kgs 17). Even though there was evident reluctance to acknowledge the finality of the changes wrought by this event, as the hopes for a restoration of the monarchy indicate, the cultural efforts put forth to grapple with the effects of the destruction indicate that it was experienced as a traumatic disruption. 13 Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Can These Bones Live: The Problem of the Moral Self in the Book of Ezekiel, BZAW 301 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 44. The extensive use of the conceptual metaphor the nation is a moral agent is significant, since it facilitates the transfer of models of the self from the individual to the collective and from the collective back to the individual. 14 It should be noted that this model continues robustly also into the Second Temple period. Some of the texts that reflect this model likely contain material from both First and Second Temple times. Nevertheless, in a few cases one can see early postexilic “revision” that corrects an earlier free moral agency perspective, suggesting that a self-conscious re-examination of agency



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view of human moral capacity is widely assumed throughout the literature, the explicit prominence it is given in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history as a key to national flourishing or national catastrophe may well have contributed to the sense of conceptual crisis that one sees in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the two prophets who are the major contemporary interpreters of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. The sense of a crisis involving the inadequacy of the moral organ of the heart is articulated first in the imagery of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (and in a contemporaneous strand of Deuteronomy) as a structural defect of the heart requiring physical action – circumcision, direct inscription of torah, or even replacement of that moral organ. Yet neither in the diagnosis of the problem nor in the moral agent who results from the intervention with the defective heart would one speak of a developed sense of interiority. One simply has a “fixed-and-now-functioning” moral agent. Similar imagery, likely derived from Ezekiel, appears in the penitential Psalm 51. But here, because of the genre and rhetoric of prayer, one may begin to see something more. The first person singular speech of individual prayers to God encourage the use of the differentiation between the speaking subject (“I,” “me”) and some object (usually a body part) that represents the self. This is a commonplace and usually amounts to little more than a metonomy, as, for example, the psalmist in Psalm 42 says “my nepeš cries out to you, O God; my nepeš thirsts for God.” But when a body part representing the self becomes problematic, as in Psalm 51, then one may begin to see at least the potential for a sense of self-alienation. That which represents one’s own self (the “heart” or “spirit”) has become so problematic that a new one must be created for the subject. But in Psalm 51 this notion is not extensively developed or dwelt upon. Far more interesting is the body imagery developed in certain passages of the poetic prayer collection Barkhi Nafshi (notably 4Q436 1 and parallels). The author makes use of the traditional bodily psychology of ancient Israel, though with certain significant differences. In biblical texts the bodily loci of reason and intention, will and action, desire and disposition are unselfconsciously referred to and are simply presented as the mode by which an agent formulates a thought or intention, carries out an action, displays a disposition, or experiences a desire. Occasionally, for poetic purposes, there may be a concentration of body language (e.g., Isa 59:1–4) or even a short sequence of body parts (e.g, Prov 6:12,14,17–19),

is connected with the traumatic events of the early sixth century BCE. See, e.g., Marc Brettler, “Predestination in Deuteronomy 30.1–10,” in Those Elusive Deuteronomists: The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism, ed. Linda S. Shearing and Steven L. McKenzie, JSOTSup 268 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 171–188.

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but there is no focus on the organs per se. The third person speech of those passages keeps the focus on the human or divine agent as a totality. In Barkhi Nafshi, by contrast, the extraordinary catalogue of body parts and the genre of first person prayer within which it is presented create something novel. As in Psalm 51, the rhetorical structure of prayer facilitates the differentiation of the subject from objectified aspects of its self. The speaker considers each of his body parts in turn, with a particular focus on an action taken upon each of them by God. 1i 5 (…) You have commanded my heart, and my kidneys you have taught well, lest they forget your statutes. 6 [On my heart] you [have enjoined] your law, on my kidneys you have engraved it; and you have prevailed upon me, so that I pursue after you[r] ways (…) 10 [the heart of stone] you have [re]buked out of me, and have set a pure heart in its place. The evil inclination [you] have rebuked [out of my kidneys] […] vacat 1ii 1 [and the spirit of ho]liness you have set in my heart. Lechery of the eyes you have removed from me, and they (lit. it) gazed upon [all] 2 [ your ways. The s]tiffness of neck you have expelled from me, and you have made it into humility. A wrathful nose you have removed [from me, and have set] 3 [ in me a spirit of lo]ng suffering. (4Q436 1i 5b–6,10–1ii 4 par. 4Q435 2i 1–5)15

Although the stance of the speaker is that of thanksgiving, what he gives thanks for is a transformation of his various moral and agential organs that were apparently, in their untransformed state, problematic.16 By naming each one, the problems with which it is associated, and the external agency of God in transforming it, the speaker objectifies these aspects of himself and blurs the nature of the agency by which he acts. His body is no longer unselfconsciously an intending, acting, emoting entity but almost a locus where other agents operate. As Brand observes, “the change wrought by God in 4QBarkhi Nafshi is not merely pedagogical, but a change in the speaker’s internal being.”17 Indeed, the references to God “commanding the heart,” “engraving” the kidneys, and “prevailing upon” the speaker virtually transfer the speaker’s agency to God. Most dramatically, the language of rebuke, used with respect to the evil inclination and (apparently) the heart of stone in 4Q436 1i 10, is a term for the exorcism of evil spirits and suggests that the speaker’s agency was previously controlled by an

15 The translation follows Brand’s adaptation of DJD XIX (p. 299), emphasizing the physical identity of the organs. Underlined text is preserved in one or more of the overlapping manuscripts. Miryam Brand, Evil Within and Without: The Source of Sin and Its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature, JAJSup 9 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 43, 44. 16 See Menachem Kister, “‘Inclination of the Heart of Man’: The Body and Purification from Evil,” [Hebrew] in Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls VIII, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher and Devorah Dimant (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Haifa University Press, 2010), 243–284. 17 Brand, Evil Within, 43–44.



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alien will.18 Compare, also, references to “expel” and “destroy” in 4Q436 1ii 2,4. To be sure, this may simply be a “manner of speaking,” but for my purposes it scarcely matters whether the author is speaking metaphorically or literally. The self is represented as a complex psychic body whose key organs are not under his own control and whose transformation into a desired moral state requires forceful action by God on those organs. Here is inner conflict and self division not seen in preexilic prayers and psalms. It is still somewhat unclear, however, whether one should describe this speaker’s present psychic environment as one of true interiority. Although it may be implied, what is missing is focused attention to the person’s own desires and thoughts as of ambiguous origin. Are they from oneself or from an alien agency? The motif of demonic influence, which is developed in a variety of types of texts, contributes to a developing sense of psychic interiority precisely because it eventually comes to be associated with doubt about the origin of a person’s desires and thoughts. Two relatively early texts, the prayer in the Aramaic Levi Document and the Plea for Deliverance from the 11QPsalmsa scroll, articulate the primary trope of demonic influence; namely, that they are powers that control or “rule over” a person. Toward the end of the Plea for Deliverance the speaker prays, “let not a satan have power over me, nor an unclean spirit; let pain and evil inclination not have control over me” (lit. in my bones). Although there is some uncertainty as to which of these terms refer to external, independent entities and which are internal forces,19 it matters little for my purposes whether one sharply distinguishes external from internal forces; indeed, the ambiguity is telling. What the speaker experiences is an anxiety-producing differentiation between his fundamental desire for a free will that can be obedient to God and forces that seem to compel him against his desire to do what is evil. Whether external or internal in origin, these forces are objectified as the “not me” that operates “within me.” The

18 Eibert Tigchelaar, “The Evil Inclination in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a Re-Edition of 4Q468i (4QSectarian Text?),” in Empsychoi Logoi: Religious Innovations in Antiquity; Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst, ed. Alberdina Houtman et al., AJEC 73 (Leiden, Brill, 2008), 351. 19 David Flusser, “Qumran and Jewish ‘Apotropaic’ Prayers,” IEJ 16 (1966): 205, and Armin Lange, “Considerations Concerning the ‘Spirit of Impurity’ in Zech 13:2,” in Die Dämonen: Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und früchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, ed. Hermann Lichtenberger, Diethard Römheld, and Armin Lange (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 260–261, take it as a demonic spirit; Brand, Evil Within, 209, considers it an internal quality. “Pain” is often the physical symptom of a demonic attack (Menahem Kister, “Demons, Theology and Abraham’s Covenant,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty: Proceedings of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature Qumran Section Meetings, ed. Robert A. Kugler and Eileen M. Schuller, SBLEJL 15 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999], 170). While the “evil inclination” is generally considered an internal quality, Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desires, 47, suggests that here it may be an effect of demonic influence.

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speaker experiences himself as internally divided and must pay attention to the multiplicity of his conflicting impulses, aligning with some and rejecting others. He becomes an observer of his interior landscape. One of the simplest ways of representing inner conflict is to use a dualistic model. The most fully developed example of such a model is, of course, the Two Spirits Teaching from the Cave 1 version of the Community Rule (1QS). But two other fragmentary sectarian texts from Qumran appear also to reflect such ideas. All three use notions of demons or evil spirits, and all three have an implicit or explicit model of psychic interiority. 4Q444, which is officially titled “Incantation,” but which might be better considered as an apotropaic prayer,20 contains the following passage: And as for me, because of my fearing God, with his true knowledge he opened my mouth; and from his holy spirit […] 2 truth to a[l]l [the]se. They became spirits of controversy in my (bodily) structure (‫ ;)מבניתי‬statutes[s of God] 3 [… in]nards of flesh (‫)תכמי בשר‬. And a spirit of knowledge and understanding, truth and righteousness, God placed in [my] he[art …] 4 […]wh and strengthen yourself by the statutes of God, and in order to fight against the spirits of wickedness, and not … […] (Frgs. 1–4i+5 1–4; my translation).

The precise meaning of tĕkāmîm is uncertain. It is clearly a bodily term, attested only at Qumran. Miryam Brand gives a learned discussion of the semantics and concludes that it is a “general expression referring to the innards of the body, particularly when the body is ‘infested’ with sinfulness or affliction.”21 The passage appears to be describing the individual’s body as a place in which spirits of wickedness are located and in which they are fought against. Although these spirits are likely demonic ones, it is less clear whether “the spirit of knowledge and understanding” is to be thought of similarly as a transcendent entity or as a characterological trait, especially since the internalized statutes of God serve the same function. But what is relevant is that the speaker conceives of the interior of his body as a space where this struggle takes place. His mind contemplates and describes an interior drama. There is an implicit triangular structure in which the observing mind describes his inner conflict that is configured by two opposing internal forces.

20 Esther Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers in the Second Temple Period,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 19–23 January, 2000, ed. Esther G. Chazon, Ruth Clements, and Avital Pinnick, STDJ 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 81. 21 Brand, Evil Within, 205 n. 35.



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A very similar model is articulated in a fragmentary part of the Songs of the Sage (4Q511 48–49+51ii 1b–6a): 1 … […]t His knowledge he put [in my] hear[t …] 2 the praises of His righteousness, and […] ʾh and by His mouth he frightens [all the spirits] 3 of the bastards to subdue […]ty impurity. For in the innards of 4 my flesh is the foundation of d[… and in] my body are battles. The statutes of 5 God are in my heart, and I prof[it …] for all the wonders of man. The works of 6 guilt I condemn … (trans. Brand, Evil Within, 201)

Here, the indebtedness to the demonology of 1Enoch is evident, but with the same sense of the place of struggle as inside the body of the individual. That the “statutes of God” are also given an internal location may owe a debt to the Jeremianic tradition of statutes written on the heart, though there is little similarity of wording. The Two Spirits Teaching uses a different tradition to speak of dualistic spirits, but it develops a similar, though more complex and subtle moral psychology.22 Even though the first part of the teaching seems to speak of humankind as divided into two camps, the “children of righteousness” and the “children of deceit” (1QS 3:19–21), the latter part describes both spirits of truth and deceit as internal to all persons, though not in equal measure. While present in a person, they “struggle in the heart of a person” (1QS 4:23). The spirit of deceit is also said to be resident in the “innards” (1QS 4:20) until the eschatological purification. Although early scholars of the scrolls debated whether the text described cosmological or purely psychological spirits, it has rightly been concluded that such a distinction would be anachronistic–the text understands psychology in terms of the actions of transcendent entities operating within persons. The text appears to describe two cosmic principles (“the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit,” 1QS 3:18–19), which are instantiated both in angelic figures (the Prince of Light and the Angel of Darkness) and in human beings as motivating forces of their characters.23 Because the spirits of truth and deceit are already internal to persons, including the children of righteousness, the Angel of Darkness and his minions

22 Here I treat the Two Spirits Teaching in the form in which it appears in 1QS. Whether it was originally composed as a whole or is the product of redactional states is not germane. The literature on the pneumatology and moral psychology of the text is substantial. See, most recently, Brand, Evil Within, 257–274; Philip S. Alexander, “Predestination and Free Will in the Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment, ed. John M. G. Barclay and Simon J. Gathercole (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 27–49, and the earlier literature cited there. 23 Similarly, Arthur E. Sekki, The Meaning of Ruah at Qumran, SBLDS 110 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 198–200; Alexander, “Predestination and Free Will,” 31–32.

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are able to cause them to err. But for the same reason the “Angel of [God’s] Truth” can assist them. That the text is concerned with moral psychology is clear from the extensive list of dispositions and behaviors that manifest the presence of each spirit in a person (1QS 4:2–14). Indeed, the teaching introduces itself in 1QS 3:13–15 as a “diagnostic” document that teaches about the nature of spirits and the ways they manifest themselves in behavior (“their signs”). Once again, one has the trope of the human body as a container for a struggle which is certainly psychological but also cosmic. What makes this document important in the construction of interiority is the fact that it is a teaching rather than a first-person prayer, and as Philip Alexander remarks, unparalleled in its systematic and propositional presentation.24 Although the text does not conceptualize the psychic structure of its addressee explicitly, it is implicitly addressing a “subject” who is not simply identical with the spirit of truth within him but a consciousness that can observe the actions of both spirits within himself.25 The mind is partitioned, one might say, so that the executive function is addressed by the teaching. Its attention is directed inward to the space where a great drama is being conducted, one that the subject experiences as moral and psychological conflict. Once again there is a triangular structure as the objectified self is represented as two spirits engaged in struggle with one another. While the executive subject is to identify with the spirit of truth and to reject the spirit of deceit, its agency is primarily that of knowledge about itself and about the cosmic drama of which it is a part, since his basic assignment to the children of righteousness is determined by the divine plan. In this respect the subject’s agency is differently construed than it is in those forms of dualism where radical choice is assumed (e.g., in the Zoroastrian Yasna 30.3 and apparently in 4QVisions of Amram [4Q544 1 11–12 and parallels]). Although the Two Spirits Teaching claims that the Angel of Darkness is responsible for the sins of the children of righteousness and light during the time of its dominion, there is no inquiry into the mechanism by which this happens. Similarly, though they are promised help from the Angel of God’s Truth, how this takes place is not explored. Other texts that look to the demonic as implicated in human sin do explore the mechanisms, and they are of considerable importance for tracing the development of an introspective mind. One of the most important is Jubilees.

24 Alexander, “Predestination and Free Will,” 27. 25 Carol A. Newsom, “Models of the Moral Self: Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism,” JBL 131 (2012): 20–21.



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The book of Jubilees is not explicit, but it probably assumes the etiology of demons that is provided by 1Enoch 15, namely that they are the spirits of the slain giants. As in the apotropaic prayers, Noah’s prayer in Jubilees 10 uses the tropes of “ruling” (Eth. mabbala) and “having power over” (Eth. tabawḥa). But the narrative introduction to the prayer describes the actions of the impure demons as “lead[ing] Noah’s grandchildren astray (Eth. ʾasḥata), making them act foolishly (Eth. ʾabada), and destroying them” and as “leading astray, blinding, and killing” (1En. 10:1–2). As Brand summarizes, “Demons injure humankind in three ways: they actively lead humans into sin, they mislead and blind humans to knowledge of the correct behavior, and they destroy humans (either directly or through the consequences of sin).”26 That is to say, demons operate on human intention, desire, and cognition. If one knows this, then one has reason to mistrust one’s own intentions, desires, and thoughts. These intimate aspects of one’s own person are no longer simple; they are not even necessarily one’s own. This anxiety about the status of one’s own thoughts and desires is explicit in Abram’s prayer in Jubilees 12:19–21. He prays, “Save me from the power of the evil spirits who rule the thoughts of people’s minds” (lit. “the inclination of peoples’ hearts,” v. 20). Thus the yēṣer, a person’s driving impulse and desire to do something, may come under demonic control (as Ishay Rosen-Zvi suggests, this may also be the case in Plea for Deliverance).27 “May they not mislead me from following you (…) May we not go astray (…) May I not proceed in the error of my mind, my God” (vv. 20–21; trans. James C. VanderKam). What is troubling Abram is whether he should return to Ur or remain in Harran. How can Abram know the source of his own thoughts, desires, and intentions? Similar motifs occur in Moses’ prayer in Jubilees 1. This kind of internal scrutiny and self-doubt again posits the subject, the one who says “I,” over against various apparent manifestations of its “self,” manifestations which may or may not be trustworthy. Such belief leads to self-reflexive ruminations that are part of the creation of a sense of interiority. One does not find in these texts developed speculation about the psychology of demonic influence, however. But such reflection begins to appear in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Although the provenance of this document has been debated, James Kugel gives strong arguments for it as essentially a Jewish composition.28 The date is also problematic, since it is a composition that evi-

26 Brand, Evil Within, 177. 27 Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desire, 47. 28 For a review of the discussion see Robert A. Kugler, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 31–39, and Tom de Bruin, The Great Controversy: The

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dently grew over time. Portions of the Testament of Levi may well go back to the late Persian period, though Kugel would see the full set of testaments as developing in Hebrew in the second or first centuries BCE. Even if one takes the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs as an originally Semitic Jewish document, the form in which we have it is either a sometimes rather free translation of a Hebrew original or a Greek composition that makes use of a Hebrew source document.29 Moreover, in its present form, the text clearly functioned as a Christian document with apparently widespread popularity. However the text developed, it is a particularly valuable example of how different folk theories concerning agency and character might converge in Hellenistic culture.30 The notion of demonic spirits that one finds in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is derived from the Semitic trajectory discussed above. But the psychological mechanisms by which these spirits work appear to be a blend of Semitic and Greek notions.31 What is most notable about the psychology of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs for my purposes is the focus on the mind as the place where demonic activity and resistance to it takes place. The key term is dianoia, which is generally used to translate the Hebrew lēb. Obviously, a detailed analysis of the psychology of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is beyond the scope of this paper,32 but a few observations will suffice to indicate the relevance of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs to the development I am sketching.

Individual’s Struggle between Good and Evil in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and in their Jewish and Christian Contexts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 19–35; James L. Kugel, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. Louis H. Feldman, James L Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2013), 2:1697–1700. 29 Kugel, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” 1700–1701. 30 In his work on the genealogy of repentance, How Repentance Became Biblical (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), David Lambert notes the close relationship between the development of a discourse of repentance and assumptions about interiority and subjectivity. He traces these features in a number of late Second Temple texts, including the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in which there appears to be Jewish appropriation and adaptation of notions of subjectivity that were earlier developed in Greek culture. See especially Chap. 7, “The Genealogy of Repentance.” 31 See, e.g., de Bruin, The Great Controversy, 107–114, and Kugel, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” 1709, on the two lists of spirits in T. Reu. 2:1–3:8. 32 The most thorough discussion is that of de Bruin, The Great Controversy, 139–156. See also Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Bilhah the Temptress: The Testament of Reuben and ‘The Birth of Sexuality,’” JQR 96 (2006): 65–94, and Peter W. Mackey, “The Importance of the Teaching on God, Evil and Eschatology for the Dating of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs” (Diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1969), 199–218.



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Time and again, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs identify their focus of concern not in the actions that a person takes (even though that is the ultimate outcome that must be controlled) but in what goes on in the mind that leads to such actions. As Rosen-Zvi observes, “rather than praising Joseph for his abstention from committing a forbidden act, T. Reuben celebrates his ability to guard his mind from the forbidden desire.”33 The same is true for other vices and negative emotions. The mind is primarily where the demonic operates and where it must be resisted. These demonic forces are identified collectively as Beliar and as “evil spirits” or “spirits of deceit,” which are variously associated with particular vices or negative emotions.34 Although the conflict is in some senses dualistic, God and Beliar (or their surrogates) do not do battle within the individual, as in 4QIncantation; nor are their actions symmetrical.35 Although the spirits of deceit are active forces that tempt and deceive, God is described more as a protective presence. Above all, the active agent is the individual human mind. As Testament of Judah puts it, between “the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit (…) is the spirit of the intelligent mind, that inclines us however it wills” (T. Jud. 20:1–2). Thus the efforts of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are devoted to preventing sins by training its readers to perceive, understand, and control their own minds. But how should one understand the notion of mind in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, especially in light of the references to two inclinations (Gk. diaboulia; see esp. T. Ash. 1:5) that characterize persons? The terminology in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is not as systematic as one might like, but the basic conception is clear. Testament of Asher’s reference to two inclinations or impulses is probably an early version of what later develops into the Rabbinic notion of the two yĕṣārîm,36 though Tom de Bruin seems to be accurate in characterizing it as “a single inclination with two intrinsically different directions.”37 The compositions clearly do not posit a full psychological dualism or a notion of two forces in one body, struggling for supremacy, as one finds in different ways in the Qumran Two Spirits Teaching and in the Christian Shepherd of Hermas. In the Testament of Asher the mental structure that is implicit is that of an executive or supervisory self (i.e., the “soul”) that is capable of the self-reflexive knowl-

33 Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desire, 78. 34 I use the term “demonic” since the spirits are under the control of Beliar, though I agree with Mackey, “The Importance of the Teaching on God,” 214, and Robert Eppel, Le Piétisme Juif dans les Testaments des Douze Patriarches (Paris: Librarie Félix Alcan, 1930), 85, that the spirits are impersonal forces, not demons in the proper sense of the word. 35 de Bruin, The Great Controversy, 105–107. 36 Kugel, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” 1810. 37 De Bruin, The Great Controversy, 104.

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edge that facilitates moral and social self-direction. “If the soul chooses the good [impulse], everything it does will be [done] in righteousness, and [even] if it sins, it will repent right away” (T. Ash. 1:6). Habituation to good or bad choices gives the soul a lasting character, so that one may characterize it as ruled by God or by Beliar (T. Ash. 1:6–8). Through out the teachings of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the attention of this executive self is directed to the two subsidiary inclinations or directions and their significance for the moral life. The goal of the psychic process that the document attempts to inculcate is “simplicity” (Gk. haplotes), which Harm Hollander and Marinus de Jonge suggest is best understood as “integrity, wholehearted obedience,” the opposite of “doubleness.”38 The construction of a mind capable of monitoring itself and responding to what it observes going on within itself is further explored through the description of how the spirits of deceit operate, which is, essentially, by cognitive means. As the Testament of Dan 2:4 puts it, the spirit of anger “blinds his natural eyes, and with lying makes his thinking go dark, and [then] transmits to him his own way of seeing.” A fully blinded mind would not even know it was blinded, of course; it would live in full false consciousness. Hence the importance in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs of preventing the spirits of deceit from achieving a foothold within the mind in the first place. Persons are susceptible by nature in that they have an inclination or disposition toward evil. We might think of it in modern terms as a “receptor” for evil. But the origin of the evil is not fully intrinsic to the person himself.39 It rather originates from an evil spirit that attempts to make use of that “receptor.” In this way the evil desires are more easily identified as “not me,” as external aggression against “me” by means of my vulnerabilities and therefore identified and rejected by the self-aware mind. Hence the need for constant vigilance. The mind must look at the mind, must read it, assess it, encourage its identification with the good, discourage its attraction to evil – and, above all, it must guard against being mentally blinded by the spirits of deceit. This self-reflexive structure develops the experience of interiority. For the most part, in this essay I have been tracking the ways in which a psychology that uses the category of demonic spirits serves to develop an introspec-

38 Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge, The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, SVTP 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 44. 39 The Testaments may not be entirely consistent, and different testaments focus on the internal and external issues to different degrees. In my opinion it is not simply a matter of “different sources or simply the combination of two then-current outlooks” (so Kugel, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” 1811) but a sophisticated attempt to articulate how external forces work by means of internal susceptibilities and desires. Despite Asher’s focus on internal impulses, the force of the Testaments as a whole emphasizes the role of Beliar and the spirits of deceit.



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tive self. But there are models that do not depend on the demonic, nor are they dualistic. The most important of these is the Hodayot. As with the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, it is not possible to do justice to the subtle complexity of this work in a few short paragraphs. It is important, however, to indicate why it is such a crucial text for tracking the development of an introspective subjectivity. To do this it is helpful to recall what Charles Taylor says about Augustine’s reflections on inwardness. To be clear, Augustine’s understanding of the self and what one finds in the Hodayot are in many respects radically different. The individualism that is characteristic of Augustine and his culture is not part of the model of the self in Second Temple Jewish texts. But there are structural similarities between what Augustine is articulating and what one finds in the Hodayot. As Taylor observes, In our normal dealings with things, we disregard [what it is like to be an experiencing agent] and focus on the things experienced. But we can turn and make this our object of attention, become aware of our awareness (…).40 Our principle route to God is not through the object domain but “in” ourselves. This is because God is not just the transcendent object (…), which we strain to see. God is also and for us primarily the basic support and underlying principle of our knowing activity. God is not just what we long to see, but what powers the eye which sees (…).41

Shifting the attention from the object of knowledge to the activity of knowing is a critical part of what Taylor calls radical reflexivity. The Community Psalms of the Hodayot have a notoriously negative anthropology, articulated most succinctly in the Niedrigkeitsdoxologien. Our creation is from dust as a “vessel of clay” (1QHa 9:23) with a “spirit of flesh” (1QHa 5:30). We are ruled by a “spirit of perversity” (1QHa 5:32) and a “spirit of error” (1QHa 9:24), and utterly characterized by sin, guilt, impurity, and general disgustingness. The cognitive consequence of this nature is that we are incapable of understanding. “[But how i]s a spirit of flesh to understand all these things?” (1QHa 5:30–31). Simply put, it cannot. The ordinary human not only cannot understand anything, it cannot even know that it does not know. The typical human lives in false consciousness and without any true understanding of its own condition or of the forces that shape the world. But what fascinates the author or authors of the Hodayot is how he does know both about his own wretched human nature and about the profound mysteries of God. Focus turns away from simply the objects of knowledge to the activity of knowing. The speaker becomes aware

40 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 130. 41 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 129.

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of his awareness and of what makes it possible. Repeatedly, the Hodayot bless God for “the spirits that you have placed in me” (1QHa 4:29), because “you have caused your servant to have insight” (1QHa 6:22), “you have favored me with the spirit of knowledge” (1QHa 6:36). Repeatedly the speaker identifies the source of his capacity to know: “I know, by the understanding that comes from you” (1QHa 7:25; cf. 9:23). It is what makes it possible for him to pray: “I entreat you with the spirit you have placed in me” (1QHa 8:29). The speaker refers to a conception of a second creation, exegetically derived from Ezekiel 36.42 The spirit of God placed within a person is what creates a being capable of understanding and of righteous action. But whereas in Ezekiel 36 the result of the new heart and new spirit is simply the repair of a simple and not radically reflexive moral agent, something distinctive is present in the Hodayot. The person who is constituted through this second creation is aware of the negative effects of his basic personhood as a “spirit of flesh.” He is not fully freed of it. He revisits it and examines it. But he is no longer determined by it.43 Now his subjectivity is one that is formed by God’s spirit within him, which itself is the focus of attention. And this spirit, by knowing itself, is also enabled to look upon and understand the transcendent divine mysteries. One might argue that the true subject of the Hodayot is selfknowledge, an introspective experience of the self in its wretchedness and in its transformation, an experience that it models and practices over and over again. In the Hodayot one finds a new way of being a self, one that was simply not available in First Temple culture. The developments that I have attempted to trace in this essay are largely missing from accounts of the origin of introspective selfhood in the western tradition, though they need to be examined alongside those deriving from Greco-Roman sources. But even if one reclaims this story, what is it that one is discovering? Are these accounts simply a matter of language? Do the different models have any relationship to actual lived experience? Though one cannot know with certainty, there are reasons for thinking that they do. Current neuroscientific investigations of the self, though they tend to focus on what seem to the scientists to be universal principles of human experience produced by evolution and the biological structures of the brain, also have shown some interest in the ways in which dif-

42 Newsom, “Models of the Moral Self,” 24. 43 I examine these issues in more detail in Carol A. Newsom, “Predestination and Moral Agency in the Hodayot,” in The Religious Worldviews Reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 28–30 May, 2013, ed. Menahem Kister, Michael Segal, and Ruth A. Clements, STDJ (Leiden: Brill, 2017), forthcoming.



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ferent cultures produce different types of selves. These different self models can be identified not only through cultural artefacts such as are found in language but also can be discerned in different patterns of brain activity. Knowing that the medial prefrontal cortex (the MPFC) is significantly involved in processing information about the self more so than it is in processing information about other people or things, scientists tested the hypothesis that the posited western individualist self and the collectivist eastern self can be differentiated at the neural level. These may be rather crude characterizations, but there does seem to be some neuroscientific evidence that they represent real differences. When Chinese subjects were asked to reflect on their mothers, they showed heightened levels of MPFC activity, whereas western subjects showed such heightened activity only when thinking about themselves. Thus for the Chinese, close social relationships are part of the self in a way that they are not for westerners.44 Associating ethnicity with self schemas can be reductive, of course, and other cross-cultural studies have not presupposed that collectivist and individualist self schemas will map simply onto ethnic or national differences. Yet these studies, too, have shown that different cultural representations of the self, whatever their origin, are different at the neural level.45 Moreover, there is evidence of cultural adaptation and change in short and long time-spans.46 The effect of culture on the brain is increasingly documented, as it is clear that experiences, emotions, and thoughts change the way the brain operates. Thus, in tracing new ways of modeling the self from First to Second Temple Judaism, as it manifests itself not only in teachings but also in prayer practices, it is likely that one is not simply tracing patterns of language and cultural representation but also new ways in which persons experienced themselves, new ways of being in the world which had not been accessible before.

44 Li Zhang et al., “In Search of the Chinese Self: an fMRI Study,” Science in China: Series C Life Sciences 49 (2006): 89–96; Ying Zhu et al., “Neural Basis of Cultural Influence on Self-representation,” NeuroImage 34 (2007): 1310–1316. 45 Joan Y. Chiao, et al., “Neural Basis of Individualistic and Collectivistic Views of Self,” Human Brain Mapping 30 (2009): 2813–2820. 46 Joan Y. Chiao and N. Ambady, “Cultural Neutoscience: Parsing Universality and Diversity Across Levels of Analysis,” in Handbook of Cultural Psychology, ed. S. Kitayama and D. Cohen (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 237–254.

Angela Kim Harkins

The Function of Prayers of Ritual Mourning in the Second Temple Period Performative expressions of grief are enacted and reenacted in all of the world’s major religions. This essay will discuss how we might understand a different function of the ritualized mourning practices that accompany the prayers from the Second Temple period. We propose that prayers from this time strategically arouse grief in order to generate first-hand perceptions of foundational events and in effect, to create presence from absence. This type of study falls under a larger category of embodied cognition which understands experiential frames to assist in the imaginative enactment of new experiences.1 Second Temple prayers are often situated in a narrative context that describes practices of self-diminishment: fasting, sackcloth, ashes, depilatory acts, anguished weeping, collapsing, and hands opened in supplication. The prayers themselves also contribute to the diminishment of the pray-er through the enactment of petitions, confession of sinfulness, and confession of God’s greatness. The effects of these practices and prayers can predispose one to experientially reenact grief, which can in turn, lead to rumination, a cognitive state in which presence is made from absence. Such experiences, while they are not predetermined to happen, can help us to imagine how prayers and mourning practices functioned in the generation of apocalyptic visions in the Second Temple period. The first topic that I will explore is how the cultivation of the emotional state of grief and rumination are natural cognitive processes that are designed to produce experiences of presence from absence. By this I mean a sensory perception of the presence of otherworldly beings, either as a perception of alterity, or as an experience of a vision or voice. Secondly we will consider how such ritual experiences might be understood as social mechanisms that assisted in generating an awareness of God’s presence during a period in which the deity’s absence was especially felt during times of political uncertainty.

1 Lawrence Barsalou et al., “Embodiment in Religious Knowledge,” Journal of Cognition and Culture 5 (2005): 14–57. Article Note: The author gratefully acknowledges that this research was funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement number 627536 RelExDSS FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IIF. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-006



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The reuse of traditional scriptural language in the composition of prayers during the Second Temple period thwarts any attempt to recover a text’s original historical author.2 While form criticism is useful for drawing attention to broader patterns in prayer forms and historical contexts, it unhelpfully severs prayers from their larger narrative contexts. Because historical criticism has focused on origins, many prayers from the Second Temple period were unaccounted for by classic form-critical categories, which were oriented toward ancient Israelite religion. As first person texts, prayers are more helpfully understood through performance studies than form criticism. While we cannot fully recover the historical author of Second Temple prayers, we can aim to understand the kinds of responses that these texts elicited in the one who prays them and in those people who witness and possibly participated in these prayer events. This focus on the performance of and responses to prayers as texts that were enacted and re-enacted also draws our attention to the role of emotion as scripted experiences that are strategically performed. Emotional language in Second Temple prayers are not records of an “original” interiority of a now unknown ancient author but rather a highly rhetorically first-person script by which ancients sought to cultivate desired dispositions in the ritual performer and spectators. In other words, we will examine these Second Temple prayers, not from the usual historical-critical questions that seek to know who authored the prayer. We also will not seek to investigate the process of how the prayer came to be composed and the manner in which scripture is interpreted or redeployed in the prayer. Instead, we will ask the question of how can the prayer (and the things that happen subsequently) be understood to function as a social mechanism that enhanced cooperative living and synchronous behavior? In this way, our interest in Daniel’s prayer goes past the text of the prayer itself (Dan 9:4b–19) to include the subsequent visionary experience of the angel Gabriel (Dan 9:20–27). While we will discuss how the self-diminishing practices and prayers together can be understood to contribute to the cultivation of the vision of Gabriel, the encounter itself is not one that is determined to happen. Instead, Daniel’s experience of the angel is presented as an unpredictable and unexpected event, even though the practices and prayers are the necessary conditions for its possibility.3 Daniel is acted upon by the vision: “And while I was

2 Judith H. Newman, “The Scripturalization of Prayer in Exilic and Second Temple Judaism,” in Prayers that Cite Scripture, ed. James L. Kugel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 7–24; Esther G. Chazon, “Scripture and Prayer in ‘The Words of the Luminaries’,” in Prayers that Cite Scripture, 25–41. 3 Amira Mittermaier, “Dreams from Elsewhere: Muslim Subjectivities Beyond the Trope of SelfCultivation,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 18 (2012): 247–265. Dreams,

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speaking in the prayer, the man, Gabriel whom I had seen in a vision previously flying swiftly, came to me, at the moment of the evening sacrifice” ‫וְ ֛עֹוד ֲא ִנ֥י ְמ ַד ֵ ּ֖בר‬

‫ת־ע ֶרב׃‬ ֽ ָ ‫יעף נ ֵֹג ַ֣ע ֵא ֔ ַלי ְּכ ֵ ֖עת ִמנְ ַח‬ ָ ֔ ‫יתי ֶב ָחז֤ ֹון ַּב ְּת ִח ָּל ֙ה ֻמ ָע֣ף ִּב‬ ִ ‫יאל ֲא ֶׁשר֩ ָר ִ֙א‬ ֵ֡ ‫ַּב ְּת ִפ ָּל֑ה וְ ָה ִ ֣איׁש ּגַ ְב ִר‬

(Dan 9:21). Here, what I wish to note is Daniel’s experience of the angel is reported as “happening to” him; the otherworldly being is said to come at Daniel unexpectedly like something swooping out of the sky. Events like this are constitutive of how Daniel comes to be regarded as a “visionary,” “seer,” or “prophet” by later Jewish and Christian communities. The event also illustrates how the ancient self negotiated and was transformed by unexpected encounters with the otherworld. The prayer in Daniel 9 is an ideal passage to examine as a grief-induced religious experience. The chapter begins with Daniel consulting the books of the sixth-century BCE prophet Jeremiah in the hopes of seeking an answer to the question of how long the exile will last. After engaging in highly-stylized funerary rites of fasting, sackcloth, and ashes, Daniel offers a prayer that includes a lengthy confession of sin that specifies not only his and the people’s sinfulness, but also that of every Israelite everywhere and at every time in history (9:5–8). Daniel’s confession of God’s greatness (9:15) underscores the people’s sinfulness, the just nature of their dire straits, and God’s righteous judgment to enforce the curses described in the Mosaic law (9:4b; 9:7a; 9:14–16). The prayer concludes with a series of petitions pleading for God’s attention that refer to features of embodiment that evoke a sense of the deity’s presence (9:17–19). These petitions further subordinate Daniel, who has already positioned himself among the sinful in the preceding confession of sins. Here vivid and striking imagery about the invisible deity’s rhetorically constructed body is found (e.g., God’s mighty hand [v.15], God’s shining face [v.17], inclining ear [v.18], open eyes [v.18], and acting body [v.19]). The prayer is then followed by a vision of the angel Gabriel who answers Daniel (9:20–23) and reveals an interpretation of the Jeremian prophecy (9:24–27). Many details from Daniel 9 cohere with Second Temple prayers and practices, such as highly stereotypical and scripturalizing language, and stylized gestures. At the same time, several referential details have been incorporated into the presentation that suggest a high degree of realism. These include the specification of a date which identifies the imperial ruler at the time (vv. 1–2), the occasion for the prayer which is Daniel’s personal longing to know an answer to the end of the devastation (vv. 2–3), the vividness with which the deity’s body is described

like visions, are unpredictable and cannot be cultivated; instead, such experiences are given (p. 254).



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(vv. 17–19), the first-person reporting of events, the details about the precise moment when the angelic encounter occurred (vv. 20–23), and the lengthy quoting of the angel’s words themselves (vv. 24–27). All of these details make for a dynamic account that can be easily visualized in the mind’s imagination, making the retelling of the events vivid and compelling for subsequent readers. According to the biblical text, Daniel cultivated a visionary experience of the angel Gabriel in such a state of heightened receptivity. This is presented to the reader as the mechanism by which Daniel came to acquire a new understanding of Jeremiah’s sixth-century BCE prophecy. In addition to the practices and prayers, Daniel’s meditation upon and reenactment of the prophet Jeremiah’s anguish would have added a further layer of self-diminishment to Daniel’s experience. Both Jewish and Christian groups in antiquity found the chronomessianic aspects of Daniel’s vision to be compelling enough to form communities of resistance that banded to revolt against much larger imperial powers, such as the Jewish Revolt against Rome in 67–74 CE, an act that ultimately led to the destruction of the Second Temple.4 While we cannot verify the historicity of the events, the vividness of the description and realistic elements would have allowed later readers to receive these writings as if they had actually happened. Experiences of texts, whether fiction or non-fiction, are capable of producing similar types of embodied responses in the reader. Our conclusion will discuss briefly how these textualized experiences of prayer and visions might have contributed to actual human experiences of heightened commitment and solidarity.

1 Grief-Induced Experiences If grief is understood to be a complex state of desolation marked by personal longing, the study of emotions is a logical place at which to begin an investigation of how religious practices and prayer can be said to function in Second Temple times. Integrated approaches that examine the human experience of emotion show that regions of the brain that are aroused during first-hand experiences of certain emotions such as disgust or pain are similarly activated when individuals read enactively about such experiences or are asked to empathize with them. The human mind’s capacity for imaginative engagement with the experiences of

4 Anthony J. Tomasino, “Oracles of Insurrection: The Prophetic Catalyst of the Great Revolt,” JJS 59 (2008): 86–111.

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others, whether those events are read about or heard as second-hand reports, appears to have to do more with how those events are conveyed rather than about whether they are verifiably true or not.5 While this point may be obvious to anyone who has found him or herself engrossed by a novel, it needs to be stated in discussions like these because too often, the conversation can turn to questions of historicity: was there really a historical Ezra? Did Daniel really see an angel? Were these texts really written by a historical Teacher of Righteousness? Such manoeuvers deflect attention away from what I think are the more interesting questions concerning the dynamics and function of prayer in antiquity, and they say more about our disciplinary pre-occupations than about the experience of these texts in the Second Temple period. Richly contoured imaginative worlds are constructed by the rhetorical use of language and the first person voice which draw a reader into the text and assist in the generation of an experience of that text. A text’s capacity to compel a reader to have certain types of experiences or to act in a particular way does not hinge upon its historical facticity.

1.1 Modern and Pre-modern Mourning Rituals The ancient context of the book of Daniel requires a pre-modern understanding of grief which highlights its ritualized and performative aspects. In antiquity, the social expression of grief (known as mourning) was highly regulated by public policies; it was not viewed principally as a spontaneous outpouring of interior anguish. Meyer Abram’s metaphors of the mirror and the lamp may be helpful here. The lamp signifies the modern emphasis on the self’s interior which erupts forth in unique brilliance.6 In contrast, the pre-modern conceptualization, represented by the mirror, is one in which the self engages in a complex mimetic process of enacting and reenacting received patterns. The expectation that prayers express the distinct interiority of the pray-er resonates with modern readers, but it may not be the best way to describe pre-modern experiences of prayer. While modern expressions of grief and ritual mourning highlight the heartfelt anguish felt over the loss of a personal relationship, pre-modern understandings of mourning emphasize its ritualized and performative aspects. In pre-

5 Cain Todd, “Attending Emotionally to Fiction,” Journal of Value Inquiry (19 February 2013): 449–465. 6 Meyer H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953).



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modern societies, grief was routinely enacted by professionals who had neither personal experience nor strong affection for the deceased, highlighting the performative dimension of mourning. In antiquity, the social expression of grief was highly regulated by public policies. We can see glimpses of this social regulation of grief today in the public policies that frequently restrict who has the right to grieve in the workplace, oftentimes excluding unmarried partners; ex-spouses; and in some instances although less-frequently now, same-sex partners. Modern Western English-speaking cultures have also developed highly individualized expressions of grieving with more and more people designing their own mourning rituals (e.g., roadside memorials; memorializing the life of loved one with a funerary tattoo made from the ashes of the dearly departed). Some attribute the modern emphasis on the increasingly private individualization of grief (even in forms of public mourning) to Romanticism which celebrated conjugal love, not arranged marriages.7 The expectation that grief expresses the distinct interiority of the individual resembles the modern ideal of prayer as an individual’s heartfelt private conversation with God.8 Even so, it is still the case that many cultures and religions preserve a tradition of ritualized mourning. Anthropologists recognize that rituals do not predetermine that uniform experiences will occur among masses of individuals; yet in the case of mourning, the media perpetuate these illusory images of a comprehensive and consistent public experience of grief. Tony Walter in his essay on “the New Public Mourning” writes that decisions about which images are used in news coverage of public mourning influence how people perceive a grieving nation or even globe. Walter traces this back to the late 1990s to England’s mourning over the death of Princess Diana. While the “few who came to pay respects were in tears, and even fewer cried aloud, television cameras focused on the one person in tears, cutting away to an apparently large crowd, giving the [misleading] impression of thousands in tears.”9 These critiques of the illusory nature of the socially normative role of mourning during certain occasions help to reinforce our concern to keep in mind that states of grief aroused by practices of mourning had diverse purposes and produced multiple and undetermined responses in individuals that exceed that of

7 Tony Walter, “The New Public Mourning,” in Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice: Advances in Theory and Intervention, ed. Margaret S. Stroebe et al. (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2008), 241–262. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes toward Death over the Last One Thousand Years (London: Allen Lane, 1981). 8 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.xx.4,5,16. 9 Walter, “The New Public Mourning,” 247.

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lamenting over death. So too, modern studies have begun to recognize that grief is less like an emotion and more like a complex state of distress in response to loss.10 While the modern mind typically understands emotions as a glimpse of a person’s interiority that erupts forth, “the classical conception of the emotions (…) looked more to agency and effect on social standing than on one’s interior experiences.”11 For the ancients, emotions were not uniformly accessible to all since the passions (pathe) were experienced and negotiated only within the context of a highly stratified society. Emotions that are understood as universal today would simply not have been available to those without power or privilege (e.g., indignation presumes a person’s dignity). In antiquity, grief, i.e., distress marked by personal loss, differed strikingly from the classical Greek notion of pathe because grief was experienced by all, regardless of one’s power or prestige, making it closer to a physical pain than a passion.12 So too, modern studies have begun to recognize that grief is less like an emotion and more like a complex state of distress in response to loss.13 There were several ways of describing the experience of grief in antiquity. The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo describes grief (lupē) as generating powerlessness, a sense of immobility, smallness, and the loss of words (Mos. i. 139; Quod. Omn. Prob. 159; Quis Her. 270; Virt.88; Ios. 214).14 The natural regret that arises in states of longing perhaps can account for grief’s well-attested associ-

10 George A. Bonanno, “Grief and Emotion: A Social-Functional Perspective,” in Handbook of Bereavement Research: Consequences, Coping, and Care, ed. Margaret S. Stroebe et al. (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2001), 493–516. 11 David Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 258. 12 Daniel King, “Galen and Grief: The Construction of Grief in Galen’s Clinical Work,” in Unveiling Emotions II. Emotions in Greece and Rome: Texts, Images, Material Culture, ed. Angelos Chaniotis and Pierre Ducrey (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2013), 251–272. 13 Bonanno, “Grief and Emotion,” 493–516. The English word emotion has been critiqued by Thomas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), for being an overly inclusive word in the modern period, masking significant distinctive elements and experiences that were recognized in premodern societies. Dixon’s point is important and significant, however, the word emotion remains useful insofar as it refers to the biological expression of endocrine changes or heart palpitations, e.g., the physiological changes that could be detected by another in the form of trembling, tears, blushing, etc. In this sense the discussion offered here is a redescriptive project that uses the language of religion and religious experience but which acknowledges that ancient societies would not themselves categorize their experiences of grief as “emotion.” See Brent Nongbri, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). 14 Jerome Neyrey, “The Absence of Jesus’ Emotions – The Lucan Redaction of Lk 22,39–46,” Bib 61 (1980): 153–171, esp. 156–157.



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ation with guilt or sinfulness, and may perhaps reflect the effects of a natural process of ruminating over what had or had not been done during the lifetime of the deceased. The outward expression of grief was strictly governed by social expectations. While modern western English-speaking cultures have developed highly individualized expressions of grieving, it is still the case that many cultures and religions preserve some tradition of ritualization for mourning. In premodern societies, grief was routinely enacted by professionals who had neither personal experience nor strong affection for the deceased, highlighting the performative dimension of mourning.

1.2 Rumination – Making Presence from Absence The cognitive and emotional processes that occur naturally during grief known as rumination can be said to resemble those experienced during the ritualization of mourning which is enacted and reenacted in religious contexts. Pascal Boyer and Pierre Liénard distinguished such ritualization behaviors from mundane routinization, in which repetitive acts come to be performed with some degree of automaticity over time.15 They acknowledge that many naturally occurring experiences that are neither religious nor ritualized exhibit such features. Leonard Martin and Abraham Tesser write that it is possible to define rumination generically as a reference “to several varieties of recurrent thinking, including making sense, problem solving, reminiscence, and anticipation.”16 Ritualized experiences of grief within the context of highly controlled public expression of mourning can arouse the state of rumination, a phenomenon that naturally resembles the repetitive behaviors of ritualization, albeit with certain differences. In the context of mourning, rumination is an obsessive on-going longing for that which has been lost. Enacting the practices associated with mourning by performing highly stylized funerary behaviors and by uttering self-deprecating statements of sinfulness can generate a predisposition to experience bodily the self-diminishing state associated with grieving and rumination, although such

15 Pascal Boyer and Pierre Liénard, “Whence Collective Rituals? A Cultural Selection Model of Ritualized Behavior?,” American Anthropologist 108 (2006): 815; idem, “Why Ritualized Behavior? Precaution Systems and Action Parsing in Developmental, Pathological and Cultural Rituals,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (2006): 606, 611. 16 Leonard L. Martin and Abraham Tesser, “Clarifying Our Thoughts,” in Ruminative Thoughts: Advances in Social Cognition 9, ed. Robert S. Wyer Jr. (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1996), 192.

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experiences are not predetermined to happen.17 The naturally associative aspects of memory and emotion can generate a state in which personally significant memories of loss or devastation can be imagined from cultivating practices such that a state of vivid bodily “experiencing” is achieved.18 Cognitive processes associated with ritualized experiences of mourning can be said to share similarities with other naturally occurring states of distress due to personal loss which are not occasioned by death. A psychobiological study comparing grief experienced as a result of death and as a result of rejected romantic love demonstrated this, concluding that common areas of the brain are activated. Such ritually induced intrusive cognitive states fit the kinds of natural experiences that Boyer and Liénard associate with ritualized behavior.19 The complex state of grief can be described as a strong “yearning and sadness,” sometimes accompanied by feelings of guilt over what has been lost.20 Individuals in bereavement often report experiences of intense introspection and examination. Studies of the post-traumatic growth that sometimes follows grief have noted the critical role of rumination in bereft individuals, observing a correlation between rumination and experiences of transformation.21 While rumination was previously thought to be maladaptive by prolonging the bereavement process, preventing an individual from moving beyond their grieving, more recent studies have shown that this is not an avoidance strategy but rather a way by which the bereaved continually confronts the reality of the loss, ultimately resulting in a greater frequency of reported experiences of transformative growth.22

17 For a discussion of the performative aspects of mourning practices and penitential prayer language, see Angela K. Harkins, “A Phenomenological Study of Penitential Elements and their Strategic Arousal of Emotion in the Qumran Hodayot (1QHa cols. 1[?]–8),” in Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions: Emotions associated with Jewish prayer in and around the Second Temple period, ed. Stefan C. Reif and Renate Egger-Wenzel, DCLS 26 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 297–316. 18 Tanya M. Luhrmann and Rachel Morgain, “Prayer as Inner Sense Cultivation: An Attentional Learning Theory of Spiritual Experience,” Ethos 40 (2012): 359–389; also Thomas Csordas, The Sacred Self (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 19 Boyer and Liénard, “Whence Collective Rituals?,” and idem, “Why Ritualized Behavior?” 20 M. Katherine Shear, “The Cutting Edge: Getting Straight about Grief,” Depression and Anxiety 29 (2012): 461–464. 21 Peter Bray, “Accentuating the Positive: Self-actualising Post-traumatic Growth Processes,” in How Trauma Resonates: Art, Literature, and Theoretical Practice, ed. Mark Callaghan (Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2014), 149–162; Lawrence G. Calhoun et al., “Positive Outcomes Following Bereavement: Paths to Posttraumatic Growth,” Psychologica Belgica 50 (2010): 125–143. 22 Maarten C. Eisma, “Avoidance Processes Mediate the Relationship between Rumination and Symptoms of Complicated Grief and Depression Following Loss,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 122 (2013): 961–970.



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In the case of both romantic love and death, grieving can also bring about an intense idealization of the one who is lost, a phenomenon detected in fMRI studies.23 Such states of hyperawareness and imaginative rumination can be the means whereby the bereaved creates presence from absence. Goodkin and others have included this sense of vivid contact with the deceased in their definition of grief: “Grief includes depressed mood, yearning, loneliness, searching for the deceased, the sense of the deceased being present, and the sense of being in ongoing communication with that person” (italics mine).24 In other words, the naturally occurring cognitive processes associated with grief, viz., rumination, make it possible to perceive the presence of someone who is not physically there. The natural rumination over vivid episodic memories suggests an evolutionary response in which “both separation and grief reactions are deficit-driven reactions to loss of a loved one, whose function is reunification.”25 These aspects of grief are especially interesting if we consider the bodily emotional and cognitive processes that enable the generation of an experience of presence and strong desire for eventual reunification to be the mechanism by which Second Temple communities were able to recover an experience of foundational events with first-hand intensity after the rupture of the exile. The psychophysiology of longing, vivid presence, and idealization that accompanies the experience of grief is not phenomenally dissimilar to the Deuteronomic activity of “searching” or “seeking” which is the theological underpinning of these Second Temple prayers. Boyer calls the general cognitive processes that allow for the vivid perceptions of someone who is not there to be an expression of the evolutionary adaptiveness of imagination, which participates in the larger aim of prosociality by constructing an ethical constraint.26 The ability to imagine vivid egocentric emotional memories (such as the ones that are generated from ruminative states of grieving) can contribute to the imaginative processes that can compel one to follow a law, even if no one is watching. This is because one can mentally construct the presence of someone who is not there and vividly imagine the consequences for not

23 John Archer and Helen Fisher, “Bereavement and Reactions to Romantic Rejection: A Psychobiological Perspective,” in Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice, ed. Margaret S. Stroebe et al. (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2008), 349–371. 24 Karl Goodkin et al., “Physiological Effects of Bereavement and Bereavement Support Group Interventions,” in Handbook of Bereavement Research: Consequences, Coping, and Care, ed. Margaret S. Stroebe et al. (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2001), 672. 25 Archer and Fisher, “Bereavement and Reactions to Romantic Rejection,” 359–360. 26 Pascal Boyer, “What are Memories for? Functions of Recall in Cognition and Culture,” in Memory in Mind and Culture, ed. Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 16.

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performing the right behavior.27 In this way, the mind’s capacity to make presence from absence is an adaptive function. The prayer in Daniel 9, like other prayers from this period, surely spoke to the experiences of longing for God had by those who returned to Judea after the sixth-century BCE expulsion by the Babylonians. This emphasis on mourning and rumination may have assisted in cultivating states of rumination and other imaginative processes that allowed groups throughout the Second Temple period to access God’s presence. This may help us to understand the relationship that these prayers of ritual mourning have with covenant remaking experiences.28 The rumination aroused by these practices and prayers have the capacity to create vivid egocentric emotional memories and states of longing and rumination that would have allowed for a way of perceiving God’s presence during times of great political uncertainty when God’s absence would be most acute. Imaginative emotional memory making would have been instrumental for these communities to access foundational events from the past with the intensity of first-hand experience. In so doing, the emotional memory frame would also allow for the creative updating of those received traditions,29 allowing the foundational events from the past to be re-imagined in such a way as to maintain their adaptive relevance in new circumstances. Jeremiah’s vivid sixth-century BCE prophecy concerning the duration of the exile has been preserved in a book that is highly charged emotionally and can be understood to be a foundational event of revelatory disclosure upon which Daniel meditates.

1.3 Petition, Confession, and Imaginative Meditation Rumination allows for the re-experiencing of past foundational events with a first-hand intensity. In a similar way, the cognitive processes that are aroused in states of grief can allow for an imaginative generation of presence from absence. Mourning and rumination is a natural process which may be the mechanism by which communities of this time maintained a sense of divine palpable presence and continuity with the past.

27 Boyer, “What are Memories for?,” 18–20. 28 Edward Lipinski, La liturgie pénitentielle dans la Bible (Paris: Cerf, 1969); Odil H. Steck, Israel und das gewaltsame Geschick der Propheten: Untersuchungen zur Überlieferung des deuteronomistischen Geschichtsbildes im Alten Testament, Spätjudentum und Urchristentum, WMANT 23 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967). 29 Boyer, “What are Memories for?,” 16–18.



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Daniel’s practices of mourning, his prayer, and meditation upon Jeremiah’s prophecy can be said to assist in the cultivation of a predisposition for experiencing the emotional state of grief, without predetermining that it would happen. Ancient prayers were not spontaneous unique expressions of the ritual actor; they were reenactments styled on traditional prayer components: petitions, confessions of sin, and confessions of God’s greatness. The discursive prayer elements that are also associated with this type of prayer (viz., petitions, confessions of God’s greatness, and confessions of the speaker’s sinfulness) are understood here as strategies for placing the speaker in a position of subordination to the deity. The embodied sensation of smallness could also generate perceptions of alterity,30 an experience by which the sovereign deity’s presence could be known. The prayer, in conjunction with Daniel’s imaginative meditation upon Jeremiah’s prophecy, works to layer multiple self-diminishing experiences so that a state of mourning and rumination can be achieved.

1.3.1. Petition and Confession Ancient ritual prayers of petitioning did not assume that God would respond to the request at hand – although they certainly sought to compel a divine response.31 While conceptualizing petition as a need to which God will eventually respond prevails in modern times, the pre-modern world understood petitionary prayer as a highly stylized ritual script that aimed to generate a vivid experience of the deity’s presence within the practitioner, one that would also affect the witnesses at hand.32 These practices along with the prayer allow Daniel to achieve a decentering of the self that makes possible the crucial perception of alterity. According to Angelos Chaniotis, performative emotions within ritual contexts seek to generate vivid sensations of alterity, usually of being in the real presence of the deity, so as to construct compelling religious experiences for the spectators who are present.33 In this sense, the intense and highly emotional experiences expressed

30 Thomas J. Csordas, “Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology,” Ethos 18 (1990): 36–37. 31 Angelos Chaniotis, “Emotional Community through Ritual: Initiates, Citizens, and Pilgrims as Emotional Communities in the Greek World,” in Ritual Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean: Agency, Emotion, Gender, Representation, ed. Angelos Chaniotis (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 2011), 265–266. 32 Angelos Chaniotis, “Staging and Feeling the Presence of God: Emotion and Theatricality in Religious Celebrations in the Roman East,” in Panthée: Religious Transformations in the GraecoRoman Empire, ed. Laurent Bricault and Corinne Bonnet (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 169–189. 33 Chaniotis, “Staging and Feeling the Presence of God.”

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by the first person voice in the prayer are not solely to cultivate an experience in the one who prays. The cognitive behaviors of rumination that accompany grief can help to generate perceptions of the other because the experience of grieving is one in which the bereaved is acutely aware of the absence of the one who is gone. The appearance of the heavenly being is part of the staging of the immanent experience of heavenly beings, and is timed to coincide with the evening sacrifice (Dan 9:20–23).34 The invisible and distant God is rhetorically constructed by the prayer which recollects the deity’s saving deeds in the exodus from Egypt (Dan 9:15–16) and the frequent mention of divine punishment for disobedience. With this in mind, it is notable that the prayer meditates upon the invisible God’s face, ear, eyes, and hand, thereby constructing the physical human-like body of the deity which may even account for the vividness of the vision of the otherworldly agent who appears in human form as the angel Gabriel. It is helpful to remember that the cumulative effect of these petitionary prayer elements, petition and confession of sin, converges with the outcome of funerary practices: self-diminishment. In other words, petitionary prayer is far more about the performative reenactment of the subordinating behavior of beseeching than about that which is being petitioned.35 Second Temple ritual practices and prayers that generate the desired emotional state of grief-stricken desolation also serve to transform the individual from a state of longing to joy.36 The same can be said about the confessional language used in Daniel’s prayer, which include both the confession of sins and confession of God’s greatness. While Second Temple prayers often include a confession of sins, the transgressions are not personal crimes. Daniel confesses the sinful violations of the covenant in the first-person plural (Dan. 9:5,6,7,8,9,10,13,15,16), all of which are stereotypical statements of Israel’s wrongdoings, even though it is not clear that Daniel himself is guilty of these deeds.37

34 Incidentally, the synchronization of the performance of penitential prayer with the incense offering of the Jerusalem Temple appears in Jdt 9:1. 35 Harkins, “A Phenomenological Study of Penitential Elements,” 297–316. 36 This phenomenon of the transformative role of ritually experienced emotions of mourning and desolation in ancient Israelite religion is described well by Gary A. Anderson, A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: The Expression of Grief and Joy in Israelite Religion (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991). 37 In another example, Ezra passionately confesses the sin of intermarriage, including himself among the guilty, even though it is clear that he himself has never committed this deed (e.g., Ezra 9:6,7,10,13,14,15). Moses also uses the first-person plural to confess the sin of the golden calf, but clearly he played no part in the crime (Exod 34:9).



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While the modern mind is accustomed to viewing these petitionary elements and confessional statements (both the confession of sins and the confession of God’s greatness) as the spontaneous outpouring of the pray-er’s innermost thoughts, the language of the prayer and the larger ancient cultural context indicate that these are performative reenactments of highly stylized ritual components.38 All of these elements highlight the speaker’s diminution and subordination vis-à-vis the deity, and can be recognized as strategies for bringing about self-diminishment.

1.3.2 Reenacting Jeremiah’s Anguish If Daniel 9 is understood as a scripted performance for decentering in which the funerary acts and the prayer elements contribute to the successive layering of self-diminishment, a further mechanism for decentering can be identified in Daniel’s imaginative meditation upon the sixth-century BCE prophet Jeremiah. The report of Daniel’s ritualization of mourning can be said to be a reenactment of the prophet’s anguish and distress. The specific prophecy concerning the duration of the exile is found in Jeremiah 25 and 29. It is not said that Daniel went to a specific scriptural text, but rather that Daniel consulted books and perceived in them the number of years that Jerusalem must lie in devastation (viz., 70). While the modern mind may imagine the seer gazing intently at a specific text from the book of Jeremiah, a scroll apparatus would not allow for random access. It is more likely that Daniel was pouring over the scrolls associated with Jeremiah – reading and re-reading them – while pondering their contents as he performed the practices and prayer. Meditation upon Jeremiah’s career, which was marked by desolation, rejection, and anguish, would have been a further means by which Daniel was able to layer self-diminishing experiences to bring about a decentering experience. Such an imaginative reading can generate an experience of “presence,” that is, a perception of being in the space that has been constructed by the rhetorical elements in the text.39

38 Gary Ebersole, “The Function of Ritual Weeping Revisited: Affective Expression and Moral Discourse,” History of Religions 39 (2000): 211–246. 39 Anežka. Kuzmičová writes that presence is “the sense of having physically entered a tangible environment,” in her essay, “Presence in the Reading of Literary Narrative: A Case for Motor Enactment,” Semiotica 189 (2012): 24. According to Kuzmičová, the passage must be detailed and long enough for the reader to mentally enact the kinesthetic behavior; it cannot be a fleeting summary reference. See also István Czachesz, The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse: Hell, Scatology, and Metamorphosis (Sheffield: Equinox, 2012), 172.

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The image in Daniel 9:2 is of Daniel pouring over a scroll and imaginatively meditating upon and visualizing Jeremiah’s prophetic career as it was expressed by his anguished experiences highlights an enactive reading which could have heightened his own emotional experience of the sixth-century prophecy. Daniel’s practices and prayers can also be understood as initiating a decentering process that allowed for the natural processes of problem solving to happen, expressed in the biblical text as a new interpretation of Jeremiah’s prestigious sixth-century BCE prophecy. The first-person speech that often characterizes the discourse of the prophetic utterance is also a means by which Daniel could have accessed a richer and more imaginative experience of Jeremiah’s prophecies. Studies of narrative theory and cognitive science suggest that the activity of reading empathically can engage sensory faculties of perception that make possible a vivid enactive experience of events described in the texts40 Daniel can be understood as performing an affective reenactment of the intense grief felt by the prophet Jeremiah, particularly as these emotions are described in Jeremiah 25–29 and especially in the biographical sections in Jeremiah 27–29. The reader is only told that Daniel is actively meditating upon the content of the book of Jeremiah; we are not told that Daniel focused on a particular passage. It may be that the mourning and first-person prayer vividly recreated the emotions of desolation and grief that were experienced by the prophet and expressed in Jeremiah 25 and 29, which speak of the Babylonian devastation as a manifestation of the invisible God’s just punishment of a disobedient people. Jeremiah’s career spanned key decades in Judean history, posing distinct challenges as he preached to an unreceptive community who rested confidently in the fact that they had earlier escaped the Assyrian destruction that had been experienced by the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth-century BCE. In addition to being pained by this international crisis, Jeremiah was also greatly anguished by personal challenges to his authority, as is reported in his dramatic public controversies with the false prophet Hananiah (Jer 27–29). Placing the fictive literary setting of the book of Daniel within the context of the tumultuous events during Jeremiah’s lifetime suggests that the uncertainty of the Babylonian era resonated deeply for the author of Daniel, whom many believe to have written and compiled traditions during the second-century BCE.

40 The most effective rhetorical details for enactive reading are the use of the first person voice and reports of kinesthetic movement; Kuzmičová, “Presence in the Reading of Literary Narrative,” 27–28; Angela K. Harkins, Reading with an “I” to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions, Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 3 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 94–113.



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1.4 Reenacting Grief as a Decentering Technique Patrick McNamara discusses how various practices can be used to decenter the self, and he notes that the right temporal prefrontal regions of the brain are responsible for what he calls the “anatomy of the Self” and religious experience.41 The social mechanisms and practices by which religion contributes to the ongoing and dynamic process of transforming the self include: “prayer; meditations; mental exercises involving the imagination; confessing sins before God and forming resolutions and goals concerning better behaviors; reading and studying scriptural texts; private rituals and devotional practices.”42 The involvement of the body in various behaviors and gestures is a critical part of transformative cognitive processes. These integrative models of embodied cognition understand the self phenomenologically as “grounded and situated in social and bodily contexts.”43 Daniel’s practices and prayers can also be understood as initiating a decentering process that allowed for the natural processes of problem solving to happen, expressed in the biblical text as a new interpretation of Jeremiah’s prestigious sixth-century BCE prophecy. Emotions that are strategically performed within ritualized settings play a key role in the experiences attributed to Daniel. While the ongoing reenactment of performative emotions does not predetermine that transformative cognitive processes will occur (e.g., rumination, the sensations of smallness, the awareness of alterity), the cultivation of these perceptions through imaginative practices of meditation is the necessary precondition for their occurrence.44 Religious communities use a number of practices for training and disciplining bodily sense perceptions in order to generate within their members a predisposition to expe-

41 Patrick McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 146. 42 McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience, 148. 43 Sebastian Schüler, “Synchronized Ritual Behavior: Religion, Cognition, and the Dynamics of Embodiment,” in Religion and the Body: Modern Science and the Construction of Religious Meaning, ed. David Cave and Rebecca S. Norris, Numen 138 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 90; Armin W. Geertz, “Brain, Body and Culture: A Biocultural Theory of Religion,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (2010): 304–321; Eliot R. Smith, “Social Relationships and Groups: New Insights on Embodied and Distributed Cognition,” Cognitive Systems Research 9 (2008): 24–32; Shaun Gallagher, “The Practice of Mind: Theory, Simulation, or Primary Interaction?,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (2001): 83–108. 44 Tanya Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical relationship with God (New York: Knopf, 2012); Saba Mahmood, The Politics of Piety: Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).

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riencing religion. Tanya Luhrmann’s recent study of the spiritual experiences of contemporary evangelical Christian groups is yet another ethnography that highlights the enormous energy and effort that is expended in order to create an experientially accessible presence of the deity for religious communities.45 Both Saba Mahmood and Luhrmann describe how sensory imagination and emotional energies are carefully trained through self-cultivating practices of prayer and meditation to generate the necessary predisposition to experience God vividly in the here and now. In doing so, religious subjects could be said to interact with God, Jesus, Muhammad, or any number of holy men and women whom “they have never met face-to-face,” thus broadening and complicating how we understand the possible relationships and experiences that are constitutive of the self.46 From a modern perspective, we might describe the events in Daniel 9 as the cultivation of religious experience through practices and imaginative meditation, but it would be a mistake to conclude that such effects were determined to happen or that they could be mechanically replicated. In this sense, visionary experiences cannot be generated at will. Instead, one might speak of the cultivation of a predisposition for these experiences, but natural explanatory theories cannot fully account for the unpredictable occurrence of prophetic visionary experience that are phenomenologically indistinct from the unpredictability of dreams.47 “Religious experiences are best termed emergent precisely because the mixture of cognitive-emotional processes will not account for the complex, dialogical characteristics of religion.”48

2 Prayer as a Social Mechanism Daniel’s chronomessianic understanding of Jeremiah’s prophecy has been read and re-read by Jewish and Christian communities throughout the centuries who have used this text to support their own revolts and resistance movements. Perhaps the most famous of these political movements is the great Jewish

45 Luhrmann, When God Talks Back. 46 Amira Mittermaier, Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 230. 47 Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2011), 112–113. 48 James W. Haag and Whitney A. Bauman, “De/Constructing Transcendence: The Emergence of Religious Bodies,” in Religion and the Body, 37–55.



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Revolt that resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. This raises important questions about how the prayer and angelic vision found in Daniel 9 functioned to enhance prosocial aims. This section offers three ways in which we could imagine Daniel 9 contributing to cooperative living and intensify commitment.

2.1 The Display of Grief and Self-abasement as a Signal of Deep Commitment First, the ritually correct display of self-abasement on the body of the pray-er (Daniel) could have increased the power and prestige that he enjoyed within the group by signaling his commitment to the group, thus generating entitativity among members and compelling them to behave in cooperative ways.49 David Lambert has already argued persuasively that fasting is not an expression of interior sinfulness but rather a ritualized performance and socially meaningful display that can have multiple and diverse purposes.50 In this framework, the non-violent behaviors of abstaining and fasting from foods and the performance of self-diminishing practices and prayers could be understood as compelling signals of deep commitment that effected a strengthening of the social bonds that tied together the ancient communities who read the book of Daniel. The display of emotion can produce the additional social benefits of a convergence of emotional states among individuals (explained by some scholars as emotional contagion51 or by the concept of mirror neurons), thereby resulting in greater behavioral synchrony.

49 McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience, 30–31; Joseph Henrich, “The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and their Implications for Cultural Evolution,” Evolution and Human Behavior 30 (2009): 244–260; Richard Sosis, “The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual: Rituals Promote Group Cohesion by Requiring Members to Engage in Behavior that is Too Costly to Fake,” American Scientist 92 (2004): 166– 172. 50 David Lambert, “Fasting as a Penitential Rite: A Biblical Phenomenon?,” HTR 96 (2003): 477–512. 51 Elaine Hatfield, John L. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson, “Emotional Contagion,” Current Directions in Psychological Sciences 2 (1993): 96–99.

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2.2 A Mechanism for Adaptive Transformation of Foundational Events The practices, prayer, and resulting vision in Daniel 9 can be understood as providing a social mechanism for the updating of traditional narratives,52 thereby allowing later communities to use the power and prestige of Jeremiah’s received prophecy in a new age, and to adapt and transform older folktales and ethnic narratives into new national histories. The new narratives are compelling because they retain their emotional impact, even though they have been significantly altered.53 Daniel 9 recasts and renews the sixth-century BCE Jeremian prophecy in a way that meets the needs of the second-century BCE community, while retaining the prestige and emotional impact of the foundational prophecy which was disclosed during the Babylonian period. The evolutionary advantage of staging such ritualized experiences and otherworldly encounters is that it allows the Judean community an opportunity to update the tried-andtrue sixth-century BCE prophecies in Second Temple times. One could say that the long-standing judgments understood to be issued by the deity long ago concerning the duration of the exile (e.g., Jeremiah’s original prophecy) has been reimagined within a newly constructed revelatory framework that both stages the encounter with the angelic being and also authenticates the content that is revealed. Daniel’s practices and prayer aroused an emotional state that allowed for the creation of a vivid meditation on the sixth-century BCE prophecy, which then became the emotional frame for its revision, thereby allowing it to address the specific concerns of a much later, second-century BCE Hellenistic Jewish community.

2.3 The Complexity of Ancient Revelatory Experiences Thirdly, and most directly related to our previous discussion of grief and rumination, ritually-induced grief cultivated a state of rumination that heightened Daniel’s receptivity to perceive the presence of otherworldly agents. In the case of Daniel 9, this expressed itself as a visionary experience of the angel Gabriel (Dan 9:21–27), and a revealed interpretation of the Jeremian prophecy. The reenacting of mourning practices of self-diminishment occurs in Daniel 10 when Daniel has an experience of the angel Michael, but this time at the bank of the Tigris River

52 Boyer, “What are Memories For?,” 3–28. 53 Boyer, “What are Memories For?,” 10.



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(Dan 10:2–18). Ruminative mourning could have generated an altered state of consciousness that allowed for the cultivation of a vivid perception of that which is longed for, the immediacy of otherworldly contact during a politically fraught time. The textualized record of Daniel’s prayer and vision had this-worldly consequences for the groups that inherited them, effectively emboldening small disenfranchised groups to revolt against much larger imperial powers.54 This is not dissimilar to the role that visionary experiences and omens played in shoring up the resolve of Greco-Roman troops who were fatigued by battle.55 Daniel’s encounters with otherworldly beings were constitutive of communities came to understand him as a prophet or a seer. Otherworldly experiences contribute to the negotiation of power and authority in this world.

3 Conclusion How can we consider the complexity of Daniel’s experience as it would have been experienced in its time? Revelatory experiences such as dreams and visions have, in many cultures throughout time, been a mechanism by which disenfranchised people were able to access the power of the supernatural world – a power that often unpredictably ruptured the earthly hierarchical power structures.56 Was Daniel a seer, or was he a prophet? – regardless of how precisely Jews and Christians come to understand him, it is clear that he was known for his otherworldly visionary experiences. These events were constitutive of his identity in this world and had lasting implications for the communities that inherited his legacy. The figure of Daniel is able to access multiple new relationships with beings who are not of this world. In this respect, Daniel negotiates multiple realms of experience, and in so doing, he reminds readers that there is more than this world. The possibility of an otherworldly realm, one that is vividly accessed by Daniel, contributed to how later readers of this book chose to act in the social and political worlds in which they lived. This way of understanding Daniel’s visionary experiences is part of a larger interest in recovering the embodied experiences of individuals in an emerging

54 Tomasino, “Oracles of Insurrection.” 55 Steven Weitzman, “Warring against Terror: The War Scroll and the Mobilization of Emotion,” JSJ 40 (2009): 213–241; Jean Duhaime, “The War Scroll from Qumran and the Greco-Roman Tactical Treatises,” RevQ 13 (1988): 150. 56 Mittermaier, Dreams that Matter, 13.

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area known as phenomenological approaches to anthropology.57 Especially useful is the work by Amira Mittermeier, who writes how these experiences “from elsewhere” should be understood as constitutive of the self and reveal how otherworldly events contribute to transformations in status and authority within living religious communities.58 The question is not whether Daniel’s claim of angelic visions and revelation were authentic or fraudulent. Such assessments can never be proven and ultimately divert attention away from the dynamic construction of identity and the ongoing negotiation of relationships and power that is taking place.59 This discussion of Daniel’s experience has been an attempt at trying to recover what individual experiences from the past might have been like, based on a textual record. While such a task has long been recognized to be difficult and challenging, not to consider subjective experiences as data for understanding the past can lead to over-determined monochromatic images of the self in antiquity that inevitably (and wrongly) reserve any high-definition texturing such as complexity, contingencies, competing desires, to the world of the observer alone.60 We can only speculate about the cognitive processes that would have assisted a figure such as Daniel to have the kinds of visionary experiences that are reported in chapter 9. The ritualization of mourning could have generated the presence of otherworldly agents in a way that met the needs of a languishing second-century BCE community who was being harshly persecuted by imperial powers. We can say with more certainty that this account of Daniel’s experience of otherworldly encounter was received as evidence of the deity’s presence (indirectly mediated through angels) by the Jewish and Christian communities in anti­quity who understood themselves as heirs to his legacy, and that this prayer text heightened their commitment to cooperative living. Who was the historical Daniel? Was he real? In some ways, the question is not relevant for understanding how this text functioned in antiquity. Because emotive and cognitive processes are similarly enacted in the reading of fiction and non-fiction, the question of historicity is peripheral for a discussion of how a text would have been experienced.61 Later communities who received the tradition of Daniel’s prayer and the angelic revelation of the interpretation of Jeremiah’s

57 Robert Desjarlais and C. Jason Throop, “Phenomenological Approaches in Anthropology,” Annual Review of Anthropology 40 (2011): 87–102. 58 Mittermaier, Dreams that Matter. 59 Mittermaier, Dreams that Matter, 27–28. 60 Desjarlais and Throop, “Phenomenological Approaches in Anthropology.” 61 Todd, “Attending Emotionally to Fiction.”



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prophecy could have experienced this text in compelling ways, even though it could not be proven or disproven to be historical in their own day or in ways that would satisfy modern sensibilities. These apocalyptic visions functioned as evidence of God’s palpable nearness to Second Temple readers, despite their lived experience as politically subjugated peoples. Otherworldly experiences were known to have had significant this-worldly consequences – they were generative of meaning, constitutive of identity, and reminders of God’s unexpected presence in the here and now.

Part 2: Psalms, Prayers, and Penitential Themes The articles of section two, titled “Psalms, Prayers, and Penitential Themes,” were grouped together because all three authors highlight the development of penitential themes in the texts they discuss. The recognition among psalms scholars that a number of Second Temple poetic and prose texts found outside the MT Psalter exhibit forms not easily classified according to Gunkel’s categories has led to a number of fruitful studies (e.g., Rodney Werline’s monograph Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution, and the edited three-volume set Seeking the Favor of God) that have demonstrated a theological development, born out of the trauma of exile, in which the troubles befallen on Israel were understood as justly deserved. God has been exonerated through highlighting Israel’s sins, but penitential prayer also provides a way to reconcile Israel with the divine. This development, which scholars such as Daniel Falk have argued developed out of Deuteronomistic theology and priestly laws of reparation, in effect demonstrates a kind of liturgical and theological activity not accounted for by the early form critics. In her article “‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean’: Psalm 51, Penitential Piety, and Cultic Language in Axial Age Thinking,” Else Holt seeks to highlight these penitential themes in Psalm 51 and to situate them within an axial age of history. First popularized by Karl Jaspers, and taken up by scholars like Jan Assmann and Robert Bellah, the axial age is a particular evolutionary stage in which religious thought, to quote Bellah, “convicts man of a basic flaw far more serious than those conceived of by earlier religions.”1 Holt suggests that within Israel, axial age thinking is manifest in the transition from the lament, a form prominent in earlier Israelite religion, to penitential prayer. Ingunn Aadland notes in her study that the author of 4Q185 brings together a number of penitential motifs, particularly remembrance and repentance, and demonstrates that prayer and didacticism are often two-sides of the same coin. In her article “Lamentations: Time and Setting,” Corinna Körting also argues that the traditional lament form, this time of from the book of Lamentations, developed into penitential prayer in the late Second Temple period, as exhibited in a number of Qumran documents (e.g., 4Q179).

1 Robert N. Bellah, “Religious Evolution,” American Sociological Review 29 (1964): 366.

Else K. Holt

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean”: Psalm 51, Penitential Piety, and Cultic Language in Axial Age Thinking Since the days of early Christianity, Psalm 51 has been counted as one of the seven penitential psalms of the church: Psalms 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; and 143. The background of this identification is at best elusive, but might, according to Samuel Balentine, derive from a connection “between the references to the wrath of God in certain of these psalms and Paul’s use of these psalms in Romans to support the argument that God’s wrath is occasioned by a failure to repent of sin.”1 Building on an established tradition that most likely goes back to Augustine, the Latin church father Cassiodorus seems to be the first to treat these psalms as a distinct group: the psalms of penitence.2 Although this pre-critical identification of genre is not a form critical identification per se, it should not be left out of consideration in our discussion of the genre of Psalm 51, inasmuch as the results of classic historical form criticism – as an instrument of diachronic analysis of a certain psalm’s historical Sitz im Leben – often appear to be no less elusive.3 What I aim to do in the following is first to discuss Psalm 51 as belonging to a “form critical” classification, texts of penitence and redemption, then to undertake a close reading of its structure, and finally to discuss its background in the world of axial age thinking in the Persian period.

1 Samuel E. Balentine, “I Was Ready to Be Sought Out by Those Who Did Not Ask,” in Seeking the Favor of God Volume 1: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney E. Werline, SBLEJL 21 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 1–2. 2 Balentine, “I Was Ready,” 2, with reference to Harry P. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition and the Post-Critical Interpretation of the Psalms, JSOTSup 218 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 30–56. 3 For the development of classic form criticism and the interaction between late twentieth century form criticism and synchronic literary approaches, see Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi, ed., The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-007

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1 Psalm 51 and the Gattung of Penitential Prayer The form critical classification of Psalm 51 as a specific Gattung has posed a problem for modern post-Gunkelian form critics. It shares basic characteristics with the lament psalms, and hence Hans-Joachim Kraus (followed in Denmark by Eduard Nielsen) determined Psalm 51 to be an individual lament4 while Kirsten Nielsen, in the now standard Danish commentary from 2002, after discussing the affinities of Psalm 51 with individual laments, identified the psalm as an individual penitential psalm.5 Kirsten Nielsen, however, does not refer to Claus Westermann who must be seen as the first modern scholar to evaluate Psalm 51 as a penitential psalm. In early critical scholarship there were two competing interpretations of Psalm 51: the speaker of the psalm was understood as either an individual or a collective voice. The center of the discussion was the confession in verses 5–7: 5 6 7

For/Yeah I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and what is evil in your sight, have I done so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed/See, in guilt I was born and in sin my mother conceived me.6

In his Danish commentary from 1918, Frants Buhl presents the two opposing scholarly arguments. The individual voice is represented, for example, by Heinrich Ewald and his contemporaries Ferdinand Hitzig, Bernhard Duhm, Rudolf Kittel and Hermann Gunkel. The confession in verses 5–7 is in theory connected to the individual’s suffering or sickness, understood as divine punishment for his sinfulness.7 The proponents of a collective voice, starting with Theodor of

4 “(…) individuelle Klage- und Bittlieder,” in Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalmen, BKAT 15–16 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1961–79), 384; Eduard Nielsen, 31 udvalgte salmer fra Det gamle Testamente (Frederiksberg: Forlaget Anis, 1990), 33. 5 Else K. Holt and Kirsten Nielsen, ed., Dansk Kommentar til Davids Salmer II (Frederiksberg: Anis, 2002), 192–196 (192). 6 My translation is inspired by the NRSV and Erich Zenger’s German translation in Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, HTKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2000), 38–39; English translation: Linda M. Mabney, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51–100, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress 2005), 11–12. 7 Frants Buhl, Psalmerne oversatte og fortolkede, 2nd rev. ed. (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1918), 342, with reference to Heinrich Ewald, Die poetischen Bücher des Alten Bun-



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Mopsuhestia and Theodoret, includes commentaries by early notables such as Friedrich Baethgen, Julius Wellhausen, Charles A. Briggs and Emilie G. Briggs, and Arnold B. Ehrlich. According to Buhl, they take verse 6, in which the speaker claims to have sinned against God alone, as their clue to interpreting the speaker of the psalm as a collective voice; the confession is incomprehensible in the mouth of an individual but accurate when spoken by the people of Israel, abused by other peoples.8 I shall not discuss the positions of the next generation, Hermann Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinckel; it suffices to say that Gunkel, as mentioned in his early commentary from 1911, understood Psalm 51 as an individual psalm of sickness while later he classified it as an individual lament.9 In his small but magisterial monograph Lob und Klage in den Psalmen10 Claus Westermann famously transformed and simplified Gunkel’s and Mowinckel’s diachronic form critical Gattungen into four main forms (or Gattungen) based on their theological content: Lament or petition of the individual (LI) and the people (LP), and declarative (God has acted) and descriptive praise (God is […] does).11 Like his form critical predecessors, Westermann works within the framework of historical transformation, though he focuses on the development of the theologies of the genres, not on the historical question “Wie es eigentlich gewesen.” The four basic genres give way to a variety of further sub-categories, among which we find the prayers of repentance, considered by Westermann to be historical

des erklärt 1–2, 3rd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1866); Ferdinand Hitzig, Die Psalmen übersetzt und ausgelegt (Leipzig: Winter’sche Verlagshandlung, 1863–65); Bernhard Duhm, Die Psalmen, KHC 14 (Tübingen: JCB Mohr, 1899); Rudolf Kittel, Die Psalmen, KAT 13 (Leipzig: A. Deichertsche Verlagsbuchandlung, 1914); Hermann Gunkel, Ausgewählte Psalmen3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911). 8 Buhl, Psalmerne, 343, with reference to Friedrich Baethgen, Die Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1904); Julius Wellhausen, The Book of Psalms, The Sacred Books of the Old and New Testament 14 (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1898); Charles A. Briggs and Emilie G. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1906); Arnold Bogumil Ehrlich, Die Psalmen neu uebersetzt und erklaert (Berlin: Verlag von M. Poppelauer, 1905). 9 Hermann Gunkel, Einleitung in die Psalmen: Die Gattungen der religiösen Lyrik Israels, Zu Ende geführt von Joachim Begrich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1933; 19662), 172. 10 Claus Westermann, Lob und Klage in den Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977); English version: Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans. Keith R. Crim and Richard N. Soulen (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981). 11 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 31–35. Westermann further distinguishes the declarative psalms in two sub-categories, declarative psalms of praise of the people (PP) and of the individual (PI) (p. 34).

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latecomers. Following the lead of Westermann, we would be wise to focus on the theology of the Psalms for the purpose of our systematic classification of them, rather than on their institutional or cultic origin, as did Gunkel and especially Mowinckel.12 And when doing so, Psalm 51 in my view appears as a prayer of repentance or penitential prayer, not as a lament proper, even if it might be the only such psalm in the book of Psalms. This is what I want to demonstrate in what follows. Westermann understands prayers of repentance as the third historical stage in the history of laments. In this late stage, these prayers shifted from poetry to prose, and lament and confession were separated into two distinct forms. It was no longer possible to lament over God’s punishment; instead, the lament aims to praise God’s justice, even when he punishes – or, one might add, maybe even because he punishes the sinner. Westermann mentions as examples of this type the prayers of Nehemiah 9 and Daniel 9, as well as, the post-canonical prayers in 1Esdras 8:73–90, the Greek Prayer of Manasseh, Psalms of Solomon 9, and finally Baruch 1:15–3:8.13 In his study Praise and Lament Westermann does not label Psalm 51 as a prayer of repentance. He does not find this kind of prayer in its fully developed form in the Psalter, although a rudimentary motif of the confession of sins begins to shape the whole content of a few psalms, especially Psalm 51.14 But in his Ausgewählte Psalmen from 1984 he goes a step further: Psalm 51 belongs to the group of Psalms in which a motif has been turned into a self-contained psalm; here, it is the confession of sin. In the case of Psalm 51, the disjointing of the motif is most certainly to be understood as follows: under certain circumstances the confession of sins (vv. 5–7) and the petition of forgiveness of sins (vv. 3–4. 9–14) have turned into a special liturgical act, a confession, to which this psalm belonged, so that it was considered a confessional prayer, just like in Christian confessions. As appears from v. 2, the psalm was understood in this way also in the superscription.15

12 In Praise and Lament, Westermann heavily criticizes the approach of Sigmund Mowinckel (and his followers): “Gunkel had already identified this setting [of the Psalms] in Israel’s life to be the ‘cult’, though, of course, with limitations. Mowinckel radicalized this thesis, contested the limitations and mistakenly placed the weight of the question totally upon the cultic events and practices underlying the Psalms” (in Westermann, Praise and Lament, 165; the chapter is a reprint of an early article, “Struktur und Geschichte der Klage im Alten Testament,” ZAW 66 [1954]: 44–80 [44]). 13 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 206. Westermann’s definition of penitential prayer or prayers of repentance comes at the end of his tradition-historical elucidation of the lament genre. 14 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 206. 15 Claus Westermann, Ausgewählte Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 72; my translation from German.



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There is only a small step from categorizing Psalm 51 as a confessional prayer to classifying it as a penitential prayer in poetic style. Westermann is considered one of the founding fathers of the penitential prayer classification by the group of scholars who identified the distinct genre of penitential prayer in the early 1990’s. From 2006 to 2008 Mark Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline published three volumes, Seeking the Favor of God (vol. 1–3), that included papers from an SBL consultation on penitential prayer. In his introductory article to these volumes, Werline defines penitential prayer as “(…) a direct address to God in which an individual, group, or an individual on behalf of a group confesses sins and petitions for forgiveness as an act of repentance.”16 Reading the individual contributions in this volume, it is striking how much emphasis even this group of scholars puts on collective confessions, and how little interest is shown in poetic prayers in general and in Psalm 51 in particular. It seems that as a result the definition of penitential prayer is in practice based on prose prayers, with the prayers in Ezra 9:6–15, Nehemiah 1:5–11, 9:6–37, and Daniel 9:4–19 as the defining texts, though a few poetic texts are included such as the national, historic Psalm 106 and Isaiah 63:7–64:11. What is missing from these volumes, though, is a proper analysis of Psalm 51 in the context of penitential prayer. I acknowledge Westermann’s superb form critical analyses and the groundbreaking work of the newer generation of scholars. Nevertheless, I want to propose that Psalm 51 be defined as a penitential prayer from a form critical or at least from a definitional, theological point of view. Westermann’s statement: “we cannot speak of a Psalm of repentance as a literary category in the Psalter,”17 seems to be based solely on considerations of the diachronic development of lament, not on the theological content of the psalms in question. Consequently, we may either keep to the formal description of a genre, which forces us to distinguish rigidly between poetry and prose, or we can expand upon a categorization of texts that is based more on theological content and intertextual markers than by formal criteria. My question is: Will not a rigid discrimination between penitential lament (poetry) and penitential prayer (prose) prevent us from seeing the obvious relations between texts with a similar theology?18 To provide some background to this question, let us turn to the structure and message of Psalm 51.

16 Rodney E. Werline, “Defining Penitential Prayer,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1, xv. 17 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 206, Westermann’s italics. 18 Carleen R. Mandolfo opts for a dynamic use of form criticism: “(…) we must move beyond an understanding of forms as static constructs and begin to read form dynamically – as content

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2 Psalm 51 as a Penitential Prayer – Exegetical Remarks In the magisterial and epoch-making commentary in the Herder series from 2000, Erich Zenger demonstrated how the structure of Psalm 51 directs the reader’s attention to the center of the psalm, where the psalmist petitions God for a cleansing and re-creation of the heart and spirit (vv. 9–11 and 12–14).19 If from the outset we leave aside the superscript (vv. 1–2) and the closing prayer for Zion (vv. 20–21) – we shall return to those below – we find that the psalm consists of two main parts: part A, vv. 3–11, and part B, vv.12–19. Part A emphasizes the sinfulness of the psalmist; part B the outcome of God’s merciful forgiveness. In the center, however, the two parts are united by semantic repetition; the petitions for the cleansing and recreation of the spirit are interwoven by the semantics of cleansing and joy, repeated in both parts. Thus, a one dimensional structure (A → B) is not sufficient to describe the dynamics of the psalm. The psalm is driven by “internal intertextuality:” 9 10 11

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean (‫;)ואטהר‬ wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and all my iniquities blot out.

12 13 14

Create in me a clean heart (‫)לב טהור‬, O God, and recreate a clean spirit (‫ )רוח נכון‬within me. Do not cast me away from your face/presence, and your holy spirit (‫ )רוח קדשׁך‬do not take from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit (‫ )רוח נדיבה‬sustain in me.20

given shape by a living, situated human being – and to recognize that the text has relationships and is responsive to related texts and forms.” In Carleen R. Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 56; with reference to the discussion of genre in Carol Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 11–13; Sweeney and Ben Zvi, ed., The Changing Face of Form Criticism, 9–10. 19 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 45–48; ibid., Psalms 2, 16–18. 20 Words in bold are words of washing/cleaning; bold and single underlining marks cleanness proper; words in double underlining are words of joy. The translation is mine, with inspiration from Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 38–39.



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Only the divine cleansing of the psalmist can lead to the spiritual life, for which he/she yearns. As demonstrated by Westermann, overt lament is absent from the center – as from the rest of the psalm – and is only indirectly present through the petition to change the circumstances of one’s life.21 Moving outwards from the center of the psalm, we find other structural clues to its theology. Part A can be divided into three parts in an enveloped structure: 3 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgression. 4 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 5 For/Yeah I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. 6 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and what is evil in your sight, have I done so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 7 Indeed/See (‫)הן‬, in iniquity I was born and in sin my mother conceived me. 8 Indeed/See (‫)הן‬, truth you desire in the inward being; and in secrecy you teach me wisdom. 9 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 10 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 11 Hide your face from my sins, and all my iniquities blot out.22

The petition for cleansing in verses 4 and 9 envelops the confession of sinfulness and the contrast between human sin and divine righteousness. Words describing transgressions encircle and point to divine righteousness, which is in the center of the strophic triptych. Here any forthright lament is lacking. The opposing parallelism between the supplicant’s current guilt and sin in verse 7, and the God-given truth and wisdom in verse 8, is indicated by the repeated ‫הן‬,“indeed/

21 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 171, understands this absence as a result of the historical development which silences the complaint against God almost totally: “The theology of the Deuteronomic school – which declared the history of the wilderness sojourn (esp. Deut. 9:7ff.), and even more the history of established Israel, to be a history of disobedience (…) – began to formulate a way of thinking in which complaint against God was absolutely disallowed.” 22 Words in bold are words of cleansing; words in italics are about sinfulness; words with dotted underlining are the positive words about God’s justice and the justifying impact God will have on the supplicant.

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see.” Thus, we can identify two interwoven structures in the centerpiece, both of which underscore the absolute contradistinction between man and God. There is no explicit lament, only the psalmist’s confession of his own sinfulness and of God’s righteousness. Turning to part B, we find in verses 12–14 the petitions we discussed previously. Two concepts are interesting here, the heart, ‫לב‬, and the spirit, ‫רוח‬. These two “organs” are, as Zenger states, the basic powers [original German: Grundkräfte] “with which and out of which the human lives.” The heart is the “seat of (practical) reason, while the spirit is the center of the life force and will [Lebens­ kraft und Willen].”23 Together, as a merism, the heart and spirit represent the totality of the human. The noun ‫ רוח‬is used in this part of the Psalm no less than three times, once in each verse. The psalmist pleads that God will make his spirit clean and willing (vv. 12 and 14), and that God’s Holy Spirit will remain in him (v. 13). God’s Holy Spirit, mentioned between the two references to the challenged human spirit, is necessary for the transformation of the supplicant. Most interestingly, the words your/his Holy Spirit, ‫רוח קדׁשו‬/ ‫ רוח קדׁשך‬is used in the Old Testament only here and in Isaiah 63:10–11, one of the texts counted by the early church among the earliest penitential prayers. In Isaiah 63 ‫“ רוח קדׁשו‬his Holy Spirit” covers the deity’s power which sustained the people in the desert – and against which they rebelled. Here, in Psalm 51, ‫“ רוח קדׁשך‬your Holy Spirit” fortifies the spiritual life force of the individual, so that he can uphold or regain a clean and willing spirit. The second subsection of part B, verses 15–17, opens with a pledge to help other sinners amend their ways and return to God. In the words of Zenger: “The petitioner asks that God will enable him to draw the right consequences from his recreation.”24 This can only be done with the help of God, the God of personal salvation (v. 16), and thus, again with Zenger: “(…) at the center of this section he implores his rescue from the deadly power (“bloodguilt” [, ekh]) of sin, in order that he may be a credible “teacher” of the saving ways of YHWH.”25 It is striking how important the semantics of speaking, of mouth and tongue, is in these verses; the outspoken joy of the redeemed sinner is the means of turning transgressors and sinners toward God’s ways. But also, the confession of the broken heart serves as an acceptable sacrifice to God. The psalmist expresses his thankfulness not by means of material sacrifices but by words of praise and words of proclamation.

23 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 21. 24 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 22. 25 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 54.



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I do not see verses 16–17 on the right sacrifices to be primarily critical of the temple cult as has often been remarked in earlier OT scholarship.26 Instead of focusing on what is not important, i.e., material sacrifice, the texts points to what is important in order to safeguard the good relationship with God, namely the renewed human heart and spirit (vv. 12,14). I consider this an important clue to the theology of the axial age with its emerging focus on individual religious commitment as opposed to an earlier, more collective religiosity, to which we shall return shortly.27 If my interpretation is correct, it seems reasonable to consider the language of cleansing in part A of Psalm 51 metaphorical as well. Earlier commentators saw in these verses a reference to cultic cleansing and thus reckoned Psalm 51 a psalm of sickness, or a lament, the purpose of which would be to convince God of the psalmist’s deep felt remorse.28 Zenger understands the cleansing verbs as metaphors for spiritual cleansing: the source domain of the verbs is the semantic field of laundry, and in the target domain sin is understood as metaphorical dirt that can be washed away. The ultimate verb of purging, though, is ‫טהר‬, which is also used in Malachi 3:3 for the process of refining metal into fine silver. There is no need to envisage a material, cultic act in this psalm.29

3 Psalm 51 as Written Penitence I propose to understand Psalm 51 – and also the classical penitential prayers – as theological education or didactic poetical discourse, not as rituals or screenplays for rituals. Like other contemporary prayers such as, for example, Solomon’s prayer in 1Kings 8, Psalm 51 is usually considered as a postexilic latecomer among Old Testament texts.30 Both the reference to David as an example of the

26 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 22, understand the theology of sacrifice in Ps 51 as a development of the prophetic critique of sacrifice: giving to one’s God not just this or that gift that is intended to “symbolize” the rescued person, but oneself as the human being renewed in heart and spirit” (emphasis in original). 27 Therefore, there is no reason to discuss the differences between the attitude toward sacrifices in Pss 51 and 50; the attitude of Ps 50 I prefer to consider as “indifference” or “disregard”. My position is obviously not shared by the redactors of the book of Psalms who placed the two psalms side by side – but that is another matter. 28 This is, for example, Gunkel’s understanding, with a reference to the Prayer of Manasseh (Ausgewählte Psalmen, 129)! 29 Here, I explicitly digress from Westermann’s understanding as quoted above. 30 Cf. already Gunkel; see the discussion in Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 48.

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repentant sinner in the superscript, and the prayer for the rebuilding of Zion in the postscript (vv. 20–21), point in this direction. There is no need to date the closing prayer earlier than the rebuilding of the temple around 450 BCE. 31 Rather, if Werner H. Schmidt and others are right in understanding vv. 20–21 as “individual eschatology,” then the temple for “right sacrifices” in verse 21 is as metaphorical as the hyssop in verse 9. The material temple already stands; what the pray-er needs now is the rebuilding of the clean spirit within him (cf. vv. 12–14). Psalm 51 is all about the mental change of the psalmist, i.e., the implied user of the psalm, whom God has taught “truth in the inward being, and wisdom in secrecy” (cf. v. 8). The inspiration for this understanding of Psalm 51 as didactic poetry stems from its similarities with the (prose) additions to the Greek translation of the book of Esther and with the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh. The affinity between Psalm 51 and the Prayer of Manasseh was hinted at already by Gunkel,32 and it has recently been considered by Judith Newman.33 I shall return to this shortly. First, let us have a look at the additions to Esther and the surprising similarity to the repentant spirit of Psalm 51. In the opinion of the Greek translators of the Hebrew book of Esther, the book had one obvious flaw as scripture: the lack of religiosity in general and of personal piety in particular by its two protagonists, Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai. This omission was repaired with the insertion of six larger additions to the original book,34 among which we find Esther’s penitential prayer before seeking the help of her husband, the Persian King Artaxerxes.35 Esther is in mortal danger since it is not only her life but also her Jewish countrymen’s that are in the hands of her whimsical royal husband. As such she has to approach him uninvited to persuade him to save their lives, and in this situation she prays to God for protection, using the language of penitential prayer: an invocation of God, confession

31 Further argumentation in Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 48. 32 Gunkel, Ausgewählte Psalmen, 316. 33 Judith H. Newman, “The Form and Settings of the Prayer of Manasseh,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 2, ed. Mark Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney Werline, SBLEJL 22 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 105–125. 34 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 201–202, understands Mordocai’s prayer (Add Esth C) as a lament which essentially retains the structure of the lament psalm. 35 The Hebrew book of Esther was translated into Greek, probably in the 3rd to 2nd century BCE, in two succeeding versions which were both amended with six additions (Add Esth A–F). These additions served to emphasize and/or clarify certain aspects of the Hebrew text. On the Greek translations, see Kristin De Troyer, The End of the Alpha Text of Esther: Translation and Narrative Technique in MT 8:1–17, LXX 8:1–17, and AT 7:14–41, SBLSCS 48 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000).



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of sin, oblique and implicit lament, and petition for divine assistance. The prayer is placed at the absolute center of the Greek book of Esther. Most striking in connection with Psalm 51 is the emphasis on God’s assistance since “the days of old” and his righteousness as opposed to the sins of the supplicant. 14 Oh, my Lord, you alone are our king; help me, I who am alone and have no helper except you, 15 because my danger is in my hand. 16 I have heard from my birth in the tribe of my family that you, O Lord, took Israel out of all the nations and our fathers from among all their forebears, to be an everlasting inheritance, and you did for them all that you said. 17 And now we have sinned before you, and you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies, 18 because we honored their gods. You are righteous, O Lord. (Add Esth C 16–18, NETS translation)

Several aspects are worth noting. First, the reference to God’s everlasting care for Israel is striking: “I have heard from my birth (…).” Second, and equally striking, is the question of Israel’s apostasy: it is in no way an issue in the narrative of the book of Esther, but here in the Greek additions it becomes the sole reason for the calamities that God has allowed to befall Esther and her kin. And third, and most importantly: the emphatic confession of God’s righteousness is diametrically opposed to Israel’s sins. Regarding prayers of lament like those in the Psalter, i.e., Additions to Daniel 1 and Additions to Esther C 12–30, Westermann claims: The complaint against God in its pure form never appears here. One can no longer address God in this manner, but the motif itself does not simply disappear. (…) In each instance these statements, which outwardly still resemble the complaint against God [as known from the earlier laments such as Psalms 22; 42; 88, ekh], are carefully guarded to ward against being misunderstood as such. The complaint against God is silenced (…).36

We find the same elements in Psalm 51. First, God looks for truth in the inward being of the psalmist and teaches him wisdom in secrecy (v. 8), which, based on the structure of poem, includes an implied reference to the psalmist’s day of birth.37 Secondly, we have the confession of the petitioner’s sin in v. 5b–6a, followed by the confession of God’s righteousness (v. 6b). If seen as a coherent argument, as indicated by the use of ‫ למען‬in verse 6b, the most important theo­ logical message in Psalm 51 is that God’s righteousness is the obverse of the confessor’s sinfulness. Moreover, in verses 11–12 this complementing contrast

36 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 202; for Westermann’s understanding of the earlier laments, see pp. 168–194. 37 Cf. my analysis of vv. 7–8 above.

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between human sin and divine righteousness forms the very structural center of the psalm, as demonstrated above. The divine righteousness as the obverse of the psalmist’s sinfulness and his power to transform the psalmist into a teacher of truth and wisdom are two sides of the same coin in the three central passages. This confirms that Psalm 51 teaches the self-derogatory theology of late penitential literature, as described by Westermann, in which lament directed towards God is silenced and the blame is put on the sinfulness of the psalmist. One important aspect of Psalm 51 is missing in Esther’s prayer, namely the promise of public praise of God. This element, though, is present in Mordecai’s prayer (Add Esth C 1–11) that precedes Esther’s. In my perception this is not a penitential prayer proper, since Mordecai – for good reasons – strongly pleads his innocence.38 But nevertheless, Mordecai admits that the threat against his people is caused by his zealous insistence on the glory of God, so that there is no need for a complaint against God: You know, O Lord, that it was not in insolence nor pride nor for any love of glory that I did this, namely, to refuse to do obeisance to this prideful Haman, 6 for I would have been willing to kiss the soles of his feet for Israel’s safety! 7 But I did this so that I might not set human glory above divine glory, and I will not do obeisance to anyone but you, my Lord, and I will not do these things in pride. (Add Esth C 5–7)

Thus, Addition C bears many of the same characteristics and motifs found in Ps 51. Now, let us return briefly to the Prayer of Manasseh. As shown by Judith Newman in her evaluation of the genre of the Prayer of Manasseh – which she describes as “something of an orphan among Second Temple Jewish penitential prayers”39 – the prayer shares certain structural elements with Psalm 51: a pseudepigraphic kingly authorship, acknowledgement of sin, confession, a plea for forgiveness and mercy, and a pledge to praise God upon salvation. Both texts end on an eschatological note: “Psalm 51:20–21 expresses a wish that the walls of Jerusalem be rebuilt; Pr Man 14–15 anticipates receiving merciful acceptance from God and joining with the angels in the singing of heavenly praise.”40 The most interesting difference between the two texts is that the Prayer of Manasseh does not contain the acknowledgement of divine righteousness, so central in Psalm 51 and the Prayer of Esther.

38 Esther takes a similar stance in the closing part of her prayer. 39 Newman, “Prayer of Manasseh,” 105. 40 Newman, “Prayer of Manasseh,” 113–114.



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Theses similarities, however, place all of our texts within the category of individual penitential prayer,41 a category I define by theological characteristics rather than form critical elements, as discussed above. This approach is supported by Werline’s call to work on the definitional margins of the penitential prayers. He writes: When certain features are missing from a particular penitential prayer, questions arise concerning the prayer’s genre: Without certain features, is it a penitential prayer or not? Further, when penitential themes become mixed with various dominating petitionary elements, a prayer may seem to shift slightly in tone away from penitence. These two characteristics of some prayers in the Second Temple period – omission and manipulation of phraseology and roles – ironically point to the well-established place of penitential prayer in this period; these prayers have become a widely accepted and utilized religious ritual, institution, or cultural convention. Well-known religious rituals can be evoked with only a few words or phrases, and they can be more easily adapted into new functions.42

I understand these writings as possible examples of didactic works adhering to cultural conventions. As opposed to Werline, I am not convinced about the importance of a cultic background for any of the three prayers, and both the Prayer of Manasseh and the additions to the book of Esther (AddEsth C) bear the qualities of written instruction: this is how you should pray in this or that specific situation. The superscription to Psalm 51 points in the same direction – this psalm is for the use of absolute penitence when caught in flagrante delicto. Nevertheless, I concur with Werline’s call for a less restricted approach to the genre of penitential prayer.

4 Psalm 51 in an Axial Age Context Claus Westermann understood the disappearance of lament proper from the psalms of lament, the precursors of psalms of repentance, as a regrettable theological development in the Second Temple period: “The complaint against God in pure form never appears. One can no longer address God in this manner, but the

41 Cf. Newman, “Prayer of Manasseh,” 108–109, who compares the individual penitential prayers to the collective penitential prayers. 42 Rodney Werline, “Reflections on Penitential Prayer: Definition and Form,” In Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 2, 209–225, (225).

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motif itself does not simply disappear. It is added (in six out of eighteen prayers) to a confession of sins or to a defense of God’s righteousness.”43 William Morrow44 elaborates on Westermann’s thoughts. In the older psalms of lament “God is considered the major perpetrator of Israel’s misfortunes. It is YHWH who has caused the people to lose, sold them to their military opponents, exiled them, and delivered them to unspeakable suffering. (…) YHWH is thought to have authored Israel’s history (…) [so] YHWH has a responsibility to ensure their continuity.”45 In the later texts, though, “(…) the complaint against God is silenced by the constantly repeated statement that everything that has happened to the community was justified.”46 Morrow understands this development as a result of Israel’s emergence into the Axial Age around the time of the late monarchy, the exile, and the Second Temple period. The understanding of the influence of the axial age on Old Testament literature has become increasingly important among at least some biblical scholars during the past decade. The term as a name for “the middle of the first millennium B.C.”47 was coined by Karl Jaspers in the middle of the twentieth century but has been introduced to an audience outside German philosophy mainly through the writings of Robert Bellah and Jan Assmann. In his groundbreaking article “Religious Evolution” from 1964, Bellah does not use the term axial age, though, but instead the label “historic religion” to describe the type of religion of the same age, a type of religion which “convicts man of a basic flaw far more serious than those conceived of by earlier religions.”48 It is a characteristic and a sine qua non of the axial age that thoughts are put into writing.49 One topic of interest reflected in documents of the axial age is a renewed reflection on the conditions of life, maybe even second order thinking, i.e., thinking about thinking itself.50 Ecclesiastes is typical of this aspect of axial

43 Westermann, Praise and Lament, 202. 44 William Morrow, “The Affirmation of Divine Righteousness in Early Penitential Prayers: A Sign of Judaism’s Entry into the Axial Age,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1, 101–117. 45 Morrow, “The Affirmation of Divine Righteousness,” 104–105. 46 Morrow, “The Affirmation of Divine Righteousness,” 105. 47 Robert N. Bellah, “What is Axial about the Axial Age?,” Archives Européennes de Sociologie 46 (2005): 69. For an introduction to axial age and ancient Israel, see Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithical to the Axial Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 265–323. 48 Robert N. Bellah, “Religious Evolution,” American Sociological Review 29 (1964): 358–374 (366). 49 Cf. also Merlin Donald, Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991). 50 Bellah, “What is Axial,” 79: “But graphic invention and the external memory it makes possible are only the essential prerequisites for the development of theoretic culture, which is the



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age literature, but also psalms of a complex literary form, such as acrostics – the most academic being Psalm 119 – bear witness to scholarly literary work. The Deuteronomistic theology with its focus on theodicy is also extremely important, and scholars from Westermann and onwards have rightly pointed to the influence of Deuteronomistic thinking on penitential prayer. Another axial age thinker, Ezekiel – together with the priestly concept of purity in general – is identified as part of its background, too. Finally, Morrow points to prophetic thinking which according to him made YHWH “a deity more transcendent and more powerful than that envisaged in the older complaint psalm tradition: an imperial deity, king not only of Israel but unmatched emperor of the universe.”51 So, Morrow concludes: “(…) the late exilic prophet called Second Isaiah (Isa 40–55) can be considered the endpoint of the evolution of an unambiguous and universal monotheism in Israel.”52 This is very plausible, all of it. But in my opinion this picture of axial age theology is far too one dimensional. Concurrent with the focus on God’s absolute righteousness, as articulated in the Deuteronomistic writings and the penitential prayer tradition, we encounter the marks of trauma in prophetic writings, such as the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. These books should not be seen as exclusively preexilic and exilic; large parts of them are certainly Second Temple literature, contemporary with the earliest penitential prayers. What we have are two different understandings of the human-divine relationship and distribution of responsibility for the life conditions in the Second Temple period, one that exclusively blames humans, and one that insists on addressing accusations toward God. The book of Jeremiah may serve as an example instar omnium. Here, we find both attitudes presented side by side, as has been demonstrated by Kathleen M. O’Connor and others.53 Along with the intense (and self-) derogatory diatribes

ability to think analytically rather than narratively, to construct theories that can be criticized logically and empirically.” 51 Morrow, “The Affirmation of Divine Righteousness,” 107. 52 Morrow, “The Affirmation of Divine Righteousness,” 107–108, with reference to Benjamin Uffenheimer. 53 Kathleen M. O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain or Promise (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). O’Connor’s approach to the book of Jeremiah as a book of trauma is part of a greater interest in using trauma as a contextual hermeneutical tool in biblical studies in the beginning of the 21st century. See, e.g., Louis Stulman and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, You Are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010); Eve-Marie Becker, Jan Dochhorn, and Else K. Holt, eds., Trauma and Traumatization in Individual and Collective Dimensions: Insights from Biblical Studies and Beyond, Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica 2 (Göttingen: Vanden-

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and oracles of divine wrath, the book of Jeremiah offers yet another answer to the cataclysm of 587 BCE and beyond: the so-called confessions in Jeremiah 11–20. In these late strata of the book, the prophet is presented as a man whose relationship with God “balances on the breaking point.” Speaking the voice of the people, Jeremiah, according to O’Connor, insists on his innocence and laments his bitter situation: Without complaint there are no prayers of lament. Laments argue, protest, whine, and mewl; they berate God even as the one praying holds fast to God like a lover in a life-altering quarrel. Laments compose a poetic forum in which to express fury at the deep fissures of the world and the ways God fails to care for it. These qualities make laments ready-made prayers for victims of trauma and disaster.54

These late laments55 may well be inspired by the more traditional form of laments, known from the book of Psalms. But their insertion in the book of Jeremiah, side-by-side with traumatized explanations of the disaster as the overwhelming result of the people’s unreserved sinfulness, is a token of the axial age discussion between the scribes and sages that committed this book into its final, written shape.56 An example of the opposite theological addition would be the insertion of the conventionally penitential “didactic voice” that governs Lamentations 3 in the traumatic and accusatory laments of Lamentations 1–2, 4–5.57

hoeck & Ruprecht, 2014); Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, eds., Bible through the Lens of Trauma, Semeia Studies 86 (Atlanta: SBL Press 2016). 54 O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain or Promise, 82. 55 The dating of the confessions in the book of Jeremiah is a matter of dispute in Jeremiah scholarship. Here, I follow those who date the confessions as one of the latest parts of the book; see, e.g., Hannes Bezzel, Die Konfessionen Jeremias: Eine Redaktionsgeschichtlice Studie, BZAW 378 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007). 56 In his late article “The Complaint Against God,” Claus Westermann seems to soften his rather strict view of the diachronic development of lament in the Old Testament. He still argues for a separation of complaint and prayer (cf. 1Macc 2:7; 2Bar. 11:4; 2Esd 3, etc.), but acknowledges the existence of complaint proper alongside penitence: “In many cases the complaints of the later period are identical to those found in earlier texts: nothing has effectively changed.” In Tod Linafelt and Timothy K. Beal, eds., God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (Minnea­ polis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1998), 233–241 (240). 57 For Lam 1–2 as trauma literature, see, e.g., Tod Linafeldt, Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). On the “didactic voice” in Lam 3 as a counter voice to Lam 1–2, see Mandolfo, Daughter Zion, 71–73. For a different view of Lam 3, see the discussion in William S. Morrow, Protest against God: The Eclipse of a Biblical Tradition, Hebrew Bible Monographs 4 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 107–119.



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In the book of Psalms laments, confession, and the praise of God stand side by side. Thus, Psalm 51, considered as an axial age penitential prayer, adds to the understanding of the book of Psalms as more than a Hymnal, Sefer Tehillim. Penitential prayers like Psalms 51 and 106 serve the purpose of cognitive elucidation of the pray-er58 – this is how the penitent should speak – and thus they serve as an important contribution to the vivid intellectual community of Second Temple Judaism.

58 Mark J. Boda, “Confession as Theological Expression: Ideological Origins of Penitential Prayer,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1, 45, points to “(…) the power of penitential prayer to express and shape the view of a community struggling for identity in the era after the fall of Jerusalem. This identity would continue to be founded upon those key ancient themes of God, law and land, but such ancient themes would exist alongside the new realities of a people who now exist as a remnant in the midst of powerful nations.”

Ingunn Aadland

Prayer and Remembrance in 4QSapiential Work (4Q185) 1 Introduction Prayer may be described as a dialogue between the human and divine.1 While psalms and liturgical texts are modelled as part of a dialogue and thus may be described as prayer according to their genre, there is no such dialogue in 4QSapiential Work (4Q185). 4Q185 has been classified as an admonition or a didactic speech, nevertheless, in my view it is not only possible but also beneficial to study texts types other than psalms and liturgical compositions when asking for the function of prayer.2 In 4Q185 there is an instructional “I” that exhorts the addressees to humble themselves, to remember, and to respond to God’s acts with awe and rejoicing. According to 4Q185, these “responses” are taking place in the human body (1–2 i 15–ii 1). Is this prayer? I suggest that it is. When using the term “prayer” I do not refer exclusively to a literary genre, but prayer as a religious phenomenon. Prayer is not merely spoken or written words. Prayer may be expressed or performed through the body, as fasting, weeping, prostrating and praise.3 I understand prayer to be words and acts that are directed towards the deity in order to communicate with the deity.

1 On prayer as a verbal human activity directed explicitly to God; see Samuel E. Balentine, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialogue, Overtures to Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 30–32. 2 DJD XXXIX lists 4Q185 under the rubric “didactic speech,” which is a subcategory of sapiential texts. See the annotated list in Emanuel Tov and Martin G. Abegg, The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series, DJD 39 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 140. For the first textual edition of 4Q185; see John M. Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4: I (4Q158–4Q186), DJD 5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968). In this edition there is no title that indicates what kind of text it is. Two years after, Strugnell describes the composition as sapiential in its language and themes, and he suggests that the genre is “‘instruction’ ou peut-être même ‘testament’ d’un sage”; see John Strugnell, “Notes en marge du volume V des Discoveries in the Judaean desert of Jordan,” RevQ 7 (1970), 269. In the preliminary text edition for the reedition of DJD V, Mika Pajunen suggests another title; see Mika S. Pajunen, “4QSapiential Admonitions B (4Q185): Unsolved Challenges of the Hebrew Text,” in The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising Texts from Cave Four, ed. George J. Brooke and Jesper Høgenhaven, STDJ 96 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 191–220. 3 Gestures and non-verbal acts may also generate human-divine interpersonal communication, hence one should not only study the verbal and textual aspects of prayer; see Uri Ehrlich, The DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-008



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After an introductory summons to listen and to pay attention, the addresses of 4Q185 are exhorted to humble themselves before the [m]ight of our God (i 14) and to remember.4 My reading of 4Q185 1–2 i 14, ‫( ̇ה ̇כנ̇ עו‬niphal impv. 2.pl.) “humble yourselves” departs from previous scholars who with Strugnell read ‫“ החכמו‬grow wise.”5 It has become commonplace to interpret the text on the manuscript as an instruction that promotes the acquisition of wisdom.6 I suggest, however, that the appeal to humble oneself is to be read together with the subsequent appeal to remember the wonders and signs of Egypt (i 14–5) and that the larger passage may be read as an instruction on repentance. The passage thus reflects or even prescribes religious practice that is closely associated with prayer. A similar concern for repentance and history is found in the historical psalms (Pss 78, 105, and 106) and also in the Words of the Luminaries (4Q504). These compositions, that may be defined as prayer according to their genre, thus provide a natural context for comparison. The argument of this paper is firstly that 4Q185 as a sapiential composition advocates prayer, and secondly that the admonitions of this work are modelled upon penitential prayer practices.

2 Repentance and Remembrance as Prayer According to my analysis 4Q185 instructs its addressees to repent and remember. I use the term “repentance” in a broad sense, to refer to the human effort to retrieve God’s favor and thus understand repentance to be more than just an act of confession. In the following I will demonstrate how, and in what way, the admonition prepares its recipients to repent and how the historical recollection is an integral part of repentance.

Nonverbal Language of Prayer: A New Approach to Jewish Liturgy, TSAJ 105 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 3. 4 With the first person plural “our God,” the speaker of the instruction merges with the addressees and acts as a liturgical leader. The speaker enters into a mutual relationship with the addressees. This perspective shares features with prayer and naturally is found repeatedly in the book of Psalms, and in texts associated with liturgy (cf. 1Chr 28:2,8; 29:13; Ps 147). 5 Strugnell, “Notes en marge.” See also Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2013). 6 John Kampen follows the reading of Strugnell and presents 4Q185 as a “Wisdom composition;” see John Kampen, Wisdom Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 250, 256. See also Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls, VTSup 116 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 122–145.

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2.1 Humiliation Motifs The first preserved text in 4Q185 displays human weakness before the wrath of Yahweh (1–2i 7–8). This theme is elaborated through a series of scriptural motifs. The first sequence is a collage of judgment motifs that rhetorically warn against the wrathful judgments executed with flaming fire (1–2i 7–9a).7 The next sequence evokes motifs on human finitude (1–2 i 9b–13a). A dominating motif is the flower metaphor found in Isaiah 40:6–8, but where Isaiah 40:8 concludes that God’s word will stand forever, 4Q185 concludes with the pessimistic statement that humans will not stand; “They can seek him, but will not find him, and there is no hope” (i 12). The inclusio ‫“ מקוה אין‬there is no hope” brings the two motif complexes together, so that human hopelessness functions as a refrain through the entire section: 4Q185 1–2 i 7–13a

‫ואי̇ ן̇ מקוה‬ ֯ ‫] ואין כח לעמוד לפניה‬ [ ‫לזעם[ ] ומי יכלכל לעמוד לפני מלאכיו באש‬ ֯ ‫ישפט[ לפ]י רוחתיו ואתם בני אדם א[ ]כי הנׄ ה‬ ֯ ‫להבה‬ ‫נשב[ה בו ]רוחו‬ ֯ ‫יפרח כציץ וחסד‬ ̇ ‫מארצו‬ ̇ ‫כחציר יצמח‬ ̇ ‫לעמ[וד ויא]בד‬ ֯ ‫ויבש ֯ע ֯גזו וציצו תשא רו̇ ח עד אנ יקום‬ ‫ולא ימצא כי רוח [ ] י̇בקשוהו ולא ימצאהו ואין מקוה‬ ]‫האר[ץ‬ ֯ ‫ימים על‬ ֯ ‫והוא כצל‬

7 8 9 10 11 1 2 1 3

7 […] and no strength to stand before it (f.sg.), and no hope 8 before the anger[…] Who can endure to stand before his angels? For with flaming 9 fire he shall be judged [according to] his spirits. And you, children of Adam, […] For look, 10 like grass he sprouts from his soil. His faithfulness blossoms like a flower. His wind blows[ on it] 11 and its stalk withers. And the wind carries its flower, until there is no rising up to st[and and it perish]es. 12 And it is not found, but wind. vacat They can seek him, but will not find him, and there is no hope. 13 And he, like a shadow are his days upon the ea[rth. ] (i 7–13a)

The question, “Who can stand?” evokes humiliation motifs found in Ezra 10:13 and Ezekiel 9:15.8 The implicit answer to the rhetorical question is that no one can. Altogether the two motif complexes depict a situation of distress: there is no hope before God’s wrathful judgment. The sequence culminates with words on human

7 Similar rhetorical questions are found in Ps 76:8: “Who can stand (‫ )ומי יעמד‬before you when once your anger is roused?.” See also Mal 3:2 and Joel 2:11. 8 In Ezra 10:13 and Ezek 9:15 the lack of strength to stand indicates mental strength and is explicitly connected to the sin of the people. Similar statements are found in 4QInstruction (4Q417) 2i 15–16: ֯‫…] יעמוד כול ומי יצדק במשפטו‬ ‫“ לפני [פו לוא‬before [his anger …] no one will stand; and who will be acquitted in his judgment?.” See also 1QHa 17:31–32.

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finitude: “And he, like a shadow, are his days upon the ea[rth. ]” i 12–13.9 In light of the larger admonition, the series of pessimistic imagery function as humiliation motifs and provide a rhetorical basis for the admonitory appeals that follow.10

2.2 Humble Yourselves and Remember The addressee formula ‫“ ועתה שמעו נא עמי‬and now, please listen, my people” (i 14) signals a shift. The summons to listen and pay attention to the instructor introduce a series of imperatives that advocate repentance and remembrance. These “calls to act” may also be interpreted as acts performed in order to please Yahweh: 4Q185 1–2 i 13b–ii 1a

‫ועתה שמעו נא עמי והשכילו‬ 13 ‫וה ̇כנ̇ עו מן ]ג[בורת אלהינו ו̇ זכרו נפלאים עשה‬ ̇ ‫ לי פתאים‬1 4 ‫ומופתיו ב]ים סוף[ ויערץ לבבכם מפני פחד‬ ֯ ‫ במצרים‬15 ‫נ[פשכם כחסדיו הטבים‬ ֯ ‫ותשמח‬ ‫רצ]ונו‬ ֯ ‫ ועשו‬1

And now, please listen, my people and pay attention 14 to me, simple ones. Humble yourselves before the [m]ight of our God. Remember the wonders he did 15 in Egypt and his signs at [the Red Sea.] Let your heart tremble before his dread 1 and do his wi[ll … rejoice] your [s]oul according to his good loving kindness. (1–2i 13–ii 1a)

According to my understanding, 4Q185 prescribes prayer when it exhorts its addressees to humble themselves, to remember, to respond to God’s dread with a trembling heart, and to respond to God’s mercies with rejoicing. The most explicit instruction on repentance is found in i 14: “Humble yourselves before the [m]ight of our God.” The verb ‫ כנע‬is recurrent in association with a penitent attitude.11 To humble oneself implies to acknowledging one’s sin and turning again towards God, either through weeping, fasting, or praying with a penitent heart.12 The

9 The two phrases “there is no hope” and “like a shadow are his days upon the ea[rth. ]” appear to be drawn from the prayer of David in 1Chr 29:15. 10 A textual overlap in 4Q370 preserves the same progression from poetical imagery on human lowliness, followed by exhortations to remember. On the possible textual dependency between the two compositions, see Carol A. Newsom, “4Q370: An Admonition Based on the Flood,” RevQ 13 (1988): 23–43. 11 See 2Chr 7:14; 2Kgs 22:19. 12 This term is sometimes used in the sense “to subdue” and could imply humbling by fear (e.g. 4Q511 35 7) or repentance (see 4Q504 2 6:5).

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potential meaning of ‫“ כנע‬to humble” may be exemplified by the narratives in 1–2Kings, and even more so in 1–2Chronicles, where the verb ‫ כנע‬is used as one of the primary metaphors for repentance.13 In Chronicles, the ideal kings are those who humble themselves (‫ )כנע‬before God.14 In the account of the dedication of the temple in 2Chronicles 6–7, the knowledgeable king Solomon performs a series of petitions. The prayer is an example of humility, as it acknowledges both the sin of the people, and also the might of God. The prayer implies an expectation that God is to be moved by prayer and repentance. God’s response to the prayer of Solomon is a confirmation of Solomon’s strategy, as it is implicitly used also as a model for proper behaviour: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves (‫)ויכנעו‬, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2Chr 7:14). There is no explicit accusation in 4Q185, but the admonition is character oriented: one is not able to stand, there is no hope, and the addressees are “simple ones” that need to learn and pay attention. Moreover, one of the prohibitions does evoke the type scene of Israelite rebellion in the wilderness: “Do not rebel against the words of Yahweh!” (ii 3). Hence, the exhortation may indirectly confirm the need for repentance. The verb ‫ כנע‬is normally followed by the preposition ‫“ מפנה‬from before,” and not only ‫ מן‬as it is here. Thus, in the context of 4Q185, the scene is not necessarily located before the presence of God, but it is encouraged by ‫“ [ג]בורת אלהינו‬the strength of our God.”15 In the context of 4Q185 ‫( [ג]בורת‬f.sg.) refers to God’s “might” or his “mighty deed.” The subsequent appeal evokes the memory of Egypt, and so it makes good sense to assume that God’s might is recalled or exemplified by the exodus narrative. The might or strength of God is thus represented through acts of power. Ultimately, it is God’s acts that materializes his might. To humble oneself before God’s might thus means to respond to the commemorated history of Egypt where Yahweh demonstrated his power and his dread. God’s might which is recalled by remembrance transmits the experi-

13 In 1–2 Kgs, the act of humbling oneself is connected with tearing of clothes and weeping (1Kgs 8:47–48). Because they humbled their hearts, God heard them (2Kgs 22:19). On ‫ כנע‬as a metaphor for repentance; see Rodney Alan Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution, SBLEJL 13 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 60. 14 Rehoboam and Hezekiah humbled themselves in order to avert God’s wrath (2Chr 12:6–7; 32:26). The kings are evaluated according to whether or not they humbled themselves before God, e.g. 2Chr 33:23. 15 Allegro reads ‫“ [ה]בורת‬the [chast]isement”; see Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4: I (4Q158–4Q186), 85, but it is Strugnell’s suggestion ‫“ [ג]בורת‬mighty wisdom” that has been followed in later editions; see Strugnell, “Notes en marge,” 273. The first letter is lost, but the textual parallel in 4Q370 reads ‫ גבורת‬which favors this reading over against Allegro’s suggestion.



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ence of the past on to those of the present.16 The aim of the lesson is to evoke a certain history and thereby the correct attitude towards God and oneself. The pondering on God’s might motivates and legitimates the urgency of the admonition, and so the need to be humble is not merely grounded in human nature and character, but also in God’s character. Hence, this memory of exodus produces the humbleness of the listeners. The instruction exhorts: “Remember the wonders he did in Egypt and his signs at [the Red Sea ].”17 The verb ‫“ זכר‬remember” may have a wide range of meanings: “ponder,” “engage with” and “to act according to.”18 In the context of 4Q185, the object to remember is “what he did in Egypt.” The history remembered is best understood as a paradigmatic history – it is selective, and an expression of the current situation and didactic need.19 “The wonders he did in Egypt and his signs at [the Red Sea]” recalls biblical phraseology found in the historical psalms (Pss 78, 105 and 106) and the historical texts, such as Nehemiah 9 and Jeremiah 32. The “wonders and signs” occasionally refer to the plagues and occasionally the sea-miracle (Exod 3:20; Ps 78:12–13,43).20 Exodus is generally recalled either as a history of salvation or a history of judgment.21 There are two sides of the story. The acts referred to, i.e., “the wonders and signs,” are thus both acts of redemption and judgment and refer to the extraordinary powers of God.

16 With the first person plural “our God,” the instructor merges with his people and acts as a liturgical leader. The speaker enters into a mutual relationship with the addressees. This perspective shares features with prayer and naturally is found repeatedly in Psalms, and in texts associated with liturgy (cf. 1Chr. 28:2,8; 29:13, Psalm 147). 17 Strugnell suggests a restoration of the lacuna ]‫“ ב[ארץ הם‬in [the land of Ham]” in line with Pss 105:27; 106:22–23; Strugnell, “Notes en marge,” 270. Based upon the observation that 4Q185 is not drawing from one psalm exclusively, and the fact that the collocation of Egypt and Red Sea are more common, I have suggested the restoration ]‫“ ב[ים סוף‬by [the Red Sea.]” (cf. Ps 106:7; Neh 9:9). 18 To remember Yahweh is to walk in the ways of Yahweh: cf., Isa 64:4. 19 On collective memory, see Judith Gärtner, Die Geschichtspsalmen: Eine Studie zu den Psalmen 78, 105, 106, 135 und 136 als hermeneutische Schlüsseltexte im Psalter, FAT 84 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 24–29. 20 Sometimes ‫ אתת ומפתים‬denotes the plagues and sometimes the entire exodus miracle; see Mark J. Boda, Praying the Tradition: The Origin and Use of Tradition in Nehemiah 9, BZAW 277 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999), 117. 21 On exodus as a scene of judgment, see Ezek 20 and CD 3:5–7. Another example is found in Sir 16:7–11, which reports that six hundred thousand foot soldiers were taken away because of the arrogance of their hearts – an allusion to the wilderness generation (cf. Exod 12:37). This reception of the exodus blends the judgment in the wilderness with events in Egypt, so that the exodus becomes a history of judgment.

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In Isaiah 63:11, to remember represents a turn in the attitude of the people. The people were rebellious and so Yahweh became their enemy (63:10). Thus the confession of sins in Isaiah 64:5–11 is prepared by remembrance.22 The people came to think (‫ )זכר‬of the days of old (63:11). This use of historical recollection in Isaiah 63 and in 4Q185 has affinities with penitential prayers, where the history of Israel is recalled in a collective remembrance. One example is the recital of history in Nehemiah 9:7–35. The prayer alludes to the traditions of the Pentateuch, and retells its history as a history of sin. The historical recollection prepares for a recommitment to God’s law (Neh 10:28–29).23 According to Boda “the tradition does not merely inform them didactically but bring hope, elicit repentance, and voice their needs to their God in a time of disaster.”24 Similarly, in the Covenant Code of the Community Rule, the communal confession is introduced with a recollection of God’s mighty deeds (1QS 1:21).25 The recital of history is only brief: “and the priests shall recount God’s righteousness in his mighty deeds, and proclaim all the mercy and compassion on Israel.” What follows is a recital of the wicked acts which prepares one for the formulaic confession of sin: ‫הרשענו‬ (hiphil Pf. 1.pl.) “We have been wicked.”26 This liturgical practice idealizes active remembrance as part of the covenant relationship. To remember is to direct oneself to Yahweh. The context of the appeal to remember in 4Q185 makes a connection with humility and awe. The historical summaries, as a memory, construct a past that becomes present for the group in question. The meta-narrative blends

22 On Isa 63 as a communal lament; see Judith Gärtner, “‘Why Do You Let Us Stray from Your Paths…’ (Isa 63:17): The Concept of Guilt in the Communal Lament Isa 63:7–64:11,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1, The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline, SBLEJL 21 (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 145–163. 23 See Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, 56–58. 24 Mark J. Boda, Praying the Tradition: The Origin and Use of Tradition in Nehemiah 9 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 196. 25 See also the recollection of wonders and signs in IQHa 18:16 and 19:31–32. According to Chazon, the Hodayot employ elements from Jewish penitential prayers; Esther G. Chazon, “Lowly to Lofty: The Hodayot’s Use of Liturgical Traditions to Shape Sectarian Identity and Religious Experience,” RevQ 26 (2013): 8. 26 The association of the recital of history with confession of sin is witnessed also in 4QWorks of God (4Q392). God’s wonders and signs are recalled in a rhetorical question: “Should we not ponder (‫ )נשכיל‬how great (my reading: ‫ )כמה‬among us [he does won]ders and signs without number?” (1 8). In 4Q393 frg. 3 there is a prayer of confession. Daniel Falk suggests a single framework, drawn from Neh 9, for both 4Q392 and 4Q393. See Daniel Falk, “Biblical Adaption in 4Q392 Works of God and 4Q393 Communal Confession,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues, ed. Donald W. Parry and Eugene Ulrich, STDJ 30 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 131–132.



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past and present; hence, the narrative is transferred onto those who remember and they are able to respond emotionally to it. Thus, the instructor may exhort: “tremble before his dread” (i 15).

2.3 Repentance and the Fear of God The instruction continues with another admonition: “Let your heart tremble before his dread” (i 15). His ‫“ פחד‬dread” can be interpreted as a further concretization of the reference to his might, his signs, and his wonders. Hence, to let oneself be humbled before “his might” and to tremble before “his dread” are more or less parallel in meaning. As we have already seen, to remember is to let the experience of the past become one’s own. Hence, the remembrance of the exodus activates and evokes certain attitudes. The emphasis on the emotional aspect, to make one’s heart tremble, is also a further prescription of the correct attitude. To have a trembling heart implies that you are able to listen, learn, and remember, and thus are motivated to do and act properly (Ezra 10:13; Isa 66:5). In Isaiah, those who repent are those who tremble at his words (Isa 66:5).27 When the instructor in 4Q185 exhorts the addressees to let their heart tremble before his dread, it is this pious response that is asked for. It is the reflection upon God’s might that makes one heed and be ready to do God’s will. The appeal to tremble does not directly point to an immediate act in itself, but one could connect it with the following phrase that starts with an imperative: “And do his wi[ll …] (1–2ii 1).”28 This phrase is interrupted by a lacuna before one can read the end of another appeal, which is partially restored on the basis of 4Q370 1ii 8: “[… rejoice ]your soul according to his good loving kindness” (1–2ii 1). The series of appeals thus end in rejoicing; hence they guide the addressees through God-oriented acts.

27 Isaiah promises God’s deliverance and blessing for the seekers of God (Isa 65) and “the tremblers at my word” (Isa 66:2,5). The knowledge of God is reflected in the attitude towards the law of God, which results in the restoration of one’s fortunes. The reward is metaphorically described: “You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies shall flourish like the grass; they will grow as the green grass” (Isa 66:14). Judgment comes upon those who do not, with “flames of fire” (Isa 66:15). 28 In Ezra 10:9, the trembling people are encouraged to repent and do the will of God (Ezra 10:9–11).

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2.4 Seek and Find Another repentance motif in 4Q185 is the instruction to seek in order to find. The object of the search is only referred to by a feminine suffix (ii 11–12) but the larger context in 4Q185 implies that it is Torah. It is something that is given (‫ )נתן‬in order to be observed (‫ )עשה‬and it is associated with a way, to be inherited in order to receive blessings (ii 8–12). The connection of Torah with the penitential attitude is of great importance for our discussion. Torah piety – marked by the keeping of the law is not only the result of repentance, it may also be an act of repentance (e.g. Deut 4:40 and Jer 29).29 The larger backdrop of the “seek and find” motif in 4Q185 is the threat of Yahweh’s punishments: “Who can endure to stand before his angels? For with flaming fire he shall be judged [according to] his spirits” (i 8–9) and “before his presence, evil goes forth to all people” (ii 8). Yahweh’s wrath may be associated with his absence and to “seek” Yahweh means to reconcile with him (Ps 78:34). In Deuteronomy 4, Moses urges his listeners not to forget (Deut 4:23) and predicts future apostasy in the land (Deut 4:25). The solution is to ‫“ בקש‬seek” and ‫מצא‬ “find” (Deut 4:28–29). The similar idea is reflected in Jeremiah: “When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes” (Jer 29:13–14). Hence, when the instruction of 4Q185 calls to remember, to humble oneself, and to seek in order to find it evokes the theme of judgment and restoration. The “seek and find” motif is found twice in 4Q185. In the first instance it relates to the human that will not be found (i 12), and in the second instance to the inheritance given by Yahweh:   ֯ ‫]יב[קשה‬ 1 1 ‫עצם ושמחת לבב‬ ̇ ‫ודשן‬ ̇ ‫י[מים‬ ֯ ‫]ל[כי֯ בה ינחלי ועמה ]ארך‬ ֯ ‫וה‬ ֯ ‫ ימצאה‬12

[The one who see]ks it (f.sg.), (12) will find it (f.sg.) and those who w[al]k in it will inherit it. And with it (f.sg.) is [length of d]ays, fatness of bone, a joyful heart, ..[…] (1–2ii 11b–12a)

Much of this column is damaged, but it contains two beatitude statements that describe the happy receiver and doer of God’s gift, which is only referred to by a feminine suffix: ‫“ אשרי אדם נתנה לו‬Happy is the human to whom it (f.sg.) is given” (ii 8) and ‫“ אשרי אדם יעשנה‬Happy is the human who does it (f.sg.)” (ii 13).

29 In the context of Deut 4, the terms ‫בקש‬, ‫שוב‬, and ‫ דרש‬metaphorically denote repentance; see Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, 14, 114. The “seek and find” motif is found with penitential overtone in prophetic instructions; e.g. Jer 29:10–13; Isa 55:6–7; 58:9; 65:1.



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The antecedent of the suffix is often assumed to be wisdom, or wisdom associated with Torah.30 According to my reading, the best candidate is Torah, which is a feminine noun, and something that is given to Israel. Occasionally, Torah is referred to with a feminine suffix, and it is often pictured as something that is given (Ezra 7:6; Neh 10:30, with f.sg. suffix ‫)נתנה‬.31 To find and to walk in the Torah are associated with blessings: [length of d]ays, fatness of bone, a joyful heart, ..[ … ] (ii 12).32 Seeking God and seeking his Torah are more ore less overlapping movements (Ps 119:2,10,45).33 Thus, in line with Nehemiah 10:29, the restored human is the one who walks in and acts according to God’s law.

2.5 Summary: Instruction on Prayer in 4Q185 According to my reading of 4Q185 1–2i 13–ii 1, 4Q185 exhorts repentance. The exhortations to remember and to humble oneself before the might of God, can be interpreted as human efforts to retrieve God’s favor. This effort to reconcile with Yahweh is further implied by the series of admonitions that lead the addressess on to the way of life (i 13–ii 2). The portrayal of humans as weak beings with no hope before God’s wrath arouses a particular self-awareness, or abasement, that motivates the addressees to respond to the message of the admonition. There is no explicit accusation of the addressee, but the statements “there is no strength” and “there is no hope” (i 7,12) is best interpreted as an acknowledgement that involves human flaw. Hence, the wrath of God represents a problem and becomes a threat. It is against this background, that the speaker exhorts a turn towards “our God.” This turn is accompanied with humbling and trembling before his dread which implies an awareness of one’s flaw.

30 Strugnell, “Notes en marge.” Pajunen states that “the figure in these beatitudes is best seen as a combination of Wisdom and Torah.” In his transcription, he reads Wisdom=Torah; see Marko Marttila and Mika S. Pajunen, “Wisdom, Israel and Other Nations: Perspectives from the Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanonical Literature, and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” JAJ 4 (2013): 18, and Elisa Uusimäki, “‘Happy Is the Person to Whom She Has Been Given’: The Continuum of Wisdom and Torah in 4QSapiential Admonitions B (4Q185) and 4QBeatitudes (4Q525),” RevQ 103 (2014): 345–360. 31 According to Boda, the verb “given” is associated with Torah. See the list of words for law in Boda, Praying the Tradition, 129, 203–204. 32 Cf. Pss 1; 119:111. See also the list of blessings in 1QS for all who walk in the spirit of the truth (1QS 4:6,12). 33 On the substitution of Torah in place of God in Psalm 119, see Kent Aaron Reynolds, Torah as Teacher: The Exemplary Torah Student in Psalm 119, VTSup 137 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 40.

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The movement from hopelessness to rejoicing is accomplished by the humble attitude. The historical recollection plays a dominant role in this move. The exodus event, including God’s acts of salvations and judgment in the wilderness become present and serve to motivate the addressees and legitimate the message of the instructor: They need to learn and they need to remember (Ps 78:6–7). When the people do not remember, but forget, they loose track of their identity and suffer from the loss of their God. The effort to change the conditions of displacement may be described as acts of repentance: either as a wholehearted search for God and his Torah, by humbling ones heart before God, or by remembering.

3 The Historical Summaries in Psalms 78, 105, and 106 In the context of 4Q185, the call to remember the miracles performed during the exodus may have different functions. One of them is to direct the heart and soul of the recipients towards Yahweh. The colocation of the call to listen and to remember resembles the didactic function of the so-called historical psalms. The introductory summons to listen and to pay attention to the instructor (i 14) connects the instruction with Psalm 78, which similarly opens with a call to listen (Ps 78:1).34 The didactic opening of Psalm 78 presents the history of Israel, i.e., “what we have heard and known”, as the soure of knowledge, and makes a connection between learning, knowing, remembering, and doing.35 In Psalm 78 remembrance is reciprocal. The people remembered Yahweh as a redeemer, but Yahweh also remembers his people, and more precisely their weakness. The link between the recalled exodus and the imagery on human weakness is notable: When he killed them, they sought for him; they repented and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer (Ps 78:34–35). He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and does not come again. How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! (Ps 78:39– 40)

34 The similarity with Psalm 78 is acknowledged by several scholars; see Strugnell, “Notes en marge,” 269. John Kampen, Wisdom Literature, ECDSS (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 259. On possible reliance on Psalm 78, see Goff, Discerning Wisdom, 116, 143–144. 35 On “didacticism” and the pedagogical model of the psalm; see Kåre Berge, “Was there a Wisdom-Didactical Torah-Redaction in the Exodus Story (Exodus 1–15)?,” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 75 (2010): 57–76.



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The author of 4Q185 recites a formula of the historical summary that is close to those found in Psalms 105 and 106. In Psalm 105 there is an appeal to remember: “Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” (Ps 105:5). Psalm 106 on the other hand presents a negative evaluation of the people, and reads: “Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt, did not consider (‫ )שכל‬your wonderful works; they did not remember (‫ )זכר‬the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea.” (Ps 106:7–8)

4Q185 appears to borrow phraseology from these historical summaries found in the psalms and creates a new summary by juxtaposing two different versions.36 In Ps 105:5, the wonders are not located geographically whereas in Ps 106:7, the wonders and the rebellion are located in “Egypt” and at “the Red Sea.” According to my reading 4Q185 draws specifically from both psalms, using the historical summary from Ps 105:5, and adding from Ps 106:7 the two verbs ‫ שכל‬and ‫זכר‬ and the two locations ‫ במצרים‬and ‫ביום סוף‬.37 The specific layout of the appeals to be attentive and the exhortation to commemorate the deeds of Egypt thus seem to draw on the historical psalms, such as Psalms 78, and 105 in combination with Psalm 106. This leads me to the next point, that the prescribed acts found in 4Q185 reflect or mirror petitionary prayer, such as found in the Words of the Luminaries (4Q504).

36 The juxtaposition of scriptural allusions is an exegetical technique of this period; see Adele Berlin, “Qumran Laments and the Study of Lament Literature,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 19–23, January, 2000, ed. Esther G. Chazon, Ruth A. Clements, and Avital Pinnick, STDJ 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 3–4. 37 Only a minor portion of Psalm 106 is found at Qumran (4QPsd), but its influence is assumed; see George J Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” RevQ 14 (1989): 267–292. Körting argues that there is a direct literary connection between Ps 106:2–5 and 4Q380 1 I 7–11; see Corinna Körting, “Jerusalem, City of God (4Q380 1 I 1–11),” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller of Her 65th Birthday, ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken M. Penner, and Cecilia Wassen, STDJ 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 224.

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4 Repentance, Remembrance, and Petitionary Prayer 4Q185 is similar to the petitionary prayers in that it connects historical summaries with confession and petition. The themes of repentance for sin and acceptance of divine judgment are frequent in the Second Temple literature.38 The Words of the Luminaries (4Q504) provide a good example of the use of historical recollection or “memory” in the context of prayer.39 The extant text of 4Q504 provides a series of petitions. These petitions evoke themes and motifs related to judgment and history, but are equally concerned with healing, strength, and restoration. These themes are all part of the logic of repentance, and run through the entire composition. 7 O Lord, act now according to yourself, according to the greatness of your strength (by) whic[h] yo[u en]dured 8 our fathers in their rebellion against your command,40 and your were angry with them to the point of destroying them, but you had pity 9 on them in your love for them, and because of your covenant, when Moses atoned 10 for their sin, and because of their knowledge of your great strength and the abundance of your mercy 11 for generations forever. Turn back now your anger and your wrath from your people Israel, on account of all [their] si[n] And remember 12 your wonders which you did in the eyes of the nations for your name has been placed upon us. (4Q504 1ii 7–12)41

38 On penitential prayer in Daniel and Baruch; see Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, 65–108. See also Russell C. D. Arnold, “Repentance and the Qumran Covenant Ceremony,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 2, The Development of Penitential Prayer in the Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk and Rodney A. Werline, SBLEJL 22 (Leiden: Brill 2007), 159–175. 39 Werline presents 4Q504 as part of the larger development of penitential prayer in Second Temple Judaism, and he further suggests that the penitential prayer had become a religious institution at the time. This implies accepted practice with fixed times and ritual; see Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, 3, 73. See also Esther G. Chazon, “The Words of the Luminaries and Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Times,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 2. The Development of Penitential Prayer in the Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline, EJL 22 (Leiden: Brill 2007), 185; Jeremy Penner, “Mapping Fixed Prayers from the Dead Sea Scrolls onto Second Temple Period Judaism,” DSD 21 (2014): 39–63; Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry; Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Emergence of Institutionalized Prayer in Israel in the Light of the Qumran Literature,” in Qumran sa piete, sa theologie et son milieu (Paris: Leuven University Press, 1978), 265–284. 40 Literally translation = your mouth. A similar phrase, to rebel against God’s command, appears in Num 20:24. 41 See PAM 43.612.



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There are several literary affinities between 4Q185 and 4Q504. First of all, there is a common idea that God’s wrath is evoked by rebellion. While 4Q185 instructs one to repent, 4Q504 reflects repentance in its literary-liturgical setting. In vi (frg. 2)42 the experienced distress caused by God’s acts of judgment is resolved by petitionary prayer. And so they humble their hearts: “4 And now, in this day, 5 which our heart is humbled, we make amends for our iniquities and for the iniquity 6 of our fathers in our unfaithful acts and in the hostility in which we walked.” The prayer goes on: “For you 9 have strengthened our heart, in order that we may recount Your mighty deeds for generations 10 forever.” In 4Q504, the past is recalled in order for God to remember. But remembrance is also a reciprocal process. Remembrance promotes humility as it puts the participant in her right place. Hence, the strategy is not only to turn God’s wrath, but to turn humans towards God. In 4Q504, Torah plays a crucial role in the restoration of the pleader. The petitions also have a concern for human physical and spiritual needs, which are required in order to do God’s will.43 Chazon notes that the prayer has a concern for physical deliverance and spiritual strength.44 Similarly, in 4Q185 there is emphasis upon physical strength. According to 4Q185, God gives Torah, but he also provides the strength needed in order to keep it. The petitions in 4Q504 for knowledge, strength and forgiveness are comparable with the “promises” in 4Q185. The listener is encouraged to search a way of life (ii 1–2) and to receive as inheritance a God-given object (ii 8, 14). The admonition further asserts that those who walk in “it” will inherit it, and receive the blessings associated with it (ii 12). The larger sequence is associative and elaborative but never explicit concerning the given entity, which is only referred to by a feminine suffix. According to my reading this is best interpreted as the gift of Torah. Consequently, the admonition moves from judgment and hopelessness, through exhortations and continues with positive statements about something given in order to walk in, to do, and to possess with ‫“ בכל עזז֯ כחו‬with strength” (ii 15). This strength is associated with the strength that enables the human to do the will of Yahweh and to walk the “way of life” (ii 1–2). Just as the first column is concerned with human weakness and points to the correct attitude towards God, the second part

42 There is a lacuna on line 5 in PAM 42.184. In PAM 43.611, however, there is an additional fragment that completes the line. 43 According to 1QS 3:1, to have strength (‫ )חזק‬is a precondition for repentance. 44 Chazon, “The Words of the Luminaries,” 181. Note that one should not overestimate the differentiation between spiritual and physical strength; see Daniel K. Falk, “Scriptural Inspiration for Penitential Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 2: The Development of Penitential Prayer in the Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney Alan Werline (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 142–143.

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presents a transformed human. This “move” is accomplished by acts of repentance. This spiritualized perspective of Torah piety that is found in 4Q504 is a key to grasping the role of repentance and remembrance in 4Q185. The state of “no hope” and “no strength” in 4Q185 can be turned with prayer. The restored human is identified by the received gift of Torah. Torah as something given or implanted not only demands strength, but also provides the strength needed.

5 Conclusion 4Q185 urges its addressees to humble themselves before God’s might and to remember the wonders and signs executed in Egypt. The instruction further exhorts the addressee to tremble ones heart before God’s dread and also to rejoice one’s soul. Theses appeals have a concern for human character, but they are oriented towards Yahweh, who is represented by his acts and his words. Hence, to humble oneself and to remember are acts that take place before the deity. Moreover, they lead to trembling and praise. 4Q185 thus instructs on prayer, petition, and praise, and by doing so the author adapts a more or less standardised liturgical formula. The use of the historical recollection corresponds with the didactic psalms (Pss 78; 105; and 106) and the petitionary prayers in 4Q504. The appeal to remember appears to have both cognitive and emotional aspects. One needs to learn and to change one’s behavior. If 4Q185 is interpreted in light of the petitionary prayers of 4Q504, “strength” may be granted as a result of the humble prayer. Indeed, the description of unlimited strength (ii 13–15) contrasts with the weak human described in the first column (i 7). The “happy” human is a transformed and restored human. In 4Q185 the “simple ones” become the strengthened ones. The pre-scripted acts move the recipient from disempowerment to empowerment, from a humble and fearful state, to an exulted one: Rejoice your soul! Only the empowered may rejoice. We know from 4Q504 and the penitential prayers of the Hebrew Bible, such as Nehemiah 9, that there are certain biblical traditions that guide the praying community in repentance. The recital of historical traditions alongside acts of humbling, weeping, and fasting are integral in the biblical prayers of repentance. I suggest that the use of history has a similar function in 4Q185: it evokes the correct emotions, and it encourages one to respond to God’s will in a specific manner. The emphasis upon knowledge and memory thus connects 4Q185 with the traditions of Israel’s history, in particular those found in the historical psalms and prayers that are motivated by historical reminiscence.

Corinna Körting

Lamentations: Time and Setting For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. (Eccl 3:1,4)1

1 Introduction Qohelet asserts there is a time to mourn, a time to laugh, and a time to dance. According to these verses, it is the task of the reader to determine the right time. Qohelet is, of course, not speaking about set times within a liturgical or ritual calendar, but about the ebb and flow of life in general. Yet, both types of time are of interest when thinking about mourning and lament. When is the right time to mourn? How closely is mourning connected to a specific situation in a person’s life, or to the fate of a city, or a people? And how or why is it possible to dissociate the mourning of a particular historical event to make it part of a ritual calendar or liturgy? What can we say about the setting of ritual mourning? We know of private mourning as well as public mourning as an act of the State, in ancient times and today. It can take place in ruins, temples, palaces, open spaces or back yards, etc., but how much can we really know about the connection between the texts to be read, songs to be sung, and the writers, singers and the mourning of a congregation? Taking up Qohelet again, how much can we know as scholars about the right time and setting to mourn, the right time to read or sing laments? My intent here is to have a brief look at ancient Near Eastern city laments as the background for those found in the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere in ancient Jewish sources. The recurrent themes for this paper will be time, setting, and text pragmatics.2 My aim is to contribute to the discussion about the setting of the book of Lamentations in the Second Temple period. In addition 4QApocryphal Lamentations (4Q179) from Qumran will be examined as a younger adaption of Lamentations in an effort to understand how the city lament, as a motif

1 Quotes from the Hebrew Bible in English are given according to the NRSV. 2 Text pragmatics is a field of textual linguistics that examines the role a text plays in communication. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-009

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and genre, could exist and gain relevance independently from the catastrophe from which it originally arose. Did city laments take on a new rhetorical function in lament and prayer, as in 4QApocryphal Lamentations, and therefore a new setting in the late Second Temple period?

2 City Laments in the Ancient Near East: A Brief Background Check for Israelite Traditions City laments have a long tradition in the ancient Near East. The destruction of the large Sumerian cities of Ur, Nippur, Uruk, and Eridu were recorded in collections of city laments.3 These collections depict fire, plague, marauding enemies, deportations, the city gods abandoning their temples, and the immediate consequence of a complete collapse of the political, social, and religious order. These city laments had an “afterlife” independent from any specific historical event in the so-called balaĝ and eršemma4 compositions that were in use for almost the entire second and first millennium all the way down to the Seleucid period. The obvious independence of these texts from a specific historical event acting as a trigger for the lament is significant when considering the possible settings of the book of Lamentations. The names of cities and temples are only found in enumerations that could be changed or updated by reworking the compositions.5 This rather unspecific designation for the place(s) of destruction was used in order to include a greater variety of settings where these laments might be performed. Indeed, such laments have been connected not only to destruction, but, as we can see from a number of letters and royal inscrip-

3 For critical editions, see Marc Wischnowsky, Tochter Zion: Aufnahme und Überwindung der Stadtklage in den Prophetenschriften des Alten Testaments, WMANT 89 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2001), 19–20. Comparisons of these laments, dated from the end of the third millennium (Ur III-period), have been made with the book of Lamentations. See, e.g., Wischnowski, Tochter Zion. 4 The balaĝ was an instrument, probably a harp, which likely accompanied the singing of these laments. Eršemma means something like “wail of the shem-drum.” Cf. Mark E. Cohen, Sumerian Hymnology: The Eršemma, HUCA Supplements 2 (Cincinnati: KTAV Publishing House, 1981), 18. See as well Michael Emmendörffer, Der ferne Gott: Eine Untersuchung der alttestamentlichen Volksklagelieder vor dem Hintergrund der mesopotamischen Literatur, FAT 21 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 22–24. 5 Cf. Emmendörffer, Der ferne Gott, 36.



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tions, also to the rebuilding of cities and temples and the continuation of the cult.6 The time of sadness without an accompanying cultic ritual seems usually to have been rather short, with rudimentary cults being established shortly after the disaster, even amongst the ruins. Under these circumstances, the recital of laments served to paint the past in very dark colors in order to let the future shine brighter.7 Mourning rites, like wearing sackcloth or cutting the skin,8 functioned as a bridge between the past and future, becoming demarcations for the return to a functioning cultic routine. Preparations aside, however, the perceived return of the god or goddess was essential to the resumption of cultic practice. From this perspective, lament had the function of appeasing divine anger in order to entice the god or goddess to return to the city and its temple.9 These functions are significant, but it is still a very different matter to include laments into a cultic and/or ritual calendar. Among others, the calendars from Aššur and Uruk point to the fact that at least the eršemma were part of a fixed liturgy for certain days of each month, every month. They were recited as part of ceremonies centered on certain cultic occasions, like sacrifices or libations.10 The reason for this might be found in a secondary use for occasions, other than temple destruction or rebuilding, that seem to make it necessary to assuage divine anger. “The regular recitation of lamentations on fixed days of each month and on festivals hopefully ensured tranquility for a nation ever afraid it might unknowingly commit an offense against the divine powers.”11

6 Cf. Angelika Berlejung, “Notlösungen – Altorientalische Nachrichten über den Tempelkult in Nachkriegszeiten,” in Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zu Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina und Ebirnâri (FS M. Weippert), ed. Ulrich Hübner and Ernst Axel Knauf, OBO 186 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), 196–230. 7 Cf. Berlejung, “Notlösungen,” 197–198, 221. 8 Berlejung, “Notlösungen,” 210. 9 Berlejung, “Notlösungen,” 209. 10 Cohen, Sumerian Hymnology, 50. 11 Cohen, Sumerian Hymnology, 49, and also: “The lamentation was also recited in Uruk on the tenth and eleventh days of the important akitu-festival in the month of Tashritu. Since this was the occasion when the great gods assembled to determine the fates for the coming year, the chanting of lamentations to soothe the anger of the gods was most vital” (p. 50).

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3 Lamentations and their Setting in Post-Exilic Israel 3.1 Mourning Services during the Exile or Shortly After? Most scholars would agree that the book of Lamentations stems from the exilic or early post-exilic period and was written in Judah.12 Despite the picture of Jerusalem and its surroundings given by the book of Lamentations, we can assume that there would have been people in Judah able to compose such literature – such as Levites or priests, escaping deportation – and places where this activity could have taken place, such as Mizpa, which was only 20km away from Jerusalem.13 Even rudimentary cult practices could therefore be expected in Jerusalem and at cultic sites around the city.14 It would thus appear that our search for the right time to mourn and its setting is over rather quickly. Hans-Joachim Kraus formulates quite clearly that a commemoration as we find it in Lamentations is not a private occasion but one that needs public participation in the place where the temple once stood.15 Based on the personal forms used in Lamentations Kraus also seems to “know” even more about the actual recitation of the text. Zion appears in the ritual, according to him, as a lonely and desolate woman, lamented by a speaker but later speaking for herself. Kraus understands Lamentations and the specifications of personification as part of a performing cult act.16 However, when would a public recitation, such as Kraus suggests, have taken place? We may take additional information for this occasion from the prophecy of Zechariah: “Say to all the people of

12 See Ulrich Berges, Klagelieder, ed. Erich Zenger, HTKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2002), 64–72; Delbert R. Hillers, Lamentations, AB 7A (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972), xviii and xxiii; Klaus Koenen, Klagelieder (Threni), BKAT 20 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2016), 49. 13 Cf. Hans Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah during the “Exilic” Period, SO 28 (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), 48–50; Berges, Klagelieder, 70. 14 Joachim Schaper, Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda: Studien zur Kult- und Sozialgeschichte Israels in persicher Zeit, FAT 31 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 164. 15 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Klagelieder (Threni), 4th ed., BKAT 20 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983), 25. 16 Kraus, Klagelieder (Threni), 25: a “darstellende Kulthandlung”. Cf. the current discussion on liturgy and drama by, for instance, Stefan Ark Nitsche, Jesaja 24–27: ein dramatischer Text: Die Frage nach den Genres prophetischer Literatur des Alten Testaments und die Textgraphik der großen Jesajarolle aus Qumran, BWANT 16 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2006), 11; Alexa F. Wilke, Die Gebete der Propheten, BZAW 451 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 7.



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the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?” (Zech 7:5). From this text it would seem that there were days of fasting during the time of exile and beyond. But as Zechariah 8:19 states, these days should come to an end: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be seasons of joy and gladness, and cheerful festivals for the house of Judah: therefore love truth and peace.” There is no reason not to take seriously the information given by Zechariah. But the question that has to be raised is if the days of fasting mentioned in Zechariah can be directly connected with the current book of Lamentations. To my mind, the answer needs to be left open. The book of Lamentations is a complex piece of poetic literature, which would not have been written by a single author in a short period of time.17 This makes it difficult to say which parts of the book could have been read at public services at set times. The literary history of the book of Lamentations is complex and we have no direct link between text and public fasting as an occasion for a public reading.18 In this case I would argue against the claims of Kraus and others, who take for granted that a text necessarily has a place for its performance. Rather, I would argue that the connection between specific mourning services and the book of Lamentations is a scholarly construction, based on the “need” to find a setting for the public reading of Lamentations.19 In support of this claim is the fact that the language used in Lamentations does not necessarily follow closely on the heels of the experience of the catastrophe, just as in the balaĝ and eršemma compositions. This opens up the timeframe, and the potential locations for a compositional and ritual setting even further. If we cannot say too much about the setting of Lamentations in a public reading in mourning services, is there anything we can say about the setting at all? Lamentations may well have been written against the background of mourning services

17 For more information, see Koenen, Klagelieder (Threni), 36–46. 18 Boda, however, is quite optimistic that a reading of Jer 14–15 in connection with Lev 26 (covenant renewal ceremony) reveals something about a liturgy that combines lament, admission of sin, and Zion theology, cf. Mark J. Boda, “The Priceless Gain of Penitence: From Communal Lament to Penitential Prayer in the ‘Exilic’ Liturgy of Israel,” in Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts, ed. Nancy C. Lee and Carleen Mandolfo, SBLSymS 43 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 86. 19 Scholars suggest that the poems have been composed for use at mourning services on the heels of a major catastrophe. See also Claus Westermann, Die Klagelieder: Forschungsgeschichte und Auslegung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), 62–63.

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and public lament, without necessarily ever being used in such a context. It is an example of overcoming a crisis via literature: “Thus Lamentations served the survivors in the first place as an expression of the almost inexpressible horror and grief they felt. Lam is so complete and honest and eloquent an expression of grief that even centuries after the events it is still able to provide those in mute despair with words to speak.”20 Although this quote from Delbert Hillers points mainly to the setting in which Lamentations was written, it says something as well about the specific character of this kind of literature. It provides others in despair with words to speak. Even though the specific situations in which the study or meditation of Lamentations as literature would have taken place is not quite clear,21 what Hillers says still holds true. In psalm-research most scholars would agree that psalms were generally written against the background of a liturgical or cultic experience, although the collection itself might have served other purposes. The same might be true for Lamentations.22 While the question of the right time to read or recite from the book of Lamentations cannot be limited to a short period after the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its temple, it is even more difficult to describe the setting for Lamentations. Except for Zechariah 7 and 8, which are not very specific, we have no direct references to lament services performed after the destruction of the first temple – we can only draw some kind of probability.23

3.2 Commemoration instead of Immediate Lament? Hillers has argued that Lamentations provides words of inexpressible grief also for later generations. This may be a clue with regards to textual pragmatics, but cannot be the entire answer to the rhetorical function of Lamentations. Another

20 Hillers, Lamentations, xvi. 21 For further discussion of “lehrhafte nachkultische” poetry that is to be studied and not performed cf. Christian Frevel, “Zerbrochene Zier. Tempel und Tempelzerstörung in den Klageliedern (Threni),” in Gottesstadt und Gottesgarten, ed. Othmar Keel and Erich Zenger (Freiburg: Herder, 2002), 116 n. 56. 22 To add one last point to the problem of the date of origin and context(s) in which Lamentations was recited, the form of most of Lamentations in an acrostic pattern has often been taken as an argument against the expression of immediate grief. To my mind this structure serves a specific purpose in relation to content. While Lamentations depicts the entire loss of cult and social order, it is the language that holds everything together. The acrostic serves somehow as a skeleton providing an anchor where one is otherwise absent. Cf. Koenen, Klagelieder (Threni), 9–13. 23 Cf. Frevel, “Zerbrochene Zier,” 116; Koenen, Klagelieder (Threni), 64–66.



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later use of Lamentations that has to be evaluated is its recitation on the evening of the 9th of Ab, evident from the 9th century CE Lamentations targum, as a commemoration of past sorrow and grief.24 How much can we build on the idea of commemoration as the purpose for a service before this? In contrast to other occasions, such as, for example, the exodus from Egypt and the plight of the Jews recorded in the book of Esther, which demand commemoration (see Esth 9:28), nothing comparable can be found in the Hebrew Bible regarding the remembrance of the destruction of the temple and the use of Lamentations.25 All in all we have to admit that we have no concrete link between any kind of service and a reading of the book of Lamentations in the Second Temple period, neither for mourning nor for commemoration.

4 4Q179: Its Time and Setting at Qumran 4.1 Continuation of a Literary Tradition at Qumran? The Relationship between MT Lamentations and 4Q179 The rather close connections between the book of Lamentations and 4Q179 are instantly recognizable. The manuscript was labelled 4QLamentations in 1968 by John Allegro,26 but in order not to use the name of a biblical book for a non-biblical text, the title was later changed to 4QApocryphal Lamentations. However, Paul Joyce and Diana Lipton go as far as saying that the Qumran fragment belongs “in the category of literature that emerged in the same world as the Bible and, in other circumstances, might even have found its way into the biblical canon.”27 A survey of the proximity of the language of 4Q179 to its biblical antecedents is obligatory. Maurya Horgan, Adele Berlin, and Jesper Høgenhaven have taken

24 Cf. Christian M. Brady, The Rabbinic Targum of Lamentations: Vindicating God, Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 5–6; Kathleen M. O’Connor, Lamentations & The Tears of the World (New York: Orbis Books, 2002), 134. Also cf. m. Ta’an 2.10; 4.6–7; Sop. 42. 25 In Lamentations the use of the term ‫“ זכר‬to remember” is connected with Jerusalem’s selfreflection (Lam 1:7,9; 3:19,20), and points to God’s refusal to remember (Lam 2:1). The word is found later again in Lam 5:1 with a plea to God that he might remember. 26 See John M. Allegro, Qumran Cave 4.1 (4Q158–4Q186), DJD V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 75–77. 27 Paul M. Joyce and Diana Lipton, Lamentations through the Centuries, Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 37.

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on this task, and offered excellent analyses of the allusions and quotations to the biblical text as well as answering some open questions regarding the reconstruction of missing parts of the composition.28 In light of this thorough work already done on the scroll, it is not my intention to present a new reading and reconstruction of 4Q179 but instead to build my argument on the work of these scholars. A brief overview of structure and content of the text shall be given before attempting a discussion of the time and setting for the scroll. 4Q179 1i 2 opens with a speech in the first person plural. The we confess their sins (‫ )עוונותינו‬and their lack of obedience (] ‫)כי לוא שמענ֯ [ו‬. The word ‫“ ברית‬covenant” with the suffix of the third person singular and the object marker ‫ את‬is the first readable word in line 4. This change in morphology is remarkable. It is mentioned as part of the confession and is written as “his/it.” Yet, the dominating suffix in this column is the first person plural. By using the third masculine singular, the text marks the opposing pair – we and he/it, or we and God and his covenant. The covenant might be the object of disobedience. The distress of the we is made clear in line 4: ‫“ אוי לנו‬Woe to us”. The question of sin and guilt is, after line 2, taken up again in line 15,29 at least according to the extant text; interestingly, both terms appear in combination with the first person plural suffix: ‫]חטאותינו‬ ֯ [‫פ]שעינו י‬ ֯ “our transgressions […]our sins.” The confession of sin and guilt of the we frames a lament about the sanctuary and city referred to in the third person singular. No pleasing odor comes from the altar, the city is desolate, like a desert, she contains no joy. The lament points to a tight relation between we, sanctuary, and city. The suffixes make clear that ‫“ תפארת‬beauty” and ‫“ קודש‬sanctuary” are theirs. ‫תפ ̇א ̇ר ֯תנו‬ ֯ “our beauty” is not exclusive but recalls the description of Zion or her belongings as it is described in other biblical books: positively in Isaiah 52:1 and 62:3, and negatively in Ezra 16:12,17,39. An intersection of Zion-imagery and temple connected with this term is also found in Isaiah 60:7. There the prophet speaks about the offerings that are

28 Maurya P. Horgan, “A Lament over Jerusalem,” JSS 18 (1973): 222–234; Adele Berlin, “Qumran Laments and the Study of Lament Literature,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 19–23 January, 2000, ed. Esther G. Chazon, Ruth A. Clements, and Avital Pinnick, STDJ 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1–17; Jesper Høgenhaven, “Biblical Quotations and Allusions in 4QApocryphal Lamentations (4Q179),” in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries, ed. Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov (London: The British Library, 2002), 113–120. 29 Regarding line 14 the wording is under discussion, see Høgenhaven, “Biblical Quotations,” 113ff.



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acceptable on the altar and the glorification of the glorious house (‫ובית תפארתי‬ ‫)אפאר‬. Zion, sanctuary, the city, and the we are deeply connected. It is a different question as to whether only their fate is interrelated, or if the we are also responsible for the situation. The confession in lines 2–4 and 15 point toward the latter conclusion. How are we to understand line 14 in the context of a desolate sanctuary and city? The reading itself is subject to much discussion. Basing my argument on the observations of John Strugnell,30 whom Høgenhaven31 follows, we can read the following: ‫“ אנוש למכתינו‬incurable our wounds.” The altar is not appropriate for use, which means there is no “cure” for wounds, for sins, and transgression. The situation in the sanctuary and the city is not just something observed, but a condition experienced by the lamenting group. Column 1ii begins again with a woe, because of God’s anger, and what follows in line 2 might be a direct consequence of divine wrath. The we regard themselves as being among the dead.32 This lament becomes the introduction to a depiction of the personification of the city. Her name is not mentioned in the beginning but can be inferred from line 13 that mentions the daughters of Zion. More important is probably the title ‫בת עמי‬. There is no doubt that Zion/Jerusalem is meant. And, going back to biblical sources, this is a typical expression especially in Jeremiah and Lamentations.33 But in 4Q179 she is said to be cruel (1ii 4). How so? Is the city not the suffering party? The problem is that the city cannot do what she is supposed to do, to take care of her inhabitants, of her children. She does not even provide them with water. They suffer because it is cold, her buildings are not solid structures, but are reduced to heaps. Once brought up in fine clothing, now, nothing is left to her children. How does this passage function rhetorically? From the first two lines of column 1ii we understand that the we are among the dead. The question arises if this means that they are necessarily among the inhabitants of the city. To my mind it is important to see that the introduction of the city in line 2 comes as a comparison: “Like a hated woman (‫ ]…[ )כמשונאה‬the daughter of my people is cruel.” The connection between lines 1–2 and 3–13 is not clear grammatically. Lines 3–13 may illustrate the situation the we are in because of God’s anger. Yet it does not clearly

30 Cf. John Strugnell, “Notes en marge du volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judean Desert of Jordan’,” RevQ 7 (1970): 250–252. 31 Høgenhaven, “Biblical Quotations,” 114. 32 The translation of ‫( גלל‬1.p. pl. impf. poal) varies, “we have polluted” (Høgenhaven, “Biblical Quotations,” 115). 33 Jer 8:19,21–23; 9:6; 14:17; Lam 2:11; 3:48; 4:3,6,10; Isa 22:4.

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state whether the group should necessarily be compared with the children of the cruel city. On the contrary, it is also possible that the situation of the city is their situation, not being able even to supply their own children with water. In view of column 1i the passage probably speaks about the consequences of unassuaged guilt. The picture of the city in fragment 2 (col. iii) is different. When the city is no longer seen as being cruel, her suffering becomes obvious. She is lonely, her places are forsaken. This description in part goes back to what we have gathered from 1i, yet, in this case the images used portray the personified city. Questions of guilt, causality, and consequence are not raised; only suffering is mentioned due to the loss of all essential relations. 4Q179 speaks about the city in three different ways. The first is the perspective of those found guilty and longing for the altars of the Lord, longing for the healing of wounds, of guilt. Yet, as the temple and city are destroyed, their longing cannot be fulfilled. The second is found in column 1ii, which points to the consequences of guilt and the inability of the city to take care of the children, the needy. The city has become a life-threatening place, the polar opposite of her given duty. The third is an image of the suffering city who weeps because of her fate and because of her children. It adds the image of a voiceless female in desolation to a range of images found in the preceding parts.

4.2 4Q179: Its Time and Setting at Qumran While the historical background for the book of Lamentations seems to be rather clear, pointing to the destruction of the city and the first temple, it is not as clear for 4Q179.34 The subject of scholarly discussion has been centered on the destruction of the first temple,35 as well as the attacks against Jerusalem by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 169/8 and 168/7 BCE.36 Both of these events may have been in the poet’s mind while he composed this text.37

34 Lamentations can be seen as a result of the destruction of the first temple. Albeit this does not mean that the poems have been written directly after the events or that any kind of “performance” of the text is connected to lament services right after the destruction. Such a direct connection with a historical event cannot be found for 4Q179. 35 Cf. Berlin, “Qumran Laments,” 10; Lawrence H. Schiffman, Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 304. 36 Cf. Horgan, “A Lament over Jerusalem,” 222; Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr., Edward Cook, eds., Die Schriftrollen von Qumran, trans. Alfred Läpple (Augsburg: Bechtermünz Verlag, 1999), 255. 37 In addition, Berlin, “Qumran Laments,” 15, places 4Q179 in the context of the “community’s



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Yet, what else can we say about the contents of this scroll? 4Q179 uses the language of the book of Lamentations, but the image of the suffering city becomes a role model of suffering and divine rejection38 detached from a historical event.39 To say something about the setting here is as difficult as it is for MT Lamentations. Neither the Qumran festival calendar nor the Qumran scrolls in general give information about any occasions for public fasts.40 However, this argument is only important if we presume that we have to look for a public reading of 4Q179 in a ritual context as it has been suggested for the book of Lamentations. The search for a setting for 4Q179 has to be undertaken independently from MT Lamentations and shall be taken up below.

4.3 4Q179: Lament and Repentance The three parts of 4Q179 examined here cast light on questions of guilt and suffering from a different perspective. Yet, what kind of text do we have in front of us? Is it a city lament in which the voice of the lamenting city is not heard? A lament of the people? A dirge? A prayer, but without addressing God directly, and without a petition for forgiveness? When reading 4Q179 some aspects are strik-

perception of the contemporary Jerusalem establishment and the war of opposing words or interpretations.” 38 Berlin, “Qumran Laments,” 17. 39 Cf. Høgenhaven, “Biblical Quotations,” 120. Tal Ilan, “Gender and Lamentations: 4Q179 and the Canonization of the Book of Lamentations,” lectio difficilior 2 (2008): 4–5, observes: “Since 4Q179, like the biblical Lamentations, is a dirge over the destruction of Jerusalem, it must have been influenced by the biblical text. With this conviction in mind, they assume that its author’s concern was not really to lament the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, which was an event of the distant past, but rather to use the metaphorical language of the destruction to lament something else. This assumption is based, I suppose, on the principle employed often in the study of ancient Jewish literature, that the authors of the text had a political or theological agenda (or both) and that it was contemporary rather than historical. Thus, for example, the rabbinic Lamentations Rabbah, while using the biblical lament over the destruction of the First Temple, is really actually interested in the destruction of the Second Temple.” 40 Cf. Noah Hacham, “Communal Fasts in the Judean Desert Scrolls,” in Historical Perspectives: From the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 27–31 January, 1999, ed. David Goodblatt et al., STDJ 37 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 127–145; Berlin, “Qumran Laments,” 11. Cf., for example, 1Q34, 4Q507–509. Importantly, these manuscripts contain prayers addressing God directly using second person masculine singular forms whereas 4Q179 does not contain such an address.

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ing. Neither Zion/Jerusalem nor city lament in general are frequent subjects in Qumran literature as they are in the current Old Testament. The combination of these topics with a confession of sin and typical formulations of lament make this text even more special within the Qumran corpus. When read against the background of ancient Near Eastern lament traditions, the possibility arises that 4Q179 could have been written as an appeasement of God’s wrath. I have not taken this up extensively, yet would like to refer in passing to 4Q179 1ii 1: ‫“ אוי לנ֯ ו֯ כי אף אל עלה‬woe to us, for the anger of God has gone up.” The description of suffering and sorrow might then also function to appease Israel’s God. An additional answer may be found in taking a brief look at the Old Testament tradition of city lament in prophetic literature. The motif of mourning or lamenting women became a worrying picture in ancient iconography and texts. In Neo-Assyrian art especially, the superiority of the Assyrian army was depicted in reliefs by using the motif of mourning women. Men were enslaved while women mourned the humiliation and destruction.41 The scene becomes a warning. It is therefore not improbable that what ancient Near Eastern art illustrates via pictures, prophetic texts may illustrate via language. The tone and terminology of oracles of woe have been taken up by the prophets in order to warn or even threaten their audience.42 Jeremiah uses this medium in a way that makes it impossible to distinguish between the voices of the lamenting prophet tasked with issuing a warning and the city as mourner: Woe is me because of my hurt! My wound is severe. But I said, “Truly this is my punishment, and I must bear it.” My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken; my children have gone from me, and they are no more; there is no one to spread my tent again, and to set up my curtains. (Jer 10:19–20)

Anticipated lament is thus being used as a warning.43 In the case of Jeremiah 10:19–20, Zion has to face the deportation of her people. City lament in Old Testament prophecy functions as real lament but it also forces its reader or listener to deal with the prophetic warning. The laments anticipate the fear and insecurity

41 Cf. Silvia Schroer, “Biblische Klagetraditionen zwischen Ritual und Literatur. Eine genderbezogene Skizze,” in Klagetraditionen: Form und Funktion der Klage in den Kulturen der Antike, ed. Margaret Jaques, OBO 251 (Fribourg and Göttingen: Academic Press and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 96. 42 Cf. Waldemar Janzen, Mourning Cry and Woe Oracle, BZAW 125 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972), 6ff. 43 Cf. Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia, HAT 12 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1958), 69; Schroer, Biblische Klagetraditionen, 96ff.



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of their audience. In this respect their persuasive power unfolds by revealing the present and endangered future.44 Marc Wischnowsky calls the book of Lamentations the fruit of prophetic speech. Influenced strongly by the book of Jeremiah, Lamentations 1:18 offers an answer to the prophetic warning, a final confession of guilt in the mouth of the personified city:45 “The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and behold my suffering; my young women and young men have gone into captivity.” Prophetic warning, lament, and confession of guilt coalesce into one clear statement. Does this mean that we have to read 4Q179 as a confession of guilt and as a warning at the same time? Taking up familiar images of pain and sorrow from a cult-less time, and connecting them with one’s own guilt, may keep alive the awareness of the consequences of sin, which are the loss of temple service and the cultic means to practice the offerings that provide the healing of wounds and the forgiveness of sin.46 Lamentations 1:18 can thus explain why a communal confession of sin and guilt takes this rather unusual path in 4Q179. In contrast to other confessions of sin and calls for repentance (cf. esp. Ezra 9; Neh 1; 9; Dan 9; Ps 106) which draw on the history of Israel and the covenant (which is at least mentioned briefly in the confession of 4Q179 1i 4),47 4Q179 would ultimately provide a rather unexpected theme for a call for repentance, the suffering city. Presupposing that a confession like Lamentations 1:18 is a starting point for further development of traditions, we can observe that the confession of sin in 4Q179 lies in the mouth of the group, not the city. The form also differs – the acrostic is gone. While Lamentations 1:20 directs at least the wish to YHWH to “see” the city and her suffering, the text of 4Q179, in its fragmented state, gives no hint of a direct address to God or a plea.

44 Marc Wischnowsky, Tochter Zion, 88–90, esp. 90. 45 Wischnowsky, Tochter Zion, 100. 46 Cf. also Pss 65 and 84. 47 Rodney A. Werline, “Reflections on Penitential Prayer: Definition and Form,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol 2: The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda et al., SBLEJL 22 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 209, defines penitential prayer in the following way: “A penitential prayer is a direct address to God in which an individual or a group confesses sins and petitions for forgiveness.” Boda, “The Priceless Gain,” 83, in turn says about these penitential prayers that their function is “to bring an end to the devastating effects of the fall of the state: either to captivity, oppression, or the sorry condition of Palestine,” and that “essential to this type is the admission of sins.”

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 Corinna Körting

However, the connection of confession and lament, even without plea,48 in 4Q179 opens up the possibility of reading 4Q179 as penitential prayer.49 To look at the text from this angle reveals just how much the text is centered on the wegroup, the city, their guilt, and YHWH’s wrath. No enemies are mentioned, not even as YHWH’s tool; it is the group’s guilt and YHWH’s wrath that are directly connected with each other.50 In addition, the emphasis on those involved, on the we, the city, and YHWH means a concentration on the here and now. There is no discussion of the guilt of former generations – it is the guilt of the we-group. And while previously mentioned biblical penitential prayers stress the violation of the covenant, in 4Q179 the focus is on the danger of losing the service of YHWH, not as a lament over a previous, past loss, but with full awareness of a present peril caused by guilt. MT Lamentations has been described as “‘words saturated with experience,’ […], words which only need to be mentioned to release a series of associations, of thoughts, experiences, and emotions. The words contain more than they seemingly contain.”51 These words feed directly into the distress, the suffering caused by the destroyed altar, temple, city, and land. Without a plea for God’s grace the praying group remains locked in their present distress. The abandonment of the acrostic form is striking, as it perpetuates the imagery of pain and loss without continuing its form. It seems that when it comes to city lament the poetic form of an acrostic had been deeply intertwined with accusations against God. In order to detach oneself from accusation, striving for self-reflection, a new form of expression had to be found. This goes together with the awareness that neither expression of grief nor commemoration stand at the forefront of 4Q179. Rather, the emphasis is that the city and we are intertwined in suffering and guilt.

48 Eileen Schuller, “Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: A Research Survey,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol 2: The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel Falk, and Rodney Werline, SBLEJL 22 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 12–15; Daniel K. Falk, “Scriptural Inspiration for Penitential Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 2, 146, suggests a closer look at 4Q179 but calls it a lament psalm without indication that it is penitential. 49 Cf. Høgenhaven, “Biblical Quotations,” 118; Berlin, “Qumran Laments,” 12, at first calls 4Q179 simply a poem but comes finally to the result that it is to be defined as a penitential prayer rather than a Jerusalem lament, because of the clear admission of sin. 50 4Q179 has this aspect in common with other penitential prayers, which makes it different from Lamentations (cf. Boda, “Priceless Gain,” 89). 51 Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, vol. 1 (New York: Abingdon, 1962), 14– 15; see Judith H. Newman, Praying by the Book: The Scripturalization of Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, SBLEJL 14 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 201.



Lamentations: Time and Setting 

 151

Finally, the idea of a mourning service as a setting for the reading of the book of Lamentations as well as 4Q179 has been tentatively rejected in this article. If 4Q179 has to be rather understood as some kind of a penitential prayer than a mourning ritual, the question of setting has to be asked anew. Rodney Werline took up this question in his introductory article from 2006 by posing the question of the relationship between penitential prayer and sacrificial cult.52 Boda sees the connection between penitential prayer and sacrificial cult within the “Priestly tradition and its concern over the ultimate ‫( מעל‬ma‛al) that led to the exile and demanded a penitential confession to restore covenantal relationship.”53 The priestly confession (cf. Lev 16) would “normally work together with sacrifice to atone for the deliberate sin against God.”54 If there was no altar (cf. 4Q179 1i 6) the prayer might even construct the space that had traditionally been reserved for sacrifice.55 The preserved parts of 4Q179 do not provide hope to those confessing, nor do they provide any space for making a plea. If we follow through with our initial question posed at the beginning of this article about the context(s) of laments and of 4Q179, it may have served the function of a preparation for atonement of sins and forgiveness. Regarding the specific context in which 4Q179 may have been recited, however, we simply do not have enough information to state with any certainty.

5 Conclusion The picture that has been drawn is rather broad. This includes the period of time under investigation – from the end of the third millennium BCE to late Second Temple times – but also with regard to the range of potential settings in which

52 Rodney A. Werline, “Defining Penitential Prayer,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney Werline, SBLEJL 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), xiii–xvii, xvii. 53 Cf. Mark J. Boda, “Confession as Theological Expression: Ideological Origins of Penitential Prayer,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney Werline, SBLEJL 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 34. See also Falk, “Scriptural Inspiration,” 134–139. 54 Falk, “Scriptural Inspiration,” 138. 55 Pieter M. Venter, “Daniel 9: A Penitential Prayer in Apocalyptic Garp,” in Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney Werline, SBLEJL 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 49. He says this about space, esp. Jerusalem, in the penitential prayer of Dan 9.

152 

 Corinna Körting

laments may have been read and/or sung. In many respects we are on uncertain territory. Mourning services are often suggested as a setting for the liturgical use of Lamentations. Yet, the long literary history of the book as well as the rather late indications (9th century CE) of a liturgical reading of the book of Lamentations give good reasons to doubt an early liturgical setting. 4Q179 reuses Lamentations and offers new perspectives on the setting of city lament in general, and Lamentations in particular, due to its use of penitential elements. Repentance, as we know it from Nehemiah 9 or Psalm 106, is formulated in connection with remembrance of the past – Israel’s past as people. God’s gracious deeds are contrasted with Israel’s behavior and misbelief. In our case, the penitential elements are connected with questions of cult and service, a service that is in danger, illustrated with all the potential consequences arising from its removal or destruction. The prayer utilizes the distress experienced by the we-group and the city and leads those praying and confessing directly into the situation of loss and despair. This might have been part of a preparation for reaching out for purification and forgiveness. In connection with the question of the time and setting for the book of Lamentations in the Second Temple period, the story that 4Q179 tells is twofold. Lamentations was important also with regard to its temporal separation from the destruction of temple and city, resulting in a recontextualization56 of Lamentations as a type of penitential prayer as one outcome. And, as it holds true for Lamentations, the use of language in 4Q179 keeps those praying in a present state of distress. Yet, 4Q179’s connection to confession without accusing YHWH, might point to a liturgical setting different from that with which the book of Lamentations has been associated. On the one hand the question of time and setting for the book of Lamentations remains unsolved, even if we take 4Q179 into account. On the other hand, we came closer to a definition of time and setting at least for lamentations in the 4Q179 “version,” as a possible penitential prayer.

56 Cf. Newman, Praying by the Book, 13, who says that scriptualization “is primarily the observable recontextualization of identifiable scriptural language.”

Part 3: Material Issues and the Ordering of Psalms and Prayers in Collections The discovery of the Scrolls has provided new insights on issues related to the materiality, composition, and collection of scriptural and scriptural-related documents, and how these were copied, transposed, and transmitted. For poetic and liturgical materials this discovery has given rise to a whole set of questions surrounding the collecting of psalms and their arrangement, as well as the various material formats in and on which these texts were written. These questions have in particular been asked of the MT Psalter; before the discovery of the Judaean psalms scrolls priority was given to the MT Psalter and its arrangement, but this assumption is no longer possible given the diversity of psalms collections. But just what were the dynamics responsible for these varieties in psalm collections? Is there a guiding principle? If so, could it be exegetical, liturgical, or both? Or were the scrolls containing psalm collections simply repositories and thus anthological? Much work is still necessary before the answers to these questions can be given with any confidence, but the articles in this chapter work towards them. In his article “Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization: An Analysis of Scribal Features in a Selection of the Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls,” Kipp Davis demonstrates that a number of psalms found outside the MT Psalter such as those in 4Q380 can be grouped together with MT psalms based on certain codicological criteria, and that some material features may in fact help in the search for the functions of ­specific collections. Joseph Angel (“Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions”) offers a full reconstruction of an important Qumran psalm collection, 4Q511, and makes the following observations: 1) While this scroll contains psalms also found in 4Q510, it is not a copy of the same work; and 2) The psalms in 4Q511 seem to be arranged with a certain logic and flow of the contents. Angel’s article reminds us that work on scroll reconstruction is still very much a part of Dead Sea Scrolls research, and that there is a possibility that our count of texts and their copies may change as we continue to refine our methods for reconstructing fragmentary texts. David Willgren’s article “Did David Lay Down His Crown? Reframing Issues of Deliberate Juxtaposition and Interpretive Contexts in the “book” of Psalms with Psalm 147 as a Case in Point” shows that we should approach with caution arguments attempting to demonstrate the existence of intentionally set apart subgroups of psalms within the MT Psalter by recognizing clusters of words, themes (e.g., hallelujah framewords), and lexical links. “Psalms do not seem to have been interpreted in relation to some specific sequence of psalms, nor in relation to any sub collection, or ‘book’ of psalms.” Instead he offers the tantalizing suggestion that other princi-

ples of organization may be at work, such as the appropriation of certain psalms as prophetic literature (cf. 11Q5 27), or the reading of psalms alongside other types of sacred literature, and points to the Qumran pesharim as one example where such considerations may prove fruitful.

Kipp Davis

Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization: An Analysis of Scribal Features in a Selection of the Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls 1 Introduction In the course of editing Judaean Desert scroll fragments for publication in our volume, Gleanings from the Caves: Dead Sea Scrolls and Artefacts from The Schøyen Collection,1 my co-editor Torleif Elgvin, colleague Årstein Justnes, and I have come to discover an interesting scribal phenomenon, whereby a handful of manuscripts from the late and post-Herodian period appear to have been structured according to an established pattern of narrow columns containing a high number of lines. This discovery prompted me to conduct a survey of scrolls from several Judaean Desert sites, which in turn revealed that “there were standard construction procedures in the post-Herodian period that were applied to some texts, which delimited these scrolls to layouts in columns that ranged between 30–50 lines, but within writing blocks under 10 cm wide.”2 The data was particularly intriguing when it came to scrolls containing text also found in the MT Psalter, as I ended up eliminating these upon the following observation about Qumran scrolls that were dated to the late first century CE: Five of the eight scrolls [from Qumran] preserve portions from the book of Psalms, and this may suggest that these texts form their own distinct structural category, apart from what we observe in the Schøyen post-Herodian group. Thus, the Psalms scrolls are disqualified from this study by their conspicuous common ‘hymnic’ content. While only two of the Psalms scrolls in this list are structured stichometrically, all five of them share this poetic feature, and this in turn appears to have factored into their production in narrow columns.3

1 Torleif Elgvin, ed., with Kipp Davis, and Michael Langlois, Gleanings from the Caves: Dead Sea Scrolls and Artefacts from The Schøyen Collection, LSTS 71 (London: T&T Clark, 2016). 2 Kipp Davis, “High Quality Scrolls from the Post-Herodian Period,” in Gleanings from the Caves: Dead Sea Scrolls and Artefacts from The Schøyen Collection, ed. Elgvin, Davis, and Langlois, LSTS 71 (London: T&T Clark, 2016), 186. 3 Davis, “High Quality Scrolls,” 178–179. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-010

156 

 Kipp Davis

This list of Qumran scrolls containing psalms includes: 3QPs (3Q2), 4QPsc (4Q85), 4QPse (4Q87), 4QPsg (4Q89), and 4QPsr (4Q98c). To this inventory I added from Masada MasPsb (Mas1f), and from Nahal Hever 5/6HevPs (5/6Hev 1b). These seven scrolls represent over half of all the scrolls containing psalms from the second half of the first century CE or later. Emanuel Tov’s analysis of scribal practices in the Judaean Desert scrolls suggests that on average, scrolls from the Second Temple period contain columns of about 20 lines,4 and that within these documents there is a “positive correlation” between column height and column width: “Long texts naturally required longer scrolls, recognizable by their length and columns height.”5 In other words, larger scrolls contained higher and wider columns, while smaller scrolls were composed of shorter and narrower columns. Tov’s observation requires some qualification based on an accumulation of the data: according to a survey of the DJD editions supplemented by Tov’s works and others,6 it appears that on average, literary compositions from Qumran reflect closer to between a 1:1–2:1 height-to-width ratio. Nevertheless, despite this substantial range in both scroll-height as well as average column-widths, Tov’s intuition would seem to be correct: – For 27 scrolls up to 10 cm in height, columns range in width from 5.9 cm (4QApocrPs [4Q448]) to 17 cm (4QTQahat ar [4Q542]), with most of these falling between 7–11 cm. – For 48 scrolls between 10–20 cm in height, columns range in width between 4.3 cm (4QPsl [4Q93]) and 17.8 cm (4QMa [4Q491]), with most of these falling between 8–12 cm. – For 29 scrolls between 20–30 cm in height, columns range in width between 8.0 cm (4QApocrJer Ca [4Q385a]) and 16.8 cm (11QTb [11Q20]), with most of these falling between 8–12 cm. – For 18 scrolls over 30 cm in height, columns range in width between 8.5 cm (4QProva [4Q102]) and 16.4 cm (4QExodc [4Q14]), with most of these falling between 10–13 cm.7

4 Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, STDJ 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 84. 5 Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 75. 6 I.e., the early editions of 1QM by Eliezer Sukenik, The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University, trans. Daniel A. Fineman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1955), 13–19; 1QapGen by Nahman Avigad and Yigael Yadin, A Genesis Apocryphon: A Scroll from the Wilderness of Judaea. Description and Contents of the Scroll, Fascimiles, Transcription and Translation of Columns II. XIX–XXII (Jerusalem: Magnes and Heikhal ha-Sefer, 1956); 11QTa by Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983); secondary studies of individual texts undertaken by, e.g., Annette Steudel, Der Midrasch zur Eschatologie aus der Qumrangemeinde (4QMidrEschata, b), STDJ 13 (Leiden: Brill, 1994). 7 Cf. also Kipp Davis, “Miniature Scripts and Manuscripts: Physical Features for Classifying Ritual Object Texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” paper presented at Text and Magic Workshop (14 April, 2015, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland).



Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization 

 157

The seven Psalms scrolls mentioned above contain columns ranging in size between 3.8 (Mas1f) and 8.5 cm (4Q85) in width, but then range considerably in height between 8 lines (4Q89) to +43 lines (Mas1f). Four of these manuscripts show clear evidence of comprised collections (4Q85, 4Q87, Mas1f, and 5/6Hev 1b), and all four are classified on the low end of the scale for line-lengths. This is especially so for Mas1f where the text is arranged into extremely narrow columns, in a prosaic format.8 A cursory review of other scrolls containing psalms reveals that several more of these manuscripts appear to contrast Tov’s observations about column dimensions: 4QPsb (4Q84) from the late Herodian period contains columns of 17 lines in a stichometric format that measures between 3.5–5 cm; the mid–late Hasmonean 4QPsd (4Q86) comprises columns measuring less than 6 cm, and was reconstructed to a height of 19 lines. These examples suggest a certain peculiarity with regards to the structure of this particular set of scrolls. In this short paper, I will conduct a closer investigation of “psalms scrolls” that are arranged in especially narrow columns, (1) beginning with a short survey of a selection of scrolls which consist of columns measuring 8.5 cm

4QPsd (4Q86) 19 lines (13.8 cm)

3.5–6 cm

Pss 5:9–13; 6:1–4; 25:15; 31:24–25; 33:1– 12; 35:2,14–20,26–28; 36:1–9; 38:2–12,16–23; 71:1–14; 47:2; 53:4–7; 54:1–6; 56:4; 62:13; 63:2–4; 66:16–20; 67:1–7; 69:1–19 Pss 91:5–8,12–15; stichometric 92:4–8,13–15; 94:1– 1:1 4,8–9,10–14,17–18,21– 22; 99:5–6; 100:1–2; 102:10–17,18–25,26– 103:3,4–6,9–11,11– 14,20–21; 112:4–5; 116:17–19; 118:1–3,6– 11,18–20,23–26,29? Pss 16:7–9; 18:3– stichometric 14,16–18,33–41; 27: 2:172 12–14; 28:1–2,4; 35: 27–28; 37:18–19; 45:8– 11; 49:1–17; 50:14–23; 51:1–5; 52:6–11; 53:1 Pss 146:10(?); mixed73 147:1–3,13–17; 147:20; 104:1–5,8–11,14– 15,22–25,33–35

N/A

late Hasmonean– early Herodian

late/post Herodian

mid-late Hasmonean

70 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 49, does not include this MS in his list of nine stichometric texts. 71 But Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 49, includes this in his list of nine stichometric texts. 72 Flint, DJD 16, 50, calls the format “generally stichometric.” Cf. also Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 49 n. 154. 73 Frgs. 1–5i–ii,6–7i,8–9 are written in prosaic format, containing Pss 147:1–4,13–17; 104:1–5,8–11. Frgs. 7ii,11–14 are written stichometrically, and contain Pss 104:14–15,22–25,33–35.

174 

MS

 Kipp Davis

Column

Line

Content

Structure

4QPse (4Q87) 25–26 lines74 35–37 spc.75 Pss 76:10–12; 77:1; prosaic 78:6–7,31–33; 81:2–3; 86:10–11; 88:1–4; 89:44–46,50–53; 34:2(?); 104:1–3,20–21; 105:22–24,36–45; 109:13; 115:15–18; 116:1–3; 120:6; 125:2– 5; 126:1–5; 129:8; 130:1–3 4QPsf (4Q88) 23–25 12–30 spc. Pss 22:14–17; prosaic78 lines (est. (5.2 cm)77 107:2–4,8–11,13– 15.45 cm)76 15,18–19,22–30,35–42; 109:4–6,25–28; Apst. Zion; Esch. Hymn; Apst. Judah 4QPsg (4Q89) 8 lines 6.4–9.5 cm80 Ps 119:37–43,44– stichometric (8.1 cm)79 46,49–50,73,81– 1:181 83,90–92

Date59 mid-late Herodian

late Hasmonean

mid-late Herodian

74 Flint’s, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 162–163, reconstruction of 4QPse contains 25 lines in col. I and 26 in cols. II–IV. 75 The largest fragment, frg. 26i–ii from which more reliable information about line-lengths can be derived has been damaged and is distorted. This prevents one from producing an accurate estimate of the column width. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 97 estimates an average column width of 9–10 cm, with outliers of 11.4 cm for frgs. 18–24, 11.7 cm for frg. 13, and 14 cm for frg. 14. These figures are based on an average letter-space size of 22 mm. 76 Column height measure is suggested by Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 97. This is based on her calculation of average line spacing multiplied by the number of lines in a column for frgs. 3,4, and 8. But note, from col. IV onward, there are likely two additional lines per column. 77 This figure is derived from measurements between ruling marks on frg. 8i, and the column block on frg. 11iv. Cf. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 107, “Kol. 1 und 2: 3,5cm, Kol. 4: 4cm, Kol. 9: 4,5 cm und Kol. 3, 6, 7, 8, 10: 5,2 cm. Die Frg. 1 zugehörige Kolumne muss eine Breite von ca. 4,5 cm gehabt haben.” 78 Flint, DJD 16, 86, “The columns are generally narrow, but the scribe made no attempt at a stichometric arrangement.” 79 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 111, sets the scroll height at 8.5 cm. 80 Flint, DJD 16, 110 notes that col. VI (frg. 1i) was ruled to a width of 8.4 cm. 81 This acrostic poem contains 22 stanzas corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, consisting of eight verses each. Each line begins a new verse with a repeated letter.



MS

Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization 

Column

Line

Content

4QPsh (4Q90) ±21 lines (c. 15 cm)82 4QPsj (4Q91) N/A

24–33 spc.83 Ps 119:10–21

4QPsk (4Q92) N/A

77–89 / 81–94 spc.86 4–4.6 cm Ps 104:3–5,11–12

4QPsl (4Q93) 15 lines (c.15.4 cm) 4QPsm (4Q94) N/A87 4QPsn (4Q95) N/A 4QPso (4Q96) N/A 4QPsp (4Q97) N/A

51 spc.84

Pss 48:1–7; 49:6,9– 12(?),15(?),1785 Pss 135:6–16; 99:1–5

42 / 31 spc.88 Pss 93:3–5; 95:3–6; 97:6–9; 98:4–8 61 / 35.25 Pss 135:6–8,11–12 + spc.89 136:23–24 60 spc.90 Pss 114:7–8; 115:1–4; 116:5–10 c.39 spc.91 Pss 143:2–4,6–8

Structure

 175

Date59

stichometric Herodian 1:181 prosaic mid-late Herodian prosaic mid-late Hasmonean stichometric early 1:1 Herodian prosaic mid-late Hasmonean prosaic mid Hasmonean prosaic early Herodian prosaic Herodian

82 Flint, DJD 16, 113, has based this suggestion on the fragment that contains the first column of the manuscript, and has reconstructed the missing preceding lines according to an arrangement that is characteristic of Ps 119 in other Qumran scrolls. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 117, suggests a scroll height of 14.4 cm. 83 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 117, estimates an average column block of 6.5 cm + 1 cm intercolumnar margins. 84 Derived from the reconstruction of frgs. 1,3–7,8, by Flint, DJD 16, 118–120. With only 37 identifiable extant words, this figure is extremely tentative. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 120, suggests an estimated column width of 10.5 cm. 85 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 120–121, posits that the large line-spacing and reconstructed line-lengths could indicate that 4Q91 was a large scroll containing Pss 42–72 in 22 columns, measuring in total about 3.5 m. 86 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 122, calculates column block sizes of 12.5 cm and 13–13.35 cm for cols i–ii respectively, based on an average character-width of 1.5 mm. She posits that this fragment represents a large scroll, “aufgrund der relativ breiten Kolumnen, die verhältnismäßig hohe Kolumnen voraussetzen” (125). 87 But cf. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 128, 130, who suggests columns consisting of 12 lines, and a scroll height of c. 8 cm based on estimated measurements between preserved psalms according to an arrangement reflected in MT Psalms. 88 Flint’s reconstruction is probably not entirely correct, as there are a handful of anomalously long and short lines (i.e., frgs. 3–4 4; 5–6 2). The two averages are derived from reconstructions of 1–2, 3–4, and 5–6 for the larger figure, and frgs. 7–9 for the small one. Cf. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 128, 8 cm for frgs. 1–2, 9.4 cm for frgs. 3–4, 7.6 cm for frgs. 5–6, and 6.25 cm for frgs. 7–9. 89 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 133, suggests column widths of 14 cm and 10 cm respectively. 90 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 124, suggests a column width of about 8.4 cm. 91 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 124, suggests a column width of about 8 cm.

176 

MS

 Kipp Davis

Column

4QPsq (4Q98) c. 29 lines (23.6 cm)92 4QPsr N/A94 (4Q98a) 4QPss N/A96 (4Q98b) 4QPst (4Q98c)N/A {4QPsu N/A (4Q98d)} {4QPsv N/A (4Q98e)} 4QPsw N/A (4Q98f)

Line

Content

Structure

Date59

prosaic

±75 spc. Pss 31:25; 33:1–18; (c.17 cm)93 35:4–20 29–40 spc.95 Pss 26:7–12; 27:1; 30:9–13 c. 52–63 spc. Pss 5:8–6:1

prosaic

early Herodian Herodian

prosaic

late Herodian

c. 40 spc.97 Ps. 88:15–17 c. 60 spc.(?)98 Ps. 42:5(?)

prosaic prosaic(?)

late Herodian late Herodian

N/A

N/A

mid Hasmonean early Hasmonean

Ps 99:1(?)

67–72 spc.99 Ps 112:1–9

stichometric100

92 Cf. alternatively Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 138, who suggests the possibility that the scroll can be reconstructed to a height of 41 lines per column. 93 Measurement provided by Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 137. The quality of parchment, large line-lengths, and calligraphic style of the hand all combine with the estimated height of the column block according to either estimate to suggest that this is a large scroll. 94 Flint, DJD 16, 151, posits a column height of c. 60 lines based on the distance between Ps 27:1 – partially preserved on frg. 4 3 – and Ps 30:9 on frg. 2ii 1. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 141, counters that the suggestion is dubiously based on the reconstruction of ‫ ̊עם‬on frg. 2i 2, which she believes could otherwise correspond to ‫ חמם‬in Ps 27:12, or ‫ חיים‬in v. 13. This produces an alternative reconstruction of ca. 30 lines. The visible ink traces on PAM 43.030 indicate that Flint’s reconstructed ʿayin is more likely correct (cf. esp. the ʿayin in ‫ למען‬on frg. 2 ii 5). I would suggest that both proposals are likely wrong on the basis that the succession of individual psalms in accordance with their arrangement in MT Psalms is in no way assured. I agree generally with Flint’s reconstructions of both columns, but cannot support the assertion of a MT arrangement. 95 5 and 6 cm column widths according to Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 141. 96 Flint, DJD 16, 153, posits a column block of 42 lines from this single fragment, measuring approx. 29 cm. This is based on his supposition that the preceding text in the lacuna contained all of Pss 1–6. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 142, counters that it is also possible to reconstruct Pss 1–6 in two columns, comprising 20 lines, and measuring about 15 cm. 97 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 143, suggests a column width of between 9–10.5 cm. 98 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 144, suggests a column width of about 12–13 cm. 99 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 145, suggests a column width of between 13.4–14.4 cm based on lines 1 and 2. 100 Ps 112 is an acrostic psalm, but unlike all copies of another acrostic psalm, Ps 119, 4Q98f is written with four verses per stanza on a line, with each stanza beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet.



Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization 

Column

Line

4QPsx (4Q98g) 4QNonCanonical Psalms A (4Q380)? 5QPs (5Q5)

N/A N/A

22–31 spc.101 Ps 89:20–22,26,23,27– prosaic 28,31 est. 5 cm prosaic102

early Hasmonean mid-late Hasmonean

16 lines

N/A103

mid-late Herodian mid-late Herodian late Herodian

24 lines (9 cm)105 11QPsa (11Q5) 25 lines (25–26 cm)

±9.5 cm 9–13.9 cm

Structure

Date59

MS

8QPs (8Q2)

Content

 177

Ps 119:99–101,104,113– stichomet120,138–142 ric104 Pss 17:5–9,14; 18:6– stichometric 9,10–13 2:1 Pss 101:1–102:2,18– mixed106 103:1; 109:21–31; 118:24–29; 104:1– 6,22–35; 147:1–3,18– 20; 105:1–12,25–45; 146:9–10; 148:1–12; 121:1–123:2; 124:8– 127:1; 128:4–131:1; 132:8–18; 119:1–6,15– 28,37–49,59–73,82– 96,105–120,128– 142,150–164,171–176; 135:1–9,17–136:16,26; 118:1,15–16,8–9,29; 145:1–7,13–32; 154:3– 19; Plea for Deliv.; 139:8–24; 137:1,9– 138:8; Sir 51:13–30;

101 Flint, DJD 16, 161, notes a tremendous inconsistency in spacing between letters and words. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 148, is dubious about Flint’s reconstruction, since 4Q98g is one of the oldest MSS from Qumran, and she believes this fact fosters the possibility that the text is radically different from MT. 102 Suggested by Eileen Schuller in DJD 11, 78: “The narrow columns suggest a concern for stichometric arrangement, although this is not consistently followed.” 103 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 150, suggests a column width of ca. 8 cm based on Milik’s reconstruction in DJD 3, 174. This is based on the tenuous notion that the fragment follows a stichometric format identical to other copies of Ps 119 from Qumran. 104 Cf. 4Q89 and 4Q90. 105 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 157. Milik, DJD 3, 148, suggested a height of ±28 lines per column, and ±21.8 cm. 106 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 40: “The lines are written in prose format, except for Ps 119 in cols. VI–XIV which is written stichometrically.”

178 

MS

 Kipp Davis

Column

Line

Content

Structure

11QPsb (11Q6)

25 lines (ca. 18.75 cm)107

10–11 cm

11QPsc (11Q7)

36 lines (c.28 cm)

13 cm

11QPsd (11Q8)

c.32–34 lines

8.6– 12.4 cm108

11QPse (11Q9) Mas1e

N/A

N/A

Apst. Zion; 93:1–3; 141:5–10; 133:1–3; 144:1–7,15; 155:1–19; 142:4–143:8; 149:9– 150:6; Hymn to Creat.; 2Sam 23:7; David’s Comps.; 140:1–5; 134; 151A,B Pss 77:18–78:1; prosaic 119:63–65; 118:1,15–16; 141:10; 133:1–3; 144:1–2 Pss 2:1–8; 9:3–7; 12:5– prosaic 14:6; 17:9–18:12,15–17; 19:4–8; 25:2–7 Pss 6:2–4; 9:3–6; prosaic 18:26–29,39–42; 36:13–37:4; 39:13– 40:2; 43:1–3; 45:6–8; 59:5–8; 68:1–5, 14–18; 78:5–12; 81:4–9; 86:11–14; 115:16–116:1; 78:36–37(?); 60:9(?) Ps 50:3–7(?) N/A

29 lines109

6.3 cm

Pss 81:6–85:6

Mas1f

43–51 lines111

ca.4.23 cm112 Pss 147:18–19(?); 150:1–6

Date59

mid-late Herodian

mid-late Herodian late Herodian

N/A

stichometric late/post 2:1 Herodian110 prosaic113 late/post Herodian114

107 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 184. 108 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 195: “Die Zeilenlängen auf den Fragmenten schwanken so stark, dass sich kein Durchschnittswert ermitteln lässt.” 109 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 209–210. 110 Cf. Wilhelm Nebe, “Die Masada-Psalmen-Handschrift M1039–160 nach einem jüngst veröffentlichten Photo mit Text von Psalm 81,2–85,6,” RevQ 14 (1989): 89–98. Talmon’s assignment of this MS to the late first century BCE is almost certainly wrong. 111 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 215. 112 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 215. 113 Individual stichs are separated by small vacats, but these are retained within a prosaic structure. 114 Cf. Kipp Davis, “High Quality Scrolls,” 181–183.



Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization 

Date59

MS

Column

Line

Content

5/6Hev 1b

28 lines (c.20.5 cm)

25–62 spc. (c.8 cm)

Pss 7:13–8:1,4–10; stichometric late Herodian 9:12–10:6,8–10,18; 2:1 11:1–5; 12:6–13:3; 14:2–4; 15:1–16:1; 18:6–13,17–43; 22:4–9,15–21; 23:2–6; 24:1–2; 25:4–6; 29:1–2; 30:3; 31:3–22

MS

Column

Line

Total Content

Stichos

1QDeutb (1Q5)

40 lines (±29 cm)

±15 cm

2:1 66 spc. N/A 72 Deut 32:17– 21, 21–22,22– 29

1QIsaa

29–32 lines 11–14 cm (25.3–27 cm)

Deut 1:9–13; 8:8–9; 9:10; 11:30–31; 15:14– 15; 17:16; 21:8–9; 24:10–16; 25:13–18; 28:44–48; 29:9–11,12–20; 30:19– 31:6,7–10, 12–13; 32:17–21,21– 22,22–29 Isa 1–66

1QPsa (1Q10) est. 15 lines116

6–8.6 cm / ca.7 cm117

Pss 92:12–14; 95:11; 96:1–2; 119:43–48, 77–79118

Structure

 179

inline Isa 61:10– 62:6 (col. L 8–17) 1:1 acrostic Ps 119: 43–48, 77–79(+?)119

Date115

mid Hasmonean

late Hasmonean

115 Organized according to the system presented in Webster, “Chronological Index of the Texts from the Judaean Desert,” 351–446. 116 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 43. 117 Measurements provided by Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 39. The first figure represents averages of line lengths for frgs. 1–5, but the numbers are highly inconsistent. It is probable that the reconstructions are not accurate. 118 Ulrich Dahmen identified several of the fragments with Ps 119, cf. Dahmen, “New Identification and Re-Groupings,” 479–485. 119 According to Barthelemy, DJD 1, 69, “La disposition en stiques est naturellement respectée pour le Psaume acrostiche 119 et paraît l'être à peu près dans les quelques autres fragments, avec légers espaces entre les hémistiches.” Most of the preserved material is too sparse from which to draw any firm conclusions regarding content and line-lengths.

180 

 Kipp Davis

MS

Date115

Line

Total Content

Stichos

1QHymnic N/A Comp.? (1Q38) 2QPs (2Q14) N/A

N/A

N/A

2:1 N/A (frg 1 1–2)120

est. 6–9 cm

2QSir (2Q18)

±12 cm

2:1121 71–78 spc. Ps 103:2–11 * lines 1–2 red ink Sir 6:14–15(?),20–31 2:1 35 spc. 38 * Lam 1:10–12; 3:53–62 3:1 92 Lam 3:53–62 Deut 29:24–27; 30:3– 2:1 60 spc.? 14; 31:9–17,24–30; Deut 32:1–3 32:1–3 Deut 3:25; 4:13–17,31– 1:1? N/A 32; 7:3–4; 8:1–5; Deut 9:11–12,17–19, 32:1–3122 29–10:2; 10:5–8; 11:2–4,9–13,18–19; 12:18–19,26,30–31; 13:5–7, 14:11–12,16; 15:1–5,15–19; 16:2–3,5–11,20–17:5; 17:6–7, 15–18:1; 26:19–27:2; 27:24– 28:14; 28:18–20,22– 25,29–30,48–50,61; 29:17–19; 31:16–19; 32:3 Deut 32:37–43 1:1 2.8 cm (frg. 5 ii) *

3QLam (3Q3)? 4QDeutb (4Q29)?

Column

N/A

9–10 cm

est. 26 lines c.10.5 cm (c.18 cm)

4QDeutc (4Q30)?

c.27 lines

36–46 / 47–58 spc.

4QDeutq (4Q44)

11 lines (11.4 cm)

14–38 spc. (frgs 2–5 i)

Pss 103:2–11; 104:6–11

late Herodian

early/mid Herodian Herodian early Hasmonean early Hasmonean

late Hasmonean– early Herodian

120 But cf. Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches, 167 n. 211, “the spaces are large, and it is more likely that the fragment presents remnants of two columns of an otherwise unknown text.” 121 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 49, does not include this MS in his list of nine stichometric texts. 122 According to Sidney White Crawford in DJD 14, 15, “On the basis of the number of lines that column must have contained (estimated from the bottom of frg. 54 col. i), chap. 32 seems to be written stichometrically, with one stichos of poetry (one-half verse in Hebrew) per line” (cf. also p. 33).



Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization 

 181

Line

Total Content

Stichos

Date115

4QpaleoDeutr c. 32 lines (4Q45) (c.33 cm)

40–49 spc. (c.10.2 cm)

2:1 N/A Deut 32:6– 8,10–11, 13–14

mid-Hasmonean– early Herodian

4QJoba (4Q99)

56–63 spc.

Deut 7:2–5,6–7,16– 21,21–25; 11:28,30– 12:1; 12:11–12; 14:19– 22,26–29; 15:5–6, 8–10; 19:2–3; 22:3–6; 23:12–15; 28:15–18,20; 32:6–8,10–11, 13–14; 33:2–8,29–34:1 Job 7:11–13; 31:14–19; 32:3–4; 33:23,25–30

2:1123 35 spc. 38 * 1:1 33 spc. 37 Job 13:18–27 1:1 *

Mid-late Hasmonean

MS

Column

16 lines (c. 10 cm)

4QpaleoJobc est. 25 lines 28–30 / (4Q101) 35–36 spc. 4QPsb (4Q84)

17 lines (14 cm)

4QPsc (4Q85)

33 lines (26 cm)

4QPsd (4Q86)

19 lines (13.8 cm)

4QPsg (4Q89)

8 lines (8.1 cm)125

13–20 spc. (c.3.5 cm) 24–35 spc. (c.5 cm)

Job 13:18–20,23–27; 14:13–18

Pss 91:5–8,12–15; 92:4–8,13–15; 94:1– 4,8–9,10–14,17–18,21– 22; 99:5–6; 100:1–2; 102:10–17,18–25,26– 103:3,4–6,9–11,11– 14,20–21; 112:4–5; 116:17–19; 118:1–3,6– 11,18–20,23–26,29? >8.5 cm Pss 16:7–9; 18:3– 2:1124 14,16–18,33–41; 27: * 12–14; 28:1–2,4; 35:27–28; 37:18–19; 45:8–11; 49:1–17; 50:14–23; 51:1–5; 52:6–11; 53:1 3.5–6 cm Pss 146:10(?); 1:1 147:1–3,13–17; 147:20; Ps 104:14– 104:1–5,8–11,14– 15,22–25, 15,22–25,33–35 33–35 6.4–9.5 cm126 Ps 119:37–43,44– 1:1 acrostic 46,49–50,73,81– * 83,90–92

Archaic

late Herodian

late/post Herodian

mid-late Hasmonean

mid-late Herodian

123 Lines are arranged each to contain two stichs, but without any separation between them. 124 Flint, DJD 16, 50 calls the format “generally stichometric” Cf. also Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls, 49 n. 154. 125 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 111, sets the scroll height at 8.5 cm. 126 Flint, DJD 16, 110, notes that col. VI (frg. 1i) was ruled to a width of 8.4 cm.

182 

MS

 Kipp Davis

Column

4QPsh (4Q90) ±21 lines (c. 15 cm)127 4QPsl (4Q93) 15 lines (c. 15.4 cm) 4QPsw N/A (4Q98f) 4QProva 36 lines (4Q102) (c.32 cm)

Line

Total Content

24–33 spc.128 Ps 119:10–21 4–4.6 cm

Ps 104:3–5,11–12

67–72 spc.129 Ps 112:1–9 33–34 spc. (c.8.5 cm)

4QProvb (4Q103)

est. 24 lines ±8 cm (c.18 cm)

4QRPc (4Q365)

c. 47 lines

±62 spc.

Prov 1:27–2:1

Prov 9:16; 13:6–9; 14:6–10,12–13,31– 15:8,11–12,19–31 Gen 21:9–10; Exod 8:13–19; 9:9–12; 10:19–20?; 14:10,12– 21; 15:16–20,22–26; 17:3–8; 18:13–16; 26:34–36; 28:16–20; 29:20–22; 30:37–31:2; 35:3–5; 36:32–38; 37:29–38:7; 39:1– 16,17–19; Lev 11:1– 2,17–24,32,40–45; 13:6–8,15–18,51–52; 18:26–28; 23:42–24:2; 25:7–9; 26:17–32; Num 1:1–5; 3:26–30; 4:47– 49; 7:1; 8:11–12; 9:15– 10:3; 13:12–25,29–30; 15:26–28; 17:20–24; 27:11; 36:1–2; Deut 19:20–20:1

Stichos

Date115

1:1 acrostic * 1:1 * 4:1 acrostic * 2:1 33–34 spc. * 2:1≈ 33 spc. 49130 * inline131 53 spc. Exod 15: 16–19

Herodian post Herodian early Hasmonean Herodian

Herodian

late Hasmonean– early Herodian

127 Flint, DJD 16, 113, has based this suggestion on his supposition that the fragment contains the first column of the manuscript, and has reconstructed the missing preceding lines according to an arrangement that is characteristic of Ps 119 in other Qumran scrolls. Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 117, suggests a scroll height of 14.4 cm. 128 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 117, estimates an average column block of 6.5 cm + 1 cm intercolumnar margins. 129 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 145, suggests a column width of between 13.4–14.4 cm based on lines 1 and 2. 130 Reconstructed line lengths for frgs. 2–4 (Prov 14:5–10,12–13) are 46 spaces on average. 131 According to White Crawford, in DJD 13, 269, “In the layout of the Song of Moses in 4Q365 a small space separates every group of two or three words (…).”



MS

Structure, Stichometry, and Standardization 

Column

Line

Total Content

Stichos

Date115

 183

4QMessianic N/A Apocalypse (4Q521) 4QBeatitudes N/A (4Q525)

25–30 spc. (8.4 cm)132

1:1

mid Hasmonean

12.5 cm

inline col. II

5QPs (5Q5)

16 lines

N/A133

5QLamb (5Q7)? 8QPs (8Q2)

N/A

est. 60 spc.

late Hasmonean– early Herodian mid-late Herodian

24 lines (9 cm)134

11QPsa (11Q5) 25 lines (25–26 cm)

Ps 119:99–101,104, 113–120,138–142 Lam 4:17–19

1:1 acrostic * N/A

±9.5 cm

Pss 17:5–9, 14; 18:6– 9,10–13

9–13.9 cm

Pss 101:1–102:2, 18–103:1; 109:21–31; 118:24–29; 104:1– 6,22–35; 147:1–3,18– 20; 105:1–12,25–45; 146:9–10; 148:1–12; 121:1–123:2; 124:8– 127:1; 128:4–131:1; 132:8–18; 119:1–6,15– 28,37–49,59–73,82– 96,105–120,128– 142,150–164,171–176; 135:1–9,17–136:16,26; 118:1,15–16,8–9,29; 145:1–7,13–32; 154:3– 19; Plea for Deliv.; 139:8–24; 137:1,9– 138:8; Sir 51:13–30; Apst. Zion; 93:1–3; 141:5–10; 133:1–3; 144:1–7,15; 155:1–19; 142:4–143:8; 149:9–

2:1 33 spc. mid-late 41 Herodian * 1:1 acrostic late Herodian 119:1–6,15– 28,37–49,59– 73,82– 96,105– 120,128– 142,150– 164,171–176

132 Measurement between right margins includes the intercolumnar. 133 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 150, suggests a column width of ca. 8 cm based on Milik’s reconstruction in DJD 3, 174. This is based on the tenuous notion that the fragment follows a stichometric format identical to other copies of Ps 119 from Qumran. 134 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 157. Milik, DJD 3, 148 suggested a height of ±28 lines per column, and ±21.8 cm.

184 

MS

 Kipp Davis

Column

Line

Mas1e

29 lines135

6.3 cm

5/6Hev 1b

28 lines (c. 20.5 cm)

25–62 spc. (c.8 cm)

Total Content

Stichos

150:6; Hymn to Creat.; 2Sam 23:7; David’s Comps.; 140:1–5; 134; 151A, B Pss 81:6–85:6 2:1 * Pss 7:13–8:1,4–10; 2:1 9:12–10:6, 8–10,18; * 11:1–5; 12:6–13:3; 14:2–4; 15:1–16:1; 18:6–13,17–43; 22:4–9,15–21; 23:2–6; 24:1–2; 25:4–6; 29:1–2; 30:3; 31:3–22

Date115

late/post Herodian136 late Herodian

135 Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter?, 209–210. 136 Cf. Nebe, “Die Masada-Psalmen-Handschrift,” 89–98. Talmon’s assignment of this MS to the late first century BCE is almost certainly wrong.

Joseph L. Angel

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions 1 Introduction The collection of hymns for protection from demonic harm known as the Songs of the Sage is represented in two Qumran manuscripts (4Q510–511), both of which date to around the turn of the era.1 4Q510 consists of just one larger fragment, containing a single column of nine consecutive lines, and eleven smaller fragments. The remains of 4Q511 are far more extensive. There are well over two hundred fragments preserving portions of at least sixteen columns. Since the two manuscripts contain several lines of parallel, nearly identical text,2 scholars generally have assumed that they represent copies of the same work. However, the relatively small writing block of 4Q510 suggests that this manuscript was originally much shorter than 4Q511.3 A third Herodian manuscript, 4QIncantation (4Q444), appears to be relevant to the discussion. The DJD editor of 4Q444, Esther Chazon, observes an impressive constellation of terminological and thematic parallels between this text and the Songs of the Sage.4 Although she concludes that it represents a separate composition, it may well derive from the same hymnic collection. In any case, the main focus of this essay will be 4Q511, by far the best preserved exemplar of the Songs of the Sage. Until this point in time scholarly

1 The editio princeps is by Maurice Baillet, Qumran grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520), DJD 7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 215–262. For his brief comments on the dating of the manuscripts, see pp. 215, 219. 2 See 4Q510 1 5–9 and 4Q511 10 1–8. 3 4Q510 1 exhibits a column that is about 10.5 cm tall. With the recent material reconstruction of 4Q511, it can now be determined that the columns of this manuscript contained at least 25 lines, yielding a minimum column height of about 18 cm. See Joseph L. Angel, “The Material Reconstruction of 4QSongs of the Sageb (4Q511),” RevQ 105 (2015): 25–82. For observations regarding the relationship between the size of a scroll’s writing block and its length, see Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert, STDJ 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 74–90. 4 Esther Chazon, in Esther Chazon et al., Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2, DJD 29 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 370–371. Article Note: The research for this article was facilitated by the generous support of the ­Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-011

186 

 Joseph L. Angel

discussion of the Songs of the Sage has proceeded without an appreciation for the overall sequence and scope of the original composition.5 However, a new opportunity has arisen with the recent material reconstruction of 4Q511, according to which some ninety percent of the extant textual material has been positioned in its original order within sixteen reconstructed columns (see Appendixes 1 and 2).6 The present study represents an initial attempt to read the text in its original sequence with an eye toward how this reconstruction enriches our understanding of the composition. Here I am concerned with delineating basic issues of scope, form, and content. In addition, as a more tangible window into the nature of the composition, I will anchor my discussion with specific comments on various passages, the value of which for illuminating the nature of the work do not depend entirely on assumptions revolving around the reconstruction. In order to set this discussion within its proper context and appreciate what has been gained from the new evidence, it will be helpful to begin with a brief overview of previous scholarship on the Songs and an evaluation of some of this work.

2 Previous Scholarship Even without knowledge of the sequence and scope of the composition, scholars have been able to determine quite a lot about the Songs of the Sage. When the fragments are taken together, it emerges from the repetitive language and themes that it is likely a collection of hymns for protection against demonic harm during

5 In his edition of 4Q511, Baillet does not attempt to determine the positioning of the fragments within the context of the original scroll, and even acknowledges that the order in which he presents them is “arbitrary” (Baillet, DJD 7, 219). He does, however, observe that frgs. 63–64 come from the end of the scroll and suggests that frg. 10 comes from the beginning. Moreover, since frg. 8 contains the beginning of the second song in the collection, he argues that it should come from a position in the scroll just after frg. 10. In some cases, such as when certain fragments were discovered adhering to one another (e.g., frgs. 28–30 and 44–62), Baillet attempts to position them in proper relation to one another. However, he does so without offering an opinion as to where they could have been positioned within the original scroll. Shortly after the publication of DJD 7, Hartmut Stegemann recognized that the material remains of 4Q511 allow for the arrangement of many of the major fragments in their original position. He published some initial observations in 1990, but never completed the reconstruction. See Hartmut Stegemann, “Methods for the Reconstruction of Scrolls from Scattered Fragments,” in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, JSPSup 8, JSOT/ASOR Monographs 2 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 203. 6 See Angel, “The Material Reconstruction.”

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions 

 187

the pre-determined period of evil just before the day of judgement, which would witness the final elimination of the forces of evil.7 Throughout the fragments, a consistent first person voice, likely that of the maskil, offers praises and thanksgiving, and proclaims the power of his words to frighten various wicked spirits. References to “the congregation of the bastards” (4Q511 2ii 3) and “the bastard spirits” (4Q511 10 1; 35 7; 4Q510 1 5) reflect the Enochic demonological perspective adopted by the Qumran community, according to which the wicked spirits originated from the bodies of the giants who were drowned in the great flood.8 Apparently, this work was not simply meant for the private reading and personal protection of the maskil alone. There are several indications that the Songs were recited aloud as part of a communal ritual. The text abounds with references to open mouths, active tongues, flowing lips, and raised voices.9 Scattered plural imperative calls to praise, such as “sing for joy O righteous ones” (4Q510 1 8) and “exalt him, all those who know [ ]” (4Q511 2i 2; see also 10 8; 35 5) suggest the presence and participation of community members in the ritual. This assertion is supported by the fortuitously preserved ending of the composition: “Let them bless all your works always, and blessed be your name for ever and ever. Amen, amen” (4Q511 63iv 1–3). The word “amen” appears to imply a communal response. Moreover, the hymns seem to have been numbered, as may be inferred from the tantalizing reference to “the second [s]ong” (‫ ;[ש]יר שני‬4Q511 8 4). Such numbering may indicate a liturgical sequence, though other explanations of this phenomenon are conceivable.10

7 See the foundational studies of Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry, trans. Jonathan Chipman, STDJ 12 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 227–272; eadem, “Hymns from Qumran: 4Q510– 511,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport, STDJ 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 53–63; eadem, “‫שירי שבח מקומראן 'לפחד ולבהל' רוחות רשע‬,” Tarbiz 55 (1986): 19–46. See also Joseph L. Angel, “Maskil, Community, and Religious Experience in the Songs of the Sage (4Q510–511),” DSD 19 (2012): 1–27. 8 On the identification of the demons mentioned in the Songs in relation to those mentioned in other Second Temple period texts, see Nitzan, “‫שירי שבח מקומראן‬,” 19–46, esp. 22–29; Giovanni Ibba, “The Evil Spirits in Jubilees and the Spirit of the Bastards in 4Q510 with Some Remarks on Other Qumran Manuscripts,” Hen 31 (2009): 111–116; Philip S. Alexander, “‘Wrestling against Wickedness in High Places’: Magic in the Worldview of the Qumran Community,” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 26/ Roehampton Institute London Papers 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 318–337, esp. pp. 319–324. 9 See, e.g., 4Q511 10 9; 18ii 5; 48–51 2; 63–64ii 4; 63iii 1,5; 75 2. 10 See Mika Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381, JAJsup 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 72.

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 Joseph L. Angel

At one point, apparently referring to the Qumran calendar, the maskil announces that “during my appointed times I shall recount your wonders” (4Q511 63–64ii 2), but there is no clear evidence pointing to the designated time of the ritual performance. Since the Songs are intended to protect all of the sons of light, Bilhah Nitzan suggests that they were sung in times of “general danger of supernatural origin,” such as the four epagomenal days added at the end of each quarter of the solar calendar year, during which the sectarians would have perceived themselves as particularly vulnerable to attack.11 Alternatively, Esther Eshel proposes that the hymns were performed at the annual covenant ceremony in addition to the liturgical blessings and curses recited then, which included a curse of Belial and his lot (see 1QS 2:5–9).12 The issue remains unresolved, but the weight of the evidence does support Jeremy Penner’s conclusion that the community “likely instituted regular apotropaic prayers,” and that the Songs represent a part of this fixed activity.13 One of the most intriguing aspects of the composition is the way in which it combines two ordinarily distinct literary elements. On the one hand, it contains what may be described as typical Qumranite hymnic material, characterized by “conventional formal structures, eschatological and apocalyptic contents,” and an array of scriptural quotations, allusions, and idioms.14 Indeed, the maskil’s words seem indistinguishable at times from those of the Hodayot: “And as for m[e, I will thank yo]u, for on account of your glory, you[pl]aced knowledge in my foundation of dust so that I might p[raise you]” (4Q511 28–29 2–3). On the other hand, the text contains several passages resembling magical incantations, in which the maskil expresses his power to frighten different types of demons, for example, “I am God’s agent of terror (…) I have spoken [to frighten] by his strength all the spirits of the bastards” (4Q511 35 6–7). Nitzan has done the most significant work to determine the literary nature of the composition. She distinguishes three central building blocks repeating throughout the extant fragments: incantation, thanksgiving, and praise. Given the recurring appearance of these elements in differing orders and combinations,

11 See 1En. 75:1–2; 82:4–6. Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 238. 12 Esther Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers in the Second Temple Period,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 19–23 January 2000, ed. Esther Chazon, Ruth Clements, and Avital Pinnick, STDJ 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 83–84. 13 Jeremy Penner, Patterns of Daily Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, STDJ 104 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 190. 14 Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 236.

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she suggests that each song is a “mosaic” in which sections of these three types are either “separated from one another by a blank line (vacat), or interwoven with one another.”15 However, she is quick to note that due to the damaged state of the manuscript, most of the time “one cannot tell which sections were combined together into one song, and whether there was any system in this matter.”16 While Nitzan’s tripartite categorization surely touches on fundamental aspects of the Songs, there is room for alternative classification. For example, elsewhere I have emphasized the importance of certain prosaic passages portraying the election of the righteous community and its participation with the angels in or as the embodiment of the cosmic temple.17 In my view, these passages do not fit neatly within Nitzan’s schematization, and I shall return to them below. At any rate, the intertwining of the elements of praise and thanksgiving with the statements of apotropaic function has been regarded as fundamental to the understanding of the overall purpose of the work. In this connection, scholars have focused their attention, perhaps too much of it, on the purported account of the text’s purpose appearing in the following lines: And I, Maskil, declare his glorious splendor in order to frighten and terr[ify] all the spirits of the ravaging angels and the bastard spirits, demons, Lilith, howlers and […] and those who strike without warning to lead (people) astray (from) the spirit of understanding and to make their heart desolate. (4Q510 1 4–6 par. 4Q511 10 1–3)

According to this passage, which has been described as a sort of “methodological statement,” it is precisely the maskil’s vocalization of God’s praise that serves as the essential weapon against the evil spirits.18 When the demons are reminded of God’s overwhelming glory and power, they are terrified and cease to threaten. It is often noted that the text’s employment of praise as “words of power” differs strikingly from customary Jewish magical practice, known mostly from later texts, which directly appeal to God and divine names for protection.19 Moreover,

15 Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 243. With respect to form, she classifies the statements of thanksgiving and praise as poetry, and the incantation-like statements of the maskil as prose, or “rhythmic prose.” 16 Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 243. 17 Angel, “Maskil, Community, and Religious Experience.” 18 See Armin Lange, “The Essene Position on Divination and Magic,” in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge, 1995, Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten, ed. Moshe Bernstein, Florentino García Martínez, and John Kampen, STDJ 23 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 431. 19 See, e.g., Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers,” 87; Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 244–252. Cf. Lange, “The Essene Position,” 432–433.

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Eshel suggests that whereas magical incantations, such as 11QApocryphal Psalms (11Q11), are characterized by direct addresses and adjurations of the demons, the Songs refer to evil forces in the third person, and thus should be categorized as an apotropaic prayer.20 While there is undeniably a dimension of truth in this standard characterization of how the Songs were thought to bring about protection, I would caution that there may, in fact, be direct addresses to the demons in this composition. Consider, for example, the following passage: “Your [abomin]ations (‫)[תוע]בותיכם‬ and the[n … the ti]mes of its wickedness and […] the strengths. And as the wise[…] and you have no [p]eace (‫]…[ )ואין לכם[ ש]לום‬his habitation. And all […] shall fear […heave]ns and earth shall shatter” (4Q511 3 2–7). Contextually the most likely candidates for the second person plural address are the wicked spirits. This seems to be supported by the declaration in line 5, “you have no [p]eace.” Note that the same expression is mentioned numerous times as a catch phrase in 1Enoch.21 In the Book of Watchers Enoch tells this to the watchers and to Asael several times (12:5; 13:1; 16:4). In the Epistle Enoch announces this same formula to the spirits of dead sinners (103:8; cf. 94:6). All of this squares well, of course, with the references in the Songs of the Sage to “the bastard spirits,” which, as I have noted, reflect the Enochic demonological framework. Another tantalizing piece of evidence is 4Q511 60, which apparently contains a vocative address to the spirits in line 2, “All of you are spirit[s …]” (]…‫)כולכם רוח[י‬. In the following line appears a word beginning [‫כלא‬. If this is some form of the word ‫כלא‬,22 then we have here a reference to prison or confinement after a second person plural address to spirits. This would appear to connect to the Enochic notion of the imprisonment of the wicked spirits (e.g., Jubilees 10). Moreover, the concept of trapping or imprisoning demons is a fundamental element of later Jewish magical praxis. Such fragments are consistently ignored by scholars, but they show that the Songs may have included adjurations directly addressed to demons, making the distinction between apotropaic prayer and incantation even blurrier than it already is. Given how much of the scroll is missing, it is best not to insist on such a narrow classification.

20 Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers,” 87–88. 21 Cf. 1QS 2:9. 22 Alternative possibilities, such as ‫כלאים‬, cannot be excluded.

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3 Reading 4Q511 in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions Before turning to the contents of 4Q511, it is fitting to begin with some comments about the material reconstruction. The most important results may be summarized as follows:23 (1) 4Q511 was at least two meters long and contained at least sixteen columns of writing. (2) Fragments representing material from fifteen out of the sixteen reconstructed columns can be arranged in their original order. Significantly, this represents some ninety percent of the extant textual material. (3) Columns contained at least 25 lines of writing, yielding a minimum column height of about 18 centimeters. (4) The composition contained in 4Q511 is not simply identical to the one preserved in 4Q510. It is more likely that they represent differing recensions of the same work or two different works, one of which depended on the other, or both of which have depended on a common source. The reconstructed scroll is laid out in Appendix 1. A couple of explanatory remarks about this image are in order. First, the numbering of columns presented here begins from the first reconstructed column. Since the beginning of the composition could not be identified, “column 1” may not have been the first column of the original manuscript. The scroll could have been longer. Second, not all fragments have been positioned with the same degree of certainty. For example, the final ten columns of the reconstruction (7–16) are classified as confidently placed fragments, whereas the first six columns (1–6) are comprised of fragments whose locations are not as certain but are still defensible on material grounds. Third and finally, while the reconstructed scroll contains the great majority of the extant text, there are also roughly 180 fragments, mostly tiny scraps containing little or no text but also some small pieces with numerous words or remnants of words, which I have been unable to place. There is little doubt that future study will allow for the placement of many more fragments. What can be learned from reading the fragments in their original sequence? Admittedly, the results are rather modest. The reconstruction has yielded just one case where continuous text from separate fragments has been restored.24

23 For the detailed arguments, see Angel, “The Material Reconstruction.” 24 That is, from the bottom of column 8, represented by frg. 30, to the top of column 9, represented by frgs. 44–47. This case is treated in detail in Joseph L. Angel, “A Newly Discovered Interpretation of Isaiah 40:12–13 in the Songs of the Sage” (forthcoming).

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One major question that unfortunately could not be resolved is how many songs the collection originally contained. Some clues have emerged, however. There are two extant superscriptions to different songs. One appears in the first reconstructed column, and reads “For the Maskil, [ ] song[ ]” (] [‫ ;למשכיל שיר‬4Q511 2i 1). Unfortunately, the ordinal number which may have followed these words is no longer extant. The other, as I have noted above, appears in 4Q511 8, which contains part of the superscription of the second song of the collection (‫)[ש]יר שני‬. The correct placement of the latter fragment would potentially clarify the original scope of the composition and the length of its individual songs. Unfortunately, my efforts to place it have been fruitless.25 If the first reconstructed column, represented by 4Q511 2i, is the original first column of the scroll, then the superscription at the top of this fragment likely marks the beginning of the first song, and fragment 8 would belong somewhere to the left. However, if this is indeed the first song, it raises the question of what could have preceded it in the fifteen or more lines above it. This layout would differ, for example, from the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, which preserves the superscription of the first song of the composition, most probably a very similar maskil formula, at the top of the first column.26 Perhaps such a space contained some sort of introductory prayer or other type of introductory material. Alternatively, it is possible that what I have called column 1 is not the first of the scroll. In this case, it must preserve the beginning of the third or a later song in the collection, and there must have been room for at least two more songs to the right, including the one that begins in fragment 8. Another important consideration is the textual overlap with 4Q510 1. From the very wide margin on the right side of this fragment, scholars have assumed that this represents the beginning of the composition.27 If this fragment indeed comes from the beginning of 4Q510, then it is likely that this represents a third distinct song. Interestingly, the material reconstruction reveals that in 4Q511, this same song, represented by fragment 10, is located close to the end of the scroll, in the middle of column 11, rather than at the beginning.28 It thus seems plausible to conclude that 4Q511 contained at least three songs, one beginning in column 1,

25 This has been particularly frustrating since frg. 8 exhibits some unique characteristics that could possibly assist in the matter, most notably, the distinctive pattern of the height of consecutive lines in ll. 3–5. While l. 3 measures about 1 cm tall, l. 4 is only about half of this height. Line 5 is taller, measuring about 9 cm. Unfortunately, comparison with the patterns of line height displayed on other fragments has not yielded a match. 26 See 4Q400 1i 1. 27 See DJD 7, pl. LV. 28 See Angel, “The Material Reconstruction,” 48–52.

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one in column 11, and one in fragment 8. Moreover, if it is posited that the individual songs were somewhat similar in length, it would stand to reason that the collection contained at least another song or two. Thus there were most likely at least four songs in the collection, and perhaps many more. What happens when a consideration of content is introduced into the discussion? Are there discernible sequences of themes or forms that can help distinguish between different kinds of songs or otherwise illuminate the nature of the composition? Since so much is missing, this line of questioning is hazardous. Thus, I will attempt to ground my discussion with specific comments on various passages, the value of which for illuminating the text do not entirely depend on the reconstruction. As I have noted, the repetition in the fragments of references to demons, especially to frightening them away, and the first person praises of the maskil have led scholars to conclude that this is a collection of hymns of a similar type and with a unified apotropaic purpose. I do not oppose this general assessment. It can be confirmed now, for example, that the objective of terrifying wicked spirits and the removal of their power to harm through songs of praise is widely distributed, appearing in at least three separate songs, and represented in columns 3,5,10, and 11, as well as in the unplaced fragment 8.   Col. 3, ll. 23–24 Wicked spirits do not circulate among them for the glory of the God of knowledge has shone forth. (4Q511 1 6–7) Col. 5, ll. 6–7 For the exaltation of the name [I have] spoken, [to frighten] by his strength al[l] the spirits of the bastards to subdue them. (4Q511 35 6–7) Col. 10, ll. 2–3 And by my mouth he frightens [all the spirits] of the bastards to subjugate [ ] impurity. (4Q511 48–51 2–3) Col. 11, ll. 13–14 And I, Maskil, declare his glorious splendor in order to frighten and terr[ify] all the spirits of the ravaging angels and the bastard spirits. (4Q510 1 4–5) 4Q511 8 4 [For the Maskil,] the second [so]ng so as to frighten those who terrify.

It can also be noted that the maskil is mentioned in each of the three songs identified – in columns 1 (4Q511 2i 1) and 11 (4Q510 1 4), and in fragment 8 (although the latter is a textual reconstruction) – so the earlier assumption that each song was ascribed to the maskil seems to be correct. But now there is an opportunity to be more specific. Beginning from the end of the scroll, it may be observed that demons are not mentioned at all in the final three columns (see Appendix 2). A quick glance at the final column (col. 16 = 63iv) reveals that it represents an

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appropriate formulaic conclusion to the entire collection, while columns 14 (63–64ii) and 15 (63iii) are mainly comprised of first person praises espousing well-documented sectarian ideals. For example, with his declaration in column 14, lines 3–4 (63–64ii 3–4) that “The beginning of every intention of the heart is knowledge, and the offering of the utterance of righteous lips, and being ready for every service of truth,” the maskil seems to suggest that his words and deeds are akin to sacrifice and infused with cosmic cultic significance. Indeed, the phrase “offering of the utterance of righteous lips” (‫ )תרומת מזל שפתי צדק‬resembles 1QS 9:4–5, and implies that his verbal praises are analogous to sacrifice. The words “service of truth” (‫ )עבודת אמת‬appear to be in contradistinction to the contemporary cultic service practiced in the Jerusalem temple.29 In column 15, lines 1–2 (63iii 1–2) one reads: “You placed on my lips a fountain of praise and on my heart the secret of the origin of all human actions.” Here one encounters the familiar sectarian tropes of election and participation in divine wisdom. While there are no explicit references to demons in this passage, it is interesting to note that the language of lines 4–5 parallels the language used in an explicitly demonological context earlier in the composition.   Col. 15, ll. 4–5 You placed on my lips a fountain … to declare peace (‫ )להשמיע שלום‬to all the men of the covenant and to raise a voice of frightening glory (‫ולה[ר]ים בקול פחד‬ ‫ )הוד‬against all who violate it (‫)לכול מפריה‬. (4Q511 63iii 4–5)

Col. 11, ll. 13–14 And I, Maskil, declare his glorious splendor (‫ )משמיע הוד תפארתו‬in order to frighten (‫ )לפחד‬and terr[ify] all the spirits of the ravaging angels … (4Q510 1 4–5)

Note that in both passages the hiph‘il form ‫ משמיע\להשמיע‬is followed by forms of the words ‫ פחד‬and ‫הוד‬.30 However, there is a striking difference with regard to the intended objects of terror. In column 11, as elsewhere in the composition, it is explicitly the ravaging angels and bastard spirits who should fear, whereas at the end of the composition, in column 15, it is the violators of the covenant. These violators are most likely to be identified as human beings, and specifically as non-sectarian Jews, since in the Dead Sea Scrolls the various iterations of the phrase “to violate the covenant” (‫ ברית‬+ ‫ )פרר‬always refer to wayward Jews (or to God’s response to the acts of wayward Jews) and never to wicked spirits or

29 See Baillet, DJD 7, 248. 30 Baillet, DJD 7, 248, reads ‫ הוי‬rather than ‫ הוד‬in 4Q511 63iii 5. However, the angle of the top right portion of the third letter is far more consistent with dalet. See Elisha Qimron, ‫מגילות מדבר‬ ‫– כרך שני‬ ‫ החיבורים העבריים‬:‫( יהודה‬Jerusalem: Yad ben-Zvi, 2013), 329.

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demons.31 Thus, both stylistic continuity and an ironic shift in perspective are detected as one moves from columns 11 to 15. Whereas in the earlier passage the potentially frightening demons are terrified by the words of the maskil, in the later passage the words of the maskil function as a source of terror for wayward Jews, who are implicitly associated with the demons.32 It is striking that this shift in perspective, the counterpoising of the liturgical community with accursed outsiders who are linked with the wicked spirits appears only at the end of the scroll, and may well reflect a distinctive feature of the concluding hymn of the composition. In connection with this point it is intriguing to consider the abovementioned proposal of Eshel that these hymns were performed at the annual covenant ceremony in addition to the liturgical blessings and curses recited then, which included a curse on outsiders, conceived as the lot of Belial (see 1QS 2:5– 9).33 In such a context, the concluding hymn would strike the expected notes and represent a powerful affirmation of the covenantal boundaries drawn by the community in terms of its core demonological beliefs. In stark contrast with the final columns of the scroll, the first four and a half columns refer to a number of nefarious supernatural beings, but contain no first person speech whatsoever. A perusal of these columns reveals a somewhat different world of discourse (see Appendix 2). The first column (4Q511 2i) is apparently comprised of a hymn of praise for the establishment of the elect community, heavily laden with scriptural allusions and espousing the ideal of communion with the angels in cosmic worship of the creator. After the superscription, in lines 17–18 (frg. 2i 2–3), there is a call to praise, “Exalt him all those who know […],” followed by a report that someone has made the mysterious “chief of dominions” (‫ )רוש ממשלות‬stop a certain activity. I suggest that in this context the term “dominions” refers to the demonic realms of evil and impurity and that the “chief of dominions” be identified with the Angel of Darkness or some similar figure (see, e.g., 1QS 3:21).34 Perhaps it is God who has put a stop to its evil acts once and for all. This interpretation would sit well with the mention of eternal life and illumination in the following line (1. 19 = frg. 2i 4). These should be understood as referring to the eschatological rewards granted to the elect community,

31 See, e.g., 4Q381 69 8; 4Q390 2i 6; 4Q504 1–2v 8; 1–2vi 7–8; 11QT 59:8. 32 This association is reminiscent particularly of 4Q390 2i 4–7, where the violators of the covenant are given over to be ruled by the angels of destruction during the predetermined period of evil. 33 See Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers,” 83–84. 34 Cf. 4Q503 33i + 34 19, which refers to ]‫רוש ממשל ח[ושך‬, and 4Q401 14i 6, which mentions a class of angels (presumably good ones) called ‫ראשי ממשלות‬. See also the ‫ רוחי ממשלות‬in 4Q286 3 5.

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underscoring their near angelic status, reminiscent of “the enlightened ones” (‫ )המשכלים‬of Daniel 12:3. The remaining lines (ll. 20–25 = frg. 2i 5–10) describe God’s election of his chosen ones in the distant past couched in unmistakable scriptural language and utilizing perfect verbal forms, which are relatively infrequent in the rest of the composition. The beginning of line 20 (2i 5) reads “his [l]ot is the best part in Jacob” (‫)[ג]ורלו רשית ביעקוב‬. Elisha Qimron, following the suggestion of Menahem Kister that Deuteronomy 32:9 (‫כי חלק ה׳ עמו יעקב‬ ‫)חבל נחלתו‬, which refers to God’s primordial election of Israel, is in view, reconstructs the rest of the line to read ]‫ונחלת אל[והי]ם [ח]לק[ו] בישרא[ל‬.35 The theme of election apparently continues in line 22 (frg. 2i 7), which describes how God, in his discerning wisdom, placed Israel in twelve holy camps. This detail, referring to the tribal divisions represented in the book of Numbers, seems puzzling at first glance, but it is readily understandable in the light of the astral imagery in the following lines, which draws upon the description of the creation of the heavenly bodies in Genesis 1 while underscoring the homology between elect humanity and the angels. Through his establishment of twelve divisions in Israel, God structured the chosen people in attunement with the twelve months of the year – the cosmic order reflected by the angelic luminaries as well.36 He thus established the “communal [do]minion” (‫ )[מ]משלת יחד‬of angels and men to serve him in cosmic harmony at the appointed times of the year (ll. 24–25 = frg. 2i 9–10). While the interpretation of this dense passage requires fuller discussion,37 for my present purpose it suffices to note that this text seems somewhat distant from the realm of magic, as it is the recounting of God’s primordial acts – his election of Israel and his establishment of the chosen community in harmony with the cosmic order – that takes center stage, and there are no first person incantations declaring the power of the maskil’s words. The scant remains of column 2 (frg. 2ii) similarly contain no hint of first person speech. In line 18 (frg. 2ii 3) there is a reference to “the congregation of bastards” (‫)עדת ממזרים‬, likely the giants, the offspring of the illicit union between the fallen angels and human women. The following line (l. 19 = frg. 2ii 4) might be understood as referring to their fathers, the watchers.38 Lines 20–22 (frg. 2ii 5–7) refer to

35 See Qimron, ‫– כרך שני‬ ‫ החיבורים העבריים‬:‫מגילות מדבר יהודה‬, 318. 36 Crispin Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 42 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 174–175. 37 See further Angel, “Maskil, Community, and Religious Experience,” 18–22. 38 Assuming the restoration “according to the number of [their] father[s]” (]‫למספר אב[ותם‬ ̇ ) at the end of the line. Baillet, DJD 7, 223, cites 2Chr 26:12 for comparison. Cf. 1En. 6:6–8, where it is reported that two hundred watchers descended to earth in the days of Jared, and the names of their decarchs are listed.

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the powerful acts of God, apparently in the primordial past. In this context, the phrase “the God of strengths appointed them” (‫ )אלוהי גבורות יעדם‬suggests that the ones being appointed are the wicked spirits. The notion that God appoints such spirits to lead peoples astray appears also in Jubilees 15:31. The mention of the “upright ones” and “Israel” in the final lines (ll. 24–25 = frg. 2ii 9–10) perhaps relates the story of the proliferation of demons in the world to the struggle of the elect ones against these harmful forces. It is tempting to suggest that columns 1 and 2 constitute part of the same hymn. Most significantly, they both deal with events in the distant past and employ verbs in the perfect form. This combination of elements appears only in these two places. It may also be significant that the term “Israel” is utilized in these two columns and nowhere else (except for frg. 76, which cannot be placed with any certainty). Allowing a degree of speculation, one could imagine a natural progression in this hymn from the story of the establishment of the elect community, and its enjoyment of “communal dominion” with the angels (who are linked to the heavenly luminaries of Genesis 1) in column 1, to the introduction of the story of the punishment of the watchers and their progeny, the resulting proliferation of demons in the world, and the struggle of the “upright ones” against them in column 2. Such a “historical” review would be a fitting introduction to a collection of hymns for protection if this is in fact the first song of the collection. Turning to the remains of column 3 (4Q511 1), the discourse seems to have shifted. This text consists of a call to various elements of the natural order to offer praise to God. According to line 22 (1 5), they should rejoice in “jubil[ations] of salvation” (‫)ברנ[ות ]ישועות‬. The reason for this celebration is stated explicitly in the remaining lines: The glory of God has shone forth, eliminating destroyers and wicked spirits from the world. The portrait is reminiscent of Jubilees 23, where the disappearance of “any evil destroyer” indicates the dawn of the blissful eschatological age. There is a notable overlap with the concepts and language found later in the composition and particularly in column 11.   Col. 3, ll. 21–24 And let all their creatures declare [the glo]ry of splendor (‫הו]ד תפארת‬ ̊ [‫…)ישמיעו‬ for there is no destroyer within their borders and wicked spirits do not circulate among them. (4Q511 1 4–7)

Col. 11, ll. 13–14 And I, Maskil, declare his glorious splendor (‫משמיע‬ ‫ )הוד תפארתו‬in order to frighten and terr[ify] all the spirits of the ravaging angels… (4Q510 1 4–5)

Col. 15, ll. 4–5 You placed on my lips a fountain… to declare peace (‫ )להשמיע שלום‬to all the men of the covenant and to raise a voice of frightening glory (‫)ולה[ר]ים בקול פחד הוד‬ against all who violate it. (4Q511 63iii 4–5)

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 Joseph L. Angel

If the restoration of the word ‫הו]ד‬ ̊ [ in column 3 is correct,39 then the text is stating that the creatures of the sea should “declare the glory of (God’s) splendor.” As I have noted above, in column 11 the maskil claims to perform the same act. In that context, however, the express purpose of this act is to frighten the wicked spirits and prevent them from inflicting harm in the present. By contrast, in column 3 it seems that it is the already achieved absence of the threat of demonic harm that is envisioned as the catalyst of the act. In this sense, the protection effectuated by the maskil’s performance of praise in the present depicted in column 11 anticipates the world as it will be after the final punishment of the forces of darkness, depicted in column 3. The statement about the nullification of demonic power in column 3 could represent a fitting ending to the hymn attested in the previous two columns, bringing us from Urzeit to Endzeit, but this remains no more than a guess. In any case, the observation that the declaration of “glory” (‫ )הוד‬or “glorious splendor” (‫ )הוד תפארת‬repeats in columns 3, 11, and 15 is surely significant. Not only does it illustrate a stylistic continuity throughout the scroll, it also shows how the composer of the hymns redeployed this leitmotif creatively in different contexts. This contributes to the sense that 4Q511 is a unified collection of hymns with a unified purpose, outlook, and authorship or redaction. Moving to column 4 (4Q511 37), only a few words are preserved, including the phrases “the earth shall tremble” (‫ )ותחול הארץ‬and “they shall be terrified and panic” (]‫)יבהלו ויחפז[ו‬. It is reasonable to suggest that this part of the text deals with the events of the eschatological day of judgement, which will witness the disappearance of demonic evil. This impression is bolstered by the imperfect verbal forms, as well as the close parallels with the vocabulary and motifs of 1QHa 11:20–37, a psalm describing the cataclysmic events associated with the “time of wrath (coming upon) all devilishness” (1QHa 11:29).40 The image of the earth trembling is associated with eschatological judgement throughout early Jewish tradition.41 It may be that the subjects of the plural verbs “panic” and “fear” are the demons, since these same verbs are applied to them elsewhere in the composition.42 The subject matter at the bottom of column 4 flows nicely into the violent eschatological imagery at the top of column 5, which refers to a “judgement of vengeance to exterminate evil” (‫ )משפט נקמות לכלות רשעה‬and the “wrath of God” (‫ )אפי אלוהים‬in lines 1–2 (frg. 35 1–2). The continuation of the text through line 5 is

39 See Qimron, ‫– כרך שני‬ ‫ החיבורים העבריים‬:‫מגילות מדבר יהודה‬, 318. 40 Note esp. 1QHa 11:34, ‫וכול מחשביה ירועו‬, in relation to l. 23 (37 4), ‫[י]רועו כול מחשביה‬. 41 See, e.g., Hag 2:6,21; 1En. 1:4–7; 102:2; As. Mos. 10:4; Heb 12:26; 1QHa 11:33–35; cf. 4Q370 1i 3–4. 42 See 4Q510 1 3–4.

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 199

terse. It describes how in the end time God will sanctify for himself as an eternal temple the members of two groups, the “seven times refined” and the “holy ones.” Apparently, these represent the elect human community and the angels respectively.43 The language of lines 1–3 (frg. 35 1–3), which refers to “t[urning back] the wrath of God” (‫ )ולש[וב] אפי אלוהים‬and God’s sanctification of an eternal sanctuary (‫)יקדי[ש] אלוהים לו למקדש עולמים‬, appears to rework 2Chronicles 30:8, which also speaks of turning back divine wrath (‫ )וישב מכם חרון אפו‬and God’s sanctuary (‫)למקדשו‬, which he has consecrated eternally (‫)אשר הקדיש לעולם‬. Line 4 (frg. 35 4) offers a list of epithets, apparently designating the constituents of the eternal temple, “priests, his righteous people, his host, and ministers, the angels of his glory” (‫)כוהנים עם צדקו צבאו ומשרתים מלאכי כבודו‬. While the syntax is open to interpretation, the context suggests that these refer to the unified group of earthly and heavenly worshipers, a temple-community comprised of priests, humans, and angels offering praises of “awe-inspiring wonders” (frg. 35 5).44 Like the other texts surveyed from columns 1–4, this passage lacks the first person language of the maskil. It seems distant from the realm of magical incantation since it envisions the elect community’s participation in the eschatological reward of communion with the angels as the embodiment of the eternal temple. In this sense it recalls the temple centered liturgical exaltation expressed in other texts known from Qumran, such as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 1QSb 3–4, and the Self-Glorification Hymn. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the form and subject matter here are strikingly similar to column 1.   Col. 5, ll. 1–5 Wrath [ ]against all flesh and a judgement of vengeance to eradicate evil and to t[urn back] the wrath of God. Some of those who are seven times refined and some of the holy ones God shall sancti[fy] for himself as an eternal sanctuary, and (there shall be) purity among the pure ones. And they shall be priests, his righteous people, his host, and ministers, the angels of his glory. They shall praise him with awe-inspiring wonders. (4Q511 35 1–5)

Col. 1, ll. 21–25 [Cl]ear the path of God and his [h]oly trai[l] for the holy ones of his people. In the discerning knowle[dge of [Go]d, he placed [I] srael [in t]welve h[oly] camps […]the lot of God with the ange[ls of] the luminaries of his glory. In his name the p[r]aise of their […] he established for the appointed times of the year, [and] the communal [do]minion to walk [in] the lot […] according to [his] glory [and] to serve him in the lot of the people of his host. (4Q511 2i 6–10)

43 For discussion, see Angel, “Maskil, Community, and Religious Experience,” 22–25. 44 See further Angel, “Maskil, Community, and Religious Experience,” 22–25.

200 

 Joseph L. Angel

Both passages portray God’s providential election of the chosen community and express this election through the device of scriptural allusion. Both claim that there is a homology or parallelism between elect humanity and the angels, and both extol the ideal of joint human and angelic participation in perfect cosmic worship of God. To be sure, the accents of each passage are quite different. Most notably, column 1 portrays the election of all Israel in the ancient past whereas column 5 portrays the sanctification of the “seven times refined,” perhaps referring to a more limited remnant, at the end time.45 Also, column 1 conceptualizes cosmic praise through the employment of imagery related to Genesis and the celestial bodies, whereas column 5 explicitly utilizes temple imagery. Nevertheless, the similarities speak to a sustained interest in the notions of election and communion with the angels, at least in this first part of the scroll. They also raise the question of how such evidently fundamental notions might relate to the apotropaic purpose of the collection as a whole, to which I will return in the concluding section of this study. Returning to column 5, one observes that line 5 (frg. 35 5) concludes with a vacat, and line 6 (frg. 35 6) abruptly shifts to the first person speech of the maskil, who proclaims the power of his words to subdue the spirits of the bastards. After a gap of several lines, we find that the maskil is still speaking, but now, at the bottom of the column (frg. 18ii), the concern is not the wondrous effects of his praise, but rather his qualifications to unleash such power. In lines 20–25 (frg. 18ii 5–10), the maskil reminds his audience that he embodies the appropriate qualities – his words lack foolishness, he has been infused with the light of divine knowledge, he hates impurity and has corrected his sins – and thus solidifies his authority. It is sensible that the maskil’s claim to possess great power at the top of the column should be followed up with an announcement of the qualities that establish his unique authority. While the contents of columns 6–11 cannot be treated in detail here, it is interesting to note that beginning from the middle of column 5, first person speech, whether in the form of praise, thanksgiving, or incantation, can be found in all of the remaining columns that possess strings of legible words. This is true also of the unplaced fragment 8, which contains the beginning of the second song meant “to frighten those who terrify.” This makes the complete absence of first person speech in the first four plus columns all the more striking. At the same time, the abrupt introduction of first person speech in the middle of column 5 (frg. 35 7) cautions against drawing too sharp of a divide along these lines.

45 The phrase derives from Ps 12:7. Cf. 1QHa 13:18, which describes the member of the elect community as “like purified silver in the furnace of the smiths to be refined seven times” (‫וככסף‬ ‫)מזוקק בכור נופחים לטהר שבעתיים‬.

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 201

4 Conclusions The time has come to review what has been learned about the Songs of the Sage and to raise a few questions. First, the issue of exactly how many songs were included could not be resolved. Three songs, beginning in columns 1, 11, and fragment 8, have been identified. The composition most probably contained at least four songs. The beginning of the scroll, however, has not been located and there may have been many more. Since the goal of preventing wicked spirits from inflicting harm is widely distributed, appearing in at least three separate songs, and since the maskil is mentioned in each of the three songs identified, it still seems appropriate to categorize this work as a collection of anti-demonic hymns ascribed to the maskil. But the question of the exact sense in which these hymns are anti-demonic now seems more complicated. Scholars have been too quick to categorize the Songs as apotropaic prayers, focusing only on the best preserved passages, which employ praise as “words of power” and address evil spirits indirectly. In fact, the evidence of the smaller fragments suggests that the Songs may also have included adjurations directly addressed to demons, blurring the distinction between apotropaic prayer and incantation, and complicating the classification of the composition. Nitzan’s view of the Songs as mosaics constructed out of sections of the three different elements of praise, thanksgiving, and incantation is a helpful start for understanding the literary nature of the composition, but it appears that certain passages do not fit neatly within this scheme. In particular, I have emphasized the importance of the extended quasi-mystical passages in columns 1 and 5. As has been noted, the primary concern of these texts is not the employment of praise as protective words of power, but rather the portrayal of the election of the righteous community and the participation of this community with the angels in cosmic worship. If, as scholars have assumed, the Songs are meant for protection in the present “age of wickedness,” before the imminent day of judgement, how are these passages, which display different temporal perspectives and no overt concern with wicked spirits, to be understood? One possibility is that the Songs are adapting the familiar topoi of participation with the angels and embodiment of the temple. While elsewhere in Qumran literature these features are to be understood as priestly expressions of the community’s achievement of the apex of human potential, within the framework of the anti-demonic ritual the proclamation of the proleptic availability of these rewards may be seen as bridging the gap between the future and the present – guaranteeing protection to the sons of light from the forces of darkness, which have already been judged and punished by God. Thus, the protection from the demons offered by the Songs would not be so much the result of “magic” as it would be a natural outcome of the perceived

202 

 Joseph L. Angel

attainment of these ideals – a sort of realized eschatology, brought to fruition through the liturgical performance of the Songs itself. But perhaps it is wrong to assume that all of the Songs, or at least that all portions of them, were authored with the explicit purpose of offering protection from wicked spirits. Indeed, a sequential reading of the fragments has revealed some interesting contrasts in the progression of contents within the composition and aroused some interesting questions. As I have noted, unlike the rest of the scroll, the first four and a half columns contain no first person praises. Moreover, there are no incantations expressing the maskil’s power to frighten the demons. The final three columns of the scroll do employ first person language, but do not include any incantations or even references to evil spirits. Rather, they are conventional words of praise and thanksgiving, strongly reminiscent of core sectarian compositions. Interestingly, all extant incantation-like expressions of the maskil are clustered in the middle of the scroll, beginning with the abrupt shift to the first person in column 5, line 7 (frg. 35 7), and with further examples in column 10, lines 2–3 (frgs. 48–51 2–3) and column 11, lines 13–14 (4Q510 1 4–5). It is tempting to view these distinctions as meaningful, perhaps more meaningful than they actually are. For example, one could suggest a certain logic in the flow of contents, even if it cannot always be delineated where specific hymns begin and end. The remnants of the first two columns focus on the primordial past, God’s election of Israel and his appointment of the demons to torment humanity, while columns three and four and the top of five appear to shift perspectives to the eschatological future, when the world is free of demonic evil, and the natural phenomena as well as the eternal temple of angels and men may finally engage in uninterrupted blissful praise of the creator. These columns thus set the stage for ritual participants to properly understand the epic battle between light and darkness currently under way. The jarring shift to the first person in column 5 suddenly takes us back to the present age of evil, the task of the maskil to prevent demonic harm, and the maskil’s lengthy proclamations of his alignment with God, praise, and thanksgiving, which serve to underscore his power and authority. The perspective seems to shift again in the final few columns (14–16), which contain no incantations and no overt reference to wicked spirits. These columns appear to bring the collection to a close with blessings, praises, and words of encouragement for ritual participants, contrasting the blessing of the elect ones with the curse of violators of the covenant, who are ontologically linked with the wicked spirits. But here we have approached the limits of healthy speculation and must be brought back to the humble reality that the majority of the text is lost. Even with this lack, and despite the speculative nature of this discussion, I hope that a better grasp of the complex nature of this composition has been achieved.

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions 

 203

Appendix 1: The Sixteen Reconstructed Columns of 4Q511

204 

 Joseph L. Angel

Appendix 2: Transcription and Translation of the Sixteen Reconstructed Columns of 4Q51146 Column 1 (ll. 16–25 = frg. 2i 1–10)

[ ̊‫]י‬ [‫שיר‬ ̊ ‫̇למשכיל‬ [ ‫יוד ̇עי‬ ̇ ‫קודשו ורוממוהו כול‬ ]‫שמחת‬ [ ‫ממשלו̊ ̊ת ̊ה ̊שבית לאין‬ ̇ ‫ו̇ רוש‬ [ ‫[ע]ו̇ למים וחיי נצח לאיר או̇ ר‬ [◦] ‫רא[ל‬ ̇ ‫]◦ל ̊ד◦[ ]י̊ ̊ש‬ ̊ [ ‫[והי]ם‬ ̊ ‫ונחלת ̇א ̇ל‬ ̇ ‫[ג]ו̊ רלו רשית ביעקוב‬ ‫בדע[ת‬ ̇ ‫[ ]נ̊ י דרך אלוהים ומסל[ת ק]ודשו לקדושי עמו‬ [‫מחנות ̊קו̊ ̊ד ̊ש‬ ̇ ‫[אלוה]י̊ ̇ם הנבונה שם [י]שראל [בש]נ̊ ים עשר‬

‫[ש]בו̇ ̇חת‬ ̊ ‫מל ̊א[כי] מאורות ̇כ ̊בו̇ דו בשמו̊ ̊ת‬ ̊ ‫]גורל אלוהים עם‬ ‫[ומ]משלת יחד ̇ל ̇ה ̇ת ̇ה ̇ל ̇ך [ב]גורל‬ ̇ ‫]הם תכן למועדי שנה‬ ̇ ‫בגורל ̇עם ̇צ ̊באו כיא אלו̊ ̊הי‬ ̊ ‫כבוד[ו ו]לשרתו‬ ̊ ̊‫]ל ̊פי‬ ̊ bottom margin

1 6 1 7 1 8 19 2 0 21 22

[ 2 3 [ 24 [ 2 5

Translation 16 For the Maskil, [ ] song[ ] 17 his holy [ ]. Exalt him, all those who know [ ] 18 and he made the chief of dominions stop, not to [ ] 19 [e]ternal [joy] and everlasting life, shining light [ ] 20 his [l]ot is the best part in Jacob, and the inheritance of G[o]d [ ]Israe[l] [ ] 21 [cl]ear the path of God and his [h]oly trai[l] for the holy ones of his people. In the discerning knowle[dge of …] 22 [Go]d, he placed [I]srael [in t]welve h[oly] camps [ ] 23 [ ]the lot of God with the ange[ls of] the luminaries of his glory. In his name the p[r]aise of 24 their [ ] he established for the appointed times of the year, [and] the communal [do]minion to walk [in] the lot 25 [of God] according to [his] glory [and] to serve him in the lot of the people of his host. For the God of Column 2 (ll. 16–25 = frg. 2ii 1–10)

[◦◦] [◦] [◦] [ [‫ודרושו למו ̊כ‬ [◦◦ ‫ועדת ממז̇ ̇רי̇ ם ̊כ[ו]ל‬ [‫למספר אב‬ ̇ ‫ובו̇ שת פנים‬ [‫בכוח‬ ̇ ‫[י]ר‬ ̇ ‫האד‬ ̇ ‫[א]ל[ו]הים‬ [‫אלוהים ̇מיא ידע‬ ̇ ̇‫[רז]י‬ [‫יעדם ̇ל‬ ̇ ‫גבורות‬ ̊ ̇‫אלוהי‬ ̇ [ ‫[מ]אים כנדתם‬ ̇ ‫כמוהם ו̊ נ̊ ̊ט‬

16 17 1 8 1 9 20 2 1 22 2 3

46 The transcription presented here is my own. Notes could not be included here and will be published on a separate occasion. The translation generally follows (with many modifications) that of Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, and Edward Cook, in Donald Parry and Emanuel Tov, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, vol. 6: Additional Genres and Unclassified Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 172–210. Detailed explanation of the arrangement of fragments within the reconstructed columns appears in Angel, “The Material Reconstruction.”

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions 

 205

‫ביש[ראל‬ ̊ ‫יוש ̇ר י̇ שרים‬ ̇ ‫ יודע‬24 [‫ובישראל ̊מ[ ]רים ב◦[ ]ל‬ ̊ 25 bottom margin

Translation 17 and search for them [ ] 18 and the congregation of bastards a[l]l [ ] 19 and disgrace according to the number of [ ] 20 [G]od has acted ma[j]estically with power[ ] 21 Who has known the [mysterie]s of God?[ ] 22 The God of strengths has appointed them to[ ] 23 like them, and they are defiled according to their impurity [ ] 24 knows the uprightness of the upright in Is[rael …] 25 and in Israel [ ] Column 3 (ll. 18–25 = frg. 1 1–8)

‫מ]משלותם‬ ̊ [ ‫בא]רץ ובכול‬ ̇ ‫[ ]◦◦◦ ו̊ ̊כו̊ [ל‬ ‫תמיד יב[רכו]הו בקציהם‬ ̇ ‫̇רוחות ממשלתה‬ ‫הו]ד תפארת‬ ̊ [‫הימים וכול חיתם ישמיעו‬ ‫ברנ̊ [ות ]י̇ שועות‬ ̊ ‫כולם יגילו לאלוהי צדק‬ ‫רשע‬ ̇ ‫ורוחי‬ ̇ ‫כיא א[ין] משחית בגבוליהם‬ ‫אלוהי‬ ̇ ‫יתהלכו בם כיא הופיע כבוד‬ ̇ ‫לו‬ ‫יתכלכלו‬ ̇ ‫באמ ̊תו וכול בני עולה לוא‬ ̇ ‫דעות‬ bottom margin

18 19 20 2 1 2 2 2 3 2 4 2 5

Translation 18 [ ]their [d]ominions 19 [ ] and al[l … on the ea]rth and on all 20 the spirits of its dominion continuously. Let the seas b[less] him in their epochs, 21 and let all of their creatures call out [the glor]y of splendor. 22 Let all of them rejoice before the God of righteousness in jubil[ations] of salvation, 23 for there is n[o] destroyer within their borders, and wicked spirits 24 do not circulate among them. For the glory of the God of knowledge has shone forth 25 in its truth, and none of the sons of injustice shall be able

Column 4 (ll. 20–22 = frg. 37 1–3; ll. 23–25 = frgs. 37 4–6; 18i 8–10 [underlined])

] ] ] ̊‫]י‬ ‫]אה‬ ̇ ‫ת‬ ̊ ]

[‫]ם‬ ̊ [‫מקו̇ ם ̊ש‬ ̇ ‫]◦י̊ ◦[ ]◦ ̊ב‬ [‫ות ̊חול ̊ה ̊א ̊ר ̊צ‬ ̊ ‫]◦דותם‬ ̇ ‫י]רו̊ עו ̇כול ̊מ ̇חשביה וכו̊ [ל‬ ̊ ‫ויחפז̊ [ו‬ ̇ ‫]י̊ב ̊הלו‬ ̊ [ ‫תהו̇ ̇ם‬ ̇ ‫]ה‬ ̇ bottom margin

[ [ [ [ [ [

20 21 2 2 23 24 2 5

Translation 21 [ ] in the place [ ] 22 [ ] their [foun]dations [shall totter] and the earth shall tremble[ ] 23 [ ] all of its structures shall be shattered and al[l …] 24 [ ]they shall be terrified and pani[c …] 25 [ ] the deep [ ]

206 

 Joseph L. Angel

Column 5 (ll. 1–9 = frg. 35 1–9; ll. 16–25 = frg. 18ii 1–10)

top margin

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

]‫ולש[וב‬ ̇ ‫]בכו̇ ל בשר ומשפט נקמות לכלות רשעה‬ ̇ [◦◦◦] [◦‫̇א ̊פ‬ ]‫יקדי̊ [ש‬ ̇ ‫ובקדושים‬ ̇ ‫שבעתי̇ ם‬ ̊ ‫אפי̇ אלוהי̊ ם במזוקקי‬ ̇ ̇‫וט ̇הרה בנברים והי̊ ו‬ ̇ ‫אלוהי̇ ם לו למקדש עו̇ למים‬ ‫צבאו ומשרתים מלאכי כבודו‬ ̇ ‫כוהנים ̇עם צדקו‬ ‫בה ̇פלא נוראות‬ ̊ ̇‫יהללוהו‬ ̇ ]‫דבר[תי לפחד‬ ̊ ‫ואני מירא[] אל בקצי דורותי̇ לרומם שם‬ ] ‫רא[תו‬ ̇ ̇‫בגבורתו כו̊ [ל] רוחי ממזרים להכניעם ̇מי‬ ] [‫]קץ ממשלתם‬ ̊ [ ̇‫[מ]ו̊ עדי‬ ] [◦] [‫ר]ש ̊ע ̊ה‬ ̊ [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ‫]◦י‬ [ ‫]◦רו‬ [ ‫[ג]בורתו‬ ̇ ‫]ב‬ ̊ [ vacat ̊‫]י‬ [ ‫שפתי ולוא בליעל‬ ̇ ‫]ב ̇ד ̇ב ̇רי ואי̊ ן ̊במוצא‬ ̇ ‫[אין נבלות‬

[10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] 16 17 18 19 20

‫◦◦◦ה עבודת רשעה כיא‬ ̇ ‫[בלבבי ]ו̇ רוח בינתי‬ ‫וכו̇ ̊ל מעשי נדה שנתי כיא‬ ̇ ‫[לו]הי̊ ̇ם ע ני‬ ̊ ‫̊א‬ ̇‫ומוכיחי‬ ̇ ‫דעת בינה בלבבי‬ ̇ ‫̇ה ̊איר אלוהים‬ ‫אמונה ̇ב ̇כול פשעי‬ ̇ ‫ושופטי‬ ̇ ‫̊צ ̊דק עם נעוותי‬ ‫אלוהים שופטי וביד זר לוא‬ ̇ ‫̇אשמתי כיא‬

2 1 2 2 2 3 24 2 5

bottom margin

Translation 1 wrath [ ]against all flesh and a judgement of vengeance to eradicate evil and to t[urn back] 2 the wrath of God. Some of those who are seven times refined and some of the holy ones God shall sancti[fy] 3 for himself as an eternal sanctuary, and (there shall be) purity among the pure ones. And they shall be 4 priests, his righteous people, his host, and ministers, the angels of his glory. 5 They shall praise him with awe-inspiring wonders. vacat 6 And as for me, I am God’s agent of terror in the ages of my generations. For the exaltation of the name [I have] spoken, [to frighten] 7 by his strength al[l] the spirits of the bastards to subdue them by [his] fear[ ] 8 [app]ointed times[ ]age of their dominion[ ] 9 [… e] vi[l …] [10–15] 16–17 [ ] 18 [ ]in his [s]trength 19 [ ] vacat 20 [There is no foolishness ]in my words, and none [in] that which crosses my lips. There is no devilishness [in my heart]. 21 [ ]and the spirit of my understanding [detest]s any service of wickedness, for 22 G[o]d has kept an eye on me. And all deeds of impurity I detest, for 23 God has made the knowledge of understanding shine in my heart. My reprover is righteous 24 with respect to my depravities, and my judge is faithful with regard to all my guilty sins. 25 For God is my judge, and in the hand of a stranger [he has] not

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions  Column 6 (ll. 21–23 = frg. 18iii 6–8; ll. 24–25 = frgs. 18iii 9–10 + 41 1–2 [underlined])

] ] ] ]

]

[◦] [‫̊ב ̊מ‬ [◦ ̊‫לוהי̊ [ ]◦◦[ ]◦ו‬ ̇ ‫[ו]א‬ ̊ [◦◦] ‫שפ[ט‬ ̇ ‫[ו]מ‬ ̇ [◦‫]במרומי ̊רו̊ ם ̊מ ̊עו̇ ן ש‬ ̇ [ ̇‫ו̊ ̊עם ̇ה ̊תנ̊ ̇ג ̇פי‬ [‫]ת לכרובי קודש‬ [◦◦◦ ̊‫̇כנ̇ פי אלי‬ bottom margin

 207

21 22 2 3 24 25

Translation 22 [and] God[ ] 23 [and] judgmen[t …] 24 and with my stumbling[ ]in the lofty heights the dwelling of [ ] 25 the wings of [ ] for the holy cherubim[ ]

Column 7 (ll. 21–24 = frgs. 28 1–4 + 29 1–4; l. 25 = frgs. 28 6 + 29 6)

‫]◦ ̊פ ̊דו̇ יים‬ [◦◦‫]כ ̇ה ב‬ ̊ [ ‫אודכ]ה ̇כי̇ א למען כבודכה‬ ̇ ‫וא[ני‬ ̊ ‫[וה]גי̇ ̇לו באלוהים רנה‬ ̇ ‫[ש]מתה דעת בסוד עפרי לה[ללכה] ואני מצי̇ רוק ̇יצ ̇ר‬ ̇‫]ה ̊עו̊ לה בתכמי ̇ב ̇ש ̇רי‬ ̊ ‫מגב[לי‬ ̇ ‫]קו̊ ̇רצתי ומחושך‬ ̊ ‫[חמר‬ [◦◦][◦][‫אתה[ ]ל‬ ̇ ̇‫]◦◦ ו‬ [‫]ד ̊ע ̊ת‬ ̊ [‫ל◦ק ̊ר‬ ̊ ‫]ו̊ ̊ד‬ [

2 1 22 2 3 2 4 2 5

Translation 21 [ ] O redeemed ones 22 [and re]joice in God with jubilation and a[s for me, I thank yo]u that for the sake of your glory 23 you have [p]laced knowledge in the my foundation of dust in order that I might p[raise you.] And I was formed of spittle. 24 I was molded [of clay] and [my] format[ion] was in darkness [ ] Injustice is in the filth of my flesh. 25 [ ] knowledge[ ] and you[ ]

Column 8 (ll. 20–25 = frg. 30 1–6)

]

[◦◦◦ ‫א]רץ‬ ̇ [‫תמ ̊ת ̊ה‬ ̇ ‫̇ח‬ [‫ומח‬ ̇ ‫]ש ̊מי̊ ם ו̇ תהומות‬ ̊ [ ̇‫ויעמקו‬ ] [‫ולאשר‬ ̊ ‫אתה אלי̊ ̊ח ̊ת ̊מתה בעד כולם ואין פותח‬ ]‫הימדו בשועל אנשים מי רבה ו̇ ̊אם בזרת[ יתכן איש שמים ובשליש‬ ] ‫בפלס הרים ו̇ ̇ג ̊ב ̊עו̊ ̊ת ̊ב ̇מו̇ זנ̇ [ים‬ ̊ ‫ויש ̊ק[ו]ל‬ ̇ ‫הא ̊רצ‬ ̇ ‫יכול עפר‬ ]‫רוח[ אלוהים‬ ̇ ‫]י̊ ו̇ כל איש לתכן את‬ [‫]א ̊ד ̊ם‬ ̊ [‫̇את אלה לוא י̊ עשה‬ ]

bottom margin

20 21 22 23 2 4 25

Translation 20 You sealed[ e]arth [ ] 21 And they are profound[ ]heavens and the deeps [ ] 22 You, my God, sealed up all of them and there is no one who may open (them). And to who[m …] 23 May the great waters be measured with the hollow of a human’s hand? And with a span [may a person measure the heavens? And with a measure] 24 may one mete the dust of the earth, or we[i]gh mountains with a scale and hills with a balanc[e? …] 25 Human beings did not make these things. [ ]Can a person measure the spirit[ of God?]

208 

 Joseph L. Angel

Column 9 (ll. 1–2 = frgs. 44+46 1–2 + 47 1–2; ll. 3–8 = frgs. 45 1–6 + 47 3–8) top margin

‫]י̇ ו במקור‬ ‫כ]ו̊ ל סודי‬ ‫]ם ואש‬ ̇ ‫]א למכותם‬ ‫]אדם ̇ע ̇ל‬ ̇ ‫]רז̊ י̊ ̊פ ̊ל ̇או‬ ̊ ‫]◦ם‬ ◦◦]

[ ‫כיא לצדי̇ קים‬ [‫וא‬ ̇ ‫◦[] נצ◦◦[]ם‬ [◦◦‫̊◦י̊ ת ̊ט‬ [◦‫גבור‬ [ ‫ו̊ י̇ ̊סו̇ ̇ד‬ [‫̊צ ̊די̇ ק ב‬ [‫[ ]◦א ̊מל‬ [

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Translation 1 For to the righteous ones [ ] his[ ] by the source 2 [ ] and [… al]l the foundations of 3 [ ] and mighty fire 4 [ ] for their wounds 5 and [the] foundation [of …] a human being upon 6 a righteous one in [ ] his wondrous mysteries

Column 10 (ll. 1–8 = frgs. 48–51 1–8)

]

‫]ל‬

top margin

‫חכמ]ת בינתו נתן [ב]לב[בי‬ ̇ [‫כיא‬ ̇ ‫בעצת אל‬ ]‫]רנ̊ ה ובפי̊ ̇לפחד [כול רוחות‬ ̊ [◦ ̇‫הודות צדקו ו‬ ‫כיא ̊ב ̊ת ̊כמי‬ ̊ ‫רו]חי ̇ט ̇מ ̇אה‬ ̊ [‫להכני̊ ע‬ ̊ ‫ממזרים‬ ‫לחמו̊ ̇ת חוקי‬ ̇ ‫ב]גויתי ̇מ‬ ̇ [◦◦ ‫יסד‬ ̇ ‫̊בשרי‬ ‫]על ̊כו̊ ̇ל מופתי̇ גבר מעשי‬ ̇ ‫]אל ◦◦◦ו̊ ̊ת הואה‬ ‫]ריבי ̊כו̇ ל‬ ̇ [◦◦◦◦] [◦‫]מי̇ ̇מ‬ ̊ [‫]מ‬ ̇ [◦][◦]

‫אל בלבבי ואועי̊ [ל‬ [‫ארשיע‬ ̇ ‫אשמה‬ [◦◦ ̊‫ידע וברזי̇ ו‬ [◦◦ ̇‫רוחי‬ ̇

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

Translation 1 in the council of God, for [the wisdom of] his knowledge he put [in my] heart[ ] 2 the praises of his righteousness, and [ ]jubilation, and by my mouth to frighten [all the spirits of] 3 the bastards, to subdue [… the spi]rits of uncleanness, for in the filth of 4 my flesh he founded [… in] my body are conflicts. The statutes of 5 God are in my heart, and I prof[it] from all the wonders of man. The works of 6 guilt I condemn[ ]God [ ] he 7 knows and in his mysteries [ ]the disputes of all 8 the spirits of [ ]

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions 

 209

Column 11 (l. 1 = frgs. 57 1 + 58 1 + 52 1 + 54 1 + 55 1; l. 2 = frgs. 57 2 + 58 2 + 52 2 + 54 2 + 59 1 + 55 2; l. 3 = frgs. 57 3 + 59 2 + 52 3 + 54 3 + 55 3; ll. 4–8 = frgs. 57 4–8 + 59 3–6; ll. 8–14a = 4Q510 1–5 [underlined]; ll. 14b–25 = frgs. 10 1–12 [+ 4Q510 5–9] [underlined]) top margin ] [‫]דתם ואתה אלי‬ ̊ [‫ [וחנון ]ו̇ ארוך אפים ̊ר ̇ב החסד יסוד הא‬1 ] ‫הצד[ק ]◦ לאדם ולבנ̊ [יו‬ ̇ ‫הטוהר ̇מקוי הכבוד גדול‬ ̊ ‫מ]קור‬ [ 2 ] [◦‫]ע ̇ש ̇ה ל‬ ̊ [ ‫למע ̊שי כול ו̇ משי̇ב ̇ברכות‬ ̊ ‫] משפטים‬ [ 3 ] [‫משפט‬ ̇ ‫[ו]ד כיא מאתכה‬ ̇ ‫הכ ̊ב‬ ̇ ‫]ה אלי ̇מ ̇ל ̇ך‬ ̊ [ 4 ] [‫]רי̊ ם ומאתכה ̊סו̇ ד לכול יראיכה ̊ב‬ ̊ [ 5 ] [‫המה‬ ◦] [ ‫ל‬ ‫ [ בר]וכים‬6 ] [ ‫] ברוב‬ [ ‫]מגערתכה י‬ [ 7 ‫בר[כות למ]לך‬ ̇ ‫]תשבוחות‬ [‫]ל‬ ̇ [‫]ל‬ ̊ [ 8 ‫ הכבוד דברי הודות בתהלי [ ]לאלוהי דעות תפארת‬9 ‫וממש[לתו] על‬ ̊ ‫ ג[בור]ו̇ ת אל אלים אדון לכול קדושים‬1 0 ‫פזרו כול ויחפזו‬ ̇ ‫ית‬ ̇ ‫גבור[ת]ו יבהלו‬ ̊ ‫ כול גבורי כוח ומכוח‬1 1 ‫מהד ̇ר ̇מ ̊ע[ון] כבוד מלכותו‬ ̊ 12 ‫ולב[הל] כול‬ ̇ ‫ ואני משכיל משמיע הוד תפארתו לפחד‬1 3 ]‫ רוחי מלאכי חבל ורוחות ממזרים שד אים] לילי[ת‬14 ‫וח‬ ̊ ‫] והפוגעים פתע פתאום ל]תעות ̊ר‬ ‫ אחים ו[ציים‬15 ‫רשע ̇ה‬ ̇ ‫ב]קצ ̇ממשלת‬ ̇ ‫וע ̇צ ̇תם‬ ̊ ‫ בינה ולהשם לבבם‬16 ‫ ותעודות תעניות בני או[ר] באשמ]ת קצי נגועי‬1 7 ‫]ד כי אם לקצ‬ ̊ [‫◦חו̊ ̇ק‬ ̊ ‫עול]ם‬ ̊ ‫ ̇עוונות ולוא לכלת‬18 vacat ‫פשע‬ ̇ ‫ תעניות‬1 9 ‫פלא ולישרים ̇תהלי כבודו‬ ̇ ‫ רננו צדיקים] באלוהי‬2 0 ‫]רוממוהו כול תמימי דרך בכנור ישועות‬ [‫ ̊ה ̇ל‬2 1 ]‫לרחמי אל ו̇ דרושו למנו[ ] הושי̊ ̇עה אלו̇ ̇ה[ים‬ ̇ ‫פה‬ ̇ ‫ [ופת]חו‬22

‫]ד ̇באמת לכול מעשיו ושופט בצדק ̊הויי עד‬ ̊ [ 2 3 ‫ []◦ נ̊ היי עולמים בסוד אילים ואנשים ישפוט‬24 ‫ ברום שמים תוכחתו ובכול מוסדי ארצ משפטי יוד‬25 bottom margin

Translation 1 [and gracious,] slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, the foundation of [ ] And you, my God[ ] 2 [… s]ource of purity, the reservoirs of glory, great in righteou[sness …] for Adam and for [his] son[s …] 3 [ ] judgements for the works of all and giving blessings in return [ ]do for[ ] 4 [Blessed are yo]u my God, the glorious king, for from you judgement[ ] 5 [ ] and from you is the foundation for all who fear you in[ ] 6 [… bles]sed [ ] they[ ] 7 [ ]because of your rebuke [ ] in the abundance of [ ] 8 [ ]praises. Ble[ssings to the k]ing 9 of glory. Words of thanksgiving in psalms of [ ] to the God of knowledge, splendor of 10 s[treng]th, the God of gods, Lord of all the holy ones. And [his] domini[on] is over 11 all the mighty strong ones, and by the power of his streng[th] all will be dismayed and scattered, running hurriedly 12 from the majesty of the dwe[lling] of his royal glory. vacat 13 And I, Maskil, declare his glorious splendor in order to frighten and terr[ify] all 14 the spirits of the ravaging angels and the bastard spirits, demons, Lili[th], 15 howlers and [ ] and those who strike without warning to lead (people) astray (from) the spirit of 16 understanding and to make their heart and their counsel desolate during the present age of the dominion of wickedness 17 and predetermined time of humiliations for the sons of ligh[t],

210 

 Joseph L. Angel

by the guilt of the ages of those smitten 18 by iniquity – not for eternal destruction [ ] but for an era 19 of humiliations for transgression. vacat 20 Sing for joy, O righteous ones, for the God of wonder. For the upright ones are the psalms of his glory. 21 [ ]Exalt him, all those who are perfect of way, with the lyre of salvation. 22 Open (your) mouth for God’s compassion and seek his manna [ ] Save (me), O Go[d], 23 [ ] in truth for all his works and judges in righteousness those who exist forever 24 [ ] eternity. He shall judge in the council of divine beings and men. 25 In the height of heaven is his rebuke, and in all the foundations of the earth, the judgements of the Lord

Column 12 (ll. 1–4 = frg. 60 1–4)

top margin

] ] ] ]

[‫]ם ולישרים‬ [‫]◦◦ כולכם רו̇ ח‬ [‫]חי כלא‬ [‫]◦א ̊ת‬ ̇

[ [ [ [

1 2 3 4

Translation 1 [ ] and for the upright ones[ ] 2 [ ] all of you are spirit[s …] 3 [ ] prison[ ]

Column 13 This is the only one of the sixteen reconstructed columns that is not represented by any material remains.

Column 14 (ll. 1–5 = frgs. 63–64ii 1–5)

top margin

‫]◦◦ה ̇ב ̇בסודי‬ ̇ [◦ ̊‫◦◦◦די‬ ̊ ‫מ]עשי ̇א ̊לו̊ ̊הי ̇פ ̊דותי‬ ̊ [ ‫תעודו̇ תי אספרה‬ ̇ ‫אב ̇רכה שמכה ובמועדי‬ ̇ ‫◦◦[]◦ח ̊ם‬ ̊ ‫בכול ̇מ ̊ה ̊ל‬ ̇ ̇‫[]◦ ◦◦◦◦ ו‬ ‫פלאותיכה ואחורתם חוקי הודות כבודכה ברישית כול מחשבת לבב‬ ̇ ̇‫נ‬ ‫דעת ותרומת מזל שפתי צדק ובהנכון לכול עבודת אמת ועם כול‬ ‫שה ו̊ ̊ב ̊כו̊ ל‬ ̊ ‫]מ ̊ע‬ ̊ [◦‫]ה[ ש]לו̇ ̇מי̊ ̊ב ̊תו̊ ̊ד ̊ה ̊א ̊ד‬ ̊ [◦] [◦◦◦ ◦◦◦◦ ̊‫]שי‬ ̊ [

1 2 3 4 5

Translation 1 [… w]orks of the God of my redemption [ ] in the foundations of 2 [ ] and in everything [ ] I will bless your name. And in my appointed times I shall relate 3 your wonders. And I shall engrave them, the statutes of thanksgiving for your glory. The beginning of every intention of the heart 4 is knowledge, and the offering of the utterance of righteous lips, and in being prepared for every service of truth. And with all 5 [ ] my [p]eace is in thanksgiving [ ] work and in all

Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions  Column 15 (ll. 1–6 = frg. 63iii 1–6)

top margin

‫ו̊ אני תרנן לשוני צדקכה כיא פתחתה ובשפתי שמתה מקור‬ ‫̇תהלה ובלבי סוד רישית ̇כו̇ ל מעשי איש ומולות פעולות‬ ‫דרך ומשפטים לכו̊ ̇ל עבודת מעשיהם להצדיק‬ ̇ ‫תמימי‬ ‫צדיק באמתכה ולהרשיע רשע באשמתו להשמיע שלום‬ ‫מפרי̇ ̇ה‬ ̇ ‫הוד לכול‬ ̇ ‫ולה[ר]י̇ ם בקול פחד‬ ̊ ‫לכול אנשי ברית‬ ] [◦‫]ל[]◦[]א[ ]ות ̊ח‬ ̇ [‫]ל ̇כו̇ ̇ל‬ ̇ [◦] [◦◦‫]ש‬ ̇ [

 211

1 2 3 4 5 6

Translation 1 And as for me, my tongue shall sing out your righteousness, for you set it free. You placed on my lips a fountain 2 of praise and on my heart the secret of the origin of all human actions and the fulfillment of the deeds 3 of the perfect of way, and judgements for all the toil of their works, in order to justify 4 the righteous one in your truth and to condemn the wicked one in his guilt, to proclaim peace 5 to all the men of the covenant and to rai[s]e a voice of frightening glory against all who violate it.

Column 16 (ll. 1–3 = frg. 63iv 1–3)

Top margin

‫י̇ברכו כול מעשיכה‬ ‫̇תמיד וברוך שמכה‬ ‫לעולמי עד אמן אמן‬ end of composition

1 2 3

Translation 1 Let them bless all your works 2 continually, and blessed be your name 3 for ever and ever. Amen, amen.

David Willgren

Did David Lay Down His Crown? Reframing Issues of Deliberate Juxtaposition and Interpretive Contexts in the “Book” of Psalms with Psalm 147 as a Case in Point 1 Introduction In the last few decades, there has been an increasing focus on issues relating to the “shape and shaping” of the “book” of Psalms. Several scholars have made important contributions along these intertwined lines of inquiry, which gained considerable momentum after the groundbreaking work of Gerald H. Wilson. Starting with his Yale dissertation – The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter – Wilson provided a methodological platform that opened up the field, and many of the suggestions he made back in 1985 still hold ground today. The idea that the “book” of Psalms was no haphazard collection of psalms, but “carefully crafted scripture” is now often taken for granted, and by identifying various techniques used by the editors in the process of gathering psalms into a collection, Wilson claimed that it was possible to uncover aspects of its purpose. In his view, the editors shaped a book that “(…) move[s] consistently and purposefully and so joins and arranges early collections, individual pss and later groupings, that the final product speaks the message intended by the final editor(s); a message which is distinct from and which intends to supersede that of the earlier pss-collections on which it is partly based.”1 Hence, the shape and the act of shaping were closely interrelated, and a careful examination of structurally significant psalms was seen as having great potential in yielding insight into the message suggested to be spoken by the final product. For Wilson, essential clues were found in “books” 4–5 (especially “book” 4, seen as the “editorial ‘center’”),2 which he understood as an answer to the cry of Psalm 89, intending to “direct[s] the faithful to trust in Yahweh as king rather than in fragile and failing human princes.”3 Ultimately, two intertwined frame-

1 Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, SBLDS 76 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 11. 2 Wilson, Editing, 214–215. 3 Gerald H. Wilson, “King, Messiah, and the Reign of God: Revisiting the Royal Psalms and the DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-012



Did David Lay Down His Crown? 

 213

works were identified, frameworks argued to effect the interpretation and perception of the psalms included in the collection. So, an effect of Wilson’s study was that an interpretive context was supplied – the Sitz in der Literatur – a context that has been greatly influential, not only in American scholarship, but also seen, not least, in the studies of Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger.4 Eventually, in 2006, David C. Mitchell stated that “[t]hanks to Wilson’s work, there arose a scholarly consensus that the Psalms were redacted around a purposefully developing sequence of ideas.”5 Now, although Wilson’s focus was on the “Hebrew Psalter,” that is, the wellknown Masoretic (MT) sequence of psalms, he also contributed to the scholarly discussion by putting this Psalter into dialogue with the “psalms” scrolls from the Judean Desert.6 Following the initial publication of the large, and well preserved “psalms” scroll 11QPsa (11Q5) by James A. Sanders, there had been some intense discussion of its status and function, and Wilson, in relating 11Q5 more closely both to the MT “book” of Psalms and to the other “psalms” scrolls, provided additional support to Sanders’ suggestion that the latter part of the “book” of Psalms was not “stabilized” in the first century BCE or early first century CE.7 This, in turn, indicated that the “book” of Psalms had “stabilized” only grad­

Shape of the Psalter,” in The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception, ed. Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller, VTSup 99 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 393; cf. idem, Editing, 199–228. 4 Having written extensively on the formation of the “book” of Psalms, although not directly depending on the work of Wilson, their three-volume commentary, now being published as part of the Hermeneia series, provides a good entry point to their contribution to the field (FrankLothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005]; idem, Psalms 3, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011]). For an overview, see also, e.g., Erich Zenger, “Psalmenexegese und Psalterexegese: Eine Forschungsskizze,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 17–65. 5 David C. Mitchell, “Lord, Remember David: G. H. Wilson and the Message of the Psalter,” VT 56 (2006): 526. 6 I will use the designation “psalms” scrolls to refer to scrolls that preserve (parts of) psalms that are now included in the MT “book” of Psalms, regardless of what other compositions might feature in the same manuscript. Hence, “psalm” is to be understood primarily as a MT psalm, with the quotation marks indicating that the designation is somewhat artificial, since manuscripts such as, e.g., 4Q380 and 4Q381, should also probably be classified as psalms scrolls due to both the characteristics of the compositions and the layout of the actual scrolls. 7 James A. Sanders, ed., The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa), DJD 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); cf. idem, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), (the “Cornell edition”). For this discussion, see esp. Wilson, Editing, 63–92.

214 

 David Willgren

ually, from beginning to end, an idea further developed by Peter W. Flint in particular.8 Nonetheless, the point of departure and main focus of these studies was still the MT “book” of Psalms. Other (possibly competing) collections were only dealt with if they shed light on the former. Although this is not necessarily problematic, it has had an impact on reconstructions of the formation of the “book” of Psalms, not least as related to issues of purpose that is not always warranted. More specifically, it has reinforced the idea that a close examination of the shape of the “book” of Psalms can give important clues as to its shaping. Now, this is certainly a valid approach, but only if the notion of shape is properly qualified. Here, I would suggest that the presupposed referent of the term shape, the MT “book” of Psalms, needs to be somewhat problematized. In light of the increasing knowledge of the “psalms” scrolls in particular, and the use of psalms and other poetic texts in the late Second Temple period in general, a linear development centered round an emerging “MT-like” collection should not be taken for granted. Furthermore, the deliberateness of the act of juxtaposition needs to be properly qualified, so that the assertion that the MT “book” of Psalms is not a haphazard assembly of random psalms does not automatically imply that the purpose of such an act was to make the psalms “speak a message.” In fact, such a line of argument could be argued to fail to account for the step taken from editorial techniques to questions of intent. Put differently, the relation between synchronic observations and diachronic reconstructions is not always properly addressed, further leading to a recurrent failure to distinguish between various kinds of unifying patterns (be they redactional, compositional, canonical or the like). Ultimately, then, there is a need to address the question of how the “shape” of a collection relates to its “shaping,” and this is the starting point for this article. The questions to be asked below are, how can deliberateness in juxtaposition be identified and interpreted, and what kind of interpretive contexts are created by such an act of juxtaposition? To answer these questions, I will focus on Psalm 147 in two steps. First, I will provide a brief overview of the psalm, paying attention to possible additions made, and significant developments of lines of thought.

8 Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms, STDJ 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). For Sanders’ view, see Sanders, Cornell Edition, 13, 158, and for Wilson, Editing, esp. pp. 116–138, and the table in idem, “The Qumran Psalms Manuscripts and the Consecutive Arrangement of Psalms in the Hebrew Psalter,” CBQ 45 (1983): 387–388 (cf. idem, “The Qumran Psalms Scroll [11QPsa] and the Canonical Psalter: Comparison of Editorial Shaping,” CBQ 59 [1997]: 448– 464). Arguments for the dating of the finalized collection to the end of the 1st century CE are found in idem, “A First Century C.E. Date for the Closing of the Book of Psalms?,” JBQ 28 (2000): 102–110.



Did David Lay Down His Crown? 

 215

Then, I will focus more specifically on the issue of juxtaposition by relating the received MT sequence to other early (earlier?) attested sequences. The reasons for focusing on Psalm 147 as a test case are multifold. Apart from being a psalm found in several different sequences of psalms in the late Second Temple period, its hallelujah framework connects it to other psalms with similar frameworks, and in relation to the MT “book” of Psalms, it has been argued to form part of a final doxology (Pss 146–150), concluding the entire collection and belonging to the very last stages of its formation. Hence, it has been a focal point of recent research, and provides a good entry point into the issues at hand.9 In sum, then, this article will seek to draw attention to some problems with the long held presupposition that groups and subgroups of psalms in the MT “book” of Psalms can, if properly demarcated, provide important interpretive contexts (literary settings) that are closely connected to specific aspects of (a tangled thicket of) redactional intents. If successfully argued, this study will also show the need for a closer interaction between the sometimes too distinct fields of biblical exegesis and Dead Sea Scrolls research.10

2 Introducing Psalm 147 The first feature to be noted, a feature argued to be of special importance when relating Psalm 147 to a literary context, is that the psalm has a hallelujah framework. However, in contrast to most of the other similarly framed psalms (Pss 106; 113; 135; 146; 148–150), the initial hallelujah might be considered, not as a later addition, but as part of the psalm itself. The first verse reads: “Hallelujah, for it is

9 See, e.g., Wilson, Editing; Klaus Koch, “Der Psalter und seine Redaktionsgeschichte,” in Neue Wege der Psalmenforschung: Für Walter Beyerlin, ed. Klaus Seybold and Erich Zenger, HBS 1 (Freiburg: Herder, 1994): 243–277; Erich Zenger, “The Composition and Theology of the Fifth Book of Psalms, Psalms 107–145,” JSOT 80 (1998): 77–102; Patrick D. Miller, “The End of the Psalter: A Response to Erich Zenger,” JSOT 80 (1998): 103–110; Egbert Ballhorn, Zum Telos des Psalters: Der Textzusammenhang des Vierten und Fünften Psalmenbuches (Ps 90–150), BBB 138 (Berlin: Philo, 2004); Martin Leuenberger, Konzeptionen des Königtums Gottes im Psalter: Untersuchungen zu Komposition und Redaktion der theokratischen Bücher IV–V im Psalter, ATANT 83 (Zurich: TVZ, 2004); Reinhard G. Kratz, Das Judentum im Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels, FAT 42 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 280–311. 10 The issues brought up here also relate to my recently published monograph on the formation of the “book” of Psalms (David Willgren, The Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms: Reconsidering the Transmission and Canonization of Psalmody in Light of Material Culture and the Poetics of Anthologies, FAT 2/88 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016]).

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good to play11 for our God, for it is pleasant to adorn12 with a song of praise” (‫הללו‬ ‫ )יה כי טוב זמרה אלהינו כי נעים נאוה תהלה‬and discussion has centered on how to understand ‫כי‬. Presupposing that hallelujah is a later addition to the psalm, the common function of ‫ כי‬as conjunction (“for”) provides a highly unusual way to introduce a hymn. Hence, it has been suggested by some that it functions as an emphatic particle (“indeed”),13 while, for example, Zenger has suggested that the usual sense should be retained, implying an intentional connection to Psalm 146. If so, it would be of redactional significance, and the presupposed context of such a redaction is commonly (or even exclusively) thought to be the MT sequence.14 Although interesting, a more convenient solution presents itself if the hallelujah of verse 1 is understood not as a later addition, but as integral to the psalm. If so, the use of ‫ כי‬would not be peculiar at all, and furthermore, it would possibly explain the reading found in the LXX: “A Hallelujah of Haggai and Zechariah. Praise the Lord because a psalm is a good thing, to our God may praise be pleasing” (Αλληλουια; Αγγαιου καὶ Ζαχαριου. Αἰνεῖτε τὸν κύριον ὅτι ἀγαθὸν ψαλμός; τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν ἡδυνθείη αἴνεσις). As seen here, the LXX features both a transliteration, and a possible translation of hallelujah. If related to the consistent use of transliterated hallelujahs as “type” designations in the superscriptions of the LXX “book” of Psalms,15 it could be suggested that Αἰνεῖτε is a translation of the hallelujah of MT Psalm 147:1, while the transliteration is an addition congruent with the use of Αλληλουια in LXX Psalms 145–150.16 Consequently, it seems reasonable to conclude that the hallelujah of verse 1 was originally part of the first summons to praise,17 hence not necessarily having any redactional function.18

11 For this reading, see, also, e.g., Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 619. 12 For ‫ נאוה‬as piel infinitive with a feminine ending, see already Josua Blau, “Nāwā Ṯhillā (Ps. CXLVII 1): Lobpreisen,” VT 4 (1954): 410–411; cf. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 619. 13 Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101–150, WBC 21 (Nashville: Nelson, 2002), 381–382, n. 1b. It is interesting to note is that Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60–150, trans. Hilton C. Oswald, CC (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 554–556, also translates it as such, although he later comments on the bicolon as related to the hallelujah. 14 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 627. 15 The only exception is LXX Ps 150, where hallelujah is used as a frame. For a fuller discussion, see Willgren, Formation, 187–190. 16 Hence contra John Goldingay, Psalms 90–150, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 719, who proposes that Αἰνεῖτε is the addition. 17 So also Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Psalms: Part 2 and Lamentations, FOTL 15 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 442. 18 See, however, Ballhorn, Telos, 310, who agrees that it is an integral part, but argues that this indicates that Ps 147 “in seiner jetzigen Form für das Schlußhallel zusammengestellt ist.”



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Turning more specifically to the structure of the psalm, it is worth noting that the LXX divides the psalm into two parts, Psalm 147:1–11 (LXX Ps 146), and 147:12–20 (LXX Ps 147), and provides both with identical superscriptions. Such a variation in the demarcation of these psalms is not surprising in light of, for example, the Dead Sea Scrolls and medieval manuscripts,19 and scholars have long argued that the two parts are of different origin. Although a common view has been to regard verses 1–11 as an original core, later expanded by verses 12–20,20 Martin Leuenberger has recently argued for the opposite direction, suggesting that verses 1–11 were added as a part of a redaction of Psalms 146–150, that is, as related to the MT sequence of psalms. According to Leuenberger, verses 12–20 are to be understood as an independent psalm of Zion, while 1–11 are to be seen as comprising a bridge-text. An important part of this argument is the identification of a number of overlaps between verses 1–11 and Psalms 146–150,21 and interestingly, this view has now been followed by Zenger, who had previously argued for the opposite direction, based on suggested strong connections between verses 12–20 and the surrounding psalms (in the MT sequence).22 As for the contents of the psalm, the first summons to praise is permeated with the root ‫( הלל‬v. 1), and followed by a number of reasons (vv. 2–6). Here, it is noted that YHWH is building Jerusalem (‫)בונה ירושלם‬, that is, that he is gathering the banished Israel (‫נדחי ישראל יכנס‬, cf. Isa 11:12; 56:8). The use of the participle likely indicates that the stress is on ongoing acts, rather than commemorating particular events,23 although the return from exile is “unüberhörbar.”24 Such an ongoing care is, then, expanded on in verse 3, but in verses 4–5 the focus shifts to nature as a way of arguing that YHWH’s lordship over creation

19 See William Yarchin, “Is there an Authoritative Shape for the Hebrew Book of Psalms? Profiling the Manuscripts of the Hebrew Psalter,” RB 122 (2015): 355–370. If looking at the “psalms” scrolls, it seems as if Ps 147 is regularly considered a single psalm. Eugene C. Ulrich et al., Qumran Cave 4. XI: Psalms to Chronicles, DJD 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), 66, do, e.g., argue that space would not have allowed for the psalm to have been divided into two parts in 4Q86, and the same probably applies for 11Q5. 20 See, e.g., Erich Zenger, “‘Durch den Mund eines Weisen werde das Loblied gesprochen’ (Sir 15,10): Weisheitstheologie im Finale des Psalters Ps 146–150,” in Auf den Spuren der schriftgelehrten Weisen: Festschrift für Johannes Marböck anlässlich seiner Emeritierung, ed. Irmtraud Fischer, Ursula Rapp, and Johannes Schiller (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 152–153. 21 Leuenberger, Konzeptionen, 349–351. 22 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 620–622, now even propose that Ps 146 and Ps 147:1–11 come from the same hand. 23 Cf. Goldingay, Psalms, 717. 24 So Ballhorn, Telos, 314. Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 623, interpret the participle as casting the psalm in an eschatological light, indicating that the process is not yet finished.

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assures his ability to care for his people.25 The first section closes in verse 6 by contrasting the care for the poor (‫ )מעודד ענוים‬with the fate of the wicked (‫)רשעים‬.26 A new set of summons is provided in verse 7, this time to “give thanks” (‫)בתודה‬, and the basic idea expressed in these verses is YHWH’s provision for the ones fearing him (‫ )יראיו‬and hoping for his steadfast love (‫)את־המיחלים לחסדו‬. This is first related to the creation (vv. 8–9; cf. Ps 104:3,13–14; Job 38:41),27 and then contrasted with armed, military forces, in which YHWH takes no pleasure (vv. 10–11, cf. Ps 33:17–18; Isa 31:1–3).28 Zenger sees here a connection to both Psalm 146:3–4 and 149:5 since they all speak of the reversal of power relationships under the royal rule of YHWH.29 The third part of the psalm begins with a double summons to praise (‫שבחי‬ and ‫ )הללי‬addressed to Jerusalem and Zion (v. 12),30 followed by two verses similar to verses 2–3 conveying the idea of the restoration of Jerusalem by means of participles (vv. 13–14).31 The remainder of the reasons to praise do, however, provide a new focus, namely on the effect of the life-giving word of YHWH, which is sent down to the earth (‫)השלח אמרתו ארץ‬. This creative word, which frames verses 15–18 (‫אמרתו‬, cf. ‫)דברו‬, both brings about, and ends, the winter (vv. 16–18; cf. perhaps Job 38; Isa 55:10–11),32 but in verses 19–20, it takes on slightly different connotations as it is now described as YHWH’s “statutes and judgments” given to Jacob and Israel (‫מגיד דברו ליעקב חקיו ומשפטיו לישראל‬, v. 19).33 Such a gift is described as unique in verse 20, as it is not bestowed upon any other people (‫לא‬ ‫)עשה כן לכל־גוי‬. Although there are similarities to Deuteronomy 4:7–8, the use of the participle (‫מגיד‬, “declaring”) plausibly indicates that what is in view is not a one-time giving of the law, but a continuing revelation of YHWH’s acts and will

25 Cf. Gerstenberger, Psalms, 443; Goldingay, Psalms, 720. 26 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 624, suggest that v. 6 looks forward to Ps 149. 27 The progression suggested by Goldingay, Psalms, 721 (YHWH provides with clouds [v. 8a], which provide rain [v. 8b], which causes grass to sprout [v. 8c], which are then the food for the cattle [v. 9a]) is quite appealing, although it does not quite account for the mention of the ravens in v. 9b. 28 Cf. Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger Jr, Psalms, NCBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 610. 29 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms, 625. 30 For such a personification, see also Isa 49–54 (Goldingay, Psalms, 722). 31 Cf. Kraus, Psalms, 558; Allen, Psalms, 386. 32 Hence, it is probably not to be seen as a synonym to the Torah, as in, e.g., Ps 119 (cf. Ballhorn, Telos, 313 n. 818). 33 The Qere has ‫ דבר‬in plural.



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for his people.34 The overall effect of verses 15–20 would then be to relate YHWH’s work in nature to his work in history, and with his people (cf. Isa 41:26; 42:9; 43:12; 44:8).35 All in all, the psalm combines several perspectives in a proclamation of the providence of YHWH towards his people, and throughout, overlaps with other texts from the Hebrew Bible in general, and psalms now included in the MT “book” of Psalms in particular, have been suggested. Hence, a solid foundation has been provided from which a discussion of deliberate juxtaposition can now proceed in which I will investigate Psalm 147 “in context,” that is, as part of longer sequences of psalms. I will start with the commonly presupposed Sitz in der Literatur, the MT sequence, and then move on to the LXX sequence, and the two possible sequences attested in the Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls.

3 Psalm 147 in Context 3.1 The Masoretic Sequence (Psalms 146–150) The most well-known of the sequences in which Psalm 147 is found, is the MT, and its earliest attestation is in a Masada manuscript designated as Mas1f/M1103– 1742/MasPsb. This manuscript dates to the last half-century BCE,36 and as it is now reconstructed, it could have contained a collection comparable in size to the MT “book” of Psalms.37 Preserved on the scroll is almost the entire Psalm 150, as well as remains of two words from 147:18–19. Considering the features of the last line, as well as the presence of a large margin to the left of Psalm 150, it has been sug-

34 Thus not even primarily referring to a written word of YHWH, as suggested as a possibility by, e.g., Gerstenberger, Psalms, 445. Cf. Zenger, “Weisheitstheologie,” 153, who is more certain (“keinen Zweifel … das die Tora gemeint ist”). 35 Cf. Goldingay, Psalms, 725; James L. Mays, Psalms, IBC (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 442. 36 So Shemaryahu Talmon, “Hebrew Fragments from Masada,” in Masada VI: Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965, Final Reports, ed. Shemaryahu Talmon and Yigael Yadin, Masada Reports (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1999), 92 (the editio princeps); Armin Lange, Handbuch der Textfunde vom Toten Meer. Band 1: Die Handschriften biblischer Bücher von Qumran und den anderen Fundorten (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 405; Eva Jain, “Psalmen oder Psalter? Materielle Rekonstruktion und inhaltliche Untersuchung der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda” (Diss: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2012), 178. 37 Lange, Handbuch, 404–405; Jain, “Psalmen,” 182.

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gested that the scroll likely ended with this psalm. The sequence of psalms in this scroll is then 147→ 148→ 149→ 150→ end of scroll.38 As stated above, Psalms (145) 146–150 have long been considered an intentionally compiled sequence of psalms functioning as a concluding doxology, or even an “Epilog”39 to the MT “book” of Psalms, relating back to the “preface” found in Psalms 1–2 and so effecting the perception of the entire collection.40 Such an understanding has regularly been accompanied with a notion of a “composition” in the singular,41 and here, each psalm is supposed, not only to relate in some way to the psalms to which it is juxtaposed, but also to carry on its themes, almost evoking the idea of a developing plot. Where Psalm 145 provides an “overture,”42 Psalm 150 becomes a “klangvollem ‘Schlussstein’,”43 and scholars can speak of Psalm 146 as the response of David himself to the first half of 145:21,44 so that, in fact, he is now laying down his crown.45 Then, in Psalm 147, Israel and Jerusalem join the chorus, followed by the joining of angels in Psalm 148, only to revert back to the people in Psalm 149, leading to Psalm 150 as the final psalm “toward which the whole hallel has been building.”46 Hence, there is a move from “individual praise of the kingship of YHWH to the praise of YHWH by the postexilic community.”47 Similar readings have been proposed by several scholars (with various views on the unfolding of themes), and prominent in these

38 Talmon, “Fragments,” 91–97; cf. Lange, Handbuch, 404–405; Jain, “Psalmen,” 178–179. 39 So Erich Zenger, “‘Dass alles Fleisch den Namen seiner Heiligung segne’ (Ps 145,21): Die Komposition Ps 145–150 als Anstoß zu einer christlich-jüdischen Psalmenhermeneutik,” BZ 41 (1997): 13. 40 Cf., e.g., Gerald H. Wilson, “The Use of Royal Psalms at the ‘Seams’ of the Hebrew Psalter,” JSOT 35 (1986): 87; Matthias Millard, Die Komposition des Psalters: Ein formgeschichtlicher Ansatz, FAT 9 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 144–145; Jinkyu Kim, “The Strategic Arrangement of Royal Psalms in Books IV–V,” WTJ 70 (2008): 146. 41 See the use of the term in Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 606; cf. Leuenberger, Konzeptionen, 360, or the use of “Gesamttext” in Ballhorn, Telos, 25–30. 42 So Mays, Psalms, 439. 43 So Bernd Janowski, “Ein Tempel aus Worten: Zur Theologischen Architektur des Psalters,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 305. 44 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 606. The idea of the (servant) David as fictive speaker, thus reshaping the notion of kingship, is proposed by many. 45 Ballhorn, Telos, 317; cf. Wilson, Editing, 226; Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, Reading from the Beginning: The Shaping of the Hebrew Psalter (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 100. 46 Wilson, Editing, 194; Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 605–606. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 994, even speak of the “book” of Psalms having a “theme” (sg.), and regard Ps 145 as a summary statement of it. 47 DeClaissé-Walford, Reading, 101.



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discussion are – apart from the basic observation that they all share similar hallelujah frameworks – attempts to identify thematic similarities and verbatim overlaps. Focusing on the relation between Psalms 147 and 146, 148–150, it is possible to provide quite an extensive list of lexical links. Most of these are found in between Psalms 146–149, while only five terms are shared with 150 (‫הלל‬, ‫יה‬, ‫כנורג‬, ‫כל‬, and ‫בורה‬, all but one are also found in Pss 146–149). In all, the sequence Psalms 146–148 generates 31 possible lexical links, while 146–150 attests a total of 37 overlapping terms.48 Now, of these overlaps, all cannot be claimed as significant. Some terms are far too commonly used, and some occur in quite different contexts, but several have been argued by, not least, Zenger as bringing the psalms closer together (for example, the use of ‫ הלל‬and ‫ זמר‬in Pss 146:2; 147:1, or ‫ אלהיך ציון‬in Pss 146:10; 147:12).49 Zenger also points out that similar ideas are found in many of these psalms: Psalm 146:9 shares the verb ‫ עוד‬with 147:6 in a context of judgment of the wicked, both psalms focus on the care for the weak,50 the giving of food (Ps 146:7; cf. Ps 147:9, although it is given to different recipients), the “unmasking of human powerholders” (Ps 146:3–4; cf. Ps 147:10), etc.51 Similarly, Zenger

48 Since I will return to the counting of lexical links as a part of my argument below, it should be noted that even a quite mechanical counting is not simply straight-forward. First, one would have to count the sheer number of overlaps between a single psalm and Ps 147, e.g., between Pss 146 and 147. This, then, generates a specific number of overlaps between the psalms, but the question is how to add them all up. For example, Ps 146 shares 18 terms with Ps 147, while Ps 148 shares 23 terms with Ps 147. Second, it is to be noted that some of the terms that Ps 146 shares with Ps 147 are also shared with Ps 148, and that a shared term can occur more than once in each psalm respectively. So does, e.g., the 18 terms that Ps 146 shares with Ps 147 occur 33 times in Ps 146 and 34 times in Ps 147. Consequently, there are several possible ways to add up the lexical links, and in the argument of this article, I have proceeded as the following: If a term is shared between two psalms, it is counted as a single lexical link, regardless of its number of occurrences. If a term is shared by all three psalms, it is also counted as a single link (rather than two). For example, ‫ הלל‬features in all of Pss 146–148 (4 times in Ps 146, 3 times in Ps 147, and 12 times in Ps 148), and is hence counted as a single lexical link. Furthermore, ‫ זמר‬occurrs in only Pss 146 and 147, while ‫ תהלה‬occurs only in Pss 147 and 148. Taken together, the occurrences of ‫ זמר‬,‫הלל‬, and ‫ תהלה‬add up to a total of three lexical links. Now, although such a procedure can be questioned, it is to be noted that even if counting all occurrences of ‫ הלל‬as two (or 16) overlaps with Ps 147, the overall pattern argued in this article (the relation between the number of overlaps attested in the various sequences) remains the same, a fact that adds further strength to the conclusions drawn below. 49 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 627; cf. Ballhorn, Telos, 311 n. 812. 50 Cf. Miller, “Response,” 109, who sees these two psalms as expanding on Ps 145. 51 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 627. See also Erich Zenger, “Der Psalter als Heiligtum,” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel: Zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines

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suggests a number of links between Psalm 147 and 149 (‫ תהלה‬in Ps 147:1; cf. Ps 149:1; ‫ ישראל‬in Pss 147:2,19; 149:2; ‫ ציון‬in Pss 147:12; 149:2; ‫ ענוים‬in Ps 147:6; cf. Ps 149:4; ‫ רצה‬in Pss 147:10; 149:4; ‫ בני־ציון‬in Pss 147:13; 149:2; ‫ משפט‬in Pss 147:19; 149:9; and the ‫ כנור‬in Pss 147:7; 149:3), and some shared themes with Psalm 148 (for example, the order of law, and role of Israel in relation to creation and cosmos).52 Ultimately, Zenger proposes that these lexical links and shared ideas point to a concentric arrangement around Psalm 148 to develop an (eschatological) “program” centered on the “bringing-to-perfection of creation and history” by YHWH, lord and king,53 and the end result is a unified composition that depicts “ein Israel der Armen bzw. der Ḥasidim, die gerade in der Bedrängnis ihre Kraft in JHWH suchen und finden – im Gehorsam zur Tora und im Rezitieren der Psalmen.”54 While this is only one example, albeit an influential one, concerning the interpretations of lexical links suggested by scholars, it reveals the fundamental presuppositions on which such an argument builds, namely that the MT sequence is the primary interpretive context of these psalms, and furthermore that aspects of the texts themselves, not only possible additions made to them, are to be understood in relation to such a context. So put, these suppositions do, however, reveal a possible failure to distinguish between arguments for intentional juxtaposition, and readings proceeding from a notion of a joint composition. This will emanate clearly as further material is now taken into consideration.

3.2 The Septuagint Sequence (LXX Psalms 145–151) Turning to the LXX sequence, it is to a large extent similar to the MT sequence, and consequently, many of the identified overlaps are present there as well, although now in Greek. However, two major differences occur. The first is the above-mentioned division of Psalm 147 into two parts, hence compromising

Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum, ed. Beate Ego, Armin Lange, and Peter Pilhofer, WUNT 118 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 119. 52 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 627. See also Leuenberger, Konzeptionen, 360–361, and n. 337. 53 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 41; cf. Zenger, “Komposition,” 18; Leuenberger, Konzeptionen, 362–363. Similar views on the focus on the kingship of YHWH have been argued by many. It was one of the major points made by Wilson, who argued that the very shape of the MT “book” of Psalms reached its climax here, indicating that trust was to be put in YHWH, the eternal king (Pss 90–150), rather than in failing human princes (Pss 2–89, see, e.g., Wilson, Editing, 228). See also, e.g., Ballhorn, Telos. 54 Zenger, “Komposition,” 19.



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the concentric understanding proposed by Zenger. The second is the inclusion of Psalm 151. If, for the sake of argument, one would read the LXX collection of psalms in a way similar to the proposed readings above, the Davidic focus of this psalm would inevitably cast the entire collection in a different light,55 but the result is also a greater number of lexical links. In fact, the change of language, as well as the expanded superscription has, if looking only at the neighboring LXX Psalms 145 and 148, resulted in four additional lexical links. If Psalms 149–151 are included, the total number of lexical links would be 47, hence quite a considerable increase as compared to the 37 lexical links attested throughout MT Psalms 146–150. Should this, then, be interpreted as an intentional strengthening of the juxtaposition? Before providing an answer, I turn to the Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls.

3.3 The 4Q86 Sequence (Psalms 106?→ 147→ 104) In the Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls, Psalm 147 is attested twice (apart from Mas1f), and a third time as a possible reconstruction. Unfortunately, it is never preserved in full, and neither are the psalms to which it is juxtaposed, but as they are all psalms known from their Masoretic counterparts, it is still possible to discuss lexical links from this basis. The first of the sequences is found in a scroll designated as 4Q86/4QPsd. It dates to the mid-first century BCE, and preserves the remains of three psalms.56 While the last two are possible to reconstruct with some certainty as Psalms 147 and 104, the identification of the first is uncertain. Left on the manuscript are the remains of a ‫הללויה‬, as well as a final letter that extends below the line (either ,‫ך‬ ‫ן‬, or ‫)ץ‬,57 and consequently, it has been ruled out as unlikely that the preceding psalm would have been Psalm 146, since it has ‫ ודר‬preceding the final hallelujah. Looking at possible alternatives, Flint suggests either Psalm 134 (‫ )וארץ‬or 106 (‫)אמן‬, and since Psalm 134 is not followed by ‫הללויה‬, he opts for Psalm 106.58

55 It could also be mentioned that the Syriac tradition preserves even more psalms (Pss 152–155). Hence, similar changes of perception would be expected. 56 So Peter W. Flint, “A Preliminary Edition of 4QPsd (4Q86),” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, & Reformulated Issues, ed. Donald W. Parry and Eugene C. Ulrich (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 95; Ulrich et al., Psalms to Chronicles, 64. Cf. Jain, “Psalmen,” 73, who proposes 100–30 BCE. 57 Cf. Lange, Handbuch, 380. 58 Flint, Psalms Scrolls, 165; Flint, “Preliminary,” 98; Ulrich et al., Psalms to Chronicles, 66. See, however, already Patrick W. Skehan, “Qumran and Old Testament Criticism,” in Qumrân: Sa

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The identification is, however, uncertain, and has been called into doubt,59 since Psalm 147 could just as likely have been preceded by some other unknown composition. Furthermore, the fragmentary state of the scroll makes it impossible to reconstruct its original scope,60 although it has been argued by Armin Lange that it could not have contained a collection comparable in size to the MT “book” of Psalms.61 Now, if, for the sake of argument, one would proceed from Flint’s reconstructed sequence (Pss 106→ 147→ 104), some interesting observations could be made. First, the number of lexical links would in fact increase. If compared to MT Psalms 146–148, where 31 links could be identified, the new formation generates a total of 48 lexical links. This is quite a considerable increase, and the overlaps are also to be found in relation to a possible “development of themes.” As was noted above, Psalm 147 has a recurring focus on the gathering the banished Israel (vv. 2–3,13–14), and hence, it could be read as an “answer” to the final cry of Psalm 106 in a way similar to the argument that Psalm 107 provides such an answer in the MT sequence. Furthermore, an extensive overlap with Psalm 104:3,13–14 was noted in Psalm 147:8–9. While the latter provides a summon to thank YHWH for his provision for the ones fearing him and hoping for his steadfast love, and relates this to the creation, Psalm 104 is, in the words of Brueggemann, “a prime example of the way in which Israel – in hymnic modes – responds to the generative, life-giving power of creation.”62 As a more detailed study would certainly reveal far more possible connections, be they thematic, conceptual, or the like, these basic observations indicate that Psalm 147 fits quite well into this sequence of psalms, possibly even better than in its Masoretic ditto, and the important observation to be made is that no changes are made to the actual psalm to achieve the increase in lexical links. The version found in 4Q86 is the very same as the MT version.63

piété, sa théologie et son milieu, ed. Mathias Delcor, BETL 46 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1978), 166 n. 10. 59 Jain, “Psalmen,” 73. 60 So Ulrich et al., Psalms to Chronicles, 63; cf. also Jain, “Psalmen,” 77. 61 So Lange, Handbuch, 380. 62 Brueggemann and Bellinger Jr., Psalms, 446. 63 In fact, in neither 4Q86, nor 11Q5, are any major variations to be found.



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3.4 The 11Q5 Sequence (Psalms 104→ 147→ 105) The last sequence to be inquired into is found in 11Q5, and possibly also in 4Q87.64 As for 11Q5 (11QPsa), sometimes referred to as the great “psalms” scroll, it dates to somewhere between 30 and 50 CE, and in contrast to most other Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls, a large part of the scroll is continuous, beginning with Psalm 105:25, and ending with a blank column, indicating the end of the original scroll. In addition, there are 6 fragments that are to be placed before Psalm 105, and a number of reconstructions have been proposed for these. Relevant for my purposes are fragments Ei–iii, which were not included in Sanders’ original publication, but have subsequently been identified as part of the scroll.65 Here, Psalm 147 is once again juxtaposed with Psalm 104, but this time in a reverse order, and the two psalms are followed by Psalm 105, thus creating the sequence 104→ 147→ 105.66 What, then, about the possible overlaps? As demonstrated above, there are a number of lexical links between Psalms 147 and 104, and if Psalm 105 is included, the total number of links amount to 48. Hence, both 4Q86 and 11Q5 reveal a considerably greater amount of overlaps as compared to the Masoretic sequence, and as with 4Q86, thematic connections can also be made. The joy over YHWH’s creation in Psalm 104 now precedes Psalm 147, but so put, it relates quite smoothly to the second stanza of Psalm 147 (vv. 7–11), while Psalm 105 expands on the third (see esp. vv. 15–20). In fact, the overlaps between Psalms 147 and 105 are quite noteworthy. As observed above, Psalm 147 ends with YHWH declaring his words (statutes and judgments) to Jacob and Israel (vv. 19–20), and this notion is picked up and expanded on in Psalm 105, where an initial exhortation is followed by a recounting of how YHWH “confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant” (v. 10). The contents of these statutes are then made explicit as concerning the land of Canaan (v. 11), and the verses that followed comprise a

64 For the relation of 4Q87 to 11Q5, see Flint, Psalms Scrolls, 160–164 (they are repeated in Ulrich et al., Psalms to Chronicles, 76). The reconstructions of 4Q87 are, however, quite extensive, and should be approached with caution, since they cannot be confirmed, nor properly refuted (Jain, “Psalmen,” 86, cf. also Heinz-Josef Fabry, “Der Psalter in Qumran,” in Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum, ed. Erich Zenger, HBS 18 [Freiburg: Herder, 1998], 142). Lange, Handbuch, 382– 383, suggests that 4Q87 might have been another representative of the collection also attested in 11Q5, although not an identical copy. 65 See Sanders, Psalms Scroll, 155–165. For a good overview of the material aspects of the scroll, as well as the scholarly discussion, see Jain, “Psalmen,” 133–148. 66 These fragments, which contain the columns immediately prior to the beginning of the continuous scroll, also feature parts of Ps 118 prior to Ps 104.

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long retelling of parts of Israel’s story, including the exodus from Egypt and the journey through the wilderness (vv. 12–45). Hence, it could be argued to relate to the theme of the gathering of Israel in the land, as discussed above. In sum, it seems as if Psalm 147 fits neatly into this sequence, even better than in its MT ditto, and just like the 4Q86 sequence, this is achieved without changing the semantic content of the psalm itself.

4 Conclusions How, then, should the material surveyed above be interpreted? Although it could perhaps be argued that lexical links and thematic similarities imply that all four sequences were intended to be read as unified compositions, I would suggest that the material instead indicates that the actual basis for such ideas are somewhat unconvincing. This applies especially to the notion that Psalm 147 is not only part of, but also specifically adapted to, a unified MT sequence. Seen in light of the other sequences, the impact of lexical links, thematic overlaps, and possible progressions of thought is greatly diminished. In fact, all the other sequences attest to a considerable increase of lexical links, with the two sequences in the Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls attesting to the largest number of overlaps (48 links, as compared to 31 links in the MT sequence Pss 146–148). As all sequences feature psalms with hallelujah frameworks, the use of the latter in demarcating sub-collections also needs to be reconsidered. Ultimately, it seems as if the proposed interpretations of the function and purpose of Psalms 146–150 turn out unpersuasive, and the ways of detecting deliberateness in psalm sequences appears to have some flaws. If this conclusion appears reasonable, there is an urgent need to reframe the issue, and here, a brief recapitulation of one of Wilson’s conclusions could perhaps be of value. In 2005, he concluded that “recent scholarship has convincingly demonstrated that the canonical Psalter is the end result of a process of purposeful editorial arrangement of psalms and collections of psalms producing a unified whole marked by structures indicating editorial intent [emphases mine].”67 As indicated by the italics, one could argue that two different kinds of conclusions are presented. The first relates to editorial techniques, while the second expands on the possible purpose of juxtaposing psalms. However, no argument

67 Gerald H. Wilson, “The Structure of the Psalter,” in Interpreting the Psalms: Issues and Approaches, ed. Philip S. Johnston and David G. Firth (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 229.



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is provided for the move from the first to the second, and what the analysis above has attempted to show is that it is possible to hold the first part as valid while at the same time questioning the latter. More specifically, one could point to the presence of hallelujah frameworks, or even to some of the similarities in vocabulary, themes, topics, theological stances etc., and argue that psalms have in fact been purposefully arranged, while at the same time conclude that the effect of such juxtapositions need (should) not be understood as creating a unified whole, expected to be read in some lectio continua. It simply does not follow from the presence of hallelujah frameworks that they demarcate borders of sequential reading, or that they imply (previously) independent sub collections. Consequently, it seems as if the identification of lexical links is a somewhat imprecise tool for interpreting deliberateness in juxtaposition, not least in light of the large pool of shared phrases, expressions, themes, forms, etc. that forms a core of Hebrew Bible psalmody. And so, the foundation for the argument that Psalm 147, or a part of it, was composed for its “current place” in the MT “book” of Psalms is insufficient. Moreover, the materials surveyed above indicate that MT-like sequences should not automatically be considered as a “default mode” for reconstructions of redactional processes. If this is a valid line of argument, it also follows that the second question raised in the introduction (What kind of interpretive contexts are created by such an act of juxtaposition?) cannot be properly answered on the basis of the material surveyed here. This is, however, an important conclusion, as it necessitates a closer relating of “psalms” scrolls to other texts and contexts where they might have been used. Although such studies lie somewhat beyond the scope of this article, some trajectories along which to search for an answer could nevertheless be sketched out, and a first promising set of texts would be the Qumran pesharim on psalms. In these texts, psalms are often commented on alongside other passages from texts now found in the Hebrew Bible, not least the prophetic literature (see, e.g., 4QMidrEscha.b where psalms feature alongside passages from Deut, 2Sam 7, Isa, Jer, Ezek, Mic, Zech, etc.), and the general picture to be painted is one where psalms are regularly appropriated as prophetic and interpreted in a clear eschatological light (cf. 11Q5 27).68 What appears to be the case here, then, is that

68 For a more detailed discussion of the use of psalms in these manuscripts, see Willgren, Formation, 316–324. For a general introduction to the pesharim, see Devorah Dimant, “Pesharim, Qumran,” ABD 5:244–251, or George J. Brooke, “The Pesharim and the Origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Methods for Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects, ed. Michael O. Wise et al., Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), 339–353.

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psalms are understood as part of a larger body of scripture that, in turn, provides the fundamental interpretive context for the individual psalms. Psalms do not seem to have been interpreted in relation to some specific sequence of psalms, nor in relation to any sub collection, or “book” of psalms. If the latter had any significance at all, it was not by providing interpretive contexts in any literary sense, but rather as demarcating a corpus of “scriptural” psalms. A second, provisional trajectory proceeds from the observation that liturgies of various kinds supplied interpretive contexts for the use and interpretation of psalms. Here, psalms are attested as used both in MT sequences (cf., for example, the use of Pss 113–118 in the Mishnah, m. Pesaḥim 5:7; 9:3; 10:6–7, etc.),69 and with no such focus (cf., for example, the use of Pss 24; 48; 81; 82; 92; 93; 94 for various days of the week in the LXX superscriptions, and m. Tamid 7:4), and although the Mishnah is fairly late, the fact that it relates to traces found in the supercriptions of the psalms themselves is intriguing, and worth some further study. In sum, I have, in this article, argued that some of the presuppositions of recent research on the formation of the “book” of Psalms do not hold up in light of the earliest preserved artifacts. Admittedly, my focus has only been on a single psalm, hence not warranting any far reaching conclusions, but it has hopefully become clear that more research is needed in this area, both as it comes to questions of deliberateness of juxtaposition, and to questions of function and use of psalms and collections of psalms. In fact, these two seem to be intrinsically intertwined, and should therefore be considered in tandem. For such an endeavor to be fruitful, I would also suggest that the Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls and other texts from the late Second Temple period need to be integrated more consciously into the discussion.

69 Cf. Millard, Komposition, 30–32.

Part 4: Psalms, Prayers, and Prophecy While Willgren in the previous section only refers briefly to the phenomenon of “psalms as prophecy,” a function well-known from the New Testament and Qumran pesharim, Jesper Høgenhaven and Mika S. Pajunen take up the topic more fully in their contributions. In “Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms as Prophetic Text and the Formation of the Canon,” Høgenhaven suggests that one of the decisive elements in the reading of psalms as prophetic literature at Qumran is that they were linked to predicting the future. Just as the prophetic mantle in Israelite religion was not limited solely to the act of predicting the future, so too, the psalms were part of a liturgical practice not limited to the sole purpose of providing oracles of the future. Høgenhaven therefore suggests the act of reading psalms as prophecy would have been undertaken during the cumulative act of studying and interpreting “the Law and the Prophets” together with the practice of praying and blessing. It was in this context that psalms were adapted to suit this new function of prophecy. Mika Pajunen makes the argument in “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns” that psalms in the late Second Temple period could be interpreted as prophecies and fresh prophecies were written in the form of psalms. This kind of practice is seen both in the Barkhi Nafshi hymns from Qumran and the roughly contemporary Psalms of Solomon. Pajunen further shows how the main salvific and punitive judgments from the past, exodus and exile, are reused as prototypical motifs in these compositions in order to link the experiences of the groups responsible for these psalms with their ancestral past.

Jesper Høgenhaven

Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms as Prophetic Text and the Formation of the Canon It is immediately evident and commonly recognized that Psalms served as an important source of inspiration in the process of shaping poetical literature during the late Second Temple period. What is less evident is in which exact sense we are entitled to speak of “psalms” as a literary body with regard to that period. There is no consensus as to the exact time when a canonical book of Psalms came into existence or as to the time when psalms enjoyed anything that could be accurately described as canonical recognition and status. Indeed, whether it is helpful to speak of a “stabilization” or a “canonization” of psalms during the late Second Temple period remains a matter of dispute. A particular aspect of the use of psalms in Second Temple Judaism, and in particular, in the context of the Qumran library, is the interpretation of psalms as prophecy or prophetic scripture. In the following I shall attempt to show that the understanding of psalms (or texts that eventually became parts of the book of Psalms) as prophetic literature may have played a significant part in a process which would eventually lead to the formation of canonical collections of literature.

1 Psalms at Qumran: Some General Observations Psalms have often been described as the most popular – in the sense of the most widely copied and distributed – book of scripture in the Qumran library. This statement, based as it is on the statistics of extant manuscript remains, requires some important modifications. While it is a fact that a very significant number of manuscripts containing psalms now in the masoretic Psalter have been found in the caves, it should be added that these manuscripts cannot generally be regarded as witnesses to a complete book of Psalms along the lines of the book found in the masoretic Hebrew Bible or, for that matter, in the canonical collections of the Septuagint or the Peshitta. Indeed, only 22 out of 41 psalms manuscripts preserve more than a single psalm, and many scrolls seem, judging from the material findings, to have contained only smaller collections of psalms. These scrolls display a considerable degree of diversity with respect to the order and sequence of individual psalms, and there is also a great deal of variation regardDOI 10.1515/9783110449266-013

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ing the inclusion of poetic texts apart from those presently found in the canonical Psalm collection.1 In past research, particular interest and debate has centered on the relatively well-preserved great Psalms scroll from Cave 11 with its testimony to an arrangement of psalms that differs markedly from the sequences found in later canonical collections, the Masoretic Text and the ancient versions. James A. Sanders, the editor of the Psalms scroll, suggested that 11QPsa represents an alternative collection, which was, to its compilers and readers at Qumran, just as authoritative as the masoretic book of Psalms was to the Jewish community in Jerusalem. Sanders, in fact, argued that at the time when the Qumran community emerged, only the first two thirds of the Psalter (Pss 1–89) had reached a final shape. At Qumran, an authoritative “Davidic” collection was established, which included a number of more recent compositions, while the Jerusalem group created a competing psalter including only Psalms 90–150, and this collection then became the basis for the stabilization of the masoretic Psalter in the first century CE. Other scholars held that the Qumran scroll was to be understood as a secondary compilation, possibly for liturgical purposes, rather than as a “true Davidic Psalter” in its own right. Peter W. Flint has developed Sanders’ hypothesis further, arguing that the Qumran Psalms manuscripts show evidence of three different editions of the Psalter, an early collection comprising Psalms 1–89, and two different expanded collections, one along the lines evidenced in 11QPsa, and one akin to the masoretic collection.2 David Willgren’s recent study of all the available manuscript evidence for masoretic Psalms from Qumran, shows that it is hardly possible, in view of the diversity of psalm sequences documented on the fragments, to speak of a “book of Psalms” in the Qumran library. Indeed, speaking of a process of “stabilization” of Psalter as a book is in a certain sense deceptive since it presupposes the masoretic Psalter as the final goal or destination towards which earlier psalm collections would necessarily have moved.3

1 Cf. Mika Pajunen, “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSOT 39 (2014): 139–163; Eva Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter? Materielle und inhaltliche Untersuchung der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda, STDJ 109 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 2 Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms, STDJ 17 (Leiden: Brill 1997), 204–227. Cf. the summary in Mika S. Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Light of 4Q381, JAJSup 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 18–19 n. 11. 3 David Willgren, “Like a Garden of Flowers: A Study of the Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms” (Diss., Lund University, forthcoming), Part III.



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2 Psalms as Prophecy at Qumran That psalms were read and understood as prophecy in Qumran texts and in Second Temple times more generally, is widely recognized, and regarding the situation at Qumran, the consensus is summed up nicely in George J. Brooke’s formulation: “Special recognition is also given to the Psalms and possibly to other songs; they were viewed as prophecy.”4 Evidence for the understanding of psalms as prophecy in Qumran and other Second Temple texts more generally is extensive and for the most part well known.5 The text conventionally labelled “David’s Compositions,” which appears near the end of 11QPsa, makes an explicit reference to prophecy in connection with David, who is said to have composed all of his 4050 psalms and songs through prophecy given him by God: ‫כול אלה דבר בנבואה אשר נתן לו מלפני העליון‬ All these he composed through prophecy which was given him from before the Most High. (11Q5 27:11)6

More generally, references to David as a prophetic figure are found in a number of Second Temple texts. Thus, Josephus explicitly stresses the status of David as a prophet: [Solomon] turned to address the multitude and made clear to them the power and providence of God in that most of the future events which He had revealed to David his father had actually come to pass, and the rest would also come about, and how God Himself had given him his name even before he was born, and had foretold what he was to be called and that none but he should build Him a temple … And now that they saw the fulfilment of these things in accordance with David’s prophecies (προφητειαν) he asked them to praise God, and not despair of anything He had promised for their happiness (…). (Ant. 8.109–119)7

4 George J. Brooke, “Thematic Commentaries on Prophetic Scriptures,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Mathias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 156. 5 See Peter W. Flint, “The Prophet David at Qumran,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Mathias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 158–167. Flint points out (“The Prophet David,” 160, 166–167) that there is no direct reference to David using the title ‫נביא‬. He connects this with the negative connotations that this particular word might have carried (partly reflected already in biblical texts). It should be noted, however, that when the term is used in Qumran texts, it almost always refers to the biblical prophets as authorities, cf. below. 6 Translation by James A. Sanders, “Non-Masoretic Psalms,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 4A: Pseudepigraphic and Non-Masoretic Psalms and Prayers, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 215. 7 Translation by Henry St. John Thackeray, Josephus V, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 631.

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Several New Testament passages also testify to the interpretation of David as a prophet: In the Gospel of Mark Jesus refers to David as having spoken the words of Psalm 110 “in the Spirit” (Mark 12:36). Peter’s Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:25–30) explicitly designates David as a prophet (“Since he was a prophet [προφήτης οΰν υπάρχων], he knew that God had sworn an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on the throne”), and Acts similarly refers to the Holy Spirit speaking through the mouth of David (Acts 4:25, cf. 1:16). In Epistula Apostolorum Jesus quotes Psalm 3 as “the prophecy of the prophet David” (§19, cf. the reference to David as prophet in §35).8 David the prophet, then, is clearly one facet of the picture of David drawn in late Second Temple literature, although this picture includes other facets as well.9 As the aforementioned references to David composing psalms through prophecy show, David’s prophetic function may be directly connected to his well-established role as author and speaker of psalms. It is hardly controversial, then, that at least portions or individual psalms were regarded as “prophecy” or “prophetic texts” at Qumran and in Second Temple Judaism more generally.10 However, this widely accepted characterization of the Qumranites’ view of psalms does give rise to some fundamental questions. These terms are not unambiguous, so what do we mean by applying them to psalms in a Second Temple context? We may ask if the description is etic, signaling a certain understanding and possibly function of these texts, which we as present-day researchers may conveniently summarize in such terms. Or do we consider “prophecy” and “prophetic” to be emic terms, expressing categories that the Qumranites would themselves have employed more or less explicitly to designate their perception of psalm texts? Or can we possibly be assured that there is a sufficient degree of overlap between the use of these terms in Qumran scrolls and our modern usage that the etic/emic distinction is in this case more theoretical than practical? The Hebrew terms ‫( נבא‬verb in niphal) and ‫( נביא‬substantive) are not 8 Cf. Craig A. Evans, “David in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After, ed. Stanley A. Porter and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 26 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 196. 9 David as exorcist would represent another aspect, and prophesying about future events and driving out evil spirits should possibly be regarded as various functions associated with the possession of the divine spirit. As Craig A. Evans, “David in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 196, states (in connection with the portraits of David in the Qumran documents and of Jesus in early Christian literature): “It seems, then, that being recognized as a prophet and exorcist in no way competes with a Davidic identity.” 10 As evidence for psalms as prophetic texts, we may also point to a text like 4Q380, which presents itself as a collection of psalms assigned to various prophets. As Mika Pajunen, “Perspectives,” 161, has recently pointed out, this may be compared to the occurrence of prophetic names in psalms’ superscripts in the Septuagint tradition.



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particularly common in Qumran texts.11 For the verb, five out of eight occurrences are found in the Pseudo-Ezekiel texts, and belong to the narrative context of Ezekiel 37, where the prophet is instructed to “prophesy” to the dead bones in the valley and to the winds of heaven to bring life back to the human remains.12 The fragmentary Commentary on Isaiah (3Q4) uses ‫ נבא‬to summarize the prophetic activity of Isaiah, interpreting Isaiah 1:1. And in the Damascus Document the verb is used, with clearly negative connotations, in a context describing “trespassers” of the past (‫ )מסיגי הגבול‬who “prophesied falsely, so as to cause Israel to turn away from God” (‫)וינבאו שקר להשיב את ישראל מאחר אל‬.13 The noun ‫ נביא‬is used, in the majority of cases, as a title attached to names of well-known biblical prophets or in general references to “the prophets” as a group, often also with the designation of the prophets as God’s servants.14 Once, in 1QS 9:11, ‫ נביא‬is the eschatological prophetic figure who will appear together with the messiahs of Aaron and Israel. A negatively connoted use of the word is found, to my knowledge, only in 1QHa 12:16, clearly marked by the term ‫נביאי כזב‬. The noun ‫“( נבואה‬prophecy”) is documented with certainty only in 11QPsa, in the passage on David’s compositions mentioned above, where David is said to have spoken his works “through prophecy” (‫)בנבואה‬.15

11 The following overview is based on the occurrences registered in Martin G. Abegg, The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Part Two (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 501–502. 12 4Q385 22 7; 4Q385b 1 2; 4Q486 1i 4. 13 CD 6:1–2 (cf. 4Q267 2 6; 4Q269 4i 2). Translation by Joseph M. Baumgarten and Daniel R. Schwartz, “Damascus Document (CD),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 2: Damascus Document and Related Documents, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 23. 14 The combination of personal name and ‫ הנביא‬as a title is found 15 times in the Scrolls. In ten cases, the reference is explicitly to the “book” (‫ )ספר‬of the prophet named, including in one case “the book of the prophet Daniel” (‫כתוב בספר דניאל הנביא‬, 4Q114 1–3ii 3), or to the written words or the divine utterings made through (‫ )ביד‬the prophets in question (CD 3:21; 4:13; 7:10; 19:7). The general expression “books of the prophets” (‫ )ספרי הנביאים‬is found in CD 7:17; 4Q266 3iii 18; 4Q397 14–21 10,15. Cf. the reference to the “words of the prophets” (‫)דברי הנביאים‬, which the Teacher of Righteousness has been enabled to interpret, according to 1QpHab 7:5,8. The “biblical” (“deuteronomistic”) phrase “his (my/your) servant the prophets” is found in 1QS 1:3; 1QpHab 2:9; 7:5; 4Q166 II 5, 4Q265 7 8; 4Q292 2 4; 4Q390 2i 5; 4Q504 1–2iii 13. 15 The term ‫ נבואה‬occurs once in a narrative text on a fragment with no identifiable context preserved (4Q458 15 2). Another possible reading here is ‫“( נביאה‬prophetess”). Cf. Erik Larson, “458. 4QNarrative A,” in Qumrân Cave 4: XXVI: Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1, ed. Stephen Pfann, Philip Alexander et al., DJD 36 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 364 and plate XXV. Waw and yod are “often indistinguishable” in the manuscript, according to Larson (ibid., 363). The word ‫ נבואה‬is sometimes restored (in the plural) in the first line of Isaiah Commentary E (4Q165 1–2 1). Cf. John M. Allegro, “165. Commentary on Isaiah (E),” in Qumrân Cave 4: I: 4Q158–4Q186,

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Judging from the use of the term, then, we seem to have a close connection between the notion of prophets and prophecy and the preservation of their divine messages in written texts. The prophets appear in several Qumran texts as a wellknown and well-established entity, a group of figures from the past associated with specific books. John Barton, in his 2007 monograph Oracles of God restates his argument that the expression “the law and the prophets” was for a very long time the established designation in Jewish and Christian literature for all the authoritative books in general.16 “Prophets” basically meant sacred writings other than the Pentateuch. In Barton’s opinion, the dividing line between Prophets and Writings came about as a secondary and in a certain sense somewhat artificial categorization, while for a long time sacred literature apart from the Pentateuch or the Law was generally viewed as prophetic scriptures. This category would include works that, only in the finalizing processes of the Jewish biblical canon, ended up in the Writings section of the canon, such as Psalms and Daniel.17 According to Barton, in other words, “prophets” and “prophetic scriptures” were very broad and comprehensive terms for much of the Second Temple period. To some extent, “prophet” was an honorific title, which could be applied to great and significant figures of the past. This vague usage is very common in early Christian tradition, but also found in Ben Sira.18 As Barton states in summing up the evidence, “prophets are people who are out of the ordinary because they have a special relationship with God.”19 Characterizing psalms as prophecy, however, entails more, in my view, than this predominantly formal aspect that these texts were viewed as sacred under a broad umbrella. In Second Temple texts, prophecy or the prophetic quality of past figures and writings is regularly associated with the knowledge or insight these sources convey, and in particular, with their knowledge or insight regarding future events. Thus in the passage from Acts 2 mentioned above, David is designated a prophet because of his ability to discern and describe the future. As a prophet, David is able to see beyond his own time and envisage the coming of

ed. John M. Allegro, DJD 5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 28; John Strugnell, “Notes en marge du volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan’,” RevQ 7 (1970): 197; Maurya P. Horgan, Pesharim: Qumran Interpretations of Biblical Books, CBQMS 8 (Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1979), 134. 16 John Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Barton’s book is a revised second edition of his monograph, bearing the same title from 1986. 17 Barton, Oracles of God, 35–95. 18 Barton, Oracles of God, 96–102. 19 Barton, Oracles of God, 102.



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Christ. Likewise, in Josephus’ reference to David as a prophet, David is presented as having knowledge of the birth and fate of Solomon, and of events taking place under Solomon’s reign. Predicting the future, then, belongs to the very essence of prophecy according to the understanding of Second Temple sources. In Qumran writings I think there is evidence to support the conclusion that psalms were interpreted and used in ways very similar to the interpretation and use of prophetic writings such as Isaiah or the Twelve. And I venture to suggest that as far as reading and interpreting psalm texts as prophecy at Qumran is concerned, the decisive element is that they are linked to predicting the future.

3 Selecting and Interpreting Psalms: Commentary on Psalms A (4Q171) The interpretation of individual psalms now included in the masoretic Psalter, formally signaled as interpretation in the form of commentary, is documented in a number of Qumran compositions usually labelled “exegetical”: Three commentaries, one from Cave 1 (1Q16) and two from Cave 4 (4Q171 and 4Q173) quote and interpret texts known from the Psalter. Quotations and interpretation of psalms are also extant in 4QEschatological Midrash (4Q174 and 4Q177) and in 11QMelchizedek (11Q13). 4QpPsalmsa moves demonstrably from the interpretation of Psalm 37 to the beginning of Psalm 45. The break with a blank line in between is preserved in column 4 of the manuscript. George J. Brooke has suggested that the most likely rationale for this shift is because the commentator is reading certain psalms “historically in light of the experiences of the community of which he seems to have been a part.”20 The statements about injustice and the expressions of hope for delivery and final vindication for the just in Psalm 37 are all firmly associated with the collective experience of the Qumran community. Psalm 45 may well have been the next psalm to lend itself suitable to an interpretation with respect to this group. Indeed, the opening of the psalm is related to the “seven divisions of the returnees of Israel,” and the skilled scribe of Psalm 45:2 seems to be identified with the Teacher of Righteousness.21

20 Brooke, “Thematic Commentaries,” 141–142. 21 Brooke, “Thematic Commentaries,” 142.

238 

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Commentary on Psalms A (4Q171), frg 1–10 II 13–20

‫זומם רשע לצדיק וחרוק ע[ליו שניו] יהו[ה] ישחק לו כיא ראה‬ ‫כיא בא יומו פשרו על עריצי הברית אשר בבית יהודה אשר‬ ‫יזומו לכלות את עושי התורה אשר בעצת היחד ואל לוא יעזבם‬ ‫בידם חרב פתחו רשעים וידרוכו קשתם לפיל עני ואביון‬ ‫ולטבוח ישרי דרך חרבם תבוא בלבם וקשתותיהם תשברנה‬ ‫פשרו על רשעי אפרים ומנשה אשר יבקשו לשלוח יד‬ ‫בכוהן ובאנשי עצתו בעת המצרף הבאה עליהם ואל יפדם‬ ‫מידם ואחר כן ינתנו ביד עריצי גואים למשפט‬

3 1 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

13 The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes [his teeth] a[t him.] Yahwe[h] laughs at him, for he sees 14 that his day has come. Its interpretation concerns the ruthless ones of the covenant, who are in the house of Judah, who 15 will plot to destroy completely those who do the Torah, who are in the Council of the Community. But God will not abandon them 16 into their hand. The wicked drew their sword and bent their bow to fell the afflicted and the poor, 17 and to slaughter those who are upright of way. Their sword will enter their (own) heart, and their bows will be broken. 18 Its interpretation concerns the wicked ones of Ephraim and Manasseh, who will seek to lay their hands 19 on the priest and on the men of his counsel in the time of refining that is coming upon them. But God will ransom them 20 from their hand, and afterwards they will be given into the hand of the ruthless ones of the gentiles for judgment.22

Psalm 37 is justly classified by modern critical exegesis as an acrostic wisdom psalm.23 The text contains a series of admonitions from an experienced senior teacher to a younger addressee. The psalm presents an image of the world fundamentally akin to the worldview of positive wisdom predominant in Proverbs.24 It is characteristic of the interpretative comments of the Qumran commentary that statements of the Psalm that concern general conditions or human stereotypes such as the righteous as opposed to the wicked are related to specific individuals or groups, and apparently to specific situations and/or events of the past.

22 Text and translation (notation simplified) by Maurya P. Horgan, “Psalm Pesher 1,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 10–13. 23 Cf. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalmen. 1. Teilband. Psalmen 1–59, 5. Auflage, BKAT 15/1 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 439. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld & Erich Zenger, Die Psalmen I: Psalm 1–50, NEB (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1993), 229. Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 348. 24 “Ausgangspunkt ist die altüberlieferte, am Erfahrung gewonnene weisheitliche Überzeugung vom Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang, den Israel mit den Völkern seiner Umwelt teilt” (Hossfeld & Zenger, Die Psalmen I, 229).



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Thus, the reference to “the one who makes his way prosperous” and “does evil plans” in Psalm 37:7 is understood to refer to “the man of the lie,” (‫)הכזב איש‬ a figure also known from the Pesher Habakkuk from Qumran. This figure seems to belong firmly to the repertoire of the presentation of the community’s past familiar from similar Qumran writings. Interestingly, the interpretation of the Qumran text in a certain sense would seem to run against the main message of the psalm. The psalmist repeatedly exhorts his addressee to be patient and to accept that divine justice will eventually prevail in the world, even if it may be necessary to wait for a long time for the punishment of the wicked and the vindication of the righteous. The Qumran interpreter, by contrast, shows little restrain or hesitation in measuring out punishments and rewards. In the interpreter’s worldview, the distribution of good and evil is not only carefully and transparently structured, but the inevitable consequences of acting righteously or wickedly are already manifest in a series of events that can be identified and described.25 The very general term “the wicked” (‫ )רשע‬of Psalm 37:12 is explained in much more specific terms as “the ruthless ones of the covenant who are in the house of Judah (‫)עריצי הברית אשר בבית יהודה‬, who will plot to destroy completely those who follow the Torah correctly, that is, those in the Council of the Community (‫עושי‬ ‫)התורה אשר בעצת היחד‬.” An aspect worth noting in this context, however, is that this interpretation maintains that these rather specific and tangible events are, from the point of view of the psalm text, events of the future. They are related by the interpreter in the imperfect tense as events foretold or prophesied by the psalm: The ruthless ones of the covenant “will plot to destroy” (‫ )יזומו לכלות‬those who follow the Torah. This is particularly interesting because it testifies to the prophetic reading of the psalm. The words of the psalmist are understood as oracular statements that concern the future. From the stance of the Qumran interpreter, some of the events prophesied in the text are obviously still in the future, such as the ultimate consummation of the wicked, which will leave the earth free for the righteous. In other words, a number of events seem indeed to be connected with the past of the community, but in a number of cases, the point of view of the psalm as prophecy is respected in the rendering of the interpretative comments in the future, imper-

25 Cf. the precise observation by Marcus Tso, “The Uses of Scriptural Traditions at Qumran for the Construction of Ethics,” in The Hebrew Bible in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Nóra Dávid, Armin Lange, Kristin de Troyer, and Shani Tzoref, FRLANT 239 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 277: “Thus, every reference to the wicked in Psalm 37 is made to refer to specific individuals or groups hostile to the sectarian group, just as every reference to the righteous points to the community and its leader(s).” The interpretation in 4QpPsalmsa in other words serves to reinforce sectarian identity by distinguishing Qumranites sharply from outsiders.

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fect tense. Sometimes this runs counter to the actual time aspect, or at least to the use of tenses, in the psalm text: Psalm 37:16 depicts the behavior of the wicked in a sequence of perfects and consecutive imperfects: “The wicked drew the sword (‫ )חרב פתחו‬and bent their bow (‫וידרוכו קשתם‬, MT has a second perfect: ‫)ודרכו‬.” The psalm text’s announcement of doom for the wicked, however, is given in the imperfect: “Their sword will enter (‫ )תבוא‬their heart, and their bows will be broken (‫)תשברנה‬.” This may be said to be matched by the use of the imperfect tense in the interpretation, which relates this to the inevitable ill fate of the evildoers, in this case the “wicked ones of Ephraim and Manasseh (‫רשעי אפרים‬ ‫)ומנשה‬.” What is, perhaps, more remarkable is that the entire interpretation, not only the announcement of doom, is rendered in the imperfect. The evil acts of the wicked ones are also narrated as future events in the imperfect: They “will seek (‫ )יבקשו‬to lay hands on the priest and on the men of his counsel.” In general, the tenses chosen by the interpreter for his comments are in accordance with the tenses of the psalm text, although there are more examples of generic statements of the psalmist, given in the perfect, which are explained by the interpreter as future events, rendered in the imperfect: The wicked of Psalm 37:20 “are consumed like smoke” (‫כלו כעשן‬, MT: ‫)כלו בעשן‬. The interpretation is related to the “wicked princes” (‫ )שרי הרשעה‬who oppress (‫הונו‬, perfect tense) “his (God’s) holy people.” They “will perish” (‫ )יובדו‬like smoke that is lost in the wind.” This picture, however, is not altogether consistent. While interpreting general statements of the psalmist in Psalm 37 in the imperfect tense, the interpreter may also employ the perfect tense to refer to events of the past as seen from his own standpoint. Thus, in verses 23–24 we read that Yahweh “delights” (‫ )יחפץ‬in the steps of the (righteous) man, and of the latter the psalm states that “if he should charge” (‫כיא יפול‬, the verb is only partly preserved), “he will not be hurled down” (‫)יוטל‬, for “Yahweh supports (‫סומך‬, participle) his hand.” In the interpretation the reference is to past events narrated in the perfect throughout: Yahweh “chose” (‫בחר‬, the verb is only partially preserved) the Teacher of Righteousness (the word ‫ צדק‬is not preserved), and “established” him (‫ )הכינו‬to build a holy congregation. Similarly, in explaining the psalm’s passage describing the wicked lying in ambush for the righteous (‫צופה‬, participle), seeking to murder him (‫מבקש‬, participle), the interpreter clearly relates past events in the perfect tense, referring to the conflict between the Wicked Priest and the Teacher, who is said to have sent (‫שלח‬, perfect) the Torah to him (apparently the Wicked Priest).



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4 Selecting and Interpreting Psalms: 4QEschatological Midrash (4Q174 and 4Q177) In 4QEschatological Midrash we find a number of citations and interpretations of Psalms 1 and 2. Only the beginnings of the psalms are quoted, but the interpretative sections apparently relate also to parts of the source text not quoted. Eschatological Midrash (4Q174), frg. 1–2,21 I 14–19

[‫מדרש מאשרי [ה]איש אשר לוא הלך בעצת רשעים פשר הדב[ר ע]ל סרי מדרך‬ ]‫אשר כתוב בספר ישעיה הנביא לאחרית הימים ויהי כחזקת [היד ויסירני מלכת בדרך‬ ]‫העם הזה והמה אשר כתוב עליהם בספר יחזקאל הנביא אשר לו[א יטמאו עוד בכול‬ ‫גל[ו]ליהמה המה בני צדוק וא[נו]שי עצ[תמ]ה רוח[קים מרע] אחריהמה [בעצת] היחד‬ ‫[למה רגש]ו גויים ולאומים יהג[ו ריק ית]יצבו[ מלכי ארץ ור]וזנים נוסדו ביחד על יהוה‬ ‫ועל‬ ‫גו]יים וה[ ]בחירי ישראל באחרית הימים‬ [ ‫[משיחו פ]שר הדבר‬

4 1 15 16 17 18 19

14 Midrash of Happy is [the] man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked. The interpretation of the passage concerns those who turn aside from the way … 15 which is written in the book of Isaiah the prophet concerning the latter days: And it was with a strong [hand that he turned me aside from walking in the path of] 16 this people. And they are the ones about whom it is written in the book of Ezekiel the prophet, who [shall] ne[ver defile themselves with all] 17 their id[o]ls. They are the sons of Zadok and the m[e] n of [the]ir Council who ke[ep far from evil] after them [in the Council of the Community. 18 [Why] do the nations [rag]e and the peoples plo[t in vain? Kings of the earth r]ise up [and r]ulers band together against Yahweh and against 20 [his anointed. The in]terpretation of the passage … [na]tions and the … the chosen ones of Israel in the latter days.26

Here, as was the case in 4QPsalms peshera (4Q171), the generic statement of the wisdom psalm is related to a specific group in the commentary, which is designated “those who turn aside from the way (…) (‫)סרי מדרך‬.” The last word, ‫ דרך‬is probably in the construct state, and would have been followed by a noun (possibly a noun denoting wickedness, evil, or the like, or perhaps the expression ‫העם הזה‬, “this people,” from Isa 8:11), specifying the way from which the group had turned aside. The metaphor of the way seems clearly to reflect the use of ‫דרך‬ as a central metaphor in Psalm 1:1,6. The expression “those who turn aside from the way” recalls the passage in Isaiah 8:11: “And it was with a strong hand that he turned me aside from walking in the way of this people,” which is explicitly

26 Text and translation (notation simplified) by Jacob Milgrom, “Florilegium: A Midrash on 2 Samuel and Psalms 1–2 (4Q174 = 4QFlor),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 252–253.

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quoted in the following lines as a citation from “the book of Isaiah the prophet concerning the latter days.” Another quotation follows from Ezekiel 37:23, regarding those “who shall never defile themselves with all their idols,” and the interpreter rounds off his commentary by identifying these as the sons of Zadok and the men of their council. Then the text turns to the initial verses of Psalm 2: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? Kings of the earth rise up and rulers band together against Yahweh and against his anointed.” This passage is related to “the nations” (‫הגוים‬, the word is only partly preserved, so we cannot know whether the form was definite or not) on one side and to “the chosen ones of Israel” (‫)בחירי ישראל‬ on the other. The interpretation of the text’s “anointed” as a collective or group is highly interesting in itself. The comment that follows makes it clear that the interpreter is thinking of an eschatological future, since he speaks without transition of the “time of refining (‫)יאה עת המצרף‬,” which is to come over Judah, and then goes on to mention Belial in contrast to a remnant (‫ )שאר‬of Israel, which will be left, and which will observe the entire Torah (‫)ועשו את כול התורה‬. 4Q177, which may be another part of 4Q174 (4QEschatological Midrash),27 also quotes the initial parts of psalms in sequence in close relation to citations from various scriptural sources: 4QEschatological Midrash (4Q177), frgs. 1–4,14,24,31 2–8

‫והסיר יהוה] ממכה כול חלי[ ] לקד[שים אשר ]בא[רץ] המה ואדירי כול חפשי ב[ם‬ ‫ו]פיק ברכים וחלחלה בכול מתנ[ים‬ [ ‫]◦ נהיה כמו[ ]הו‬ ‫]◦ר[ ]◦[ ]ל◦תמה שמעה[ יהוה צדק ]הקשיבה רנתי האזינה ל[תפלתי‬ [‫]ו באחרית הימים בעת אשר יבקש ◦[ ]ר את עצת היחד הוא ה‬ ‫]◦ פשר הדבר אשר יעמוד איש מבי[ת‬ ‫ו]היו כאש לכול תבל והמה אשר כתוב עליהם באחרית[ הימים‬ ‫א]מר על[ ג]ורל אור אשר היה מתאבל בממשלת בל[יעל‬

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

2 [… and Yahweh will take away] from you all (your) sickness. To the ho[ly ones that] are in the la[nd] and my nobles in [whom] is all my delight [… 3 …] will be like it …[and] tottering of the knees and anguish in all loins [… 4 …]Hear, [O Yahweh, (what is) just,] heed my

27 The case for regarding 4Q174 and 4Q177 as manuscripts reflecting the same literary composition was argued most prominently by Annette Steudel, Der Midrasch zur Eschatologie der Qumrangemeninde (4QMidrEschata.b): Materielle Rekonstruktion, Gattung und traditionsgeschichtliche Einordnung des durch 4Q174 (“Florilegium”) und 4Q177 (“Catena A”) repräsentierten Werkes aus den Qumranfunden, STDJ 13 (Leiden: Brill, 1994). For a recent assessment , see George J. Brooke, “From Florilegium or Midrash to Commentary: The Problem of Re-Naming an Adopted Manuscript,” in The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising Texts from Cave Four, ed. George J. Brooke and Jesper Høgenhaven, STDJ 96 (Leiden: Brill, 2011): 129–150.



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cry, give ear to [my prayer … 5 …] in the latter days, in the time when he will seek […] the Council of the Community. That is the [… 6 …] The interpretation of the passage (is) that a man shall arise from the hou[se of … 7 … and] they shall be as fire to the whole world; and they are those about whom it (is) written in the latter [days … 8 … s]aid concerning the [l]ot of light that was to be in mourning during the dominion of Bel[ial …28

Here a quotation from Deuteronomy 7:15 leads directly into a quotation from Psalm 16: “To the holy ones that are in the land and my nobles in whom is all my delight.” Unfortunately, not enough text is preserved for us to discern exactly how the interpreter understood those somewhat enigmatic words of the psalmist. A quotation from Nahum 2:11 follows, and the next text quoted is the opening verse of Psalm 17: “Hear, O Lord, what is just, heed my cry, give ear to my prayer.” This cry of complaint is given a lengthy explanation in the following lines, although the nature of the correspondence between interpretation and source is less than clear at all points. What can be seen is that the passage is related to the “latter days” (‫ )אחרית הימים‬and to the “lot of light” (‫)גורל אור‬, which is said to be (or have been, ‫“ )היה‬in mourning” (‫ )מתאבל‬during the reign of Belial(?).29 The next scriptural quotations that follow in 4Q177 are taken from Hosea 5:8 and Isaiah 37:30, both followed by interpretations, which seem to situate themselves within the same eschatological framework as the interpretation of Psalms 16 and 17. Then follows a quotation of the opening of Psalm 11: “In the Lord I take refuge. How can you say to me: Flee to the mountain, o bird, for behold, the wicked bend the bow, and they have set arrows on the string.” The lacunae after this quotation have left its interpretation largely incoherent, but here again the words of the psalm are related to a group, as the third person plural forms of the verbs seem to show. “They” will flee (‫)ינודו‬, and be exiled (‫וגלו‬, the ending has to be restored here). It is usually assumed that the words that seem to constitute the next explicit quotation (‫למנצח על‬, followed by a he which could be the article before the word ‫ )השמינית‬are taken from the superscript of Psalm 12, although this cannot be verified. However, a case can be made for restoring a quotation from Psalm 12:7 in the passage before an unambiguous quotation from Zechariah 3:9. Text from Psalm 13:2–3,5 is quoted, and the enemy mentioned in this psalm is here equated by the interpreter with the “seekers after smooth things” (‫ )דורשי חלקות‬and their destructive activity: “they seek to destroy (‫)יבקשו לחבל‬.”

28 Text and translation (notation simplified) by Jacob Milgrom with Linda Novakovic, “Catena A (4Q177 = 4QCata),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 288–289. 29 The word ‫ בליעל‬is partly restored.

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These quotations and interpretations from consecutive psalms – interspersed with quotations from various scriptural sources – seem to some extent to support a particular order, or, to be more precise: it seems that particular orders were established for at least certain psalms in the mind of the interpreter. The quotation that follows from Psalm 6:2–5, however, is often described as being “out of order.”30 This characterization obviously depends on the assumption that the entire first part of the masoretic Psalter was in existence at the time when the midrash was composed, which is in fact something we do not know. At any rate, the interpretation yet again focuses on the latter days and an eschatological scenario which seems here (judging from the imperfect tenses being used) to be described as a future event. Thus, in 4Q177 psalms are read “prophetically” in order to help the community cope with eschatological disappointments. The members are reassured of their just cause and certain vindication.31 These examples from Qumran exegetical texts indicate, in my opinion, that psalm texts were not only read as prophecy in a broad and general sense, but were systematically interpreted as prophetic texts with a particular emphasis on their potential to reveal knowledge about the future. Psalms were read as predictions of important events to take place after the time of their composition. This perception of certain psalms could be understood in connection with the gradual formation of what some would designate a canon or a collection of sacred scriptures, and the eventual inclusion of a “book of Psalms” in this collection. The oracular character of psalms as documented in the commentaries does convey a sense of authority associated with the actual wording of the source text, which could be seen as an important step towards the fixation of a text in some form. This emphasis on the exact word-by-word formulation of the text is a feature common to psalm texts and prophetic books.

5 Indications of Canonical Processes in the Qumran library? To speak, in the context of the Qumran library, of the formation of the canon or, more generally, of some sort of canonical process is not uncontroversial.32 As has

30 Cf. Brooke, “Thematic Commentaries,” 146–149. 31 Tso, “The Use of Scriptural traditions,” 279. 32 The following builds and elaborates on the analysis in Jesper Høgenhaven, “Canon, Formation, Canonicity, and the Qumran Library,” in Biblical Interpretation Beyond Historicity, ed. In-



Psalms as Prophecy: Qumran Evidence for the Reading of Psalms 

 245

often been pointed out, some of the central terms we are accustomed to using in this context (e.g. “biblical,” “canonical”) are, by common consensus, anachronistic.33 It may seem most convenient and time-saving to follow Eugene Ulrich’s strict definition of “canon” as “the collection or list of books of the Scriptures.”34 Ulrich emphasizes three aspects of this technical use of the term: 1) It represents a reflexive judgment – that is, it involves conscious reflection on the authoritative status of the canonical collection, as distinct from the simple practice within a community of regarding certain books as authoritative or inspired. 2) It denotes a closed list. And 3) it concerns biblical books.35 Such a definition of a canon naturally encompasses the idea of the authority of the books within the canon, and the exclusive character of the list. In Ulrich’s view, then, to speak of an “open canon” defies the definition of the term. A “canon,” to use Bruce Metzger’s definition, is an “authoritative collection of books” as distinguished from a “collection of authoritative books.”36 Thus the idea of a “canon” carries with it a sense of normativity as well as exclusivity. Therefore, these scholars emphasize the exact limits of the collection; that is, the books contained therein and the books that have been excluded. By relying on such a narrow or technical definition of “canon,” we seem, in fact, to have defined our way out of a number of disputes regarding alleged early testimonies to the existence of a Jewish canon. If we test the strict definition of

grid Hjelm and Thomas L. Thompson, Changing Perspectives 7 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 155–158. 33 When we speak of “biblical” manuscripts or texts in the context of the Qumran library, we should bear in mind that there was strictly speaking no “Bible” at the time when the Qumran manuscripts were written. I depend here on Søren Holst, “Hvornår er en tekst tekst bibelsk? Bearbejdede Mosebøger blandt Dødehavsrullerne,” in Bibelske genskrivninger, ed. Jesper Høgenhaven and Mogens Müller, Forum for bibelsk eksegese 17 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2012), 112–114, for his clarifying distinction between two separate but similar definitions of “biblical,” which, with respect to Qumran texts, may be taken to describe a quality assigned to certain texts or literary works by the Qumranites themselves, a meaning that would denote the term “biblical” as something very close to being equivalent to terms like “scriptural,” “sacred,” “authoritative,” and/or “divinely inspired.” The second definition of the term “biblical” in this context is that it designates texts or literary compositions that are either virtually identical or reasonably close to the texts that formed part of the later biblical collections. In the latter usage, “biblical” may be said to function as a deliberative and useful anachronism and as a practical abbreviation. 34 Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 56. 35 Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 57–58. 36 Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origins, Development and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 282.

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“canon” with the emphasis on the “authoritative collection” with closed and welldefined boarders against the earliest extant references to collections of sacred books within Judaism, we arrive easily at the negative result we would expect.37 Inevitable as this conclusion undoubtedly is, based on the given premises, a case could, I think, be made that it does not provide us with very much insight into the actual dynamics of traditional authoritative literature at Qumran or in ancient Judaism more generally. A focus on historical processes and their results, which can to some extent be documented, seem to me more fruitful in this respect than placing emphasis primarily on rigid definitions, which have, in practice at least, had a tendency to lead to a dead end. “Canons” in a less strictly defined sense of the term need not necessarily be closed collections with well-defined limits. Historically, at least, there would seem to have existed a stage in which a certain body of traditional texts was regarded as authoritative and normative for a community without any need for defining its boarders in a precise manner. We may, for matters of practicality, be allowed to view such a body as an earlier stage in a process that would eventually, based on experience, lead to the formation of a Jewish canon in the stricter sense. This does not imply that there would have to be from a very early point onwards an irresistible drift towards the canon in its final shape. It is simply an attempt to describe developments that must have taken place historically. Here it is apt to cite Brooke’s convenient formulation: “Thus, a subtle case can be made that the Scrolls are the crucial evidence that the emergence of the Jewish canon was indeed a matter of process, not moment.”38 If we look at the extant remains of the Qumran library in this light, we find that a considerable part of the literature found there is in some way or another related to older texts, for the most part texts more or less identical with texts familiar to us from the collection of the Hebrew Bible. At the same time, the variety of different ways in which older traditional literature is treated in Qumran writings is in

37 As Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 59, states: “There is, to my knowledge, no evidence prior to the late first century C.E., either in Judaism or in Christianity, to suggest that was either a fixed list of books, or a fixed text either of individual books or a fortiori of the unified collection of books. Thus, prior to the end of the first century, we do not have a canon in either Judaism or Christianity.” And, with a slightly different formulation: “There was no canon as yet, no clearly agreed-upon list of which books were ‘Scripture’ and which were not. This was the situation at least up to the fall of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., probably as late as the end of the first century, and arguably even up to the second Jewish revolt against Rome in 132–135 C.E (…)” (Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 20–21). 38 George J. Brooke, “Canonisation Processes of the Jewish Bible in the Light of the Qumran Scrolls,” in “For It Is Written”: Essays on the Function of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Jan Dochhorn, Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 12 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011), 18.



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fact quite remarkable. The extent of copying and the distribution of compositions may be taken as a rough guide to the status or importance of those compositions. Clearly, some of the books that eventually became canonical – Psalms, Deuteronomy, Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, and the Pentateuch in general – were among the most widely distributed and most often copied works found in the caves.39 1Enoch seems also to have been among the most popular works at Qumran, probably an indication that this work was considered authoritative or at least highly important.40 However, the single most informative feature of the Qumran library with respect to the perception of an authoritative or normative status for specific books is probably the phenomenon of the intertextual treatment of older compositions in Qumran texts. The practice of commenting and quoting constitutes the most direct and reliable evidence for books enjoying authoritative status. There is a discernable pattern in the way certain – but not all – older books are cited and alluded to in other Qumran compositions. The commentary genre is significant in this respect because it quite explicitly establishes and articulates on the formal, literary level, a hierarchy between the text commented upon and the comments, thus recognizing the former text has in some sense an authoritative source or vehicle for a divinely inspired truth. At the same time, the commentary inevitably also testifies to a notion that the divinely inspired truth must be brought to light or clarified through the process of commenting and interpreting, thus pointing to the ever-present dialectic between scripture and tradition.41 Judging from the extant writings in the Qumran library, then, only a limited group of books were considered suitable for treatment in pesher commentaries, all books that were later to become part of the Jewish canon: Genesis, Isaiah, books from the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Nahum, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Malachi), and Psalms. It

39 For Psalms, the reservations regarding the existence of a “book of Psalms” in the Qumran period should be borne in mind. 40 Emanuel Tov, Revised Lists of the Texts from the Judaean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 113, counts 36 copies of Psalms, 35 copies of Deuteronomy, 23–24 copies of Genesis, 21 copies of Exodus, and 21 copies of Isaiah. Copies of 1Enoch (including fragments of the Book of Giants) number approximately 20. A “popular” wisdom text like 4QInstruction has survived in seven copies. As noted above, however, the high number of Psalms manuscripts cannot be taken as evidence for the distribution of the “book of Psalms,” since most manuscripts contain only one or a few psalms, often in sequences differing from the later canonical arrangement. 41 Cf. the formulation by John Barton, “The Significance of a Fixed Canon of the Hebrew Bible,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. I: From the beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300), Part 1: Antiquity, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 76: “The more ‘strained’ the interpretation, it may be said, the more ‘canonical’ the text being interpreted must have been – why should people trouble to extract improbable meanings from a text, unless that text is somehow a given for them?”

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is natural to understand this exclusive treatment of certain books as a witness to the particular authority and importance ascribed to them. As will be seen, there is a considerable degree of overlap between the body of books deemed worthy of being interpreted in running commentaries (“continuous” pesharim) and the writings which were, judging from the number of preserved manuscripts, the most popular books in the Qumran collection. So the evidence available points to the existence of a body of core texts that were widely copied and distributed, that were regarded as prophetic writings, and that generated commentaries. Logically, the interpretative strategy of running commentaries would seem to rest on the presumption that authoritative texts exist in their final and definitive shape. In the course of the interpretation evinced in the pesharim, meanings are attached to and based on the exact wording of the source text. This approach would seem to lead naturally to the notion of a well-defined and closed canonical collection, and eventually to the establishment in practice of a fixed and unchangeable canonical text. However, even if this line of thought appears to our modern mind to be inevitable, it is not necessarily the case for ancient authors. Focus on the exact formulation of extant prophetic texts may not by necessity have involved or implied any notion of a fixed and unchangeable collection of such texts. Furthermore, the strategy of reworking older texts points in the direction of an open collection of sacred books susceptible to change and adaptation. The collection would have to be perceived as still open in so far as the reworked compositions lay claim to the same level of authority as the earlier source texts. This, of course, is an assumption based on the shape and contents of these compositions, and not something we actually know. In principle, reworked compositions could have been intended not to supersede the originals or even to enjoy the same authoritative status but rather to supplement them while respecting their superior status.42 The interpretation of authoritative texts, then, seems to have developed simultaneously along distinct tracks: We have the reworking and expansion of the sources, where harmonizing and explanatory additions are made, and at some stage entire new compositions are written, retelling or “re-editing” the source material within new literary frameworks. And we have another development of interpretation, where the exact shape and wording of the sources is regarded as highly important, and the technique of a word-by-word, sentence-bysentence exegesis is introduced. At some point, this interpretative strategy also generated entire new compositions in the form of pesharim and related literature.

42 It could be argued that during the Middle Ages numerous Christian rewritten adaptations of the biblical stories were composed without anyone questioning the continued authority of the canonical Bible text.



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In the context of the Qumran library, both strategies can be documented in texts which are for all intents and purposes contemporary with each other. The Qumran pesharim are customarily associated with the Qumran movement and classified as “sectarian” works reflecting Qumran theology.43 This is not the case with “rewritten Bible” compositions, which are often analyzed as texts originating outside the movement. Still, both types of compositions were preserved and cherished within the same intellectual environment. In fact, both strategies can be shown to coexist within the same literary composition, as exemplified by the so-called Genesis commentaries (4Q252–254a), which have been described as compositions standing at a point of transition between “rewritten Bible” and biblical commentary, including formal elements from both types of composition. Commentaries in the shape of literary units in their own right, consisting of quotations and interpretative passages, were apparently reserved for Isaiah, some of the Minor Prophets, and Psalms. The practice of reworking and rewriting was devoted, above all, to the Pentateuch, but also to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Reworking can take the shape of expanding and rearranging parts of the scriptural text, while leaving other passages unchanged, as documented in the 4QReworked Pentateuch scrolls, which may arguably be most appropriately classified as “biblical” scrolls with harmonizing and explanatory additions.44 In other cases new independent literary compositions are generated. Jubilees and the Genesis Apocryphon represent thoroughly rewritten versions of the narrative material from Genesis, and the Temple Scroll claims to represent a direct and genuine divine revelation, primarily dependent, at a literary level, on the contents of Deuteronomy. There seems, then, to be a distinction between source texts and the strategies used for their interpretation, although it is not clear-cut: Isaiah, the Minor Prophets, and Psalms were commented upon but not reworked. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were reworked but have not generated commentaries. The Pentateuch

43 See Maurya P. Horgan, “Pesharim,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 6B: Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 1–2. Cf. Shani L. Berrin, “Pesharim,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. 1, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 644–647; Timothy H. Lim, Pesharim, Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 3 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). 44 For an argument in favor of regarding the Reworked Pentateuch manuscripts (4Q364–367) as “biblical” scrolls, see Michael Segal, “4QReworked Pentateuch or 4QPentateuch?,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James C. VanderKam (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 391–399. For a clarifying discussion, see George J. Brooke, “4Q158: Reworked Pentateucha or Reworked Pentateuch A?,” DSD 8 (2001): 219–241; Holst, “Hvornår er en tekst bibelsk?,” 128–138.

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was reworked in several compositions. While the legal material in the Pentateuch has not generated commentaries at Qumran, the narratives of Genesis were the object of reworking as well as commentary writing.

6 Conclusions: The Function of Psalms as Prophetic Texts at Qumran I do not intend here to claim that the understanding of psalms as prophecy constitutes anything like the one decisive aspect of how these texts were received within the context of the Qumran library or, indeed, in Second Temple Judaism.45 It is difficult to make assertions regarding the actual function or functions of psalms in a Qumran setting on the basis of the extant sources. The practice of studying and praying are combined in the well-known passage from the Community Rule describing the daily ritual of the community: ‫ואל ימש במקום אשר יהיו שם העשרה איש דורש בתורה יומם ולילה‬ ‫תמיד על יפות איש לרעהו והרבים ישקודו ביחד את שלישית כל לילות השנה לורוא‬ ‫בספר ולדרוש משפט‬ ‫ולברכ ביחד‬

 

6 7 8

6 And where there are ten (members) there must not be lacking there a man who studies the Torah day and night 7 continually, each man relieving another. The Many shall spend the third part of every night of the year in unity, reading the book, studying judgment, 8 and saying benedictions in unity. (1QS 6:6–8)46

Stephen Fraade has pointed specifically to the reference in 1QS 7:1, which deals with the exclusion of a community member who “blasphemes”: ‫ואם קלל או להבעת מצרה או לכל דבר אשר לו הואה קורה בספר או מברכ והבדילהו‬

 

1

45 Pajunen, “Perspectives,” 144, states: “All the different functions of the psalms have probably not yet even been grasped (and they may well have changed over time), but during the first centuries BCE and CE the psalms were used both in private and in communal gatherings, and they functioned at least as prayers, sources of spiritual meditation, and as liturgies, but also as sources of historical knowledge, as prophecy, and as ethical instructions.” 46 Text and translation by Elisha Qimron and James H. Charlesworth, “Rule of the Community (1QS),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 1: Rule of the Community and Related Documents, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 26–27.



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1 If he blasphemed – either because of being terrified with affliction or because of any other reason – while he is reading the book or saying benedictions – he shall be excluded. (1QS 7:1)47

As Fraade remarks, the formulation, which draws a parallel between reading the “book” – presumably the Torah – and blessing, points to liturgical practice as intrinsically associated with the act of reading, and presupposes that community members are generally considered to be literate.48 It would seem, in other words, that there was no sharp dividing line between liturgical blessing, possibly drawing on biblical psalms or other hymnic material, and studying scriptures. To the extent that psalms were regarded as prophetic writings, they would be included in the references to “the prophets” alongside the Torah as sources of divine revelation to serve as guidelines for the practice of the community:   ‫ היאה מדרש התורה א[ש]ר צוה ביד מושה לעשות ככול הנגלה עת באעת‬1 5 ‫ וכאשר גלו הנביאים ברוח קודשו‬16

15 This [way in the wilderness (Isa 40:3)] (alludes to) the study of the Torah wh[ic]h He commanded through Moses to do, according to everything which has been revealed from time to time, 16 and according to that which the prophets have revealed by His holy spirit. (1QS 8:15–16)49

This combination of Torah and Prophets as the reliable sources of God’s will mirrors the formulation found at the very beginning of the Rule of the Community, where the aim of the community member’s life and conduct is defined as seeking God “doing what is good and right before him, as he commanded through Moses and through all his servants the prophets” (‫לעשות הטוב והישר לפניו כאשר צוה ביד‬ ‫מושה וביד כול עבדיו הנביאים‬, 1QS 1:2–3).50 Law and Prophets, in this context, were clearly perceived as sources of authority in mutual harmony, both equally worthy of study and attention, and both supporting and legitimizing the outlook and practice of the Qumran community. We have here, it would seem, also a close connection between the act of studying and interpreting scripture, and the liturgical practice of praying and blessing. Psalms, in whatever precise literary form or forms they may have circulated, were obviously central in both regards, and both aspects of their use and interpretation would have been naturally associated with their status as prophecy.

47 Text and translation by Qimron and Charlesworth, “Community Rule”, 30–31. See Stephen Fraade, “Interpretive Authority in the Studying Community at Qumran,” JSS 14 (1993): 58. 48 Stephen Fraade, “Interpretive Authority,” 58 n. 35. 49 Text and translation by Qimron and Charlesworth, “Community Rule,” 36–37. 50 Text and translation by Qimron and Charlesworth, “Community Rule,” 6–7.

Mika S. Pajunen

Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns The Babylonian exile is probably the single most influential event that has shaped the traditions that make up the current Hebrew Bible. This statement is nothing new, and one would be hard pressed to find scholars who would fundamentally disagree with it. Indeed, the influence of the exile extended all through the Second Temple period and beyond. And, as is also well acknowledged, exile was a continuing state of existence for many among the people of Israel all through the Second Temple period. This was true not only for the diaspora communities but also for those living in the land under foreign rule. For instance, the religious practice of penitential prayer began from this crisis and continued to voice the cries of the people urging their God to act all through these centuries.1 The sense for when this divine silence, and hence exile, would actually end, however, and a period of restoration would finally begin, was understood by most to be completely in the hands of God. This perception of a continuing divine silence and hence the state of exile eventually led to growing expectations concerning the fulfillment of past prophecies and even calculations as to when exactly God might act, as can be seen in the rise of the apocalyptic traditions.2 A natural model for such a restoration was provided by the exodus. As a divine act of deliverance from foreign nations, and based on God’s mercy, this event had a paradigmatic function for predicting the form of the coming restoration.3 The search for clues concerning the divinely ordained future that could be found in the present circumstances through interpretation of past events and prophecies also came to include psalm literature at some point during the second century BCE, or slightly before, when psalms clearly began to be perceived as

1 For the development of penitential prayer, see Rodney E. Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution, SBLEJL 13 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). 2 The apocalypses themselves can be seen as a way of ending the silence through prophetic voices speaking to the contemporary communities and assuring them that God is about to act at a time that was already appointed long ago. 3 See, for example, the use of exile and exodus motifs in the Words of the Luminaries, discussed by Jeremy Penner, “The Words of the Luminaries as a Meditation on the Exile,” RevQ, forthcoming. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-014



Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice 

 253

prophetic literature.4 The Qumran pesharim from the first century BCE and the New Testament gospels from the first centuries CE offer the most explicit usage of psalms in such a way, but the roots of this interpretation of psalms probably rest in the songs embedded in the “historical” narratives of ancestral traditions (e.g., Gen 49; Exod 15; Deut 32; 1Sam 2, etc.) that frequently seem to refer to events in the future in the storyline as well as in the poetic form shared with more classic cases of prophetic literature. Psalms written prior to the Maccabean revolt, many of which are now found in the MT Psalter, were not written from such a perspective and typically had to be explicitly interpreted in order for their perceived prophetic message to be understood, as the pesharim and the New Testament demonstrate. But from the second century BCE onwards there are also fresh psalms that are written as prophecies. I will investigate in this study two such psalm collections, the Psalms of Solomon and the Qumran Barkhi Nafshi hymns (4Q434–438), both of which use earlier psalms as prophecies and include freshly written prophecies concerning the coming days. Both of these psalm collections are written in answer to contemporary events where the authors’ had evidently perceived that the divine silence had finally ended and God had once more taken an active part in shaping the history of his people. The collections represent the views and recent experiences of two different Jewish groups probably living in Palestine during the first century BCE,5 one

4 For a general overview of the development of the functions of psalms during the Second Temple period, see Mika S. Pajunen, “The Influence of Societal Changes in the Late Second Temple Period on the Functions and Composition of Psalms,” in Material Philology in the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Approaches for New Text Editions: Proceedings of the International Conference at the University of Copenhagen, 3–5 April, 2014, ed. Kipp Davis and Trine Hasselbalch, STDJ (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 5 The Psalms of Solomon seem to contain a great number of relatively clear clues to the historical setting of the psalms, which suggests they were composed in Jerusalem during the first century BCE; see, e.g., Buchanan Gray, “The Psalms of Solomon,” in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2: Pseudepigrapha, ed. Robert H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 625–652; Robert B. Wright, “Psalms of Solomon,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2: Expansions of the “Old Testament” and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works, ed. James H. Charlesworth (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), 639–670; Joseph L. Trafton, “Psalms of Solomon,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6, ed. David N. Freedman et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 115–117; Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters, ConBNT 26 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995), 7–20; Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 395–429. The earliest Barkhi Nafshi manuscript, 4Q438, has been dated paleographically by Moshe Weinfeld and David Seely, “434–438. 4QBarkhi Nafshia-e,” in Qumran Cave 4, XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2, ed. Esther Chazon et al., DJD 29 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 255, to the

254 

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most likely dwelling in Jerusalem and the other somewhere outside this city.6 Thus, the collections are similar in terms of their social background and overall time period, but they respond to completely different types of events that provide the interpretive frame for discourse used in them. The author7 of the Psalms of Solomon is struggling to understand why the Romans were allowed to occupy the land in 63 BCE, whereas the Barkhi Nafshi hymns found at Qumran celebrate recent salvific events that have thoroughly transformed the community that authored the hymns. In what follows I will discuss these two distinct collections and their perceptions of divine actions taken in the recent past and expected to happen in the near future. This treatment also offers a window into the use and interpretation of ancestral traditions in these works as well as the employment of elements creating and strengthening identity in them. Before continuing with the actual analysis it is useful to briefly recall the slightly earlier Second Temple psalms that are now mostly found in the MT Psalter because their central ideological markers offer a useful comparison to these psalms. The perspective in them frequently encompasses the whole nation, and they were used to create and nurture the collective identity of the people.8 The common past of the people and their shared values are propagated in these psalms, as evidenced by their regular usage of the concept of law, the exodus event, Zion, and the Davidic dynasty. As will be

late Hasmonean or early Herodian period and the rest of the manuscripts to the Herodian period. The dating of the individual hymns is quite challenging, but the imitation of the forms and basic structure of Psalms 103 and 104, the supplanting of the tetragrammaton with adonay in the opening formula of the hymns, and the extensive use of especially prophetic books (different psalms probably to be counted among them), suggests that the hymns could be roughly from around 100 BCE or slightly later. 6 For the setting of the Psalms of Solomon in a Jewish group active in Jerusalem, see Gray, “The Psalms,” 625–652; Wright, “Psalms,” 641; Winninge, Sinners, 18–20; Atkinson, An Intertextual, 395–429; Joseph L. Trafton, “The Bible, the Psalms of Solomon, and Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Princeton Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Volume Two: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006), 428–434. For the wilderness setting of the Qumran Barkhi Nafshi hymns, see Mika S. Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure to Historical Setting: Exploring the Background of the Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken M. Penner, and Cecilia Wassen, STDJ 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 355–376. 7 The authorship of these psalm collections is not investigated here. It is probable that both collections are the work of many different authors and have been brought together by one or more compilers. The use of the singular “author” is therefore used only for the sake of convenience, not as an argument on the number of composers these psalms may have had. 8 See, for example, Marc Brettler’s article in this volume.



Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice 

 255

shown, both of the psalm collections dealt with in this study offer a markedly different view on many of these issues, and particularly on the whole-nationencompassing nature of these ideologies.9

1 The Psalms of Solomon The Psalms of Solomon are a pseudepigraphic psalm collection preserved in Greek and Syriac.10 The psalms were evidently originally written in Hebrew, although this issue has recently been opened up for debate after a long period of consensus.11 The historical clues found in these psalms suggest that they were composed in Jerusalem during the first century BCE. There are altogether eighteen psalms in this collection, all ascribed to Solomon. There is nothing in the content of the psalms hinting at Solomon in particular, and it is highly probable that the superscriptions are secondary as nearly all scholars would agree.12 My own suggestion about the ascription to Solomon is that it probably stems from the focus of the

9 The impact of psalms on identity formation has received relatively little attention apart from the influential study by Carol Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, STDJ 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), in which she demonstrated the effects the Qumran Hodayot hymns might have had on the formation and maintenance of a sectarian identity. 10 For the Greek text, see Robert Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical New Edition of the Greek Text, Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 1 (New York: T&T Clark, 2007). However, this edition is evidently slightly problematic, as argued by Felix Albrecht, “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos,” in Die Septuaginta – Text, Wirkung, Rezeption 4. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012, edited by Wolfgang Kraus and Siegfried Kreuzer, WUNT 325 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 110–123. Albrecht is responsible for a fresh edition of the Greek text that should be published soon in the series Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. For the Syriac version, see Willem Baars, “Psalms of Solomon,” in The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, Part IV:6 (Leiden: Brill, 1972); Joseph L. Trafton, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation, SBLSCS 11 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985); idem, “The Psalms of Solomon: New Light from the Syriac Version?,” JBL 105 (1986): 227–237. 11 See, for instance, the discussion by Jan Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 31–48. 12 For a nuanced treatment of the Solomonic attribution of the psalms and an evaluation of the scholarly views, see Matthew E. Gordley, “Psalms of Solomon as Solomonic Discourse: The Nature and Function of Attribution to Solomon in a Pseudonymous Psalm Collection,” JSP 25 (2015): 52–88, who explores the possibility that the superscriptions might be original or at least

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collection on divine justice and from its references to an existing temple, which would have hindered a connection with the time of David, who was the figure to whom most psalms were attributed. There is general agreement among scholars that the Psalms of Solomon are the work of a socially distinct group within Judaism. This is shown, for example, by the use of specific group terms to address the psalmist’s audience, and by the general division of the people of Israel into the sinners and the righteous. The suggestions for identifying this group vary, but thus far the Pharisees have been the most common suggestion.13 This view is most of all based on perceived differences from Sadducean halakhic traditions in a few of the psalms. I am skeptical about whether the group can be positively identified from the psalms, and at least the current arguments are far from convincing. What can be gleaned from these psalms is that this group was in the literary setting of the psalms situated in Jerusalem14 but lacked extensive political influence or control. There are likewise different views on whether the psalms were composed by the same person or were compositions written by the members of the group over a number of years. The arguments related to this question revolve around the perceived historical clues in the different psalms that scholars connect with different events in the first century BCE from the time preceding Pompey’s conquest in 63 BCE to the rise of Herod near the turn of the era.15 This debate cannot be resolved here but what is important to note is that regardless of the composition history of the individual psalms the current collection is a distinct unity with a clear overall structure.16 Whether this unity was achieved by a single composer or was the work of a compiler is not relevant here.

intentionally added to highlight aspects related to the Solomonic discourse already present in the psalms. 13 The study that perhaps builds most on this identification is Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous, who uses the Psalms of Solomon as evidence for Pharisaic discourse and as such to offer views that can be compared with the New Testament portrayals of the Pharisees. 14 The evident historical clues in the psalms have led to reading the psalms as providing rather accurate portrayals of events. While such clues do seem to exist in the psalms, caution should be used in making straightforward equations between all details of the poetic text and historical reality. Adele Berlin’s remarks in this volume concerning the crucial difference between historical context and literary setting should be borne in mind. 15 The most systematic mapping of such perceived clues and their possible historical background has thus far been done by Kenneth Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004). 16 Cf. Bradley J. Embry, “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13 (2002): 99–136.



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The Psalms of Solomon revolve around a discussion of the principles of divine justice, a central theme that is of highest importance in the present predicament of the psalmist’s group.17 The psalmist is trying to understand recent terrible events and at the same time be able to declare God just. Hence, the psalms are full of discussion and wishes concerning both sides of God’s justice: salvation of the righteous and judgment of the sinners (and the nations). In the beginning of the collection, the psalmist describes how God has passed judgment in the (especially recent) past (e.g., Pss. Sol. 2:7–19; 8:7–14), the middle section is filled with psalms about how divine justice is seen to function in general (cf. Pss. Sol. 2:36–40; 3:3–11; 6:1–8; 9:1–17; 10:1–6; 13:4–9; 16:9–15), and based on these observations, the final psalms are prophecies about how God is expected to act in the immediate future. This is the broad framework of the psalm collection, but I will now take up some individual examples to highlight specific aspects of these psalms related to the traditions the author most often connects with when dealing with the contemporary difficulties the group faces.18 Many of the possible connections with earlier traditions have been previously mapped out by Kenneth Atkinson,19 although he is more interested in presenting different alternatives than pinpointing specific influences, and his discussion about the larger significance of how these psalms function as part of the collection is quite limited. An important result of Atkinson’s survey is that it demonstrates that most of the links between the Psalms of Solomon and other traditions are with other psalms and prophetic texts, a feature that the collection has in common with Barkhi Nafshi. Furthermore, it is already observable from Atkinson’s lists that when the psalms describe the invasion of Pompey and its aftermath, the authors have used particularly Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations. The use of these three traditions in which the 586 BCE Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem and its consequences are central demonstrates that the author is making interpretive connections between this event and the invasion by Pompey. This trend becomes even more apparent when some of the details are studied. Thus, the background from which at least most of the Psalms of Solomon stem is Roman occupied Jerusalem. The invasion of Jerusalem by Pompey is described in the first psalms and thus serves as a backdrop for the rest of the collection.

17 For a more thorough discussion of this theme, see my presentation in Mika S. Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381, JAJSup 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 79–84. 18 Embry, “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament,” 125–126, remarks that the author of the Psalms of Solomon is apparently using the LXX traditions, which is significant when the original language of the psalms is considered. 19 Atkinson, Intertextual.

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There are connections with Jeremiah 4:19 and 5:28 already in the first psalm (Pss. Sol. 1:2,6) but the links to the exilic traditions are much more pronounced in the following passages taken from Psalms of Solomon 2.20 Psalms of Solomon 2:1: When the sinner contemptuously used his battering-ram to smash down the fortified walls, you did not interfere. 2Gentiles who worship other gods went up to your altar; they brazenly trampled around with their sandals on. 3For their part, the people of Jerusalem desecrated the Lord's sanctuary. Their crimes profaned the offerings to God. 4 Because of all this he said: “Get these things far away from me! They are repugnant!” 5His beautiful and glorious sanctuary was despised before God: it was completely dishonored. 6 The sons and daughters (of Jerusalem) were held prisoner in terrible conditions: a seal on their necks, a Gentile mark. 7He dealt with them according to their sins; he abandoned them to the hands of their oppressors. 8For he turned away and showed them no mercy young and old and their children – all alike, because they all sinned alike, for they would not listen. 9 The heavens were appalled, and the earth loathed them. Because no one had ever acted as they. 10The world will know all your judgments; they are just, O God. (…) 2:19: The Gentiles humiliated Jerusalem when she was trampled down; He dragged her beauty from her once magnificent throne. 20She was wrapped in sackcloth instead of beautiful clothes; a rope was around her head instead of a wreath. 21He snatched the crown of glory that God had put on her. Her beauty lies in disgrace; it was flung down upon the earth. 22 And I saw all this and pleaded in the Lord’s presence: I said: “Make it stop, Lord! By bringing in the Gentiles you have laid your hand (too) heavily upon Jerusalem.” (…) 2:34: For he will separate the righteous from the sinner, because he will always retaliate against sinners according to their deeds. 35He will have mercy on the righteous, keeping them from the humiliation of sinners, and he will retaliate against the sinner for what he has done to the righteous. 36The Lord is kind to those who persistently appeal to him; he treats his devout in accordance with his mercy, to keep them constantly before him in strength. 37Praised be the Lord forever in the eyes of his servants.

The first quoted section of the psalm shows that according to the author, God let the Romans conquer Jerusalem in order to punish the sinners of the nation, who had defiled the temple (Pss. Sol. 2:1–10). The defilement of the temple and the punishment of all the people, young and old, immediately bring to mind Nebuchadnezzar’s devastation of the capital of Judah in 586 BCE. The textual connections in this section with Jeremiah (e.g., 7:15), Ezekiel (cf. 4:2; 9:6; 21:22; 23:38), Lamentations (at least 1:18), and Deuteronomy 28:5221 further underscore this association, and it is strengthened even more toward the end of the section where

20 All translations from the Psalms of Solomon and quotations of the Greek text follow Wright, The Psalms of Solomon. 21 Cf. Atkinson, Intertextual, 50.



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it is said that both the heavens and the earth were repelled by the offenses of the people. This is a clear reference to the role of heaven and earth as covenantal witnesses in Deuteronomy 32. As a consequence of these further breaches of the covenant contract, the author declares that God is right in once more punishing his people. The Deuteronomistic logic that a foreign invasion has to be a divine punishment for continual sins of the people is fully appropriated by the author, and he links the judgment he sees happening in 63 BCE firmly with the judgment of 586 BCE and its justification. The rest of the psalm further elaborates on these connections by comparing the people to harlots (Pss. Sol. 2:13)22 and depicting lady Zion in ways quite similar to Lamentations 1, as the desolate, humiliated city. The reuse of earlier traditions in the second section of this psalm, particularly the fall of lady Zion in Lamentations 1:1,6, and 2:1, are so seamless that without a larger context one might on impulse connect it with the events of 586 BCE (cf. Ezek 28:7). The author is quite clearly drawing on traditions relating to the 586 BCE invasion and its theological explanations when he forms a setting for his psalm, but an important ideological distinction between the explanations of the 586 BCE disaster and the Psalms of Solomon’s interpretation of these events in 63 BCE is readily apparent. This is the question: Who is to blame? The catastrophe of 586 BCE was explained by the Deuteronomists and following tradents as a just punishment for the continuing sins of the entire people and its leaders. However, the Psalms of Solomon hold that only the sinners were responsible for the invasion of 63 BCE and will be punished, whereas the righteous will only be tested because they were not to blame at all. In fact, the righteous group had a hand in making the punishment stop, as will be shown. The nation does not stand or fall together, the different groups within Israel have separate destinies.23

22 Cf. Ezek 23:14–18. 23 This does not necessarily mean that the group should be viewed as sectarian. Too little is known about the group to make firm judgments, and the Psalms of Solomon in themselves do not warrant such a conclusion. Atkinson, I Cried, has argued that the group would have been sectarian, isolating themselves from the temple services. However, Gordley, “Psalms of Solomon as Solomonic Discourse,” 81–82, disagrees with this designation, rightly pointing out that the temple service is very central to the group, nor do they in anyway seem isolated from the surrounding society. Furthermore, there is no dualism in the psalms, as found in the Qumran sectarian works, and the division between the sinners and righteous is a rhetorical strategy to highlight the polarized opposites from the perspective of divine justice. Such oppositional pairs are frequently employed, for instance, in wisdom literature, yet are not automatically signs of a sectarian world view.

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The attitude of the author towards the foreign nations is plainly negative as was the view of most of the prophets of old. They can be tools of God, but Israel is the chosen nation against whom the nations cannot prevail in the end. Psalms of Solomon 17 (esp. vv. 28–32) maintains the tradition concerning the pilgrimage of the nations to Jerusalem after it has first been freed of their presence. The tribes of Israel are firmly separated from any sojourner or alien, and the foreign nations are presented as the servants of the messiah. These notions already give an indication of the author’s view of the nations, but it is perhaps even more manifest in a plea that God should use pestilence rather than foreign nations as a punishment for the nation’s sins. Psalms of Solomon 7:3 states: “Discipline us as you wish, but don’t turn us over to the Gentiles; 4for if ever you dispatch Death, you yourself give him orders about us. 5And you are kind, and you would not be angry enough to destroy us.”24 A similar concern over the use of Gentiles as instruments of divine justice is also present in Psalms of Solomon 2:22, recounted above, where the psalmist suggests that the nations have gone too far in their task as punishers. This is the same accusation that is leveled in earlier traditions against the nations responsible for the 586 BCE destruction and its aftermath, and the response expected is the same, that is, the punishment of the nations in turn. Psalms of Solomon 2:26–31 relates that this excessive violence is why Pompey died in Egypt so soon after conquering Jerusalem. In fact, the psalmist attributes this punishment to the efficacy of his own prayers, as he does later in the collection both for the end of the entire divine punishment and his own salvation, as can be seen, for instance, in a passage from Psalms of Solomon 15: “1When I was oppressed I called upon the Lord’s name, for I expected help from Jacob’s God, and I was saved: because you, O God, are the help and refuge of the poor.” The need to continue praying for God’s mercy and intervention is one of the central messages of the author(s) of the Psalms of Solomon,25 and demonstrating the remarkable efficacy of his own prayers both underlines this aspect of prayer and highlights his own special standing with God. Such a plea for mercy that additionally demonstrates the author’s view on exile is found in Psalms of Solomon 8: “27O God, turn your mercy towards us, and be compassionate to us: 28gather the scattered of Israel with mercy and kindness, because your faithfulness is with us.

24 Psalm 103 is a key text in Pss. Sol. 7:5, as it describes God’s merciful nature in spite of the sinful deeds of the people. Psalm 103 is also used in a similar way in the Qumran Barkhi Nafshi hymns. The author pleas for the same choice in punishment, and uses the same logic, which is placed in David’s mouth in the story about the census and its punishment in 1Chr 21:12–13. 25 This emphasis on the necessity and efficacy of prayer is shared by a number of other late Second Temple period compositions, see, for instance, Penner, “The Words of the Luminaries as a Meditation.”



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For we have stiffened our necks, but you are our teacher.” This passage is similar to penitential formulations that are used in an array of prose prayers during this period (e.g., Dan 9; Ezra 9; Neh 9; Words of the Luminaries) and to passages displaying a belief that God will gather his people again (cf. Jer 31:8,10; Ezek 11:17; 20:41; Pss 107:3; 147:2). It is a plea for God to cease his just punishments because of his mercy and to gather his people despite their iniquities. Thus, the exile continues to be a reality for the author of the Psalms of Solomon, which is also seen in the following passage from the beginning of Psalms of Solomon 9: 29

When Israel 2was led away into exile in a foreign country, when they abandoned the Lord who had redeemed them, they were expelled from the inheritance that the Lord gave to them. Israel was scattered 4in every Gentile nation, as God had spoken: that you may be proven right in this matter, O God: in your justice and in our lawlessness; because you are a righteous judge over all the peoples of the earth. 1

3

The psalmist declares that the exile was a just punishment for Israel because of the nation’s sins, which once more shows how important the exile and the events leading up to it were for the author of the Psalms of Solomon as a way to understand the present by looking at God’s past judgments.26 However, the Psalms of Solomon as a collection is not crisis literature but psalms from a transitional period when the author had apparently perceived that a change for the better had already happened.27 Psalms of Solomon 11 and 13–15 provide a turning point in the collection that already speak about God sparing his people, and hence a divine turn in justice. But instead of a return to the mostly peaceful, yet enduring status of exile, the author claims that this turn heralds the beginning of the hoped for restoration of Israel. This is readily evident in a passage from Psalms of Solomon 11: “1Sound in Zion the trumpet that summons the holy ones. Announce in Jerusalem the voice of one proclaiming good news: ‘God has been merciful to Israel by his watchful care over them.’ 2Stand on a high place, O Jerusalem, and see your children from east to west finally brought together by the Lord.” This passage, and the psalm at large, draws its language and imagery from Isaiah 40–46, concerned with the restoration (e.g., Isa 40:4,9), and already the first verse connects firmly with traditions concerning the day of the Lord that heralds the gathering of the tribes (cf. Joel 2:1; Isa 27:13). Furthermore, Psalms of Solomon 11 has a clear connection with Baruch 4:36–5:9 that pro-

26 Cf. Bradley Embry, “Prayer in Psalms of Solomon Or The Temple, Covenantal Fidelity, and Hope,” in Studies in Jewish Prayer, ed. Robert Hayward and Bradley Embry, JSSSup 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 97–98. 27 Cf. Embry, “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament,” 134–135.

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claims to lady Zion the return of her children from exile.28 While it is uncertain which way the influence goes, it is worth noting that the passage from Baruch also provides a transitional statement at the end of the book. But even more importantly, Baruch’s literary setting is once more the Babylonian invasion of 586 BCE and its consequences. The author of the Psalms of Solomon is thus again working a tradition, this time of restoration, connected with the events of 586 BCE and their interpretation, and reinterpreting them from his own situation and the setting of his group. Thus, the author is declaring that since the group (and Jerusalem) has endured the punishment, the restoration will follow, and indeed has already begun. Prophecies are coming true and if lady Zion could find a high enough vantage point she would already be able to see her people starting to gather. Finally, after dealing with the recent past and the present, the end of the psalm collection looks toward the future, and prophecies concerning the coming days are found particularly in Psalms of Solomon 17, which is the most discussed psalm in the collection because of its messianic imagery. But it should be remembered that this psalm, and others in the collection, begin with announcing God as the king, not the messiah or any current earthly king. This is post-exilic reasoning again because when the earthly Davidic king failed the divine king’s might and station were emphasized even further. After the Maccabean revolt such language could have been readily employed to undermine the status and authority of any present king or emperor. This motif is prominently present in the continuation of Psalms of Solomon 17 where the exile of 586 BCE as punishment and the recent events mingle in a prominent manner. Psalms of Solomon 17:4: It was you, O Lord, who chose David as king over Israel, and you promised him that his descendants would continue forever, that you would not abandon his royal house. 5But sinners revolted against us because of our sins: they attacked us and drove us out. Those to whom you promised nothing, they violently stole from us. 6In their pride they flamboyantly set up their own royal house. Their arrogant substitution desolated David’s throne, and they did not glorify your honorable name. 7But you, O God, will throw them down, and root up their descendants from the earth.

This passage reminds the audience about God’s promise to David about an eternal dynasty and its temporary failure during the punishment of exile as a consequence of human actions. This is then tied to the actions of the present-day sinners and particularly against the earthly, probably Hasmonean, rulers that the

28 See, for example, Atkinson, Intertextual, 228–229.



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author argues to be usurpers of the Davidic throne.29 The author prophesies that God will destroy these usurpers and all their offspring and establish a new age in Jerusalem where the righteous group has been gathered and rules together with a Davidic messiah. The imagery describing the messiah is once more taken largely from certain psalms and Isaiah (e.g., Pss 2:9; 132:17; Isa 11:1–5). An intriguing depiction linked to these messianic concepts is found in Psalms of Solomon 8 where the psalmist portrays Pompey as hailed by the rulers of the land as a kind of messiah figure. He is blessed, given control of fortresses, enters Jerusalem in peace, the city is decorated for celebration when he enters, and even the rough paths are made even before him, which recalls the famous prophecy from Isaiah concerning the preparation and smoothing of ways (Isa 40:4) that both the Qumran movement and the Jesus movement appropriated as pertaining to them. But the psalmist seems to have a double agenda here. First, he discredits the Hasmoneans for welcoming a ruthless conqueror in celebratory fashion. Second, he assures the reader that Pompey’s entry was part of God’s plan by subtly connecting Pompey with Cyrus with the use of Isaianic imagery, such as Isaiah 46:11, a passage that describes the coming of the executioner of divine justice called from a faraway land. Through such assurances the psalmist declares to his audience that just as Pompey’s entry was part of God’s plan, God has now prepared the coming of the true Davidic Messiah. Thus, it can be concluded that the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the ensuing exile provided the author of the Psalms of Solomon with the most immediate analogue for the predicament of his group. He depicts the invasion of Pompey as the end of the divine silence. The resemblance to the 586 BCE invasion and the need to explain it were probably strengthened by the brief independence provided by the Hasmonean kingdom. Prior to this, the land changed hands from one superpower to another but now it was once more taken from the hands of the people, just as it was in 586 BCE. Thus, it is no wonder that the explanation for the invasion was also similar, the sins of the people and its leaders, but this time excluding the psalmist’s pious group. The main function of the collection is to admonish the audience to persevere on the right path until God delivers them from the foreign rulers altogether. In order to get his message across, the author uses prophetic traditions about the exile and restoration, other poetic passages about God’s righteousness, and many elements from the tradition of penitential prayers as well as the theological idea of a righteous (tested) remnant.

29 Cf. Atkinson, I Cried, 133–144.

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2 Qumran Barkhi Nafshi Hymns Five fragmentary manuscripts from Qumran (4Q434–438) preserve partial collections of the Barkhi Nafshi hymns.30 The Barkhi Nafshi collections consist of poetic texts that are described by the editors Moshe Weinfeld and David Seely as “hymns of thanksgiving – praising and thanking the Lord for his deliverance and continued grace.”31 The Qumran Barkhi Nafshi manuscripts contain different sized collections of such praise-oriented hymns. I have previously suggested that the barkhi nafshi are a particular type of hymn that each praise one specific aspect of God by its manifestation in the past and the present as well as expected actions of this kind in the future. In the extant barkhi nafshi type hymns found in the MT Psalter and the Qumran Barkhi Nafshi collections, these themes are, for example, God’s (merciful) recompense for the sins of the people (Ps 103), God the

30 The title is derived from the opening words of the compositions, ‫( ברכי נפשי את אדוני‬4Q434 1 1; 4Q437 1 1), which parallels the blessing formulas used at the beginning and end of MT Psalms 103 and 104 (note the use of ‫ אדוני‬instead of the tetragrammaton in the composition[s] found at Qumran). For the editio princeps, see Weinfeld and Seely, “434–438. 4QBarkhi Nafshia-e,” 255– 334. Most of the studies dealing exclusively with the Barkhi Nafshi have been conducted by the editors; see, Moshe Weinfeld, “Grace after Meals in Qumran [4Q434],” JBL 111 (1992): 427–440; David Seely, “The Barki Nafshi Texts (4Q434–439),” in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conference on the Texts from the Judean Desert, Jerusalem, 30 April 1995, ed. Donald W. Parry and Stephen D. Ricks, STDJ 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 194–214; idem, “The ‘Circumcised Heart’ in 4Q434 Barki Nafshi,” RevQ 65–68 (1996): 527–535; idem, “4Q437: A First Look at an Unpublished Barki Nafshi Text,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues, ed. Donald W. Parry and Eugene Ulrich, STDJ 30 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 147–160; idem, “Implanting Pious Qualities as a Theme in the Barki Nafshi Hymns,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997, ed. Lawrence Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, and James C. VanderKam (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 322–331. For other studies on the Barkhi Nafshi, see, e.g., Edward M. Cook, “A Thanksgiving for God’s Help (4Q434 II–III),” in Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology, ed. Mark Kiley (London: Routledge, 1997), 14–17; George Brooke, “Body Parts in Barkhi Nafshi and the Qualifications for Membership of the Worshiping Community,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies Oslo 1998. Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller, STDJ 35 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 79–94; Elisha Qimron, “Improving the Editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls (4): Benedictions,” [Hebrew] in Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls VI, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher and Devorah Dimant (Jerusalem: University of Haifa Bialik Institute, 2006), 191–200. 31 For the overlaps between the manuscripts, see the charts in Seely, “A First Look,” 149; Weinfeld and Seely, “434–438. 4QBarkhi Nafshia-e,” 256. For problems relating to the overall sequence of text proposed by the editors, see Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure,” 356–357.



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creator and supporter of all life (Ps 104), God’s wonderful deeds in the history, contemporary context, and expected future of a community, and God’s loving kindness shown to an individual (Qumran Barkhi Nafshi). The extant portions of the Qumran Barkhi Nafshi collections contain hymns written from two different perspectives: one is a communal perspective that draws its imagery from the experiences of a group (see esp. 4Q434), and the other approaches topics from the perspective of an individual (cf. 4Q436 1, 4Q437 2).32 These hymns have thus far been sorely neglected in scholarship but one of the questions debated has been their provenance and more particularly whether the Barkhi Nafshi originate from the Qumran movement or not. Weinfeld and Seely argue for a sectarian origin due to thematic and lexical connections with the texts usually associated with the Qumran movement, particularly the S traditions and Hodayot.33 However, George Brooke has appropriately pointed out the absence of any explicit sectarian vocabulary in the extant fragments, and argues that the Barkhi Nafshi are probably not sectarian compositions.34 While this study is not meant to decide this issue, some of the conclusions will also have ramifications regarding this question. In the following, the texts on the four main fragments of the Barkhi Nafshi will be analyzed consecutively. The texts on the fragments probably stem from at least three different hymns and include both communal and individual perspectives. The smaller fragments in the manuscripts do not add anything particularly significant to the overall picture emerging from these four passages; indeed they, too, display similar motifs, so these passages give a good indication of the central issues in these hymns.35 The different textual connections presented in this study have for the most part already been noted and listed by Weinfeld and Seely, and myself, but the meaning of the different connections and their overall significance has not yet been explored in depth.

32 See further Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure,” 348–363. 33 Weinfeld and Seely, “434–438. 4QBarkhi Nafshia-e,” 258–261. Cf. Seely, “The Barki Nafshi,” 211–213; idem, “Implanting Pious,” 323–324, 330–331; Barry D. Smith, “‘Spirit of Holiness’ as Eschatological Principle of Obedience,” in Christian Beginnings and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John J. Collins and Craig A. Evans (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 95–97. 34 Brooke, “Body Parts,” 79–83, 93–94. 35 See, esp. Seely, “The Barki Nafshi,” 208–210; idem, “The ‘Circumcised Heart,’” 528–534; idem, “A First Look,” 150–160; idem, “Implanting Pious,” 325–330, Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure,” 352–363.

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2.1 The New Exodus (4Q434 1)36 Translation: 1Bless, O my soul, the Lord for all of his wonderful acts forever. And blessed be his name! For he has delivered the soul of the poor, and the 2humble he has not despised, and he has not forgotten the distress of the helpless. He has opened his eyes to the helpless, and the cry of the orphans he has heard, and he has turned his ears to 3their cry. In his abundant mercy he was gracious to the humble, and he opened their eyes to see his ways, and their ears to hear 4his teaching. And he circumcised the foreskins of their hearts, and delivered them because of his loving kindness, and he set their feet to the way. In their abundant distress he did not abandon them, 5and into the hands of ruthless men he did not give them, and with the wicked he did not judge them. He did not kindle his wrath against them, and he did not destroy them 6in his anger. Though all his fiery anger was not exhausted, in the fire of (his) zeal he did not judge them. 7 He judged them in his abundant mercy, the judgments of affliction were to test them. But he increased his mercy, and he hid them among the Gentiles, and [ ] 8man he delivered them. He did not judge them (amidst) the multitude of the Gentiles, and he did not [ ] them among the peoples. And he has hid them in [ ] 9and he has made darkness light before them, and the crooked places straight, and he has revealed to them stores of peace and truth. He h[as set] 10to a measure their breath, their words he has meted out by weight, and has made them sing like flutes. For he has given them ano[th]er heart, and they walk in the w[ay] of [ ]. 11In the way of his heart he has also brought them near, for they have pledged [with] their spirit. He has sent and fenced about [them,] and he has commanded [ever]y plague not to [touch (them.)] 12vacat 12 His angel encamps around (them), watching over them lest [Beli]al destroy them. [And upon] 13their enemies [he will b]low [in] his [fie]ry wrath to consu[me them.] And his anger….

This opening passage of the hymn is centered on the experience of a community who describe themselves as the poor and the distressed. God heard their cry and did not abandon them. On the contrary, he opened their eyes and ears and taught them his ways. This is strikingly similar to the beginning of Psalm 103 (esp. vv. 6–10): “6The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (NRSV). The formal similarities with the alternating positive and negative clauses are reinforced by the close thematic connections in the content. Just as God brings justice to the oppressed in Psalm 103:6, he hears the cries of the needy and acts in 4Q434. Just as he showed his way to Moses in Psalm 103:7, he opens the eyes of the community to see his way and puts their feet on it. Neither does he stay angry (Ps 103:9) with

36 The translation is taken from Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure,” 354–359. It follows the Hebrew text presented there.



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his people, nor does he punish them or the community in 4Q434 with the fullest measure. He is merciful and gracious (Ps 103:8), and this is also given as the basis for his actions on behalf of the community. The author of 4Q434 obviously imitates the structure and themes of Psalm 103 in this instance, and because of this the differences between the passages are especially significant. Perhaps the most remarkable of these is that in 4Q434 the ways of God are revealed to the community, not to the whole of Israel. In fact, the nation or its history is not mentioned in the Barkhi Nafshi at all (except for the sins of the fathers in 4Q434 1ii 3), and the saving acts of God encompass only those done in the history of the community; the exodus traditions, for example, are not directly taken up, which is rather remarkable when recalling how central this event is in the psalms from previous centuries, like Psalms 78 and 105, that discuss the past of a larger number of people. However, the sequence of ideas and the sources used reveal that the author is in fact describing the saving of the community in 4Q434 1 as another exodus. First, God has saved the community from among the Gentiles, then he has led them to a place in the wilderness where his angel encamps around them, and during this journey God has revealed to them his ways. If 4Q434 2 presented below is part of the same hymn, the community is now waiting for future fulfilment of further prophecies that will happen when they enter Jerusalem. This line of events is basically the same as exodus from the deliverance from Egypt through Sinai to the sight of the land from the Transjordan under the protection of an angel (Exod 23:20–23; cf. Exod 13:20–22). So while the original exodus is not mentioned in the Barkhi Nafshi, its basic components are imitated in this description of the foundational journey of the community with the significant change that the community does not rebel as its forefathers did but rather perfectly follows where God leads. This recalls the way the Psalms of Solomon depicted the righteous group as better than their forefathers that were placed by God in a similar situation. And indeed, in addition to the concrete act of saving that is recalled by the community, the first hymn describes in strong exodus imagery a perceived spiritual transformation that followed this saving act. What was dark and obscure before, has been turned into light by God, and it continues to be clear to the community. Similarly, a crooked path was straightened by God and it remains so in the present. The concrete images of turning darkness into light and the ragged country into a plain are used here metaphorically to describe a change in the perception of the community that God has bestowed upon them. God has also revealed to them stores of peace and truth because they walk (both in the past and the present) in God’s ways and pledge with their hearts, etc. The allusions to Isaiah 42:16 (‫ ;אשים מחשך לפניהם לאור ומעקשים למישור‬4Q434 1 9: ‫ותתן לפניהם‬ ‫ )מחשכים לאור ומעקשים למישור‬and Jeremiah 33:6 (‫;וגליתי להם עתרת שלום ואמת‬

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4Q434 1 9: ‫ )ויגיל להם עתירות שלום ואמת‬in these cola imply that the community believes these prophecies have come true in these events of their past. It needs to be recognized that both of these prophecies concern the restoration of Israel from the exile because the motif of returning occurs recurrently in the Barkhi Nafshi hymns. Indeed, in 4Q434 1 3–4 a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 29:3 (“But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear” [NRSV]) seems to be described. The passage from Deuteronomy states that before that particular day in the Transjordan, God had not let his people understand what they had seen and heard, which once more connects the return of the community from exile with the exodus traditions as a paradigm of the restoration. Now the community of the Barkhi Nafshi hymns, substituting themselves for the whole people of Israel, is declaring that the day has arrived only now. God has transformed them by giving them a special understanding of his will that was lacking before. Other traditions alluded to in this hymn are from passages explicitly related to God protecting the pious who are faithful to him, for example, Jeremiah 20:13 and Psalms 34:8,16, and 37:32–33. It seems clear that the community felt they had been, and continued to be, protected by God against their adversaries because of their elect status and piety.

2.2 Expectations for the Future and the Ending of a Hymn (4Q434 2)37 Translation: 1[ ] so that (the) poor woman may be comforted for her mourning [ ] 2to [de]stroy peoples and cut down nations and wicked [ ] renew 3the works of heaven and earth, and let them rejoice, and his glory to fill [all the earth] to atone [for] their [guil]t. 4And the one abounding in goodness will comfort them. Goodness [ ] to eat 5its fruit and goodness. vacat [ ] vacat 6As a person whom his mother comforts, so he will comfort them in Jerusal[em, as a bridegroom] on a bride, on her 7he will dwel[l forev]er [fo]r his throne is forever and ever and his glory [ ] and all peoples 8[ ] to him and the hos[t of heav]en will be in it, and their precious [l]and 9[ ] glor[y] [ ] I will bless the 10[ ] Blessed be the name of the highe[st! vacat?] vacat 11[ ] Bless[ ] your grace upon me….

The second segment of text contains the remains of the ending of a hymn. The passage recounts the future hopes of the community that God will act by destroying the nations and the wicked, renewing the works of heaven and earth, and

37 The translation is taken from Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure,” 361–362, and it follows the Hebrew text presented there.



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letting the community rejoice in prosperity in Jerusalem. The imagery is taken mainly from the last parts of Isaiah (esp. 54:11; 62:5; 65:17–18; 66:13), which contain prophecies concerning the future restoration and glory of Israel that are now applied to the Barkhi Nafshi community. The fulfillment of these past promises of God is what the community obviously expects to happen in its own future. Furthermore, lines 4–5 seems to contain an allusion to Nehemiah 9:36 (“Here we are, slaves to this day – slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts [NRSV]), a passage reflecting upon the anguish of the people living under foreign rule, but if there is a connection, the Barkhi Nafshi would seem to constitute a reversal of this fate and, hence, a reversal of exile. While the language of transformation and the fulfillment of prophecies is very similar to the first hymnic passage discussed, the difference is that this passage is discussing events that have not yet happened.38 The images of a mourning woman and God comforting her and of returning to dwell in Jerusalem in glory again connect with exilic imagery, but this time with the fate of Jerusalem and its people in the hands of foreign conquerors that will finally be reversed in the near future. This is also a significant point of contact with the expectations of the community behind the Psalms of Solomon, with the important difference that the Barkhi Nafshi do not contain clear references to a messiah. Another noteworthy connection between the collections is the predominance of prophecies from Isaiah (and psalms) when dealing with the expectations of a future restoration.

2.3 Transformation of a Penitent (4Q436 1)39 Translation: 1understanding, to strengthen the heart of the contrite, and continually to make (him) delight in it; to comfort the poor in the time of their distress, and the hands of the fall[en] 2to raise up; to make vessels of knowledge, to give knowledge to the wise, and that the upright may gain more learning; to gain understanding about 3your deeds which you have done in the years of old, the years of generation after generation; (to meditate on) the eternal understanding which 4[yo]u [have set] before me, and how you have kept your law before me, and have confirmed your covenant for me. And you have prevailed over the heart 5[of the contrite], so that he should walk in your ways. You have commanded my heart, and my inmost parts you have taught well, lest your statutes be forgotten. 6[On my heart] you [have enjoined] your law, on my inmost parts you have engraved it; and you have prevailed

38 The Hebrew tenses are intentionally used in the Barkhi Nafshi to differentiate between the past, present, and future. 39 The translation and Hebrew edition follow Weinfeld and Seely, “434–438. 4QBarkhi Naf­ shia-e.”

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upon me, so that I pursue after you[r] ways, 7[and perform all] your [good plea]sure. And you have made my mouth like a sharp sword, and my tongue you have set loose to (utter) holy words. And you have set 8[upon them] a bridle, that they not meditate upon the deeds of mankind, upon the destruction (emerging from) his lips. My foot you have strengthened, 9[ ] and with your hand you have caught hold of my right hand, and you have sent me forth in the straigh[t 10the heart of stone] you have [dri]ven with rebukes far from me, and have set a pure heart in its place. The evil inclination [you] have driven with rebukes [from my inmost parts] 11[ ] vacat [ ii 1[and the spirit of ho]liness you have set in my heart. Adulterousness of the eyes you have removed from me, and it gazed upon [all] 2[your ways. The s]tiffness of neck you have sent away from me, and you have made it into humility. Wrathful anger you have removed [from me, and have set] 3[in me a spirit of lo]ng-suffering. Haughtiness of heart and arrogance of eyes you have for[got]ten to reckon to me. [A spirit of deceit] 4[you have destroyed] and a [bro]ken heart you have given to me. The inclina[tion (…)

This hymn is written from the perspective of an individual. The extant material contains praise to God for the complete transformation of the person. The hymn uses a great deal of body imagery to describe this transformation, but the main idea remains the same throughout. God has given the person knowledge and understanding concerning the correct way of fulfilling his law and hence of how to follow God’s way instead of the basic human inclination (l. 10). The transformation of human nature (‫ )יצר‬that is described in Genesis (esp. 2:1; 6:5; 8:21), and many other texts,40 as something either inherent in humans or a cause of some transgressions, is one of the most remarkable images in this hymn. The hymnist draws his imagery from two sources in particular. The most important is Second Isaiah. With its strong language of transformation, it is well suited to be used in such a context. However, the use of such passages as Isaiah 49:2 (“He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away” [NRSV]) that is alluded to in the hymn underlines the special position of the hymnist. He is God’s chosen servant that God has elected to make his will manifest (other close affinities are found in Isa 41:10,13; 42:6; 45:1; 48:16; 51:18; 57:15; 61:1,2). The second significant source of the hymn is Psalm 51 from which three verses, 12–13 and 19, have been used in lines 1i 10 to 1ii 4. Psalm 51 is a penitential psalm of an individual that is situated in the current superscript to David’s repentance over his sins concerning Bathsheba. Perhaps for this reason Psalm 51 seems to have been used as a paradigmatic expression of penitence in a number

40 See, for example, Eibert Tigchelaar, “The Evil Inclination in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a ReEdition of 4Q468i (4QSectarian Text?),” in Empsychoi Logoi  – Religious Innovations in Antiquity: Studies in Honour of Pieter Willem van der Horst, ed. Alberdina Houtman, Albert de Jong, and Magda Misset-van de Weg, AJEC 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 347–357.



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of writings, such as Paul’s usage of this Psalm in Romans 5.41 But in the Barkhi Nafshi hymn the petitions in Psalm 51 have already received a positive answer. A penitent sinner has been transformed by God into his pious servant faithfully following his ways.

2.4 Praise of God’s Faithfulness (4Q437 2i)42 Translation: 1] from the congregation of the seekers after [ ]2 [ a net] they have hid for me to catch me, and they have pursued [my] so[ul] 3[ ] But their [swo]rd [entered] into their own heart and their bows were broken [ 4 Because of all th]is I will bless your name while I live, for you have delivered me from the snare of the gentil[es ] 5[ pe]oples. But your mercies are to me a buckler round about, and you have preserved my soul amidst the gentiles, and among [ 6 ] you have [not] made those that love me ashamed of me, your commandments I have not forgotten. In the anguish of [my] soul [you have not 7 forsaken me no]r have you hidden your face from my supplications. But all my groanings you have seen, and [my] iniquities [ 8 When] my spirit was fainting away [be]fo[re me] in my affliction you heard my voice. In your quiver [you] hi[d me, and in the shadow of your hand 9you concealed] me; and you made me into a sharp arrow, and in the shel[ter] of your palm you hid me. 10[And from the mire] you delivered me lest I drown in it, and from the river of the Gentiles, lest [it] sweep over me, and from [ 11 and I sink in] its [d]ep[t]hs. vacat And from the underworld you have brought up my sou[l]; life you have set [before me. 12And the congregation of Men of] Portent [you] have made to si[t] before me, and with children of righteousness you have consoled me. And according to the measuring line of ju[dg]ment you have gladdened 13[my soul and according to the plummet ] of righteousness you have enlivened my spirit. vacat I will bless the Lord with a[ll my strength,] 14and I will praise] with my heart’s rejoicing his [go]odness. You, Lord, I have remembered, and my heart is unshakeable b[efore] you. I have hoped 15[for your salvation, O Lor]d, [ ] have I remembered. And my heart has rejoiced; in you will my h[orn] be exalted. [My soul] thirsts [ 16 my] soul [cl]eaves [af]ter you; on your deeds will I meditate. I have remembered you on my [cou]ch, in the night-watches….

The fourth and final passage from a hymn to be discussed here is also written from the perspective of an individual. It resembles the first group hymn in describing past events and the saving deeds of God as well as the current circumstances of the hymnist. Gentiles seem to have been at the heart of the prior threat to the hymnist, and God has delivered him from their midst (cf. Lev 26:45). Once more the theme of the return, or end of exile, is evident in the message of these hymns.

41 See further the article of Marika Pulkkinen in this volume. 42 The translation and Hebrew edition follow Weinfeld and Seely, “434–438. 4QBarkhi Nafshia-e.”

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The sources used are again almost entirely from certain psalms and Isaiah with some of the same passages used in the other hymns also employed in this one, such as Psalm 37:15, Isaiah 49:2, and 57:16. These passages once more recall the notion of transformation, which is also reinforced in this hymn by the use of Psalm 69:3,15–16, which is a prayer of a penitent sinner and a suffering servant. But there is again a reversal in the Barkhi Nafshi so that the psalmist’s plea for help in Psalm 69 because he is drowning in the torrents and the deeps has been answered by God in an act of salvation. Thus, this is once more a case where a prophecy has been interpreted by the Barkhi Nafshi hymnist as having been fulfilled in the recent past. The possible reference to “Men of Portent” in line 12 may in turn derive from the prophecy of Zechariah 3:8 about the servant of God, the Branch. Thus, taken together with the other prophetic passages from Second Isaiah and Psalms already noted, the theme of God’s special servant seems to be a constant theme in both hymns written from the perspective of an individual. Another frequent source of imagery that connects this hymn with the first group hymn in 4Q434 1 is that of divine protection. This imagery derives again directly from the psalms, this time particularly from Psalms 31:21 and 91:3–4. Such special protection is available only to God’s chosen ones, or this is how at least Psalm 91 has been typically used in texts from the late Second Temple period (e.g., 11Q11 VI 3–13; Matt 4:6; Luke 10:17–19). The final lines of the extant hymn are intriguing. They describe the clinging of the speaker to God and his promises. These cola are taken from Psalm 63:2,7, and 9 which is described in the MT as David’s psalm that he composed while in the Judean desert, a setting also mentioned in verse 2 of the psalm, which is partly used in the Barkhi Nafshi hymn. This is a second possible reference to the community being in the desert in the literary setting of these hymns, the first being in 4Q434 7, which uses a prophecy from Hosea 2:16–20 to describe a future movement from the desert to the gates of hope.43 Naturally such clues cannot be taken as historical references but they do offer insights as to the kind of associations the psalmist was making when composing these hymns; that is, the community understood itself to be on a path but not yet at the end of the road. And more particularly, the community is akin to Israel camping in the Transjordan just before crossing over to the promised land. This deliberate use of exodus motifs also warns against too literal interpretations of this imagery. To sum up some of the main aspects of these hymns: First, there is no people of Israel to be found in these hymns but only a special segment. The hymns plainly speak of an elect group that is called, e.g., the “Men of Portent” and chil-

43 See further, Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure,” 360–361.



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dren of righteousness (4Q437 2i 12), the poor (4Q434 1i 1), the helpless (4Q434 1i 2, 4Q436 1i 1), the humble (4Q434 1i 2, 3), and the chosen ones (4Q438 3 2). As with the Qumran movement, this community also has a perception of itself as performing the law correctly in front of men and God (4Q434 1 1 and 1QHa). The community appears to consider itself as the heir to the promises God made to Israel and to be in the midst of a second perfected exodus. Prophecies have come true in their past, some are constantly in effect, like the divine protection and the understanding provided by God, and it is their expectation that other prophecies will continue to be fulfilled in their future. Second, the Barkhi Nafshi use as sources almost exclusively psalms and other prophetic traditions, particularly Second Isaiah. This is quite similar to many other texts discovered at Qumran as well as the New Testament. Yet it definitely tells something significant about the community and its self-identification. At the time the Barkhi Nafshi were composed, the two categories of highly regarded ancestral traditions were the Law and the Prophets,44 and the psalms were counted among the prophets. Thus, nearly all the direct usage of earlier traditions in both the Psalms of Solomon and the Barkhi Nafshi is from the prophetic corpus. This may in part be a genre question or related to the poetic form of the texts, yet it is something that certainly displays the centrality of prophecies for these authors when trying to explain contemporary events. Third, on the level of the text of the hymns, there are several recurring motifs that have already been noted and that are not dependent on whether the perspective in the hymn is that of an individual or a group. A past event of salvation by God has led to a spiritual transformation that seems to also encompass, at least on the ideological level, a return from exile. The community identify themselves as pious servants of God who have been given special insight on how to traverse God’s road, that is, how to follow the law correctly. At the end of their exodus they can anticipate the granting of Jerusalem and the land, which are the rightful portion of the elect of God.45

44 See, e.g., Timothy Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). 45 On this theme, see further Pajunen, The Land to the Elect, 298–309.

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2.5 Transformation from Exile to the Land, and from Penitence to Praise This language of transformation in the Barkhi Nafshi stands in sharp contrast to the penitential prayers of the preceding centuries, such as Nehemiah 9, Ezra 9, and Daniel 9. These expressed in petitionary form the hope that God would forgive his people and end the continuing exile. And as we have seen, the Psalms of Solomon also shared this basic perception while in the end expectantly declaring that the time of restoration was finally at hand. But in the Barkhi Nafshi hymns, God has already brought the community near to him, and taught them the correct path, and so through divinely given understanding they are able to fulfill the law and the covenant (4Q434 1 and 4Q436 1). God’s actions have thus ended the exile of the community. Whether this should be seen as an actual historical event of returning to the land or as an ideological transformation representing the end of exile is not evident, nor are they mutually exclusive alternatives. This sense of a reversal of fortunes, and the dominance of praise for God’s actions is also evident in the interpretation of the prophecies, as was just demonstrated. It is possible that the brief independent period of the Hasmonean kingdom was thought by some as the end of the exile, which might be perceivable in the final prayers of the Words of the Luminaries, but this is quite speculative, and besides it is obvious that the return from exile in the Barkhi Nafshi only pertains to this specific community. This concept of transformation finds significant counterparts in the Qumran Hodayot and in Paul’s letters: only God is able to remove the sinful state of humans. In the Barkhi Nafshi it is also only through the actions of God that the eyes of the community were opened and only through the giving of special understanding by God are they able to follow the law correctly and live in accordance with the way and will of God, thus fulfilling the covenant. Similarly, in the Qumran Hodayot human nature is seen as lowly and ruled by evil instincts and humans are incapable of changing these themselves.46 It is only through the actions of God that these psalmists perceive themselves to have gained insight that allows them to transcend this basic nature, indeed even to perceive it as such, and to act in accordance with God’s will. What these psalm collections demonstrate, among other things, is that the idea that God is needed to defeat basic human nature is not something that Paul invented ex nihilo, as many commentators have suggested, but it is rather an adaptation of older models and concepts.

46 Cf. Carol Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space, 191–286.



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3 Conclusions The Law and the Prophets, the two categories of revered ancestral traditions in the late Second Temple period, are both well represented in the Psalms of Solomon and the Barkhi Nafshi. The law is mainly found in connection with the correct way of observing it that guarantees both communities a special place in God’s plans and in the concept of covenant loyalty, not in discussing specific practices regulated by it. The emphasis in these psalms is predominantly on the fulfillment of prophecies and their anticipation. This is a perspective that should also be better reflected in the scholarly discussions. When the fragmented Jewish society of the late Second Temple period is discussed, the roots of the disagreements are still found mainly in the interpretation of the law and its practical application. But the interpretation of the prophetic corpus also served as an important way of distinguishing specific groups and frequently highlights the theological differences between the groups more prominently than disputes concerning laws. As can be seen in these two psalm collections, both categories of traditions are of the highest importance for the communities, practicing the law correctly and living true to the prophecies. Furthermore, both psalmists are similar also in that they drew on ancestral traditions to explain the current circumstances of their groups, perceived themselves as part of a special group, and wrote prophecies concerning the coming days. The same is true for the Qumran movement as well; they too had their own interpretation of the law, and they regarded themselves as the heirs to the prophecies. Their exclusivist interpretation of the prophecies is found not only in the pesharim and other commentaries, but is also embedded, for instance, in the D traditions. Similarly, the followers of Jesus not only differed from other Jewish groups in their interpretation of the law but also in how they understood the prophecies. It may well be that not all Jewish groups were as concerned about the prophecies but these examples show that for some groups they were of the highest importance, and this seems to have been the case at least with the group whose members composed the Barkhi Nafshi hymns, but also to some degree with the community behind the Psalms of Solomon. Focusing on the function of prophecies in psalm collections this study has also highlighted the danger of interpreting vague historical references too literally. The exodus motif, exile motif, and individual prophecies are intertwined in these psalm collections in such a way that while some of the details probably go back to historical realities, they are hard to distinguish from the modifications needed for the contemporary events to correlate with particular prophecies or paradigmatic events in the past. In view of this typology, Brooke’s cautionary remarks concerning the provenance of the Barkhi Nafshi seem even more appro-

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priate and some of this caution should probably be extended to the study of the historical clues in the Psalms of Solomon as well. A similar cautionary example of such dangers is the group term “poor,” which has frequently been interpreted as concretely materially poor people. But the group terms used in these psalms, such as the poor, the needy, and the humble seem to have been something nearly all Jewish groups during this time identified with, such as the groups of Jesus believers in the New Testament, the Hasidim in the psalms, and the groups in the Psalms of Solomon and the Barkhi Nafshi hymns as well as the Qumran movement. The poor and the needy are social groups that are, especially in the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible but also in Deuteronomy, promised a special place in God’s plans. Thus, it is only natural that at some point specific groups started to identify themselves with these social groups in the spiritual sense even if their lot in the material world was much better (cf. 4QInstruction). Therefore, these specific terms do not necessarily say anything about the economic standing of particular groups. To conclude, the Barkhi Nafshi hymns and the Psalms of Solomon constitute prime examples of psalms using earlier psalms as prophecies and containing prophetic expectations in psalmic form. Both psalm collections discuss the past, the present and the future. In both collections the choice of prophecies is strongly governed by the prototypical precedents in the ancestral traditions closest to the current experiences of the groups, particularly the exodus tradition in the Barkhi Nafshi hymns and the exile traditions in the Psalms of Solomon. Interestingly, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations were used in these psalms mainly for describing the invasion of 586 BCE and its aftermath whereas Isaiah and psalms were typically employed for the more positive events and the hope for future restoration. The use of prior traditions and motifs is not that surprising in and of itself but in both cases the chosen precedent is much more pronounced overall than in most of the Qumran interpretive texts or New Testament writings. By looking at past events in order to understand the present situation and the near future, the authors of these psalms used the prototypical motifs of the exodus and the judgment of the exile to create explanations for how and why the divine silence had finally ended and what this would mean for the immediate future of their groups.

Part 5: Psalms, Prayers, History and Identity It is no exaggeration to say that questions of identity and identity politics occupy much of the discussion in the present Liberal Arts academy. Previous generations of psalms scholars have for the most part set aside in-depth inquiries about identity, often because the texts written for worship usually contain more general theological language and were written to obfuscate indicators pointing to one particular community or another. Ancient documents are not, however, immune to modern concerns and questions, nor should they be. In “Those Who Pray Together Stay Together: The Role of Late Psalms in Creating Identity,” Marc ­Brettler examines a number of post-exilic psalms and the rhetorical function they serve to fashion group identity – to include some while excluding others. Through a careful reading of a number of psalms he highlights theological differences that caused social division between groups of the late Second Temple period. In the fashioning of identity, history plays an important role; regarding Israelite or early Jewish identity, it is key in determining Israel against her neighbors, or true Israel against apostates. George Brooke takes up the task in “Praying History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Memory, Identity, Fulfilment” of examining how Israel’s history is re-presented in the so-called historical psalms. He then provides three examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls (i.e., Temple Scroll, Rule of the Community, and Eschatological Commentary A) in which key texts and traditions represented in the so-called historical psalms are echoed and reused in significant ways to help foster and shape a certain memory of events which in turn plays a role in the fashioning of identity. Anja Klein draws upon many of the same historical psalms (Pss 78, 105, 106, Neh 9) in her article, “Fathers and Sons: Family Ties in the Historical Psalms.” She makes the argument that Israel’s history constitutes the story of a family, and that in some historical psalms such as Psalms 78 and 105, the supplicants seek to disassociate themselves from the actions of previous generations. In Psalm 106 and Nehemiah 9, however, this connection is maintained and the supplicants place upon themselves the duty not only to confess their sins, but also the sins of previous generations.

Marc Zvi Brettler

Those Who Pray Together Stay Together: The Role of Late Psalms in Creating Identity The expression “Those who pray together stay together” highlights an important function of prayer in many religions: fostering and reinforcing social cohesion.1 For this reason, certain prayers are not addressed to the deity but to members of the community, and help to bind the community together. This function of prayer has not received the attention it deserves in relation to the book of Psalms; this article attempts to begin to redress this gap. It is suggestive, rather than comprehensive in nature, and I hope that others will explore, extend, and nuance the following observations.

1 Definitions The typical definition of prayer as “A solemn request to God, a god, or other object of worship; a supplication or thanksgiving addressed to God or a god,” is inadequate for biblical prayer in general and for the Psalms in particular, since many of these do not address God directly.2 Thus, this article will utilize Greenberg’s broader definition of prayer, as “speech to God – less often about God (…).”3 “Identity” is widely used in biblical studies, but often not defined. This article employs the understanding of identity developed recently by Ohad David and Daniel Bar-Tal.4 They begin with Henri Tajfel’s definition of social identity: “that part of the self-concept of the individual that derives from his knowledge

1 This slogan was coined by the “Rosary Priest,” Patrick Peyton (1909–1992). 2 This is the first definition of “prayer” in the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Prayer," http://www. oed.com/view/Entry/149435?p=emailA8o/BrkwYJaPg&d=149435 (accessed January 11, 2015). 3 Moshe Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer: As a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 7. 4 Ohad David and Daniel Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception of Collective Identity: The Case of National Identity as an Example,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 13 (2009): 354–379. Article Note: I would like to thank Mr. Lenin Prado for assistance in preparing this article, and the members of the Colloquium for Biblical Research, the faculty and students who attended lectures at Yale University, New York University, and the University of Helsinki, as well as other readers, for their helpful comments and questions on earlier versions of this article. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-015

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about his membership in a social group(s), and from the value and the emotional meaning that accompany this membership.”5 They go on to note: “Social identity (…) serves as a foundation for the explanation of how large numbers of people can be mobilized and then act in coherent and meaningful ways on the basis of a shared social reality reflected in group norms, values, and understandings.”6 They identify social identity with “the notion of we-ness.”7 David and Bar-Tal suggest that collective identity is comprised of the following “six fundamental generic features:” “a sense of common fate;” “the perception of the uniqueness of the collective and its distinction from other collectives;” “coordinated activity of the collective’s members;” “commonality of beliefs, attitudes, norms, and values;” “concern for the welfare of the collective and mobilization and sacrifice for its sake;” and “continuity and consecutiveness in the dimension of time.”8 They note that all six of these features need not be equally present to define collective identity. They furthermore observe that such identities are content-based,9 and may utilize “collective memory,” which is not “an objective history of the past but a story about that past that is functional and relevant to the society’s present existence and future aspirations,” and creates “a socially constructed narrative that has some basis in actual events but is biased, selective, and distorted in ways that meet present societal needs.”10 Such memories, which may include “foundational myths,” along with “[s]hared societal beliefs,” are often altered with changing times and needs.11

2 Identity in Later Christianity and Judaism Both Judaism and Christianity offer clear examples of how prayer creates and/ or solidifies identity.12 I begin with some well-known examples that are several centuries later than the Hebrew Bible because they so clearly illustrate the under-

5 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 355; see also Henri Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 255. 6 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 355. 7 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 356. 8 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 361–366. 9 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 367. 10 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 369. 11 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 364, 369–369, 371. 12 This is especially true when the prayer is new; at later points in time, prayers are often recited by many worshippers in a rote fashion with little attention to their content.



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appreciated fact that some prayers play an important role in group-identity formation. For example, the Nicene Creed was developed in 325 CE as an antiArian polemic, aimed at creating dividing lines between different early Christian groups.13 Recitation of creeds took on greater importance at times of conflict, precisely because their recitation helped foster group definition.14 Christian creeds could be recited in either the first person singular or plural form, depending on their origin and function, and were typically recited in public, creating group identity.15 Thus, it would not be prudent, to adopt language well-known from the study of Psalms, to draw a functional distinction between “creeds of the individual” versus “creeds of the community.” Several post-biblical Jewish prayers, such as Yigdal and Birkat HaMinim also created and solidified identity.16 Similarly, the blessing created in the post-Talmudic period over the Sabbath lights was created to distinguish rabbinate Jews from Karaites.17 Prayers on both sides helped to distinguish Jews and Samaritans. The Samaritans’ Common Prayer explicitly mentions Mount Gerizim as “the chosen place,” and from the Jewish side, it is likely that the blessings over the prophetic reading (haftarot) highlighted the importance of the prophets in order to distinguish themselves from the Samaritan community, which did not believe that the prophets were part of the canon.18

13 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), vol. 1, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 202–203. 14 Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 457–485. 15 As Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo, 50, observes, “Reflecting their provenance in the catechetical and baptismal pedagogy of the first Christian centuries, many of the earliest creedal fragments that culminate in The Apostles’ Creed are cast in the form of question and answer: ‘Do you believe? I believe.’ In another early tradition that associated with the doctrinal decrees of church synods and councils, beginning with The Creed of Nicaea in 325 CE and The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed defined by the council held at Constantinople in 381 CE, the standard formula is originally not singular but plural: ‘We believe’ [Pisteuomen].” 16 For the texts of these prayers, see Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed., Birkhot Hashachar (Morning Blessings), vol. 5, My People’s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001), 99, and Ruth Langer, Cursing the Christians? A History of the Birkat HaMinim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 17 Lawrence A. Hoffman, The Canonization of the Synagogue Service (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 86–89. 18 See Arthur E. Cowley, ed., The Samaritan Liturgy: The Common Prayers, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), 3, and Yisachar (Bernhard) Jacobson, Netiv Binah [in Hebrew], vol. 2 (Tel-Aviv: Sinai, 1968), 230.

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3 Identity through Prayer at Qumran Moving closer chronologically, the Hodayot (1QHa) are fashioned to create and reinforce group identity. In The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, Carol Newsom notes how the specific language and particular beliefs in the Hodayot around Torah facilitate community and boundaries.19 She also observes that a very powerful instrument for fostering identity “is being called upon to speak about oneself in the presence of the community,”20 indicating that “I” psalms may have the same role as “we” psalms – just like the later credos. Russell C.D. Arnold builds on some of Newsom’s earlier observations, and occasionally speaks of “identity” in his work.21 He discusses the Hodayot under “Rites of Communion,” and shows how the Hodayot foster identity by narrating “shared experience,” “separation from outsiders” and “connection to the angelic realm.”22 Angela Kim Harkins shows how special Qumran vocabulary that appears in 1QHa, e.g., ha-yaḥad (which appears there 13 times), rabbim and related words, and belial (which appears 11 times), foster we-ness.23 I would thus suggest that the term used for these prayers, “The Hymns of the Community,” should mean not only hymns sung by the community (or its representative), but hymns that help create and maintain a community by articulating specific positions concerning group identity. It is with this sense that Mika Pajunen has spoken of “group psalms.”24 Most recently, Esther G. Chazon has used “identity” as an analytic category in exploring how Words of the Luminaries functioned to solidify group identity both in its pre-Qumran and Qumran use.25

19 Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, STDJ 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2004). 20 Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space, 190. 21 Russell C. D. Arnold, The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community, STDJ 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 22 Arnold, The Social Role, 205–208, 214–221. 23 Angela Kim Harkins, “The Community Hymns Classification: A Proposal for Further Differentiation,” DSD 15 (2008): 142–144. 24 Mika S. Pajunen, “The Influence of Societal Changes in the Late Second Temple Period on the Functions and Composition of Psalms,” in Material Philology in the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Approaches for New Text Editions: Proceedings of the International Conference at the University of Copenhagen, 3–5 April, 2014, ed. Kipp Davis and Trine Hasselbalch, STDJ (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), which the author was kind enough to share with me. 25 Esther G. Chazon, “Prayer and Identity in Varying Contexts: The Case of the Words of the Luminaries,” JSJ 46 (2015): 484–511.



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4 Books 4 and 5 of the Psalter as a Post-Exilic Composition Most biblical scholars agree that the psalms in books 4 and 5 of Psalms became part of the Psalter in the postexilic period. These Psalms will serve as the corpus for exploring identity later in this article.26 The late date of Psalms 90–150 as a group is suggested by a number of converging factors. Psalm 89, at the end of book 3, reflects the collapse of the Davidic dynasty with the Babylonian exile, if not later, and the Psalms that follow are likely later still.27 The Psalms in books 1–3 in manuscript 11QPsa largely agree with the MT order, while according to Peter Flint, there is 61% disagreement in books 4 and 5, which suggests that books 4–5 came together at a later period and reflect later compositions.28 All of the Psalms for which Avi Hurvitz found compelling evidence of late biblical Hebrew in his book on dating Psalms are in books 4–5.29 Despite criticism, I still believe his method is valuable for discerning late literature.30 Thus, when dealing with psalms in books 4–5, Psalms 90–150, the working assumption should be that these psalms are postexilic, unless evidence is brought to the contrary. (A late collection may preserve earlier material.) Most of the psalms in books 4–5 are hymns, a genre that is especially prevalent within the original

26 See below, 288–300. 27 See, e.g., Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 406, who date Ps 89 to after 515 BCE. Concerning the development of the MT Psalter, see the excellent summary of Stephen A. Geller, “Psalms,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible, vol. 2, ed. Michael D. Coogan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 194–196. 28 Peter Flint, “Psalms, Book of: Biblical Text,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. 2, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 704; see also Peter Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms, STDJ 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 142–143. Several scholars have suggested that the division between books 4 and 5 is secondary, but this does not affect my argument. 29 Avi Hurvitz, Ben lashon le-lashon: Le-toldot leshon ha-Mikra bi-yeme Bayit sheni [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Byaliḳ, 1972). I have reviewed with Hurvitz some evidence I have found for additional late psalms language in other psalms in books 4–5, and he is sympathetic. 30 Robert Rezetko and Ian Young, Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew: Steps Toward an Integrated Approach, ANEM 9 (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), esp. 84–89, dispute Hurvitz’s method, but see the recent defense in Aaron D. Hornkohl, Ancient Hebrew Periodization and the Language of the Book of Jeremiah: A Case for a Sixth-Century Date of Composition, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 74 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 27–50.

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compositions found at Qumran, contemporaneous or soon after the late biblical period.31

5 Group Identity in Yehud In the last decade, a broad consensus has emerged that different amalgamations of individuals competed over the identity of true Israel.32 Although several studies examining these battles use the term “sect,” or “party,” I believe that “group” is the most appropriate term for describing such amalgamations of individuals.33 Sects refer to “a small, evangelical group which recruits its members by conver-

31 Pajunen, “The Influence of Societal Changes,” has made a similar observation, “The Qumran group’s own psalms are, with very minor exceptions, all grounded on praise and many, if not most, of them have a communal perspective. (…) Actually, the psalms of praise that characterize the final two books of the current Psalter are the ones represented by most of the fragmentary manuscripts from Qumran containing some of the now canonical psalms, not the psalms in books one to three of the Psalter that contain the majority of the lament material.” 32 See Philip R. Davies, The Origins of Biblical Israel, LHB/OTS 485 (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), and Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Judeans, Jews, Children of Abraham,” in Judean and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 461–482. For a survey of the fight over this title, see Graham Harvey, The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Boston: Brill Academic, 2001). 33 See, e.g., William E. Paden, “Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. Peter B. Clark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 36–37. On the role of religion in guaranteeing group identity, see Steve Bruce, “The Social Process of Secularization,” in The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion, ed. Richard K. Fenn (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), 259–260. On the technical meaning of the term “group,” see Susan Hansen and Mark Rapley, “Group(s),” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology, ed. Bryan S. Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 256. Moreover, they are what Cooley would have called “primary groups,” who engaged in “close, face-to-face interaction” rather than groups like “parties” who need not be in regular contact; see Hansen and Rapley, “Group(s),” 256. Paul D. Hanson, The People Called: The Growth of Community in the Bible (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), frequently uses the word “group” in the sense I am using it. In addition, Jutta Jokiranta uses and discusses the terms sect and groups throughout; see Jutta Jokiranta, Social Identity and Sectarianism in the Qumran Movement, STDJ 105 (Leiden: Brill: 2013), esp. pp. 17–76. For a broader discussion of this issue, see Eyal Regev, Sectarianism in Qumran: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, RelSoc 45 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), and David J. Chalcraft, ed., Sectarianism in Early Judaism: Sociological Advances (London: Equinox, 2007).



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sion, and which adopts a radical stance towards the state and society,” and this term often has a negative tinge.34 The older scholarly literature that distinguished only between the returnees and the Samaritans has been superseded by many rich studies that have convincingly shown that many groups competed with each other in this period. These include, for example, Benjaminites, who are now recognized for having a distinct identity from the Judeans.35 Gary Knoppers represents the current consensus by noting that “The very survival of disparate literary works, such as Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Ruth, Second and Third Isaiah, Jonah, Haggai, and Zechariah testifies to the rich diversity of early Second Temple Judaism.”36 He further observes: “The struggles depicted in Ezra-Nehemiah reflect, in part, ongoing Judean arguments about identity, ethnicity, and nationality in an age in which a number of Yahwistic communities existed both within the land and outside of it (…).”37 The view of many of these scholars, however, that the community of returnees was largely monotheistic, should be revisited. It is difficult to believe that

34 John Scott and Gordon Marshall, “Sect (sectarianism),” in A Dictionary of Sociology, ed. John Scott and Gordon Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 587. For a more neutral understanding of “sect,” however, see the classic work by Bryan R. Wilson, The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism: Sects and New Religious Movements in Contemporary Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), esp. p. 47. 35 Daniel E. Fleming, The Legacy of Israel in Judah’s Bible: History, Politics, and the Reinscribing of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 160–161. See also Philip R. Davies, “Saul, Hero and Villain,” in Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, ed. Diana V. Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 131–140; idem, The Origins of Biblical Israel; Joseph Blenkinsopp, David Remembered: Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 28–41. 36 Gary N. Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 168. 37 Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans, 167. The additional literature on this topic is vast; see esp. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming, ed., Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006); Gary Knoppers and Kenneth A. Ristau, ed., Community Identity in Judean Historiography: Biblical and Comparative Perspectives (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009); Louis Jonker, ed., Historiography and Identity (Re)formulation in Second Temple Historiographical Literature, LHBOTS 534 (New York: T&T Clark, 2010); idem, ed., Texts, Contexts and Readings in Postexilic Literature: Explorations into Historiography and Identity Negotiation in Hebrew Bible and Related Texts, FAT 2/53 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 213–237; Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts between the Exiles and the People who Remained (6th-5th Centuries BCE), LHBOTS 543 (New York: T&T Clark, 2013); Ehud Ben Zvi and Diana V. Edelman, ed., Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the Early Second Temple Period, LHBOTS 456 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

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worship of the Queen of Heaven, reflected especially in Jeremiah 44, vanished in Babylonia.38 Texts such as Nehemiah 13:26 reflect concern about non-monotheistic practices. In addition, the evidence from Elephantine militates against a model of exclusive monotheism in this time-period. As Paul-Alain Beaulieu, notes: “Among exilic communities, worship of Yahweh constituted the focus of identity probably only for a minority;” he further observes that the presence of largely Yahwistic names is not a good index of religious practice.39 Similarly, Bob Becking observes, “the Yehudites of Elephantine venerated Yahô, they were not Yahwists in the ‘Deuteronomistic’ sense of the word.”40 These studies over the last decade have made it clear that Yehud was a complex society, and thus all the factors that cause social stratification and group identity in modern societies, as noted by David and Bar-Tal, were operative there. Biblical scholars have outlined some of these, including: “The Role of History, Social Location, and Tradition,” the attitude toward Torah, the way the Torah was interpreted, the understanding of the meaning of exile, attitude toward language and canon, and socio-economic factors.41

38 On the identity of the Queen of Heaven, see the summary by Cornelius Houtman, “Queen of Heaven,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 678–680. 39 Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “Yahwistic Names in Light of Late Babylonian Onomastics,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 258–259. 40 Bob Becking, “Yehudite Identity in Elephantine,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 414–415. 41 See John Kessler, “The Diaspora in Zechariah 1–8 and Ezra-Nehemiah: The Role of History, Social Location, and Tradition in the Formulation of Identity,” in Community Identity in Judean Historiography: Biblical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Gary Knoppers and Kenneth A. Ristau (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 119–145; Joachim Schaper, “Torah and Identity in the Persian Period,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 27–38; Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans, 169–216, in relation to early Samaritan-Jewish interpretation of “the place;” Gary Knoppers, “Exile, Return and Diaspora: Expatriates and Repatriates in Late Biblical Literature,” in Texts, Contexts and Readings in Postexilic Literature: Explorations into Historiography and Identity Negotiation in Hebrew Bible and Related Texts, ed. Louis Jonker, FAT 2/53 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 29–61; Jon L. Berquist, “Constructions of Identity in Postcolonial Yehud,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 53–66; Rainer Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit, GAT 8/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 543–575; Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Die Psalmen I: Psalm 1–50, NEchtB 29 (Würzburg: Echter, 1993), 14–15, although their particular presentation of evidence



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It is also possible to work backwards, as Joseph Blenkinsopp has done recently, following the example of Roger T. Beckwith, who over three decades ago even spoke of proto-Pharisaism, proto-Sadduceeism, and proto-Essenism in the Persian period.42 Many of the conclusions of Beckwith’s study are difficult to uphold now, but his basic thesis that these “sects” did not originate as a reaction against Hellenism, has merit.43 One fundamental difference between the Hellenistic groups and those in the Persian period is that the former are named in some sources (e.g., Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes – though these are not all of the groups that existed then), and their identifying markers may be distinguished, while we cannot associate any named Persian group with its religious characteristics. It is likely, however, that the Ḥasidim and Yirʾei YHWH, referred to in several late psalms, do represent groups, though it is often not clear when these terms are being used in a technical sense, or more generally, as “pious ones” and “those who fear God.”44 Thus, even though Ḥasidim and Yirʾei YHWH may have been known as group names later, they likely referred to groups in an earlier period as well – though not necessarily marking the same constituency.45 (Group names often remain stable, though the identifying characteristics of the group change over time.) The contexts of Psalms 132:9 and 149:1 may suggest that ḥasid there refers to a specific group, as it did in later sources; a similar argument should be made for yir’ei yhwh in Psalms

has been critiqued by Johannes Unsok Ro, “Socio-Economic Context of Post-Exilic Community and Literacy,” ZAW 120 (2008): 597–611. (An attempt to apply this social conflict model to Psalms was made by Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Israel in the Persian Period: The Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E., trans. Siegfried S. Schatzmann [Atlanta: SBL Press, 2011], 234–235.) 42 Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Development of Jewish Sectarianism from Nehemiah to the Hasidim,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Rainer Albertz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 385–404; Roger T. Beckwith, “The Pre-History and Relationships of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes: A Tentative Reconstruction,” RevQ 11 (1982): 3–46. 43 Thus, I do not agree with Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation, JSJSup 55 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). 44 See Joseph Blenkinsopp, “A Jewish Sect of the Persian Period,” CBQ 52 (1990): 5–20 and idem, “Interpretation and the Tendency to Sectarianism: An Aspect of Second Temple History,” in Jewish and Christian Self Definition, vol. 2: Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period, ed. Ed P. Sanders (London: SCM Press, 1981), 21, concerning seeing ‫ אבינים‬,‫ ענוים‬,‫חסידים‬, and ‫ קדׁשים‬as groups. On Hasidim in the later period, see the synthesis of John I. Kampen, “Hasideans,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1:328–329. 45 Hasideans was certainly a group name in the Hellenistic period, as noted in the previous note. Recent studies have suggested that God-fearers was probably not a technical term in the early centuries CE; see now Ross S. Kraemer, “Giving up the Godfearers,” JAJ 5 (2014): 61–87.

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115:11,13 and 118:4. We do not, however, know the identity markers of these two groups in this period, nor the names of other groups. Furthermore, we cannot reconstruct the extent to which different group identities were compatible or contradictory, for then, as now, individuals could belong to a variety of groups.

6 Identity and Post-exilic Psalms: A Broad Picture This and the following section show how late psalms create and/or solidify identity, first by looking at a range of issues concerning group identity in books 4–5 of Psalms, and then by focusing on two psalms. I am not, however, claiming that each of these psalms was written exclusively or even mainly to create or consolidate identity. Many identity issues are taken up in these psalms; I focus on the following six: Jerusalem as the center of Yehud; Yahweh’s incomparability and exclusivity; insisting on a particular version of past sacred history/myth, the place of the Torah, social issues, and theological issues.

6.1 Jerusalem as the Center of Yehud Collective identity is typically created around a country, with a central capital.46 This ideology is reflected in a large number of these psalms, such as Psalm 99:2: ‫ל־ה ַע ִּמים‬ ֽ ָ ‫ל־ּכ‬ ָ ‫יְ הוָ ה ְּב ִצּיֹון ּגָ דֹול וְ ָרם הּוא ַע‬, “The LORD is great in Zion, and exalted above all peoples.” This motif also appears, for example, in Psalms 110:2; 102:22; 128:5; 132; and 147, and in general, is very prominent in the Songs of Ascents.47 This makes sense given Loren Crow’s suggestion that the redactional layer of these Songs is interested in fostering “Jerusalem [as] a center not only for Yehud, but for northern Israelites as well.”48 This is evident, for example, in Psalms 122; 125:1–2; and 129:5, which is part of a larger Psalm that creates and/or solidifies group identity by making derogatory comments about the “other.” The horrific

46 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 367. 47 On Ps 147 and the Jerusalemite royal ideology, see Antti Laato, “Psalm 132 and the Development of the Jerusalemite/Israelite Royal Ideology,” CBQ 54 (1992): 49–66. For a broader discussion, see Corinna Körting, Zion in den Psalmen, FAT 48 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). 48 Loren D. Crow, The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134): Their Place in Israelite History and Religion, SBLDS 148 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 172.



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end of Psalm 137:7, which speaks against Edom and of smashing Babylonian babies against rocks, is similar. Reflecting on the centrality of Zion did not begin in the postexilic period, and has its roots in the pre-exilic royal Davidic ideology.49 Yet, the Psalms in books 4–5 mention Zion disproportionately.50 Several reasons explain this focus: an alternative temple to that in Jerusalem was built on Mount Gerizim, and alternative temples were built in the diaspora as well.51 Furthermore, the Judahites thrived in the Babylonian exile without a temple, and upon their return, took close to two decades to begin rebuilding the second temple – this must reflect the comfort of some to live in a temple-less, or less temple-centered group.52 The psalms noted above reflect an ideology of a different group, for whom the Jerusalem temple was central.

6.2 Yahweh’s Incomparability and Exclusivity53 As I stated earlier, the frequent claim that the early postexilic community was exclusively Yahwistic is erroneous. The land of Israel was not empty during the exile, and non-Yahwistic practices would have continued in the land through the Persian period, especially after some people believed that Yahweh abandoned it.54 This background explains why so many of these late psalms talk about Yahweh’s incomparability or, like Deutero-Isaiah, mock idols and the deities they reflect.

49 Outlining and explaining this tradition’s development was a major contribution of Jimmy J. M. Roberts; see his The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 313–389 and the recent survey in Robert D. Miller II, “The Origin of the Zion Hymns,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 667–675. 50 19 of the 38 references to Zion are in these two books. 51 For temples in Leontopolis and Elephantine, see Anders Runesson, Donald D. Binder, and Birgen Olsson, ed., The Ancient Synagogue from its Origin to 200 C.E.: A Sourcebook (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 195, 275–285. 52 This group’s sentiment is clearly reflected in Hag 1:2. 53 These two concepts are not identical; see Casper J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1966), which remains useful; see esp. 114–123 (“Incomparability and Uniqueness”). 54 On the empty land, see the classic study of Hans M. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), and more recently, Lester L. Grabbe, Ehud Ben Zvi, and Christoph Levin, ed., The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and Its Historical Contexts, BZAW 404 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010). Divine abandonment is a major theme in the book of Ezekiel; see esp. 8:12 and 9:9, and John F. Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel, Biblical and Judaic Studies 7 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000).

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These include verses such as Psalm 97:7 (‫ילים‬ ִ ‫יֵ בֹׁשּו ָּכל־ע ְֹב ֵדי ֶפ ֶסל ַה ִּמ ְת ַה ְל ִלים ָּב ֱא ִל‬ ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫ל־א‬ ֱ ‫ה ְׁש ַּת ֲחוּו־לֹו ָּכ‬, ִ “All who worship images, who vaunt their idols, are dismayed; all divine beings bow down to Him”) as well as Psalms 96:4–5; 97:9; 113:4; 115:4–7; 135:5,15–17. In the same way that the previous identity issue clustered around the Songs of Ascent, these cluster significantly around the so-called enthronement psalms in the 90s55 and in 113–115, later considered part of the Hallel.56

6.3 Insisting on a Particular Version of Past Sacred History/ Myth David and Bar-Tal noted the significance of foundational myths in determining identity. This is evident in psalms that highlight both the creation of Israel and of the world. Traditions concerning the creation of Israel are reflected in several of these psalms; these answer the worshippers’ most basic questions of identity: Who are we, and when and how did we come into being? and related to that, What land do we hold as a marker of this identity? Psalms 105; 106; 107; 135; and 136 create and/or reinforce a shared national past, a collective memory, or more correctly, different national pasts, around which different subgroups likely ­rallied.57 Gary Knoppers has suggested that some in Yehud saw the true Israel as descended from Abraham or Jacob as the patriarch, while others had a narrower view, tracing descent to Judah. With this in mind, Psalm 105:42 (‫ת־ּד ַבר‬ ְ ‫ִּכי־זָ ַכר ֶא‬ ‫ת־א ְב ָר ָהם ַע ְבּדֹו‬ ַ ‫ק ְדׁשֹו ֶ ֽא‬,ָ “Mindful of His sacred promise to His servant Abraham”) might be contrasted to Psalm 97:8 (‫הּודה ְל ַמ ַען‬ ָ ְ‫ָׁש ְמ ָעה וַ ִּת ְׂש ַמח ִצּיֹון וַ ָּתגֵ ְלנָ ה ְּבנֹות י‬ ‫מ ְׁש ָּפ ֶטיָך יְ הוָ ה‬, ִ “Zion, hearing it, rejoices, the towns [lit. “daughters”] of Judah exult, because of Your judgments, O LORD”). Psalm 97 suggests that Judah is the main locus of identity, while Psalm 105 suggests a broader locus, of all the descendants of Abraham.58 The latter view is more common in these psalms, which mention Jacob twelve times in seven psalms, while identity via Judah is much less attested.59 In other words, the broader view of identity “wins” in these psalms.

55 Concerning these, see Jimmy J. M. Roberts, “Mowinckel’s Enthronement Festival: A Review,” in The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception, ed. Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller, VTSup 99 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 97–115. 56 YHWH’s incomparability is also reflected in Ps 91:3,6. 57 See above, 280, concerning collective memory. 58 Abraham is mentioned three times in this psalm (vv. 6,9,42) and only one other time in the entire Psalter (Ps 47:10). 59 Jacob is mentioned in Pss 94:7; 99:4; 105:6,10,23; 114:1,7; 132:2,5; 135:4; 146:5; 147:19; for Judah, see the discussion below on Ps 114:2.



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Some psalms create a past that justifies land possession in general.60 Of particular interest are those that partake in the debate of whether or not the boundaries of the land include the Transjordan, which Itamar Kislev has shown was a major issue in this period.61 It is therefore not surprising that it is reflected in a number of Psalms (Pss 108:8–9; 135:8–12; 136:17–22). The psalms also group around particular creation stories. Psalm 148 reflects the first, Priestly, creation story and even notes, following the P creation story, verse 5b, ‫ּכי הּוא ִצּוָ ה וְ נִ ְב ָראּו‬, ִ “for it was He who commanded that they be created.”62 Psalm 148 is an outlier – much more common in these psalms are references to, or echoes of, the more mythological Canaanite Baal-Yamm battle.63 Thus, psalms reflect different groups with different creation stories. The author of Psalm 148 either knew the separate P story, or the redacted Torah.64 If the latter is the case, the traditions recounted in this psalm also reflect on the following issue, the place of the Torah in the postexilic community.

6.4 The Place of the Torah Most scholars place the date of compilation of the Torah in the Persian period.65 But many scholars assume, incorrectly to my mind, that once the Torah was compiled, it quickly became authoritative (whatever that slippery word means)

60 See, e.g., Pss 105:11; 106:34; 135:12; 136:21–22. 61 See esp. Joshua 22, and the discussion in Trent C. Butler, Joshua 13–24, 2nd ed., WBC 7B (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 248, 253–254, and Itamar Kislev, ʿAl saf haʾarets hamuvtakhat [On the Threshold of the Promised Land] (Jerusalem: Hotsa ͑at sefarim ʿa. sh. Y. L. Magnes Press; Hebrew University, 2013), esp. 134–147. 62 See, e.g., Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2011), 632, 639; John Goldingay, Psalms Volume 3: Psalms 90–150, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 730; and Hermann Spieckermann, Heilsgegenwart: Eine Theologie der Psalmen, FRLANT 148 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 53–54, esp. n. 8. 63 For a general treatment of this issue, see Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 80–101, and more recently the bibliography in Shawn Flynn, YHWH is King: The Development of Divine Kingship in Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 66–67. 64 See my “Identifying Torah Sources in the Historical Psalms,” in Subtle Citation, Allusion, and Translation in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Ziony Zevit (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, forthcoming) on several psalms likely knowing individual sources rather than the redacted Torah; as far as I can see, Ps 148 shows no recognition of the non-P creation story. 65 See the recent discussion about the use of ‫ תורה‬in Ezra/Nehemiah, Chronicles, and other late biblical texts in Schaper, “Torah and Identity,” 27–38.

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and widely accepted by the exilic community, and that somehow, the previous separate documents, and the other traditions and documents that were not incorporated in it, quickly fell out of circulation.66 This model is based, in part, on accepting the position in late books such as Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah that the Torah was normative.67 But this is wrong; it took decades, if not centuries, for the Torah to become “the Torah,” suppressing other torot, as indeed was the case with the publication of the Mishnah centuries later, and the Talmud, still centuries later.68 We cannot reconstruct this process, but the existence of such debates about the “true” Torah, which likely were extremely polarizing, is, as I show below, reflected in books 4–5 of the Psalter.69 Various psalms that have non-Torah traditions may be better understood as having anti-Torah traditions, reflecting a group or groups opposed to the Torah as the national story and law-book. Psalm 114, one likely anti-Torah Psalm, is explored below. The newness of the Torah in this period explains why several psalms emphasize Torah so much – it was a novel entity, and some – but only some – of the psalmists believed in and tried to defend its centrality for constituting the community in Yehud. The most obvious psalm that tries to create and/or solidify identity through Torah is Psalm 119, a paean to the Torah, which many scholars identify as our Torah.70 It praises Torah in such an excessive and overbearing manner that it is likely polemical – reflecting the debate that I believe was ongoing in this period about which torah was true.71

66 For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see my “Identifying Torah Sources.” 67 The view that the Chronicler knew the Pentateuch more or less as we have it is the predominant view, defended, e.g., in Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, OTL (London: SCM Press, 1993), 16, and Schaper, “Torah and Identity,” 31; Judson R. Shaver debates this in, Torah and the Chronicler’s History Work: An Inquiry into the Chronicler’s References to Laws, Festivals, and Cultic Institutions in Relationship to Pentateuchal Legislation, BJS 196 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 68 See Michael L. Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), esp. p. 100; Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Talia Fishman, Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 69 Compare, e.g., the ramifications of such debates concerning canon in early Christianity. 70 So, e.g., Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 263. 71 Even if this psalmist is not identifying torah with our Pentateuch, he is still arguing for the exalted position of a particular torah.



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Strikingly, this long psalm never mentions the temple – indeed, there God may well dwell in the heaven (see v. 89).72 When the supplicant wants his prayers to come close to God (vv. 169–170), he does not mention the temple. This suggests that in some cases, temple-centered ideologies and Torah-centered ideologies conflicted rather than complemented each other.73 The person who believed in the message of Psalm 119, that the Torah is the main manifestation of God,74 may not have felt the urge that other psalmists felt to dwell in the temple precincts forever (see, e.g., Ps 23:6b). Torah-centricity is also expressed in the acrostic Psalm 111, a riddle about the centrality and greatness of the Torah, and in its following, later, “twin,” Psalm 112, which expresses the benefits of following the Torah.75 Psalm 147:1–20 also stresses the value of Torah as a divine gift, and the manner in which it positively sets Israel apart from the other nations.76 This Psalm, like Psalm 99, emphasizes the importance of both Torah and the Jerusalem temple – here they are complementary rather than competing. As noted above, other sources see them as conflicting.

6.5 Social Issues Social stability is crucial for maintaining identity, and what David and Bar-Tal called “values,” including the definition of proper gender roles, often play a part in defining particular communities; this may be especially true in times of foment and instability. I argued earlier that Psalm 128 as a whole, but especially verse 3, reinforced distinct gender roles by contrasting the central male to the peripheral

72 I would like to thank Shalom Holz for discussing Psalm 119 with me. On the lack of cultic interest in this psalm, see Kent Aaron Reynolds, Torah as Teacher: The Exemplary Torah Student in Psalm 119, VTSup 137 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 129. 73 Contrast, e.g., Samuel Balentine, “The Politics of Religion in the Persian Period,” in After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason, ed. John Barton and David J. Reimer (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1996), 129–146. 74 This is already suggested briefly by Hermann Gunkel, Die Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926), 512, and elaborated on by Yoshua Amir, “The Place of Psalm CXIX in the History of Jewish Religion,” in Teʿuda 2: Bible Studies Y. M. Grintz in Memoriam, ed. Benjamin Uffenheimer (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1982), 60–64. 75 See Marc Z. Brettler, “The Riddle of Psalm 111,” in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination: Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane, ed. Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 62–73. 76 For these verses as references to the Torah, see, e.g., Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms of the Return (Book V, Psalms 107–150), JSOTSup 258 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).

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female.77 Other psalms, including Psalm 127:3–5, attempt to take power away from women.78 Scholars have not noted concern with gender as one of the issues that characterizes the Songs of Ascents. It is thus worth exploring if maintaining a clear gender hierarchy is present elsewhere in the collection.79 If the pilgrims were predominantly male, as some texts suggest (see Exod 23:17; 34:23; Deut 16:16), and these psalms are a “collection of songs for use by pilgrims to the Jerusalem temple during the Persian period,”80 it is not surprising that they reflect and reinforce a particular male attitude that peripheralizes women.

6.6 Theological Issues Although it is difficult to know what particular theological issues may split communities into different groups, theological issues often split religious communities, as different groups rally around particular religious viewpoints. Over the last decade or so, many scholars have gone against earlier models of biblical theology, and have emphasized how the Bible in general, and Psalms in particular, is mitte-less and multi-perspectival;81 this has caused scholars to begin to highlight differences within the Psalter. I will here explore only one issue that some biblical texts suggest was a significant dividing point in ancient Israel: Does, or does God not, punish intergenerationally?

77 Marc Z. Brettler, “Women and Psalms: Toward an Understanding of the Role of Women’s Prayer in the Israelite Cult,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, ed. Bernard M. Levinson, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, and Victor H. Matthews, JSOTSup 262 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 25–56. 78 See my “‘Happy is the Man Who Fills His Quiver with Them’ (Ps. 127:5): Constructions of Masculinities in the Psalms,” in Being a Man: Negotiating Ancient Constructs of Masculinity, ed. Ilona Zsolnay (New York: Routledge, 2015), 198–220. 79 See possibly, in addition to Pss 127 and 128, Ps 122:8 (‫ )אחי ורעי‬and Pss 133–135, which deal with male temple functionaries. The mention of a nursing mother (131:2) could equally be written by a man or a woman; see Marianne Grohmann, “The Imagery of the ‘Weaned Child’ in Psalm 131,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 513–522. 80 Crow, The Songs of Ascents, 182. 81 See, e.g., Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) and Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Theologies in the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark, 2002); and concerning Psalms, see my “Jewish Theology of the Psalms,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, ed. William P. Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 485–498.



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Some biblical texts insist on divine intergenerational punishment (e.g., Exod 20:5 = Deut 5:9; Exod 34:7), while others negate any possibility of divine intergenerational punishment.82 The latter position is best illustrated by Deuteronomy 7:10: ‫ל־ּפנָ יו יְ ַׁש ֶּלם־לֹו‬ ָ ‫ל־ּפנָ יו ְל ַה ֲא ִבידֹו לֹא יְ ַא ֵחר ְלׂשנְ אֹו ֶא‬ ָ ‫ּומ ַׁש ֵּלם ְלׂשנְ ָאיו ֶא‬ ְ , “instantly requites with destruction those who reject Him  – never slow with those who reject Him, but requiting them instantly.” The repetition in this verse, which says the same thing three times, suggests that it is polemical.83 This same significant split is found in psalms, with the position found in Deuteronomy the “winner” from a numerical perspective.84 The non-intergenerational punishment position may be seen in several psalms, which quote only the section about God’s beneficence as seen in Exodus 20 or 34, while neglecting to cite the intergenerational punishment reflected in both of those contexts. These include Psalms 103:8; 116:5; 145:8; and concerning punishment at a national level, Psalms 117–118. In contrast to these, Psalm 109:14 believes that God punishes intergenerationally: ‫ל־ּת ָּמח‬ ִ ‫יִ ּזָ ֵכר ֲעֹון ֲאב ָֹתיו ֶאל־יְ הוָ ה וְ ַח ַּטאת ִאּמֹו ַא‬, “May God be ever mindful of his father’s iniquity, and may the sin of his mother not be blotted out.”85 Different theological ideas such as these have an important role in creating the identity of different groups.

7 Identity and Postexilic Psalms: Psalms 92 and 114 as Two Examples While the previous section looked at how a variety of Psalms from books 4–5 fostered identity, the following will focus on two specific Psalms, 92 and 114, where identity issues are especially evident. These two Psalms refer to God in the third person, rather than addressing God directly. Scholars who do not recognize that the main genre of Psalm 92 is a community prayer interested in forming community identity get into a morass when trying to determine this Psalm’s genre. For example, Erich Zenger observes that

82 See Hermann Spieckermann, “‘Barmherzig und gnädig is der Herr…,’” ZAW 102 (1990): 1–18, and Nathan C. Lane, “Exodus 34:6–7: A Canonical Analysis” (PhD diss. Baylor University, 2007). 83 See Michael Fishbane, “Torah and Tradition,” in Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament, ed. Douglas A. Knight (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 279–282, and Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 317–318. 84 See the discussion in Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 347–349. 85 See Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 347–348.

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it contains “elements of the hymn, the psalm of thanksgiving, and the Wisdom didactic poem.”86 Similarly, Arnold Anderson suggests, quite problematically: “The poem could be classed as a Hymn or Descriptive praise with a didactic tone. At the same time it is an Individual Thanksgiving (…).”87 In part, this Psalm does not partake in any of the standard genre definitions because it is late, and as Gunkel has shown, standard genres fall apart in postexilic literature.88 But in addition, its main point is consolidating the worshipping community under the umbrella of certain theological ideals – and this function has not been adequately recognized in biblical scholarship. This explains the exceptional opening of the psalm, which is not, as expected: ‫הודו ליהוה כי טוב‬ ‫( זמרו לׁשמו עליון‬see, e.g., Pss 30:5; 33:2).89 Instead, like only one other case that I know of in the Psalter, Psalm 65 (see vv. 2–30), it talks about praising, rather than commanding praise! This is because it is interested in creating a community that praises God over a particular issue. Although many scholars claim that this psalm is about creation, it is actually about retribution. The pronoun zo’t in v. 7 is cataphoric rather than anaphoric, as observed already by Rashi. As such, this psalm is partaking in a lively debate about divine retribution. It rejects the notion of Psalm 90:7,9 that God had temper tantrums, and no rational system of recompense may be found.90 On the other hand, it accepts the notion that the righteous do not always prosper and acknowledges that the wicked do prosper, at least temporarily. Thus, it is in “discussion” with psalms like Psalm 1, which suggests that the wicked prosper (‫ר־ּת ְּד ֶפּנּו‬ ִ ‫ַּכּמֹץ ֲא ֶׁש‬ ‫רּוח‬ ַ , “they are like chaff that wind blows away” [v. 4]) only for the very briefest periods of time.91 Psalm 92 also reinforces the position that the temple has a central place in the life of the community. This is done through the mention of instruments associ-

86 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 436. 87 Arnold A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms: 73–150, NCB (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 660. 88 See concerning particular genres, Hermann Gunkel and Joachim Begrich, Introduction to Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel, trans. James D. Nogalski (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998), 63–64, 197, 221. 89 See Pss 106:1; 107:1; 118:1,29; 136:1; Ezra 3:11; 1Chr 16:34; 2Chr 7:3. It is possible that ṭov followed by lamed + the infinitive construct rather than just the infinitive construct is a favored form in later books; contrast Gen 2:18, and see the Targumic renderings of Prov 21:19 and 25:7,24, which add the preposition lamed that is absent in the Hebrew. Strikingly, other than here, the phrase hodot lYHWH is only found here and in Chronicles (5x) and Ezra 3:11. 90 On God’s anger, see most recently Deena E. Grant, Divine Anger in the Hebrew Bible, CBQMS 52 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2014). 91 The order in which these psalms were written is not clear, and not important for this argument.



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ated with the temple in verses 4–5, early in the Psalm, and in the last few verses, which like the end of Psalm 23, present the ideal of residing in the temple.92 In fact, Psalm 92 is more extreme, detailed, and colorful than Psalm 23. Here the tsaddiq is like a tree, and cannot even move from the temple precincts, and has children who continue to live at the temple (v. 14b: ‫ֹלהינּו יַ ְפ ִריחּו‬ ֵ ‫ ְּב ַח ְצרֹות ֱא‬, “they 93 flourish in the courts of our God”), and they are not merely living in the temple, but living there in great health (v. 15b ‫ ְּד ֵׁשנִ ים וְ ַר ֲענַ ּנִ ים יִ ְהיּו‬, “they are full of sap and freshness”), I assume because of their proximity to the divine. This vision should be contrasted on the one hand with Psalm 123:1, which describes God as ‫ ַהּי ְֹׁש ִבי ַּב ָּׁש ָמיִם‬, “enthroned in heaven,” and on the other hand, with Psalm 139:7–10, which imagines God as everywhere.94 Thus, the temple-centered ideology of Psalm 92 is found in many, but not all the Psalms in books 4–5.95 We know from D vs. P, and from the layers in 1Kings 8, that where God resided was a significant point of contention in ancient Israel.96 It may seem surprising that this debate should be present and significant in psalms as well, since they are imagined to be temple-centric – but the temple-centricity of psalms has been exaggerated. Thus, Psalm 92 is in some sense like 1Kings 8:12–13, a non-Deuteronomistic source embedded in a Deuteronomistic text, which insists that YHWH resides in the Jerusalem temple.97 Like that passage, it helps form and reinforce the identity of a temple-centric group who believed that God (and not merely the divine kavod or shem), resided in the Temple.

92 For the use of instruments in the ancient Near East, see most recently Annie Caubet, “Musical Practices and Instruments in Late Bronze Age Ugarit (Syria),” in Music and Antiquity: The Near East and the Mediterranean, ed. John Goodnick Westenholz et al., Yuval 8 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 174–177. On the motif of residing at the temple, see Mary Jerome Obiorah, ‘How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place’: The Desire for God’s House in Psalm 84 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2004), esp. 42–48, and eadem, “The Perception of God’s House in the Psalter – A Study of How the Psalmists Understand the Temple,” in Congress Volume Ljubljana 2007, ed. André Lemaire, VTSup 133 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 531–539. 93 Rather than “they flourish,” yafrikhu should be rendered “they bloom,” as in v. 13a, where the same word is used. 94 On this motif, see Beate Ego, “Der Herr blickt herab von der Höhe seines Heiligtums: Zur Vorstellung von Gottes himmlischem Thronen in exilisch-nachexilischer Zeit,” ZAW 110 (1998): 556–569. 95 See Pss 92:14; 93:5; 101:7; 116:18–19; 118:26; 122:1,9; 134:1; 135:2. 96 See Benjamin Sommer, Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), esp. 80–108. 97 See, e.g., Marvin Sweeney, I & II Kings: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 131–133, with references to other scholars there. His suggestion, however, that these verses are part of Solomon’s original prayer, is difficult to uphold.

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Psalm 92 mentions poʿale ʾaven, reshaʿim, ʾoyev, shuray (which should probably be emended to shorerai), qamim alay and mereʿim – six different enemy terms in sixteen verses, and this is in addition to the baʿar and the kesil! Bar-Tal notes that social identity is often formed through group distinctions and negative identity – what you ought not to do.98 The Psalm’s focus on identity may explain the prominence of enemies in Psalm 92, and should play a larger role in solving the longstanding problem of the identity and significance of enemies in psalms.99 The addition of verse 1 in the final form of Psalm 92 bolsters the importance of the Shabbat.100 This makes sense given the likely new prominence of the Shabbat during the exile, when there would be a real need by those who favored Shabbat observance to foster that practice, and one way of doing this is insisting that Shabbat, unlike any other day of the week, or any festival, has its very own psalm as noted in its superscription.101 In sum, Psalm 92 makes more sense once we leave the typical genre rubrics behind, and see how different pieces of it likely had a role in consolidating the community around particular values, thereby creating (sub)community identity.102 This idea is not entirely novel; it builds upon the observations of Erhard Gerstenberger: Religious pluralism of the Persian and Hellenistic periods forced Jewish communities to identify themselves as Yahweh believers. There was no other way of maintaining the identity of the ethnic group. Yahweh worship, however, was controversial among the Jews themselves. We know of deviant or nonorthodox groups, e.g., the Samaritans and the military community at Elephantine later (…) Qumran (…). Our psalm is to ward off in a very general way the erroneous glorification of Yahweh, i.e., nonorthodox worship, without identifying errors or deviations. The singers and listeners to the psalm are confident that they practice the only permissible, correct liturgy, that their faith alone is the correct one.103

98 David and Bar-Tal, “A Sociopsychological Conception,” 362–363. 99 See Erhard Gerstenberger, “Enemies and Evildoers in the Psalms,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 4 (1982): 61–77; Steven J. L. Croft, The Identity of the Individual in the Psalms (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), esp. ch. 1, “The Antagonists in the Psalms,” 15–48. 100 See, e.g., Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2, 443; Marvin Tate, Psalms 51–100, WBC 20 (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 471. 101 On the new importance of the Shabbat in the exile, see, e.g., Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Israel in the Persian Period, esp. 462–467; Lester Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, vol. I: Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah, LSTS 47 (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 220–221. 102 As I said earlier, I cannot offer up a name to the group that wrote Ps 92 to rally its members around it. 103 Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations, FOTL 15 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 172.



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He is, however, exceptional in stating that Psalm 92 had some role in identity formation, and has done so only in a large-grained fashion. Psalm 114 raises some of the same genre difficulties as Psalm 92.104 Although it is often characterized as a hymn, it shares few characteristics with other hymns. It never mentions God in the second person – in fact, it hardly mentions God explicitly at all. This is because this psalm is primarily about Israel, for Israel – it is not a prayer in the way that word is usually understood. It instead addresses two crucial questions related to identity, and it does so in an anti-Torah fashion: When and how did Israel become Israel? and what is the relationship between Judah and Israel? Jacob Milgrom observes that the Bible offers two main conceptions about when and how Israel became a nation: D’s conception, where “Israel’s election is traceable to God’s demonstrable love of the patriarchs” as opposed to H, where “the choice of Israel is a continuation (and climax) of the process of creation” (another late text, Neh 9:7, agrees with D).105 This is the perspective of Psalm 105 as well, which toward its beginning and end specifically mentions a covenant with Abraham (see vv. 6–11,42), and has a pan-Israelite perspective; that is why it goes out of its way to mention Joseph (vv. 17–18). This D tradition creates a problem: “Why was Abram chosen?,” which postbiblical literature resolves through many creative answers.106 Psalm 114, which suggests that Israel only became God’s holy people at the time of the exodus, circumvents this problem, though it may create a new one: Why was Israel chosen at the time of the exodus?107 The perspective of Psalm 114, that Israel was formed through the exodus, is only expressed here and in Ezekiel 20:5.108 This Psalm creates or solidifies a “collective memory” in which Israel becomes Israel ‫ ְּב ֵצ֣את ִי ְׂ֭ש ָר ֵאל ִמ ִּמ ְצ ָ ֑ריִם‬, “when Israel went forth from Egypt,” after the patriarchal/ancestral period, and creates a relationship that is not dependent on berit. This striking deviation from the Torah fits

104 For more details of my understanding of Ps 114, see my “A Jewish Historical-Critical Commentary on Psalms: Psalm 114 as an Example,” HeBAI (forthcoming). 105 Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, AB (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1764. 106 For a survey of some solutions, see James Kugel, The Bible as it Was (Cambridge: Belknap, 1997), 131–148. 107 Exodus 14:31 may provide an implicit answer to this question; after seeing the wonders of God against the Egyptians, the verse states: ‫ּובמ ֶֹׁשה ַע ְבּדֹו‬ ְ ‫וַ ּיַ ֲא ִמינּו ַּביהוָ ה‬, “they had faith in the LORD and His servant Moses.” 108 Kimhi finds it as well in Exod 19:5–6, after the exodus and before the revelation of the Decalogue at Sinai, but Ps 114 does not agree with those verses in Exod 19, since the idea in Ps 114 is independent of covenant observance, and is not conditional. Furthermore, these verses in Exod 19 refer to events months after the exodus, as opposed to Ps 114:1.

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a pattern. The psalm also states that at the time of the exodus, the Jordan River moved backwards (vv. 3b,5b), and that mountains danced (vv. 4a,6a), and that God turned a rock into water (v. 8) – these events are nowhere narrated in the Torah. Given these many differences, this should be viewed as an anti-Torah psalm. Verses 1–2 bear strongly on the issue of the identity of Israel. I accept Knoppers’s position that the postexilic period saw a battle between those who traced identity to Judah, and those who traced it to Israel-Jacob.109 Verse 2 reads: ‫ָהיְ ָ ֣תה‬ ‫לֹותיו‬ ֽ ָ ‫הּודה ְל ָק ְד ׁ֑שֹו ִ֜י ְׂש ָר ֵ֗אל ַמ ְמ ְׁש‬ ֣ ָ ְ‫י‬, “Judah became His holy one, Israel, His dominion.” In this particular psalm, the “A” part of the verse carries the meaning, while the “B” part is largely a filler.110 Thus verses 1–2 mean that when Israel “exodused” Egypt, Judah was chosen by God. It is making a claim similar to Isaiah 48:1, concerning which Reinhard Kratz notes: “Second Isaiah is still fully aware that a difference exists between Israel and Judah. He says explicitly in Isa. 48.1 that only the Judeans who ‘come out of the waters of Judah’ are called by the name of Israel.”111 Kratz says that Isaiah 65:9 has a similar sense.112 Our psalmist is making the same argument as these passages from Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah, that Judah is the true Israel. These two examples offer some sense of how identity issues play out in individual psalms, and why it is important to realize that psalms are often talking internally, to the community, and not just to God. In other words, many psalms, especially late psalms, are not, to use a title of a book on psalms, “Songs of the Heart,”113 but songs of the community building its identity.

8 Conclusions I am not claiming that a majority of the Psalms in books 4–5 should be considered “community formation” psalms from a genre perspective. Nor am I claiming that all of the factors I have isolated would have been strong enough, individually, to

109 Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans, 135. 110 See the discussion in my “A Jewish Historical-Critical Commentary,” and for this view of parallelism, especially Stanley Gevirtz, Patterns in the Early Poetry of Israel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); Menahem Haran, “The Graded Numerical Sequence and the Phenomenon of ‘Automatism’ in Biblical Poetry,” in Congress Volume Uppsala, ed. George W. Anderson et al., VTSup 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 238–267. 111 Reinhard G. Kratz, “Israel in the Book of Isaiah,” JSOT 31 (2006): 103–128, and esp. note p. 123. 112 Kratz, “Israel in the Book of Isaiah,” 123. 113 Nahum M. Sarna, Songs of the Heart: An Introduction to the Book of Psalms (New York: Schocken Books, 1993).



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form mutually exclusive groups. Community formation, or reinforcing significant community values, is rarely the only reason a psalm was written, and thus psalms of almost any form-critical genre may also reflect an interest in identity formation. I am making a more modest claim: Community identity needs to be considered more seriously in the study of psalms, particularly postexilic psalms, and especially but not exclusively hymns/thanksgivings of the community. Psalms scholarship has not moved in this direction largely due to the work of Hermann Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinckel, whose work continues to be influential. Gunkel overemphasized the role of psalms in the cult, and the importance, building on the hints of others, of finding their Sitz im Leben.114 This was stressed even more dramatically by his student Mowinckel.115 It is very striking that in his work on Psalms, Gunkel116 often cited Friedrich Heiler’s Das Gebet, which is well-known in its English translation Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion, a book that notes the role prayer plays in forming group identity.117 Heiler devotes an entire chapter on “Prayer in Public Worship.”118 Although he never uses the term “identity” in the sense I am using it, several of his comments suggest that he did appreciate this aspect of prayer. He observes, for example: “Congregational prayer is not only the expression of the collective religious experience, it contributes to the mutual edification of the members of the congregation. ‘Edification’ is the awakening, intensification, and vitalization of the religious feelings, moods, and volitional tendencies.”119 This

114 See Gunkel and Begrich Introduction to Psalms, and more briefly, throughout Hermann Gunkel, The Psalms: A Form-Critical Introduction, trans. Thomas M. Horner (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967). This tendency continues with the claim of Susan E. Gillingham, “The Levitical Singers and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 91–123, that the editing of the Psalter is connected to the temple. See esp. her reference on p. 105 (and n. 41) to the study of John A. Smith, “Which Psalms were Sung in the Temple,” Music and Letters 71 (1990): 167–186, which suggests that between 109 and 126 psalms contain explicit references to Temple singing. On Gunkel’s forerunners, see Martin J. Buss, Biblical Form Criticism in its Context, JSOTSup 274 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 226–244. 115 Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, trans. Dafydd R. Ap-Thomas, BibSem 14 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), passim, esp. 1:5–22, 2:85–88; see the summary by Robert Gnuse and Douglas A. Knight on p. xxiii. He finds only ten and a half psalms that do not originate in the cult (2:111–114). 116 Herman Gunkel, Die Psalmen; Gunkel and Begrich, Introduction to Psalms. 117 Friedrich Heiler, Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion (London: Oxford University Press, 1932). 118 Heiler, Prayer, 296–346. 119 Heiler, Prayer, 305.

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is further clarified when he says: “All common prayer is meant to be rather the direct utterance of a common religious experience and to serve for the mutual edification, that is, strengthening and enhancement of this experience.”120 Some similar conclusions are reflected in the work of Heiler’s contemporary, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss, best known in biblical circles for his book The Gift.121 He also wrote On Prayer, where he calls attention to some social aspects of prayer, though he always connects these to ritual.122 Mauss, for example, observes: “if they [prayers] have been deemed suitable for general use and become obligatory, it is firstly because they met the requirements of an established ritual, and secondly, because they met the needs of religious innovation for the group.”123 Given that he was Émile Durkheim’s nephew, his emphasis on the social is not surprising; indeed, it is surprising that Durkheim, who studied prayer and noted that “society is the soul of religion,”124 never discusses how prayer contributes to solidarity and group definition. These quotes, together with the examples I adduced above, show how the role of communal prayer in creating community was appreciated early in the twentieth century. This was largely forgotten subsequently.125 This is particularly true of biblical scholars who appreciate that prayers should be understood within relationships, but highlight either the human-divine relationship, or the prayertemple or prayer-(putative) festival relationship, at the expense of the relationship that is created and/or solidified within a group that prays together, even when an individual offers a prayer in a communal setting. Stated differently, biblical scholars tend to emphasize the vertical aspects of prayer – communion between the person or people praying and God, rather than its horizontal aspect – communion between the different people involved in a particular prayer experience. My claims about psalms and identity are not entirely novel. Berquist hinted at this issue when he observed: “Psalms need to be read in terms of the rhetori-

120 Heiler, Prayer, 306. 121 Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. Ian Cunnison (New York: Norton, 1967). 122 Marcel Mauss, On Prayer, trans. Susan Leslie (New York: Durkheim Press, 2003); from the original La Prière. I, Les Origines (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1909). 123 Mauss, On Prayer, 37. 124 Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 314. 125 See, e.g., the broad survey in Armin W. Geertz, “Comparing Prayer: On Science, Universals, and the Human Condition,” in Introducing Religion: Essays in Honor of Jonathan Z. Smith, ed. Willi Braun and Russell T. MacCutcheon (London: Equinox, 2008), 113–139.



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cal needs of a postexilic community.”126 Gerstenberger appreciated this to some extent in his analysis of Psalm 92; this is true of his broader discussions of psalms as well.127 His claims are supported by his important form-critical claim that in many hymns, the invocation “calling on Yahweh” is missing since the real focus is on the community, not on YHWH.128 This is true of both Psalm 92 and 114. My position is especially close to that of Harm W. M. van Grol, who notes, for example, that Psalm 130 is about God to the congregation, not to God.129 He calls the late Psalm 1 “propaganda for a particular spirituality, pre-eminently a text that can strengthen group identity.”130 More generally, he suggests: “Perhaps the biblical hymn ought not to be regarded as prayer at all, but fulfills a completely different function (…) [to] make the name of God great for the entire community (…).”131 Jonathan Magonet has also recently made the following “broad assumption:” Liturgies express and reinforce the identity and value systems of the particular community of worshippers. Moreover, they serve to link them with members of the community, as well as with similar communities elsewhere. Conversely, the use of particular formulations may consciously exclude others from participation. Liturgies are adapted, altered, and manipulated in the face of changes in the circumstances of the particular community.132

This article may be seen as offering the type of evidence that supports his “broad assumption.” I have here concentrated on psalms I believe to be postexilic, but I believe that this issue of identity formation in psalms is not uniquely postexilic, and

126 Jon L. Berquist, “Psalms, Postcolonialism, and the Construction of the Self,” in Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period, ed. Jon L. Berquist, SemeiaSt 50 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 197. 127 See esp. Erhard S. Gerstenberger, “Non-Temple Psalms: The Cultic Setting Revisited,” in The Oxford Handbook of Psalms, ed. William P. Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 338–349 and “Excursus: Communal Instruction as Life Setting,” in Israel in the Persian Period, 228–252. 128 Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, 17. 129 Harm W. M. van Grol, “Psalm, Psalter, and Prayer,” in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran: Inaugural Conference of the ISDCL at Salzburg, Austria, 5–9 July, 2003, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley, DCLS (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 41–70, the quotation is from p. 53. 130 Van Grol, “Psalm, Psalter, and Prayer,” 63. 131 Van Grol, “Psalm, Psalter, and Prayer,” 56. See also the forthcoming article by Pajunen, “The Influence of Societal Changes”; we come to very similar conclusions using very different methods and corpora. 132 Jonathan Magonet, “On Reading Psalms as Liturgy: Psalms 96–99,” in The Shape and Shaping of the Book of Psalms: The Current State of Scholarship, ed. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, SBLAIL 20 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014), 162.

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should be looked at more broadly – after all, in earlier periods as well, there was no such single thing as either simple Judean or Israelite identity. Communities almost always contain sub-communities, and these groups attempt to differentiate themselves from each other in various ways, including through prayers. These observations are meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive, and I hope that biblical scholars, who recognize the existence of groups through the biblical period, will uncover additional examples of what I have suggested here, and will more broadly recognize the role that prayers, including psalms, played in creating and reinforcing identity.

George J. Brooke

Praying History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Memory, Identity, Fulfilment 1 Introduction The purpose of this essay is to revisit a brief article I wrote a generation ago on the role of Psalms 105 and 106 in the Dead Sea Scrolls,1 and to broaden and deepen a few of its concerns within the context of the more recent lively scholarly discussion of the evidence for the Psalms in the manuscripts that have come from the eleven caves at and near Qumran. That scholarly discussion has reflected the concerns of several sub-disciplines in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some aspects of which I wish to bring together briefly here. As well as numerous more general studies on Second Temple prayer and ritual,2 amongst other more particular matters has been ongoing concern with the material evidence of the scrolls,3 concern with the significance of the Psalms manuscripts from the Dead Sea for the variegated history of the Psalter in the late Second Temple period,4 concern

1 George J. Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” RevQ 14 (1989–90): 267–292 (The Texts of Qumran and the History of the Community: Proceedings of the Groningen Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls [20–23 August 1989]). 2 Amongst those might be mentioned by way of example: Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry, STDJ 12 (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Eileen M. Schuller, “Prayer at Qumran,” in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran: Inaugural Conference of the ISDCL at Salzburg, Austria, 5–9 July 2003, ed. Rita Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 411–427; Daniel K. Falk, “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Study of Ancient Jewish Liturgy,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 617–651. See also the items listed in George J. Brooke, “Aspects of the Theological Significance of Prayer and Worship in the Qumran Scrolls,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, ed. Jeremy Penner, Ken M. Penner, and Cecilia Wassen, STDJ 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 37, n. 5. To set the psalms, prayers and liturgical texts of the scrolls in a wider Second Temple and later Jewish context, see Ruth Langer, Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). 3 Daniel K. Falk, “Material Aspects of Prayer Manuscripts at Qumran,” in Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity, ed. Clemens Leonhard and Helmut Löhr, WUNT 2/363 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 33–88. 4 See, e.g., Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms, STDJ 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Eva Jain, Psalmen oder Psalter? Materielle Rekonstruktion und inhaltliche Untersuchung der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda, STDJ 109 (Leiden: Brill, 2014); Mika S. PaDOI 10.1515/9783110449266-016

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with the study of various collections of so-called non-canonical psalms,5 concern with the analysis of the processes of the transmission of literary compositions of increasing authority including their rewriting,6 concern with early reception history,7 and concern with the appreciation of the intertextual interaction of various types of text which in relation to prayer texts is sometimes described as a matter of scripturalization.8 In addition two major developments have taken place within which some of the more detailed observations concerning the psalms and prayers of the late Second Temple period can be considered. On the one hand, the non-sectarian or pre-sectarian character of many of the compositions from caves at and near Qumran has suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls have much more to contribute to the wider understanding of Judaism in the Hellenistic period than was previously supposed; that has become clear through the publication and discussion of all the previously unpublished materials, especially from Cave 4.9 On the other hand, various methodological insights have brought

junen, “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSOT 39 (2014): 139–163. 5 See, e.g., Eileen M. Schuller, “Non-Canonical Psalms,” in Qumran Cave 4.VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1, ed. Carol Newsom and Eileen Schuller, DJD 11 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 75–172; and Mika Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381, JAJSup 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013). 6 See, e.g., Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism, JSJSup 77 (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Daniel K. Falk, The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls, LSTS 63/CQS 8 (London: T&T Clark, 2007); Sidnie White Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times, SDSSRL (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); Molly M. Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts, STDJ 95 (Leiden: Brill, 2011). 7 See, e.g., Susan Gillingham, A Journey of Two Psalms: The Reception of Psalms 1 and 2 in Jewish and Christian Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), which includes discussion of the reception of the psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls. 8 See, e.g., Judith H. Newman, Praying by the Book: The Scripturalization of Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, SBLEJL 14 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999); James Kugel, ed., Prayers that Cite Scripture, Centre for Jewish Studies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 9 See, e.g., the series of studies by Devorah Dimant that she has collected together in History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Collected Studies, FAT 90 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), especially those grouped in the section “The Qumran Library” (pp. 27– 218).



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fresh questions to the scrolls, whether of a more general10 or a more particular kind.11 In other words, if there is anything particularly novel in this study, it is the combined application of the ideas and insights of others that makes the venture worthwhile, rather than any particularly fresh textual exegesis. Concerning memory and identity I have a handful of general questions to pose about the ongoing role of some of the so-called historical psalms in the late Second Temple period.12 In addition, concerning fulfilment, I wish to make a trio of small observations that might indicate something of how the praying of history is appropriated through prayer and interpretative reflection that could well have formed part of the interactive dynamic of reading, searching, and blessing (1QS 6:7–8)13 that formed part of cultic practice in the late Second Temple period.

2 Memory and Identity 2.1 A Levitical Trajectory? The first matter to outline briefly is the presence of some of the principal historical psalms in Second Temple literature. Mika Pajunen has recently provided a

10 See, e.g., the methodological studies collected in Michael T. Davis and Brent A. Strawn, ed., Qumran Studies: New Approaches, New Questions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007); Maxine L. Grossman, ed., Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010); and George J. Brooke, Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, SBLEJL 39 (Atlanta: SBL, 2013). 11 Such as studies concerned with issues of identity, like those available in Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, STDJ 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Florentino García Martínez and Mladen Popović, ed., Defining Identities: We, You, and the Other in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting of the IOQS in Groningen, STDJ 70 (Leiden: Brill, 2007); and Jutta Jokiranta, Social Identity and Sectarianism in the Qumran Movement, STDJ 105 (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 12 To use the word “historical” raises the question “what was history?” On historiography in the scrolls see George J. Brooke, “Types of Historiography in the Qumran Scrolls,” in Ancient and Modern Scriptural Historiography–L’Historiographie biblique, ancienne et moderne, ed. George J. Brooke and Thomas Römer, BETL 207 (Leuven: Peeters/University Press, 2007), 211–230; reprinted in idem, Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, 175–192. History is the bringing into the present of the past, however that might be perceived and constructed; the journey to the present happens in multiple ways and within various frames of reference, none of which is neutral or innocent. 13 See George J. Brooke, “Reading, Searching and Blessing: A Functional Approach to Scriptural Interpretation in the ‫יחד‬,” in The Temple in Text and Tradition: A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward, ed. R. Timothy McLay, LSTS 83 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 140–156.

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helpful survey and summary description of historical elements in many psalms,14 but my comments here are focused on those compositions which form the center of the monograph by Anja Klein,15 not least because my trio of interpretative comments depend upon references to Psalms 78 (in the light of Exodus 15), 105–106, and 136 which are the core texts of her study. Psalm 78. In their very helpful though somewhat cautious list of quotations and allusions in Second Temple literature Armin Lange and Matthias Weigold have identified six authors and/or editors who seem to have used Psalm 78 in their works.16 Those six works are Nehemiah 9 (9:12 using Ps 78:14); Job (7:7 using Ps 78:39; 27:15 using Ps 78:64; 36:11 using Ps 78:33); 4Q422 (III 7–11 using Ps 78:44– 50); 4Q504 (XVII 6–7 using Ps 78:68); Wisdom (16:20 using Ps 78:23–25); and Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (10:7 using Ps 78:24,27; 19:5 using 78:25). Psalm 105. Lange and Weigold propose six authors could have used or alluded to Psalm 105 in their works.17 Those six works are Nehemiah 9 (9:17 using Ps 105:5); Chronicles (1Chr 16:8–22 using Ps 105:1–15); Aramaic Levi Document (13:6 using 105:22); 4Q422 (III 4–12 using Ps 105:26–36); 4QPrayer E? (4Q454) (1 3 using Ps 105:29); and XHev/SeEschatological Hymn (XHev/Se 6) (2 8 using Ps 105:26). It immediately is apparent that some of those works are also listed as using Psalm 78, even in the same passages. There is further research to be done to assess whether the use is a pastiche of both Psalms or that since the Psalms are close to one another in certain sections it is actually not possible to determine which text is uppermost in the user’s mind.18 Psalm 106. Lange and Weigold suggest eight works use Psalm 106.19 Nehemiah 9 (9:5 using Ps 106:48 and 9:28 using Ps 106:43); Chronicles (1Chr 16:34, 41; 2Chr 5:13, 20:21 using Ps 106:1; and 1Chr 16:35–36 using Ps 106:48); 4QNonCanonical Psalms A (4Q380) (1i 7–8 using Ps 106:2; 1i 9–11 using Ps 106:4–5); Ben Sira (Ms B) (45:23 using Ps 106:23);20 CD A (3:8 using Ps 106:25); 1QHa (18:6 using Ps 106:7); 4QPseudo-Daniela-b ar (4Q243–244) (13 2/12 3 using

14 Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All, 322–333. Pajunen has little to say about Pss 135–136. 15 Anja Klein, Geschichte und Gebet: Die Rezeption der biblischen Geschichte in den Psalmen des Alten Testaments, FAT 94 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). 16 Armin Lange and Matthias Weigold, Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Second Temple Jewish Literature, JAJSup 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 170. 17 Lange and Weigold, Biblical Quotations and Allusions, 173–174. 18 Ps 105 is in 11QPsa, whereas Ps 106 is almost certainly not. 19 Lange and Weigold, Biblical Quotations and Allusions, 174. 20 To that might be added an allusion to Ps 106:2 in Sir 18:4b: see Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” 280.



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Ps 106:37; 13 3/12 2–3 using Ps 106:40–41); and 1QM (1Q33) (11:3 using Ps 106: 43,47). Psalm 114. Lange and Weigold list but a single use of Psalm 114 in Second Temple Jewish literature.21 For them 1Enoch 51:3 seems to reflect the text of Psalm 114:4. Psalm 135. Lange and Weigold provide two uses of Psalm 135.22 They reckon that Qohelet 8:3 (“for he [the king] does whatever he pleases”) cites Psalm 135:6 (“Whatever the Lord pleases he does”). And they also suggest that the Greek addition to Daniel (Sg Three 61–63) (“Bless the Lord, O Israel […] Bless the Lord, you priests of the Lord […] Bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord”) uses Psalm 135:19–20 (“O house of Israel, bless the Lord! O house of Aaron, bless the Lord! O house of Levi, bless the Lord!). The first suggestion requires a change of subject. The second would seem to be little more than a formulaic trope, but the order of Israel, Aaron/priest, and Levi/servant might be indicative of something. Psalm 136. The main dependence on Psalm 136 is the reuse of its refrain in several places. Ezra 3:11 (“For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel”), 2Chronicles 5:13; 7:3 (“For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever”); 20:21 (“Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever”). 2Chronicles 7:6 (“for his steadfast love endures forever”), and Ben Sira 51:12 Ms B (“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures for ever”) also refer generally to the refrain of Psalm 136:1–26. And the Greek addition to Daniel (Sg Three 67–68) (“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever”) echoes Psalm 136:1–2. There are two other possible uses: Proverbs 3:19 uses Psalm 136:5 and 1Enoch 69:17 uses Psalm 136:6. From the information just described it seems as if the memory of Israel’s history as expressed in some psalm compositions, which quite probably play a key role in mediating history in various contexts and in the editing of the MT psalter itself,23 is conveyed in an intriguing set of works. There is no need here to comment on every use listed above, but a few short remarks are in place. Perhaps it should not be surprising that Israel’s history as expressed in these psalms is variously and significantly referred to in Ezra–Nehemiah and the Books of Chronicles. Those compositions are historical markers of various kinds which also include liturgical texts, almost as if locating the community in Yehud in Second Temple times is to be discerned in the necessary integrated combination of narrative and speech, part of which is prayer.

21 Lange and Weigold, Biblical Quotations and Allusions, 175. 22 Lange and Weigold, Biblical Quotations and Allusions, 177. 23 As is one of the principal arguments in Klein’s monograph.

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Three particular matters are worth noting in relation to those literary works that are most prominent in the lists provided under each psalm above. First, in some places the role of historical recollection is penitential whilst in others it is remembrance of divine activity and favor – things that are two sides of the same coin, the latter provoking the former. Second, Psalm 78 is assigned to the Asaphites; it is only in the Books of Chronicles that Psalm 105 is allocated Asaphite pedigree. It seems as if historical recollection in the form of psalmodic poetry, amongst other things, has a particular Levitical association,24 a factor that might permit a trajectory of use that involves such other texts as the Aramaic Levi Document and the use of Psalm 106:25 in CD 3:8 (alongside other allusions to Pss 105– 106).25 Third, there are uses that are little more than echoes of liturgical refrains, especially those of Psalm 136. Such uses probably indicate a concern with effective didactic recollection through communal participation that is also endorsement. Those need not be tied to Levitical or more particularly Asaphite tradition. Indeed their presence in works such as the Song of the Three Young Men indicate a more widespread range of uses than Levitical traditions alone. Nevertheless the other allusions in compositions such as Ben Sira 51 indicate a priestly dimension.

2.2 Memory Mediated through Rewritings The historical psalms are themselves representations in a selective fashion of what their authors considered to be history. Whilst it is just possible that some of the earliest sections of such psalms actually influenced the narrative retellings of Israel’s history in Torah and the prophetic histories, it is probably more appropriate to consider the historical psalms as rewritings of such history. The interplay of poetic representation and the recitation of narratives is a complex matter, not least as oral performance and developing written forms of texts are also to be factored in to the process of transmission. There is much work yet to be done on how historical matters were conceived, written down, and appropriated in the Second Temple period. Processes of rewriting, particularly liturgical rewriting, must be part of any such future work.

24 As I argued more specifically in Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” 285, it is now proper to put the Levitical associations in a wider context. 25 See the detailed lists of allusions to Pss 105–106 in the exhortations of CD in Jonathan G. Campbell, The Use of Scripture in the Damascus Document 1–8,19–20, BZAW 228 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995), ad loc.



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Much has been written on the nature of so-called Rewritten Bible; it is certain that the last word has yet to be penned. Such is the case because few have considered how a tradition can be represented first in one genre and then another before reverting perhaps to its earlier generic phase. The presence of the plagues in the Exodus section of 4Q422 is a striking case in point. There is no need to rehearse the many details of the text, but it is worth citing Emanuel Tov’s preliminary conclusion concerning the text: “The sequence of the plagues is close to that of Exodus and to that of Psalm 105, on which see the Comments. At the same time in the description of the plagues, the wording of 4Q422 depends in the first place on the historical Psalm 78, second on Psalm 105, and third on the account in Exodus. The text displays no signs of the special exegesis of the Qumran community.”26 The composition is in prose, but its wording reverberates with the poetic reworkings of the events present in the historical psalms. Indeed Tov concludes that the style of the section can be summed up as follows: “In the description of the plagues, as elsewhere in this composition, God’s actions are described in short sentences, with God as the subject of the verb just as in the historical psalms, but unlike the Exodus account. Third-person verbal forms are rarely found in this part of the Exodus narrative. In that account, situations rather than actions are depicted.”27 What actually is the process of rewriting that is taking place here? It is certainly difficult to discern. Whatever the case it seems as if the poetic form or forms of the tradition have controlled the reworking of the Exodus tradition, implying that that was the form in which the tradition was predominantly known by the author.28 Perhaps the poetic form was that which had been encountered most frequently or even learnt by heart, and yet what emerges as the rewritten form is prosaic. In this instance it is worth noting that the prose traditions of the Torah are being mediated to a readership through the language and even the rhythms of the tradition in an alternative form. In this instance memory is tradition mediated through other texts that help the past into the present and facilitate its appropriation by a new audience.29

26 Emanuel Tov, “The Exodus Section of 4Q422,” DSD 1 (1994): 197. 27 Tov, “The Exodus Section of 4Q422,” 208–209. 28 The same might be said for how Ps 105 has influenced the wording of Stephen’s Speech in Acts 7 or for how Ps 106:14–15 might be a significant influence behind the order of the temptations in Luke: on the latter see Hamish F. G. Swanston, “The Lukan Temptation Narrative,” JTS 17 (1996): 71. 29 Elsewhere I have attempted to initiate a discussion of the role of memory and cultural memory in the study of scriptural rewriting: George J. Brooke, “Memory, Cultural Memory and Rewriting Scripture,” in Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques? A Last Dialogue

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It might be added here that as yet it has not been finally determined whether 4Q380 reuses Psalm 106:2–5 as Eileen Schuller has assumed from the outset of her work on the manuscript, or whether it is the other way round, as I have wondered and which Mika Pajunen has now followed and argued for in some detail.30 Whichever is the case, here is another instance of rewriting history for particular purposes, so that memory is mediated through the rewriting process and its reception, just as in the creation of the psalms in the first place, rather than being something which can be construed solely as a matter of engaging with what might be perceived as an old text.

2.3 Memory and Liturgy In this section, with the historical psalms in mind, I wish to present very briefly two ideas that derive from the study of Christian liturgy and memory. The first idea derives from the preliminary attempt of applying aspects of neurophysiology to the place of memory in liturgical acts. In his book on memory and liturgy Peter Atkins, a liturgical scholar and former New Zealand archbishop, has tried to think through how prayer and liturgy is all the more effective because of the way it intuitively has taken account of the ways in which the brain works. “In worship we draw on our experience of God in the past at the same time as we look for a new experience of God in the present. (…) Our minds can hold together the past, the present and the future, and our brains can operate simultaneously in receiving and giving out.”31 For Atkins it is the complex way memory works as a function of brain activity that enables the simultaneous processing of past, present and future in a single act. A neuroscience perspective needs to be added to the more general aspects of the study of cultural or collective memory for the better appreciation of the way the historical psalms might be at work. For all that the reading of narrative in a cultic or quasi-cultic context might be thought of

with Geza Vermes, ed. Jozef Zsellengér, JSJSup 166 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 119–136; reprinted in idem, Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, 51–65. 30 Eileen M. Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms from Qumran: A Pseudepigraphic Collection, HSS 28 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 251; Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” 27–78; Mika S. Pajunen, “The Textual Connection between 4Q380 Fragment 1 and Psalm 106,” in The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Nóra Dávid, Armin Lange, Kristin De Troyer, and Shani Tzoref, FRLANT 239 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 186–202; idem, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All, 311. 31 Peter Atkins, Memory and Liturgy: The Place of Memory in the Composition and Practice of Liturgy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 11.



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as determinative of how tradition might be appropriated, it could be that other aspects of cultic practice are more adept at encouraging that to happen. It might be no accident that 4Q422 rehearses the plagues with a reuse of the historical psalms rather than with a direct reference to the narrative itself. The various parts of the brain, trained to work together not least through religious practices such as collective worship, make the plagues a part of all that is or might be real for the person rehearsing or receiving the tradition anew.32 Atkins assesses memory as part of acculturated brain function and is more forceful in applying his understanding of the neurosciences to what liturgy does: “Without a memory there can be no liturgy. Without a liturgy there can be no memory of God for the people. This dire warning is reinforced by the way the brain seems to work.”33 Cultic performance and liturgical poetry might be the very times and texts where memory is most explicitly and pertinently realized, made real and actual, where the past, present and future, as perceived by a group of individuals, are held together distinctively. Second, it seems to me that the uses and reuses of allusions to Psalms 78, 105, and 106 in the exhortatory parts of the Damascus Document can be partly understood all the better as sites of memory when they are juxtaposed with developments in ritual practice in the early churches. In 1Corinthians 11:23–26, Paul rehearses a tradition “from the Lord” about how he is memorialized. Although there may be debates about which prayer texts from the Qumran caves might express the views of the sectarian movement of which the Qumran community was a part, it is noticeable, as far as I know, that there is no prayer text that celebrates the founding moment of that movement, whether it be considered explicitly sectarian or not. There are indeed compositions that reflect rituals and rites when new members might join the movement, but those moments of initiation are not expressed in terms that conjure up a specific divine deed identified as the moment of separation from other Jews of the time. As liturgical specialists might express it, in the liturgical texts from the Qumran caves, notably those commonly supposed to reflect the life of the sectarian movement, there are none that have a particularist or sectarian anamnesis as is present in 1Corinthians 11. Thus the

32 For further discussion of the possible relevance of neuroscience see Patrick McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). McNamara’s major claim has been summarized and applied to the study of moral agency in the Hebrew Bible by Carol A. Newsom, “Models of the Moral Self: Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism,” JBL 131 (2012): 6; the claim is that “religion and the self co-evolved and that religion is the most important of the cultural means by which a unified or executive self is constructed and maintained.” 33 Atkins, Memory and Liturgy, 24.

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Damascus Document does not memorialize a sectarian liturgy, but re-uses and alludes to Psalms 78, 105, and 106, as well as other received authoritative texts (such as Lev 26), to enable a particular formulation of the identity of its readers within a broader set of identity markers than those belonging to the sect alone. The past which is memorialized in the prayer texts found in the Qumran caves is a past made up of three elements, none of which need be considered especially distinctive of the Qumran community or the movement of which it was a part. To begin with there are what might be labelled as the mighty deeds of God. These are to be identified in creation and notably in the exodus. Second, there are some key figures or moments, associated with divine activity but not described exclusively as divinely controlled. Recollections of David might fall under this heading. Third, there is the sense that in some way the praying community is part of a more recent historical memory of coming out of exile.34 It need be no surprise then that the historical psalms are key to the re-expression of the movement’s history. Whilst some scholars might conclude that that indicates a type of ardent sectarianism, namely the exclusivist claim to the whole of the earlier tradition of Israel, it could be argued that the allusions to Psalms 78, 105, and 106 are simply expressions of identifying with the tradition in a particularly forceful way, a tradition which may have been developed and transmitted especially in Levitical circles. Those Levitical circles might have contributed to the matrix out of which the movement emerged which was eventually responsible for collecting the scrolls together that were variously deposited in the eleven caves at and near Qumran. Whatever the case in terms of social history, the memory to be realized, made actual and real, is that which has been processed and received through performance and poetry.

3 Fulfilment – A Trio of Texts In a study of the historiographies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, I have noted that there are several ways in which history is approached in the Second Temple period.35 Some forms of history seem to us to read in a linear fashion from creation to the present time, and with the expectation of ongoing continuity into the distant

34 See, amongst other studies, George J. Brooke, “The Place of Prophecy in Coming out of Exile: The Case of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, ed. Anssi Voitila and Jutta Jokiranta, JSJSup 126 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 535–550. 35 Brooke, “Types of Historiography in the Qumran Scrolls,” 211–230.



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future; this is perhaps how many modern readers of early Jewish texts expect to encounter history, at least in part under the influence of a grand narrative such as is constructed by Josephus. Yet other presentations of history probably suggest that a straightforward linear account of the history of Israel was not a majority view in late Second Temple times. In addition to such a view some account should at least be made of circular history in which the controlling pattern is one of Urzeit and Endzeit as counterparts, with the Endzeit as expected imminently or even experienced as already under way. Another that might represent a linear view and yet be expressed in a more limited fashion is patterned in cycles, particularly Jubilee periods or Weeks. There is also annalistic history and history dominated by the zodiacal movement of the sun, the moon and the stars. All history, however schematized, is highly selective and says as much or even more about those constructing and re-presenting it than about actual past events. Against such a variegated historiographical backdrop, there are many ways in which fulfilment can be articulated. In this section I will focus on some very small motifs in three different compositions; each set of motifs seems to resonate in little details with the historical psalms. Those small motifs seem to indicate that one way of seeing the history proclaimed in the historical psalms as fulfilled in the present or near future is through the reuse of the language of the psalms, probably to be understood as deliberate, as with the several idioms and motifs that have been pointed out for the historical psalms by Lange and Weigold (see above).

3.1 The Temple Scroll The first is the reference to the covenant with Jacob in the redactional section of the Temple Scroll (29:3–10) at the end of the so-called “Sacrificial Festival Calendar.”36 That section concludes with the striking phrasing: “They shall be for me a people and I will be for them forever; and I shall dwell with them forever and always. I shall sanctify my [te]mple with my glory, for I shall make my glory reside over it until the day of creation (‫)יום הבריה‬, when I shall create my temple, establishing it for myself for all days, according to the covenant which I made

36 See my comments on the wider Jacob tradition represented in the Temple Scroll and elsewhere in both the non-sectarian and sectarian scrolls in George J. Brooke, “Jacob and His House in the Scrolls from Qumran,” in Rewriting and Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: The Biblical Patriarchs in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Devorah Dimant and Reinhard G. Kratz, BZAW 439 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 171–188.

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with Jacob at Bethel (‫)כברית אשר כרתי עם יעקוב בבית אל‬.”37 Although it is possible that there was more text on the same topic at the top of the following column, it is not clear what such text might have contained. While Yigael Yadin suggested that there could have been some specific comments about the building of the temple,38 Michael Wise argued that the following column most likely began with some such formula as “and Isaac at Gerar and with Abraham at Haran,” thus making for a broad allusion to the patriarchal covenant tradition.39 Since the specific context of the last lines of column 29 concerns the eventual divine building of the eschatological temple, it seems preferable to understand that the reference to the covenant made with Jacob is not a general reference to the patriarchal covenant passed with renewal from father to son, but rather that it is intended as a specific covenant made with Jacob alone. There is no explicit use of the term bryt in the Jacob cycle in Genesis, so it is necessary to look elsewhere for the terminology used in the Temple Scroll. It is highly likely that Leviticus 26:42 was in mind as the scriptural base text that explicitly refers to the covenant with Jacob.40 However, it needs to be recalled that the same text underlies the covenant of the Fathers section in Psalm 105 as is widely recognized.41 Indeed it could be that the historical psalms reflect other ways of expressing the patriarchal traditions, ways which might fit more closely with the Levitical traditions already mentioned above. It has commonly been noticed that some of the regulations and interpretative renderings of the Temple Scroll give preference to the Levites, so perhaps it is no accident that a more rounded view of the covenantal material in Temple Scroll 29:3–10 should take into account the Asaphite Psalms and their references to Jacob/Israel as well as the key text of Leviticus itself. Psalm 78:5 seems to have echoes of Leviticus 26:46 too.42 All this seems to indicate that the covenant with Jacob is more than merely a confirmation of that with Abraham and Isaac; it has specifically to do with the building of the temple, with right sacrifice, and with the establishment of the priesthood. These matters occur in pre-sectarian compositions, such as the Book of Jubilees, as well as in more explicitly sectarian ones and they are topics that

37 Trans. Florentino García Martínez and Eibert Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 1251. 38 Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983), 2.130. 39 Michael O. Wise, “The Covenant of the Temple Scroll XXIX, 3–10,” RevQ 14 (1989): 52. 40 The same also seems to be the case in 4Q372 3 9 (“which he cut with Jacob to be with him for ever”) where phraseology very similar to that of 11Q19 29 is found with explicit mention of Jacob. 41 See, e.g., Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 220. 42 I have attempted to outline many of the resonances between the Asaphite Psalms and Leviticus 26 in Brooke, “Psalms 105 and 106 at Qumran,” 276–277.



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are found in both second and first century BCE compositions. They seem to have been subjects of ongoing significance to the sectarian community and its forebears, although presented with varying nuances in each composition, depending upon its purposes, genre, and date. By seeing that there is no simple line from Leviticus 26 to the Temple Scroll, but rather a set of textual echoes or intertexts that enhance one another, it is possible to recognize the wider role of the historical psalms, even if at times that role is largely implicit. Such echoes help create new authoritative traditions and act as implicit identity markers.

3.2 The Rule of the Community A second resonance of the historical psalms is also instructive. On more than one occasion I have commented upon the development of the priestly blessing (Num 6:24–26) in the Rule of the Community (1QS 2:2–4)43 where it is fairly easy to see how the benediction is extended with scriptural phraseology: “(…) May he bless you with all good (Deut 26:11) and keep you from all evil (Ps 121:7). May he enlighten your heart with life-giving wisdom (cf. Prov 16:22), and grace you with eternal knowledge (cf. Jer 31:31–34). May he raise his merciful face (‫)פני חסדיו‬ towards you for everlasting (‫ )עולמים‬peace (cf. Pss 105, 106, 136 refrain).”44 In this text the following can be noticed. First, ‫ בכול טוב‬occurs in only one place in the whole of the Hebrew Bible, in Deuteronomy 26:11. Its counterbalance comes from Psalm 121:7. Second, the second pair of poetic stichoi are expanded with phraseology adapted for its new context from Proverbs 16:22 and Jeremiah 31:31–34 – in fact the two additional passages are probably put together because they share a concern for the “heart” with the latter passage talking of the Law that is to be written on the heart. Then the third part of the blessing is reduced to a single clause, but then expanded in two places with references to the refrain of several psalms, most obviously the historical psalms, Psalms 105, 106, and 136.45

43 Eileen M. Schuller, The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned 50 Years On? (London: SCM Press, 2006), 71, has described the expansions briefly as reflections of “the community’s dualistic theology and emphasis on knowledge.” 44 I first discussed this passage in print in George J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context, JSOTSup 29 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985; reprinted Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 295– 302; see further my comments in “Theological Significance of Prayer,” 46–47. 45 The revised blessing has eighteen words, which might be significant. The Tetragrammaton occurs eighteen times in Psalm 29 and there are eighteen blessings in the ‘amidah; cf. b. Ber. 28b. See Otto H. Lehmann, “Number-symbolism as a Vehicle of Religious Experience in the Gospels,

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Overall the adjustments and additions enhance the blessing through the use of scriptures that echo and reflect the possible liturgy of the covenant ceremony in which the blessing was supposedly used.46 This is the scripturalization of a text for public prayer. But it is not just a neat game with texts and intertexts, echoes and allusions. The use of the historical psalms’ refrain at the end of the blessing confirms its content as a speech act through the way in which earlier cultic performance has encouraged members of the community to appropriate the things that created the people’s identity. The new covenantal blessing is shown to be the true heir to the great deeds of God in the past; the person participating in the ceremony is linked to a tradition, not by being taken back into the past but through writing the Law on his heart. It is a historical moment, in fact a historic moment for the worshipper.

3.3 Eschatological Commentary A (4Q174) Anja Klein has based the first part of her analysis of history and prayer on the proposal that the Song of the Sea is the starting point for the reception of the tradition of the exodus in an admixture of hymn and history.47 That potent mixture of genre and content is then reflected directly or indirectly in the most explicit historical psalms as found in the MT Psalter. On reading her work I immediately recalled that in the section of 4Q174, Eschatological Commentary A, that provides an interpretation of the oracle of Nathan in 2Samuel 7 the interpretation is introduced by a quotation from Exodus 15:17–18 (“The temple of YHWH your hands will establish. YHWH shall reign for ever and ever”; frg. 1 I 3). Given that the interpretation of the oracle of Nathan is juxtaposed in the composition with a pesher on the psalms, beginning with Psalms 1 and 2, I have wondered whether anything from the historical psalms has survived in the interpretation of 2Samuel 7. It would seem too general to argue that the presence of David in four places might be a recollection of Psalm 78:70, a text that is widely recognized as echoing 2Samuel 7 in some way, as also Klein has recently noted in an uncontestable manner.48 However, there is one very puzzling phrase which I have

Contemporary Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Studia Patristica IV.2, ed. Frank L. Cross, TU 79 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961), 129 n. 2. 46 Nitzan, Qumran Prayer, 145–171, has pointed out that many of the blessings found at Qumran are extensions or adaptations of the Aaronic benediction. 47 Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 15–79. 48 Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 123.



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written about more than once: the phrase ‫( מקדש אדם‬frg. 1 I 6) is highly distinctive. Devorah Dimant has insightfully noticed that it might combine phraseology from 2Samuel 7:19 ‫ וזאת תורת האדם‬and Psalm 78:60 ‫אהל ׁשכן באדם‬, but she has not offered any explanation for such a combination of resonances.49 In the light of Klein’s suggestion that the historical psalms take their start in both form and content from the Song of the Sea, I am inclined to think that this small polyphonous phrase, ‫מקדש אדם‬, is sufficiently innovative as also to carry a resonance of Psalm 78:60. The interpretation of 2Samuel 7 then is reinforced through the fresh use of a motif from a historical psalm in which the identity of the community is reshaped, quite literally recreated. This is strong language indeed.

4 Conclusions This essay has two principal parts. In the first I have argued in continuity with my earlier study on Psalms 105 and 106 that the so-called historical psalms play a notable part in the interplay of memory and identity formation in the Second Temple period. To appreciate what is taking place it is necessary to identify the intertextual allusions to the historical psalms, and to construct a multidimensional method through which the intertextual activity can be read, a method that takes account of the re-use of texts and traditions, the place of memory in such re-use, and the liturgical contexts of such re-use. In the second part I have indicated through some brief comments on three texts, that the historical psalms played an ongoing part with other texts and traditions in providing phraseology through which there could be adequate re-presentation of the covenant promise of the past (as in Temple Scroll 29), blessing in the present (as in Rule of the Community 2), and the eschatological hope of the future (as in Eschatological Commentary A). Thus through attention to some aspects large and small of the afterlife of the historical psalms, fairly closely defined, I have argued in this essay that communities have been able to view and appropriate their history in various ways whose significance is only just beginning to be appreciated.

49 Dimant, History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation, 273.

Anja Klein

Fathers and Sons: Family Ties in the Historical Psalms 1 (Family-) History in the Psalms Assembled within the Hebrew Bible are a number of psalm texts that are characterized by their re-narration of history. These psalms draw significantly on the biblical narratives of Israel’s past that are taken up and interpreted in order to understand the present in the light of a salvific past. Due to this characteristic feature, these texts have been called “historical psalms”; a classification that goes back to the form-historical research of Hermann Gunkel and Joachim Begrich. These two scholars grouped Psalms 78, 105, and 106 together with Deuteronomy 32 and Isaiah 63:7–64:11 as “legends” (“Legenden”) that are characterized by their retelling of history.1 However, scholarship continues to discuss both the classification and the range of texts that should be counted among this group.2 There is some agreement, though, that Psalms 78, 105, 106, 135, and 136 make up the core.3 Rather than discussing criteria and classification, I would like to focus on a certain characteristic that can be found in a number of these psalms associated with retelling the past, namely, the role of the ancestors in biblical history and how they relate to the present generation. This feature holds a decisive key to understanding why biblical history was reformulated in prayer texts and how this phenomenon can be explained. The following argument focuses on four prayer texts, all of which demonstrate the importance of the relationship between fathers and sons. The first text is the great historical Psalm 78, in which the supplicants dissociate themselves from the sin of their fathers (Ps 78:8). In contrast, the second example in Psalm 105 presents a picture of continuity, as the psalm’s readers are deemed to be the

1 Cf. Hermann Gunkel and Joachim Begrich, Einleitung in die Psalmen: Die Gattungen der religiösen Lyrik Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 41985 [1933]), 323–327. 2 On the history of scholarship and the current state of research, cf. Judith Gärtner, Die Geschichtspsalmen: Eine Studie zu den Psalmen 78, 105, 106, 135 und 136 als hermeneutische Schlüsseltexte im Psalter, FAT 84 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 3–8, and Anja Klein, Geschichte und Gebet: Die Rezeption der biblischen Geschichte in den Psalmen des Alten Testaments, FAT 94 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 5–12. See further the thematic issue of the journal Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel (HeBAI) on the historical psalms, edited by Judith Gärtner and Anja Klein (forthcoming). 3 Cf. the introduction by Judith Gärtner and Anja Klein in “The Historical Psalms.” DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-017



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legitimate heirs to the covenantal promises to Abraham (Ps 105:6). In our third text, however, family ties have become ill-omened, as the speakers in Psalm 106 confess their transgressions together with their fathers (Ps 106:6). As a similar confession of guilt is attested to in the prayer texts of 1Kings 8 and Daniel 9 (cf. 1Kgs 8:47; Dan 9:5), these two texts will have to be considered alongside Psalm 106. Our last example, the confessional prayer in Nehemiah 9, ties in with Psalm 106, as the supplicants confess likewise their cross-generational sin (Neh 9:2). The concluding summary will demonstrate that the references to the patriarchal ancestors serve to understand biblical history in terms of family history. Thus, by praying the historical psalms, the Jews of postexilic Israel can appropriate and consummate the collective identity of their biblical fathers, and understand themselves as part of God’s people. I will then briefly demonstrate that the family argument continued to be used in a number of prayer texts from the late Second Temple period that did not make it into the Hebrew canon.

2 The Sins of the Fathers: A Cautionary Tale in Psalm 78 The historical Psalm 78 is the second longest psalm in the Psalter. It offers in its main part (Ps 78:12–72) a long review of biblical history. With the exception of some reworking, especially the insertion of the plague cycle in Psalm 78:43– 51,53,4 we are dealing with a linear account progressing from Egypt into the land. History starts with the fathers in Egypt, in front of whom Yahweh works miracles (Ps 78:12–16). However, the fathers continue to sin against him. They prove to be quite insubordinate (Ps 78:17) throughout their wandering through the desert (Ps 78:17–53) and finally, throughout their time in the land (Ps 78:54–72). Thus, the leitmotif that pervades the review of biblical history is the recurring transgressions of the people, resulting in a final judgement in the land (Ps 78:56–64).5

4 On the literary analysis of Ps 78, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 86–110. The secondary nature of the plague cycle in Ps 78 has been demonstrated already by Hermann Spieckermann, Heilsgegenwart: Eine Theologie der Psalmen, FRLANT 148 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 137–138; Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, HTKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2000), 423; Markus Witte, “From Exodus to David – History and Historiography in Psalm 78,” in History and Identity: How Israel’s Later Authors Viewed Its Earlier History, ed. Nuria CalduchBenages and Jan Liesen, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2006 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006): 21–42, 23–24, and Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 94–95. 5 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 102–104.

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Judgement, however, is not the last word, as the final paragraph surprises its readers with the notion that Yahweh “awoke as from sleep” (Ps 78:65), and it reports a turn of events as a consequence of this divine awakening: Yahweh’s own intervention leads to the election of Judah, David, and Mount Zion (Ps 78:65–72*). On the whole, the psalm retells a history of recurring sin from Egypt into the land, whereby sin is defined clearly in deuteronomistic terms. Two observations are worth mentioning here: First of all, the giving of the law is not part of the historical events in the main part, but its bestowal is narrated in the introduction of the psalm: “He established a decree in Jacob and appointed Torah in Israel” (Ps 78:5: ‫)ויקם עדות ביעקב ותורה שם בישראל‬. Thus, Torah serves from the beginning as a criterion for the behavior of the people in the historical account that follows, whereby the central laws of Deuteronomy apply.6 Israel infringes continuously upon the first commandment by testing Yahweh (Ps 78:18,41,56: ‫)נסה‬ and by establishing “worship on the heights” (78:58: ‫)ויכעיסוהו בבמותם‬, a cult that further constitutes a violation of the deuteronomistic law of cult centralization (Deut 12). Finally, the psalm coheres with other deuteronomistic texts in its understanding that biblical history begins with the fathers in Egypt.7 There remains the question how the reference to Israel’s fathers relates to the psalm’s readership. A first hint to understanding how the concept works is given in the first part of the introduction, Psalm 78:1–2, where an anonymous speaker addresses his people in order to instruct them. His instruction comes in the form of a wisdom saying, a ‫( משל‬Ps 78:2) that comprises “riddles from of old” (Ps 78:2: ‫)אביעה חידות מני־קדם‬. The classification as a wisdom saying demonstrates already that the historical account in the main body of the psalm is to be understood as a parable and thus has a didactic purpose.8 This didactic purpose unfolds in the second part of the introduction in Psalm 78:3–11, where a group of speakers take the floor. They state their intention to describe the wondrous deeds of Yahweh (Ps 78:4b), who had established Torah in Israel (Ps 78:5). This gift entails the good deuteronomistic tradition of passing on instruction to the following generations

6 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 125. 7 See Thomas Römer, Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition, OBO 99 (Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Freiburg/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 521–523. 8 On the didactic implications of this genre classification see Hermann Gunkel, Die Psalmen: Übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 61989 [1926]), 340; Notker Füglister, “Psalm LCCCVIII [sic!]: Der Rätsel Lösung?,” in Congress Volume Leuven 1989, ed. John A. Emerton, VTSup 43 (Leiden: Brill, 1991): 246–297, 265–270; Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 419–420; Beat Weber, “Psalm 78: Geschichte mit Geschichte deuten,” TZ 56 (2000): 193–214, 194, 198–202; Klein, Geschichte, 87, 110–111.



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(Ps 78:6–7). The passing on of tradition shall prevent the following generations from repeating the sins of their forefathers, who are characterized as a stubborn and rebellious generation (Ps 78:8: ‫)ולא יהיו כאבותם דור סורר ומרה‬. Another reference to “their fathers” (‫ )אבותם‬appears at the beginning of the historical account in verse 12, where the expression refers to the biblical fathers in Egypt. This suggests that the stubborn and rebellious generation in verse 8 can be identified with the generation of Israel in Egypt that features in the main body of the psalm. The historical account seems to point to a further differentiation of the generation of fathers. It is the description of the sinful conduct of the people in the land in terms of “faithless like their fathers” (Ps 78:57: ‫ )ויבגדו כאבותם‬that indicates a clear distinction between the exodus generation and the generation of fathers in the land. However, some evidence suggests that we are dealing with a later insertion in verse 57. Not only is this differentiation into two generations unprepared for in the previous psalm, but also the terminology used for the people’s sin in this verse deviates from the vocabulary employed in the rest of the psalm.9 A later reworking of Psalm 78 that introduces the death of the Egyptian fathers’ generation in the desert (Ps 78:32–39) entails the differentiation of the fathers in the land (Ps 78:57).10 However, this later differentiation of the fathers is of minor relevance for the overall generational picture, as the verdict on the people as being stubborn and rebellious applies to the biblical fathers without exception.11 The whole of Psalm 78 thus presupposes a general three-generation succession that comprises two sets of different “fathers.”12 Different from the individual in the first part of the introduction, who summons his people to listen (Ps 78:1–2), the second part introduces a group of speakers representing the present generation. According to verse 5, their fathers had been given the divine law (‫ויקם עדות‬ ‫)ביעקב ותורה שם בישראל אשר צוה את אבותינו להודיעם לבניהם‬. Yet distinctive from these fathers is the generation of the fathers in biblical history from Egypt to the

9 While 78:57 uses the Hebrew roots ‫ סוג‬ni. and ‫בגד‬, further instances in the Psalm describe the Israelites’ misconduct by applying the verbs ‫ מרה‬hif. (78:8,17,40,56) and ‫ נסה‬pi. (78:18,41,56). It can be argued that the later insertion of 78:57 reacts to previous reworkings in 78:31,34 that provide for the death of the desert generation; the death of this first generation is then acknowledged in the insertion at 78:57. Cf. Klein, Geschichte, 96–97, 108; likewise Herbert Haag, “Zion und Schilo: Traditionsgeschichtliche Parallelen in Jeremia 7 und Psalm 78,” in Die alttestamentliche Botschaft als Wegweisung, FS Heinz Reinelt, ed. Josef Zmijewski (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1990), 85–115, 108, assumes a later addition in 78:57. 10 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 107–108. 11 Similarly, Bernd Biberger, Unsere Väter und wir: Unterteilung von Geschichtsdarstellungen in Generationen und das Verhältnis der Generationen im Alten Testament, BBB 145 (Berlin: Philo, 2003), 158, stresses that both the fathers in the desert and in the land incur guilt in the same way. 12 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 88–90.

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land, who represent the stubborn and rebellious generation. This clear-cut genealogical model (present generation, fathers who get the law, biblical ancestors), however, is unsettled by a later insertion in verses 3–4a that leads to a rather confusing clutter of fathers and sons.13 In these verses, the speaker emphasizes that they have been instructed by “our fathers” (Ps 78:3: ‫ )ואבותינו ספרו לנו‬and will pass on instruction to “their sons” (Ps 78:4: ‫ ;)לא נכחד מבניהם‬a resolution that somehow makes the speakers’ generation the odd one out. This can be explained by demonstrating that the passage in verses 3–4a represents a modified quotation from Psalm 44:2 (‫)אבותינו ספרו־לנו‬. As a later addition to the introduction of Psalm 78, the quotation aims at highlighting the model behavior of the speakers, who followed faithfully to instruct their offspring. While the original Psalm 78* establishes the duty of filial instruction for the generations to come (Ps 78:6), the insertion in verses 3–4a gives voice to a group of people, who affirm their fulfilment of the duty, and it offers at the same time a hermeneutical reflection on the process.14 By reading or praying the reworked introduction, every reader can now identify with the supplicants and become an active part of the intergenerational contract by committing themselves to passing on tradition. To sum up, the reception of Israel’s history in Psalm 78 carries clearly a paradigmatic notion whereby the biblical fathers serve as a warning example. By applying the deuteronomistic concept of “filial instruction” (Ps 78:5; cf. Deut 4:9; 6:4–9), the present readers are supposed to learn their lesson from history and dissociate themselves from the sin of their biblical forefathers. This generational tie is enforced in terms of an intergenerational contract by the insertion of the programmatic passage in verses 3–4a. The psalm now allows every reader to identify with the group of speakers and to commit themselves actively to taking their place in instructing the generations to come. Should we want to make use of classifications, Psalm 78 is clearly shaped by a deuteronomistic understanding of generations, both with regard to the sinful behavior of the biblical fathers in terms of a violation of the law, and with regard to the tradition’s transmission process, by which knowledge is passed on from father to son.15

13 Cf. Spieckermann, Heilsgegenwart, 134 (“ein heilloser Personenwirwarr”); on the secondary nature of 78:3–4a, see further Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, 421–422, and Klein, Geschichte, 88–89. 14 On this function of the insertion in 78:3–4a, see Klein, Geschichte, 110, 362, and referring to the introduction as a whole Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 50–61. 15 Cf. Römer, Israels Väter, 521–522.



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3 Heirs to the Covenant with Abraham: Psalm 105 In comparison with Psalm 78, our second example in Psalm 105 uses a completely different model to describe Israel’s past generations, even though the psalm can be shown to be dependent on Psalm 78 in general. It is especially the plague cycle in Psalm 105:27–36 that draws on the final form of Psalm 78 and shows that Psalm 105 presupposes the didactic teaching of Psalm 78.16 Different from the historical review in Psalm 78, however, Psalm 105 goes back further in history by starting from the covenant with Abraham (Ps 105:9–11), which is then followed by recounting the people’s exodus from Egypt into the land (Ps 105:12–45). While the theology of Psalm 78 has been labelled as “deuteronomistic”, Psalm 105 falls into the broad category of “priestly”, as the covenant is shaped in priestly terms. First of all, the central gift of the covenant is the promise of the land in verse 11 that draws on the wording of the priestly covenant in Genesis 17: “To you I will give the land of Canaan as a portion of your inheritance” (Gen 17:8: ‫לך אתן את־ארץ־כנען‬ ‫)חבל נחלתכם‬. This promise of land serves as a hermeneutical key for the following events in the psalm, as the divine deeds are interpreted as manifestations of God’s covenantal faithfulness.17 However, for the most part, history in Psalm 105 is characterized by the contrast between the promise of the land and the present homelessness of the people.18 While the Israelites are strangers during their time in Egypt (Ps 105:12,23: ‫)גור‬, the time of desert wandering is already clearly marked as a stay in no-man’s-land by the lack of the Hebrew term for land, ‫ארץ‬. With regard to fathers and sons, it should be noticed first that the fathers (‫ )אבות‬are not explicitly mentioned in Psalm 105, and while Psalm 78 is characterized by a three-generational succession, Psalm 105 mainly distinguishes between the biblical generation and the present addressees. Nevertheless, the genealogical argument is highly important when it comes to attributing biblical history relevant for the present reader. While in Psalm 78 identity is constituted by setting the present generation off against their sinful biblical fathers, the author of Psalm

16 On this, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 233–234; see previously Notker Füglister, “Psalm 105 und die Väterverheißung,” in Die Väter Israels: Beiträge zur Theologie der Patriarchenüberlieferungen im Alten Testament, FS J. Scharbert, ed. Manfred Görg (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989), 41–59, 46, and Dietmar Mathias, Die Geschichtstheologie der Geschichtssummarien in den Psalmen, BEATAJ 35 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1993), 123. See, however, Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 136, who arrives at the conclusion that a literary relationship between Pss 78 and 105 (and 106) cannot be established. 17 On the significance of the patriarchal covenant for the theology of Ps 105, cf. Füglister, “Psalm 105,” 41–57; Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 144, 149–160; Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 219–240. 18 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 203–204, 224, 238.

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105 uses a model of participation.19 In the psalm’s introduction, the psalm readers are addressed as the “offspring of Abraham” and “sons of Jacob” (Ps 105:6: ‫זרע‬ ‫)אברהם עבדו בני יעקב בחיריו‬, thus making them the legitimate descendants of the biblical patriarchs. This family lineage granted to the addressees opens up a continuation that makes every psalm reader and prayer heir to the covenantal promises to Abraham.20 The special emphasis on the validity of the land promise suggests a postexilic setting, when wide parts of the people of Israel were located outside the country and remembered Yahweh’s covenant promises.21 By identifying with the situation of their biblical ancestors, they could likewise set their hope on the covenantal promise of the land. It is the establishment of family ties with the biblical patriarchs that allows not only postexilic Israel, but every reader of the psalm to understand themselves as descendants of the patriarch Abraham and thus makes them entitled to inherit the land.

4 A Confession of Cross-Generational Sin: Psalm 106 4.1 Psalm 106 The hymnic praise of Yahweh’s covenantal faithfulness in history in Psalm 105 has a twin in Psalm 106, which, however, offers a slightly different view on events.22 The links in content and form between the two psalms show not only their relation, but they also demonstrate clearly that Psalm 106 is the later sibling.23 It can

19 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 364–365. 20 On this aspect cf. Richard J. Clifford, “Style and Purpose in Psalm 105,” Bib 60 (1979): 420– 427, 422–423, who summarizes: “The entire psalm is an exploration of the patriarchal promise of the land. Israel today is addressed as the seed of Abraham who was given that promise.” Similarly, see Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 149, 254. 21 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 204. A postexilic dating is suggested also by Clifford, “Style,” 427, and Beat Weber, Werkbuch Psalmen II: Die Psalmen 73 bis 150 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003), 189. 22 The classification of Pss 105 and 106 as “twin psalms” goes back to Walther Zimmerli, “Zwillingspsalmen,” in Studien zur alttestamentlichen Theologie und Prophetie: Gesammelte Aufsätze Band II, TB 51 (München: Kaiser, 1974), 261–271; his characterization has found wide acceptance in scholarship. 23 On this literary relationship, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 215–218; the majority of exegetes, however, follow the classic position of Zimmerli, without differentiating the two psalms



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be assumed that the psalm originated from the pressing concern as to why Israel was not in possession of the land that had been promised in Psalm 105.24 The author of Psalm 106 gives an answer to this question by pointing to the iniquity of the biblical fathers, who forfeited the covenantal land promise by their continuous transgression and by their lack of faith. In Psalm 106, it is actually the sinful conduct of the biblical ancestors with whom the present readers can relate. Similar to Psalm 78, the historical account in Psalm 106 takes a deuteronomistic starting point with the fathers in Egypt.25 However, while in Psalm 105 the fathers are described as passive (and presumably delighted) recipients of Yahweh’s covenantal faithfulness, in Psalm 106 the biblical ancestors are rather unappreciative of Yahweh’s actions and miracles. They do not comprehend his wondrous deeds in Egypt (Ps 106:7: ‫)אבותינו במצרים לא־השכילו נפלאותיך‬, and they behave obstinately at the Red Sea (Ps 106:7: ‫)וימרו על־ים בים־סוף‬. Even though the miracle of the sea leads to a first reaction of faith (Ps 106:12: ‫ויאמינו בדבריו‬ ‫“ ;ישירו תהלתו‬They believed his words, they sang his praise”), in the long run the fathers prove to be rather faithless. Hence the journey through the wilderness is characterized by recurring acts of rebellion, which are expressions of their disbelief. While the intercession of Moses in the episode of the golden calf can yet avert the people being eradicated (Ps 106:23), their subsequent rejection of the land is presented as the ultimate lack of faith: “Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise”) Ps 106:24: ‫)וימאסו בארץ חמדה לא האמינו לדברו‬. This sinful act means not only that the present generation of fathers will die in the desert (Ps 106:26), but it entails also serious consequences for the generations to come that shall be dispersed among the nations (Ps 106:27). This proves to be an anticipatory judgement, as the next generation of sons repeat their fathers’ sinful behavior in the land – thus, they fulfil in retrospect the elements of the offence. Yet the verdict of exile and diaspora is not final as the psalm’s account of biblical history ends with the statement that Yahweh remembered his covenant and let the people be pitied (Ps 106:45–46).

in literary-historical terms; see, e.g., Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 101–150, HTKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 110–112, 138; Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 289. Only Martin Leuenberger, Konzeptionen des Königtums Gottes im Psalter: Untersuchungen zu Komposition und Redaktion der theokratischen Bücher IV–V im Psalter, ATANT 83 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2004), 245, differs slightly by ascribing the pairing of Pss 105 and 106 to a formative redaction that matched existing psalms in twos by means of redactional links. 24 Cf. Klein, Geschichte, 218. 25 See Römer, Israels Väter, 521; the deuteronomistic character is observed also by Biberger, Unsere Väter, 476.

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Even though Psalm 106 was supplemented to form a pair together with the preceding psalm (i.e., Psalm 105), it stands much closer to the didactic teaching of Psalm 78 with regard to fathers and sons. Both psalms assume the serious misconduct of the biblical fathers and both texts employ similar terminology for the transgressions of the ancestors.26 The genealogy in Psalm 106 is, however, less defined, as the psalm presumes a general differentiation only between the first generation of fathers that was led out of Egypt, and the second generation that entered the land. The generational watershed is the outright refusal of the people to enter the land (Ps 106:24) that leads to the death of the exodus generation in the desert, while the sons take the land into possession only to be exiled later. Moreover, Psalm 106 can be shown to systematize the conception of sin in terms of a lack of faith. While both psalms draw on deuteronomistic vocabulary to describe the misconduct of the fathers, the idea of faithlessness appears in Psalm 78 in only late insertions (Ps 78:22,32), while the author of Psalm 106 develops the idea in terms of an elaborate history of unfaithfulness.27 Thereby, the initial faith of Israel at the Red Sea (Ps 106:12) serves as a positive paradigm that contrasts the later recurring acts of unfaithfulness, culminating in the refusal of the land (Ps 106:24).28 The question remains: How does Psalm 106 relate the fate of the biblical ancestors to the present? Again, the hermeneutical key to this question lies in the introductory part of the psalm that comprises a confession of sin by the psalm’s supplicants. Confessing their own sins together with their fathers, the confession bridges the gap between biblical history and the present: “We have sinned together with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly” (‫)חטאנו עם אבותינו העוינו הרשענו‬.29 By identifying with the unfaithfulness of their biblical ancestors, the psalm’s readers can equally set their hopes on Yahweh to

26 On the relationship between Ps 105 and Ps 78, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 249–250, 267– 69. Likewise Römer, Israels Väter, 523, comments on the similarities between Ps 78 and Ps 106, in both of which the fathers evoke “negative associations” (“negative Assoziationen”). 27 On the secondary nature of the faith passages in Ps 78, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 86– 110, 268. In Ps 106, however, the idea of faith and the lack thereof, is used as a leitmotif, as the author draws on every narrative text in the Pentateuch that deals with faith (‫ אמן‬hif.), presenting biblical history in Ps 106 as an unfolding history of unfaithfulness (cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 206–213, 266–268). 28 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 213; similarly, Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 205–206, 241, acknowledges the paradigmatic significance of the Red Sea episode; yet she does not refer to the idea of faith, but considers the episode to be a paradigm for Yahweh’s saving action. 29 On this hermeneutical function of the confession in Ps 106:6, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 366. Similarly, Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 197–199, deems the confession to be the hermeneutical key for the historical account that proceeds after it in Ps 106.



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intervene accordingly, and save them from their present distress. The psalm thus ends with the supplicants’ plea for saving and gathering from among the nations (Ps 106:47). With this plea, the present readers hope for a repetition of Yahweh’s saving acts in biblical history. A comparison of Psalms 78 and 105 with Psalm 106 – the former two comprise the literary background from which the latter was constituted – highlights just how the author of Psalm 106 further develops the patterns used in each of his Vorlagen to constitute identity. First, the author of Psalm 106 draws upon the model of identificatory participation also found in Psalm 105.30 However, while Psalm 105 features a model of salvation continuity by addressing the present people as heirs to the covenantal promises to Abraham, in Psalm 106 it is the iniquity of the biblical ancestors to which the present people can relate. Second, with this emphasis on attributing sin an identificatory relevance for the addressees, Psalm 106 converges with its literary predecessor Psalm 78, whose author likewise employs sin to constitute identity.31 Yet there is one decisive difference: Whereas in Psalm 78, sin dissociates the present Israel from the forefathers, in Psalm 106 it is the iniquity of the fathers with which the present people ought to identify. The author in Psalm 106 thus systematizes the family argument and uses the introductory confession of sin in verse 6 to establish the link between biblical past and the present.

4.2 The Confession of Sin Psalm 106:6 in its Literary Context The tripartite confession of sin in Psalm 106:6 has two close parallels in 1Kings 8:47 (par. 2Chr 6:37) and Daniel 9:5, both of which are part of a prayer, while a two-part form of the confession is featured in the narrative about David’s census in 2Samuel 24:17. Because of the close links between these different confessions, a literary relationship can be assumed. First, in the narrative about David’s census of Israel and Judah in 2Samuel 24, Yahweh punishes the king for initiating the census by bringing a plague over Israel. When David confesses his offence and successfully asks for mercy on behalf of his people: “I have sinned, and I have done wickedly” (2Sam 24:17:‫) אנכי חטאתי ואנכי העויתי‬, the plague is finally averted from Israel (2Sam 24:25). This bipartite confession is likely to have been taken up and expanded in Solomon’s prayer of dedication in 1Kings 8. The actual prayer in verses 8:22–53

30 See Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 198. 31 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 377–378.

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starts from a predication of Yahweh and an affirmation of the oracle of Nathan (1Kgs 8:23–26), and in its main part, the prayer comprises a case study of seven examples of how the people shall address the divine in times of need.32 Here, the presumably later added seventh example in verses 46–5333 deals with the case that the people sin against Yahweh, which leads to their deliverance into the hands of the enemy and their capture by the foreign nations (1Kgs 8:46). However, if the people should return to Yahweh and repent, saying “We have sinned and done wrong, we have done wickedly” (1Kgs 8:47: ‫)חטאנו והעוינו רשענו‬, Yahweh is expected to forgive them and let them find mercy in exile and diaspora. It is noteworthy that the confession in 1Kings 8:47 shares the same three Hebrew verbal roots found in Psalm 106:6 (there is a small deviation with the third verb, ‫רשע‬, which occurs in the causative binyan in Ps 106, giving it a transitive emphasis). Both the confession in Solomon’s prayer and Psalm 106 assume an exilic context, yet both exhibit a different desired outcome. While the speakers in 1Kings 8:47 repent and hope for an alleviation of suffering in the exile and diaspora, the plea in Psalm 106 goes further by expecting an ingathering of the people and a return to the land.34 Psalm 106:6, however, differs from 1Kings 8:47 in that the confession is not an expression of the people’s repentance, but rather an attempt to provoke Yahweh into favorable action towards his people.35 This already points to Psalm 106 drawing on 1Kings 8:47, and a surplus that supplements the connection with the biblical fathers in Psalm 106 can be interpreted as further evidence that the psalm belongs into the reception history of 1Kings 8:47. The additional family dimension in Psalm 106 allows for an actualization of the confession that can now be prayed by every Israelite, who understands himself (or herself) as being related to the biblical fathers. Under this assumption, Psalm 106 as a whole can be understood as representing the prayer that the people in 1Kings 8 are advised to recite if they find themselves in exile because of their transgressions.

32 There is some doubt, however, whether all of these examples belong to the original prayer, e.g., Ernst Würthwein, Die Bücher der Könige: 1. Könige 1–16, ATD 11,1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 97–100, assumes originally four or five examples and suggests a later insertion at 8:44–51 (cf. Würthwein, Könige, 97, 99–100). On the analysis of Solomon’s prayer of dedication 1Kgs 8, see further Simon J. DeVries, 1 Kings, WBC 12 (Waco: Word Books, 1985), 113–128, and Martin J. Mulder, 1 Kings: Volume 1/1: 1 Kings 1–11, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 400–449. 33 On the secondary nature of these verses, cf., Würthwein, Könige, 97, 99–100; a later addition of 8:47 is suggested also by Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 198. 34 See Volker Pröbstl, Nehemia 9, Psalm 106 und Psalm 136 und die Rezeption des Pentateuchs (Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag, 1997), 144–145. 35 On this difference, cf. Pröbstl, Nehemia 9, 145; Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 198.



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The confession of Psalm 106:6 has a further close parallel in the prayer of the prophet Daniel (Dan 9:5). Following the prophet’s reflection on the understanding of the seventy years in the book of Jeremiah, we find a prayer, in which Daniel dwells on the right behavior when facing the impending end of the time period in question (Dan 9:4–20). The whole prayer constitutes a practical field guide for repentance, in which the speakers admit to their iniquity when faced with God’s faithfulness and justice.36 The prayer is introduced by their confession: “We have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and rebelled (‫חטאנו ועוינו‬ ‫)הרשענו‬, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.” Again, the three verbal roots used to describe the transgressions of the people are a close match with the confession in Psalm 106:6, though two of them are used in a different binyan. Even though the actual confession in Daniel 9:5 does not mention the generational link, the following prayer makes the supplicants part of the people of Israel by mentioning their fathers along with kings and princes (Dan 9:6,8,16). In particular, the statement in verse 16 suggests a continuing history of sin that unites the speakers with their ancestors.37 However, the genealogical argument seems to have become less important in view of the overwhelming guilt of the supplicants, in which the whole of Israel is incorporated. Due to this widening of the scope – and considering that the confession of sin in Daniel 9 is the most elaborate of our three examples – it can be assumed that we deal with the latest text in this case that uses the confession for the purpose of stressing the collective sin of the whole of Israel.

5 The Iniquities of Fathers and Sons: Nehemiah 9 Turning to the last example, it has been demonstrated that the penitential prayer in Nehemiah 9 can be understood as a systematization of the historical psalms in the book of Psalms that has been given a narrative setting.38 Preceding the actual

36 On the discussion if this prayer forms an integral part of the Daniel 9 chapter or if it is a later addition, cf. Christoph Berner, Jahre, Jahrwochen und Jubiläen: Heptadische Geschichtskonzeptionen im Antiken Judentum, BZAW 363 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 26–35. Berner argues convincingly that the prayer at 9:4–20 represents the latest continuation within the chapter, and that had been composed for its context, cf. Berner, Jahre, 37–40. 37 See also Römer, Israels Väter, 527, who, however, assumes that Dan 9:16 draws on Neh 9:2. 38 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 382–391. On the wider literary and tradition-historical background of Neh 9 see further the detailed study by Mark Boda, Praying the Tradition: The Origin and Use of Tradition in Nehemiah 9, BZAW 277 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999).

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prayer in verses 6–37, a narrative exposition in verses 1–5 describes how the people assemble for the purpose of a penitential service, in which they confess their sins together with the sins of their ancestors: “And they stood and confessed their sins and the sins of their fathers” (Neh 9:2: ‫)ויתודו על חטאתיהם ועונות אבתיהם‬. The performance of this confession is further supplemented with a reading of the law (Neh 9:3: ‫)ויקראו בספר תורת יהוה אלהיהם‬, which, however, might be a secondary addition.39 Similarly to Psalm 106, the introductory report of the people’s confession of sin in verse 2 opens up a long historical review that leads from the creation to exile (Neh 9:6–31).40 The prayer is closed off by a posterior frame, in which the supplicants lament their present distress and ask God for his intervention on their behalf (Neh 9:32–37). Over the course of recounted history, the events related in Genesis have a foundational role in two ways: God is first praised as the one who gives life to the whole of creation (Neh 9:6), and, second, as the one who entered into the covenant with Abraham in order to give the land to him and his offspring (Neh 9:7–8).41 These two aspects serve as the rationale for the following historical account. First, the divine creational will takes shape in the bestowal of the law, by the observance of which man shall live (Neh 9:29). Yet the people, who by the label of “our fathers” (Neh 9:9: ‫ )אבתינו‬are identified as the speakers’ ancestors, defy continuously the law during the course of biblical history, which leads to God handing them over to the nations (Neh 9:30). With this behavior, they forfeit the land ownership that was part of God’s provision for them. Second, Yahweh’s covenantal promise of the land serves to distinguish the different generations.42 The first generation of fathers is led out of Egypt and commanded to take the land into possession (Neh 9:9–22), yet they do not succeed in obtaining ownership. Rather, it is the generation of “their sons” (Neh 9:23: ‫)ובניהם‬, who enter the land. However, the sons are finally handed over to the nations after their own history of misconduct and neglect of Yahweh’s provisions, thus gambling away possession

39 Cf. Klaus-Dietrich Schunck, Nehemia, BK XXIII/2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 2009), 272, and Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 383; Hugh G.M. Williamson, Ezra/Nehemiah, WBC 16 (Waco: Word Books, 1985), 311, also discusses the possibility of later reworking in Neh 9:3. 40 On the analysis of Neh 9, cf. Williamson, Ezra/Nehemiah, 305–310; Pröbstl, Nehemia 9, 7–105, and Schunck, Nehemia, 267–269. 41 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 384–385. The specific relevance of the Genesis materials in Neh 9 has been recognized also by Pröbstl, Nehemia 9, 88–89, and by Konrad Schmid, Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments, WMANT 17 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999), 304. 42 Cf. Biberger, Unsere Väter, 135–137.



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of the land (Neh 9:23–31). Finally, the third group of people are the present speakers (Neh 9:32–37). Even though they live in the land, they lament their status of presently being slaves in it (Neh 9:36: ‫ )הנה אנחנו היום עבדים‬and complain that they cannot enjoy its goods. The supplicants conceive of this present distress as an unfairness compared to the second generation of their biblical fathers, who were allowed to dwell in the large and rich land despite their continuous misconduct (Neh 9:34–36).43 To sum up, family relations have become a complex issue in Nehemiah 9. On the one hand, the insight into their own sin ties the present people together with their biblical fathers in a way reminiscent of Psalm 106. However, while the supplicants in Psalm 106 ask humbly for a repetition of past salvation, the present speakers in Nehemiah 9 put forward a more demanding request. Although they identify with their fathers in terms of misbehavior, they feel unjustly treated when it comes to possession of the land in which they dwell as mere slaves. Thus, they call on God’s covenantal faithfulness and remind him poignantly that he had never abandoned their fathers in the past (Neh 9:17,19,31) – implying that he has done so now with them.44 The historical experience of God’s recurring faithfulness and grace allows them to ask for his intervention on their behalf and for a restoration of their control over the land. At the beginning of this section it was mentioned that the prayer in Nehemiah 9 works as a systematization of the historical psalms, which is especially true with regard to the father-son motif. While the author of Nehemiah 9 takes up the covenantal promises to the patriarch Abraham in Psalm 105 to establish the present generation’s claim to the land, he further draws on the concept of crossgenerational sin in Psalm 106. This confession ties the fathers to the sons and makes them equally dependent on Yahweh’s faithfulness and grace. It gets exciting, however, when it comes to the question of present relevance. While in Psalm 106, the present distress causes the supplicants to pray for a repetition of divine salvation in terms of rescue from the diaspora, the speakers in Nehemiah 9 subtly suggest that they have been treated unjustly in comparison with their fathers, and that they should be rescued equally by giving them control over the land. This different situation demonstrates clearly that the prayer in Nehemiah 9 reflects a later historical setting, when the continuing existence of foreign rule in the land

43 Similarly, Biberger, Unsere Väter, 124, 479, emphasizes the notion of unfairness, which he, however, links primarily to the incongruity between the covenantal promise of land ownership and the present situation of bondage. 44 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 388–389.

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was in the focus.45 The prayer in Nehemiah 9 can thus be deemed the foundation myth of postexilic Israel.46 Therein, the reference to the biblical fathers actualizes a biblical past that justifies the present demand for deliverance from foreign rule.

6 Praying Family History The examples chosen from the historical psalms show that the family argument plays an important role in how the historical review functions in each of the prayers. It has been demonstrated that the references to the biblical ancestors in each psalm contribute to form the identity of the present Israel, the people who become personally involved in biblical history by relating with the biblical fathers. However, what is particularly noteworthy here is that a literary-historical development can be traced, in which the family argument is continuously changed and refined.47 Thus, the question arises as to the general conditions that led to the emergence of the historical psalms and the family argument in particular. First, the historical setting of praying biblical history has to be taken into account. The psalms’ knowledge of and their dependence on the narrative traditions shows clearly that the historical psalms have a setting in postexilic times. This period in the history of ancient Israel is characterized by the loss of the central preexilic identity markers such as the (first) temple cult, the king, and nationhood.48 Consequently, the function of forming and maintaining identity was transferred onto

45 On this date and setting, cf. Biberger, Unsere Väter, 131, 136, Pröbstl, Nehemia 9, 103–105, and Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 389. 46 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 391: “In diesem Gebetstext [Neh 9] gibt sich das nach-­ exilische Judentum eine Gründungslegende.” 47 On the literary-historical differentiation of the historical psalms Exod 15, Pss 78, 105, 106, 135, 136, 137, and Neh 9, see Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 358–382. 48 On a description of this problem, cf. Reinhard G. Kratz, “Die Suche nach Identität in der nachexilischen Theologiegeschichte: Zur Hermeneutik des chronistischen Geschichtswerkes und ihrer Bedeutung für das Verständnis des Alten Testament,” in Pluralismus und Identität, ed. Joachim Mehlhausen, VWGTh 8 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995), 279–303, 280; Jürgen van Oorschot, “Geschichte, Redaktion und Identität – Überlegungen anhand deuterojesajanischer Prophetien,” in Das Alte Testament – Ein Geschichtsbuch?! Geschichtsschreibung oder Geschichtsüberlieferung im antiken Israel, ed. Jürgen van Oorschot and Uwe Becker, ABG 17 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2005), 37–57, 38–41, and Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 374.



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the production and study of holy texts.49 The idea of fathers and sons in the historical psalms is only one example of how postexilic Israel tried to come to terms with the catastrophe of exile and the loss of the people’s stabilizing factors.50 The family relations serve to bridge biblical history and present, thus establishing an identity in time51 that allows the present psalm reader to participate in the identity of God’s people. First of all, the deuteronomistic family concept in Psalm 78 refers to the generation of the biblical fathers in the fashion of a cautionary tale about the “stubborn and rebellious generation” (Ps 78:8), thus instructing the reader on how not to behave. In this didactic psalm, identity is formed by dissociating themselves from the historical ancestors, which, however, would only work under the assumption that there is a connection between past and present generations – exactly what is achieved by means of the family ties. The priestly Psalm 105, however, reverses the manner of the relationship. Its author employs a positive continuation in terms of the present generation participating in the covenantal promises to Abraham and his offspring. Their status as descendants of and heirs to the patriarch Abraham (Ps 105:6) makes the present people of Israel eligible to claim the land as their covenantal heritage. This claim, however, is challenged subsequently in Psalm 106, which re-uses a deuteronomistic understanding of generations. It starts from a cross-generational confession of sin, in which the present generation identifies with their ancestors by acknowledging their sin “together with our fathers” (Ps 106:6). Despite their transgressions, the biblical ancestors are repeatedly rescued by Yahweh’s grace and forgiveness, an action that serves as a historical paradigm that can be actualized for the present generation in exile and diaspora. Finally, the confessional prayer in Nehemiah 9 represents a systematization of the historical prayers in the book of Psalms in several respects. Firstly, the prayer can be deemed a fusion of deuteronomistic and priestly theology. On the one hand, its author uses the priestly idea of the covenant to establish the present Israel’s claim to the land. On the other hand, the deuteronomistic motif of the fathers trespassing against the deuteronomistic law figures as a major offence throughout. Again, identity is established by referring to a continuum of cross-generational guilt, which the present generation acknowledges in an intro-

49 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 374. 50 On the use of the genealogical argument in the historical psalms as a means to establish identity, cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 377–378. 51 The concept of identity in time (“Identität in der Zeit”) was first described by Kratz, “Suche,” 287–292, with regard to the chronistic literature. On the application of the term and concept onto the historical psalms, see Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 377–380.

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ductory confession of sin (Neh 9:2). However, the identification with the biblical fathers works a bit different here, as their fate in history is used neither as a warning example nor as a paradigm. Rather, their possession of the land throughout biblical history serves as a positive reference, which the speakers hold before Yahweh to show that they have been treated unfairly by being servants in their own land. On the whole, family ties in the historical psalms establish an identity in time by attributing biblical history relevance for the present reader of the psalm. The gap between the biblical past and the present is bridged by making biblical history a family affair. The family argument, however, does not only occur in the historical psalms, but in all the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. We also find the idea of the ancestral fathers in deuteronomistic literature, serving to bridge the gap that had been opened by the catastrophe of exile.52 All these family relations aim to re-establish identity for postexilic Israel. The literary genre of the historical psalms as prayer texts, however, provides a surplus that contributes decisively to constituting identity in prayer.53 Even though the historical psalms do not have a setting in the cult, they do evoke a cultic context and should be read and understood against this cultic background.54 This is not without consequences for the application of the historical psalms. Firstly, different from a narrative legend of origin, an individual prayer demands a decision from the reader, as he or she has to get involved with the pre-existing relationship between Yahweh and his people. It is not possible to remain uncommitted in an act of praying, even if it is only a spiritualized prayer. In the spiritualized act of praying, every reader or supplicant can identify with the collective identity of Yahweh’s people and participate in both what God had achieved for them in the past, and what he will provide for them in the future.55 In the historical psalms, biblical history takes the form of family history, which allowed Judaism to come to terms with the catastrophe of exile and to establish a new identity. The benefit of an identity based on family ties is that it provides at the same time for continuity and discontinuity with the

52 The idea of “Israel’s fathers” in Old Testament literature has been covered comprehensively by Römer, Israels Väter, and Biberger, Unsere Väter. 53 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 380–382. 54 Cf. Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 380. See further the considerations of Reinhard G. Kratz, “Die Tora Davids: Psalm 1 und die doxologische Fünfteilung des Psalters,” ZThK 93 (1996): 1–34, with regard to the liturgical formation of the book of Psalms, and Gärtner, Geschichtspsalmen, 28, who deems the temple cult to form the metaphorical reference frame (“den metaphorischen Bezugsrahmen”) for the historical psalms. 55 See Kratz, “Die Tora Davids,” 34, and Klein, Geschichte und Gebet, 380.



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biblical ancestors. Yet the family link between fathers and sons is inextricable, which assures the relevance of the biblical past for the present.

7 Excursus: Fathers and Sons in Late Second Temple Prayers Biblical history continues to feature prominently in the late Second Temple prayer literature.56 An early example that comes to mind is the “Word of the Luminaries” (4Q504; 4Q506), a collection of petitionary prayers from Qumran for each day of the week.57 The daily prayers provide historical reminiscences in a historical progression throughout the week, covering biblical history from the creation to Adam, through the exile and subsequent sin, up to the present.58 The prayers are noteworthy for the fact that there is no clear distinction between the biblical past and the present community, but “the praying community inserts itself into the story” by intermingling the first and third person usage in the historical confession.59 Several references to the ancestors, whose guilt the supplicants confess together with their own transgressions (4Q504 XIX [Frgs. 1–2vi recto], 5–7: “And now, on this day, with humble heart we seek atonement for our iniquities and the iniquity of our fathers, for our rebellion and continued hostility to you”60), further contribute to make the biblical past relevant for the present community.

56 Cf. firstly the contribution by George Brooke in this volume (“Praying History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Memory, Identity, Fulfillment”). Furthermore, Mika Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 322–333 presents an overview and description of biblical history in the Qumran psalms. 57 On the first edition of the fragments (“Paroles des Luminaires,” 4Q504–506), see Maurice Baillet, Qumrân Grotte III (4Q492–4Q520), DJD 7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 137–175. Many thanks to Daniel K. Falk, who brought this prayer collection to my attention during the Copenhagen conference in 2015, and who made available to me his introduction and his then unpublished article on the subject (see the following footnote). 58 See Esther Chazon, “4QDibHam: Liturgy or Literature?,” RevQ 15 (1991): 447–456, and Daniel K. Falk, “Liturgical Progression and the Experience of Transformation in Prayers from Qumran,” DSD 22 (2015): 267–284. 59 Cf. Falk, “Liturgical Progression,” 272–273 (quotation from p. 273). 60 Following the translation of 4Q504 by Michael O. Wise, Martin J. Abegg, and Edward M. Cook in: Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, ed., Poetic and Liturgical Texts, DSSR 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 241–261, 241.

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Furthermore, the confession of cross-generational guilt seems to have developed a life of its own in Second Temple Literature. It features prominently in the opening of Psalm 106:6, is then transformed into a narrative in Nehemiah 9:2, and occurs further in texts such as Baruch (Bar 1:19), Tobit (Tob 3:5), the Qumran Rule of Community (1QS 1:25), the Hodayot (1QH 4:34), and the Damascus Document (CD 20:28–29). It can be assumed that in the Second Temple Period, biblical Judaism had come to an understanding on how to relate to its past. The identificatory pattern of biblical Judaism’s origins in terms of family history could be actualized and attributed by joining in the cross-generational confession of sin.

Part 6: The Composition and Use of Psalms and Prayers In this final section articles have been grouped together that deal in some way with the composition of psalms and their use in later traditions. Both Adele Berlin and Marko Marttila explore how psalms are composed through the reuse of older traditions. In the former, titled “Speakers and Scenarios: Imagining the First Temple in Second Temple Psalms (Psalms 122 and 137),” Berlin posits that both Psalm 122 and 137 draw upon an idealized representation of Jerusalem and her temple during the “golden age” of Israelite history, when the offices of king, prophet, and priest functioned as they ought. As part of her arguments, Berlin reminds the reader that the speaker or persona of a particular psalm cannot be read as a referent to some historical reality; that the author of a psalm had the ability to connect a reader with a past reality, real or imagined, through poetry or stylized prose. In “Ben Sira’s Use of Various Psalm Genres,” Marko Marttila argues that Ben Sira wished to place the poems he wrote and included within Sirach squarely within the traditions that shaped the Psalter. He further argues through philology and the coherence of a number of lexical links that two poems whose authorship is often debated (Sir 36:1–17 and Sir 51:12a–o) were in fact written by Ben Sira. Moving to the New Testament, in “There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3,” Marika Pulkkinen examines Paul’s use of psalms in Romans to make his argument that “no one is righteous.” She persuasively argues that Paul modified the psalms he was quoting, and in the case of LXX Psalm 13, Paul’s wording was later copied in the manuscripts of LXX Psalm 13, thus demonstrating the fascinating interplay between texts and the scribal emendations that occurred in the ancient world. Finally, to end the volume on a cautionary note, Årstein Justnes posits in “Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological Psalm from the 20th Century” that the passage at Philippians 2:6–11 as a song is a modern scholarly creation that grew out of a sometimes overly zealous agenda of modern scholarship in the academy. Justnes demonstrates just how easily such a feat can be accomplished, and how scholarly agendas are often picked up and transmitted unknowingly by consecutive generations.

Adele Berlin

Speakers and Scenarios: Imagining the First Temple in Second Temple Psalms (Psalms 122 and 137) 1 Speakers and Scenarios Among the favorite themes in postexilic biblical writings are the temple, Jerusalem/Zion, and the Davidic dynasty. These elements define Israel as a polity (at least in the Judean view). They are joined by the theme of exile and return, which, together with the other three themes, are cornerstones in the formation of Judean identity in the newly restored Judah. Of the many postexilic psalms that feature these themes, I have chosen two, Psalms 122 and 137, that highlight the temple – the First Temple – and its city. Psalm 122 evokes the presence of the temple and Psalm 137 its loss. Before looking more closely at these psalms, I need to make a general observation, which should be obvious but often is not. We should distinguish the author of a psalm from the speaking voice or persona within the psalm. The speaking persona may represent the views of the author, but that persona is a literary construct, not the historical author. A poet can create any persona he likes, just as a novelist can create any sort of narrator. He can write in the voice of a poor person, a sick person, or an exiled person. The author may not have personally experienced the event or situation described in the poem; he himself may not have suffered from enemies or sickness or exile. Literary skill enables an author to describe quite vividly things that happened to someone else, or that never happened at all. The intensity or immediacy of the description is no proof that the author witnessed the event. A good illustration of the difference between speaker and author is a World War I poem, “In Flanders Fields.” In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-018

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Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

The speakers identify themselves as “We are the Dead.” But obviously dead people did not write this poem. It was written by a Canadian military physician, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who wrote in the voice of the fallen soldiers buried in Flanders fields. Yet many biblical commentators muddle the distinction between the author and the speaker, construing them as one and the same (the term “psalmist” preserves this confusion). This is likely due to some naiveté about literature and even more to the strong drive to identify the author, or at least the date of the composition, about which we have no information other than what is contained within the psalm. An egregious example from the 20th century is Artur Weiser, who says about Psalm 137: “The statements made in the first two verses (…) describe the precise features of an actual experience which the poet now recalls. His mind goes back to the agonizing hours when together with his compatriots he sat sadly far from his homeland, and when, with tearful eyes and homesick hearts, they began to accompany their songs of lament with the melancholy music of their harps.”1 Weiser may be faulted for his surfeit of lugubrious images but he was not alone in identifying the psalm’s author as an exiled or formerly exiled Judean recording his experience. Hans-Joachim Kraus maintains that in verse 5, If I forget you, Jerusalem, “a single singer, probably the author of the song, emerges from the lamenting assembly.”2 Even in his 2002 commentary, Leslie Allen says of Psalm 137 that “the passionate pathos of verses 1–4 suggests that he [the author] spoke from experience.”3 But, contra Allen, I would stress that passionate pathos comes not from personal experience, but from poetic expertise. Erich Zenger offers a different twist; he prefers a Second Temple date for the psalms and suggests that “The strong emphasis on Temple music and the songs of Zion suggests the (Asaphite) group of Temple singers must be consid-

1 Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 794–795. 2 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60–150: A Commentary, trans. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), 503. 3 Leslie Allen, Psalms 101–150: Second, Revised, and Expanded Edition, WBC 21 (Waco: Thomas Nelson, 2002), 304. Allen begins the sentence with “It is not strictly necessary to presuppose that the psalmist was ever in Babylon.” But then he dismisses this thought.



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ered authors.”4 This suggestion is no more plausible. The Asaphites may indeed have composed many psalms, but just because a psalm highlights music does not mean that a musician wrote it. No one would say that a poem about flowers must have been written by a florist or a botanist. The poet who creates a speaking persona also creates a scenario into which he places this persona. Psalms are mini-dramas. Their speakers and scenarios connect the audience with the event or situation portrayed. A first-person speaker provides an eye-witness account, as it were, making the event more real, more authentic, and more immediate. The audience relives the experience from the speaker’s perspective. I use the term “scenario” to distinguish it from “setting,” or Sitz im Leben, a form-critical term that refers to the historical (or sociological or rhetorical) situation that gave rise to the psalm, or to its later use.5 The setting is outside the psalm; the scenario is within it. Just as the speaker is not the author, so the scenario is not the time and place where the psalm was written. Form critics, on a constant quest for the Sitz im Leben of a psalm, tend to regard the scenario within the psalm as the real-life setting (generally a liturgical setting) when the psalm was composed or recited. For example, Kraus thought that “By the waterways of Babylonia, there we sat” shows that the exiles gathered near a body of water to lament the destruction. This explanation is no longer in favor, although Zenger resurrects it as one possibility.6 Indeed there has been a distancing from the form critical pre-occupation with the ritual place in life of psalms, but many scholars still take the scenario too literally as indicating when or where the psalm was composed. My point is: Don’t confuse the scenario within the psalm with the context, ritual or otherwise, in which the psalm was written or performed. Identifying the speaker as the author and the scenario as the real-life occasion of the psalm is not a modern development. Ancient readers did it, too, but for different reasons – not to discover the author and date, but to tie the psalm to David. When David came to be considered the author of psalms – and according

4 Frank Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 514. Bathja Bayer, “The Rivers of Babylon,” Ariel 62 (1985): 47, earlier suggested that this psalm was written by musicians for musicians. 5 Rolf Jacobson speaks of the rhetorical situation, by which he means the real-life issues that the psalm is addressing. See Rolf Jacobson, “‘The Altar of Certitude’: Reflections on ‘Setting’ and Rhetorical Interpretation of Psalms,” in My Words are Lovely: Studies in the Rhetoric of the Psalms, ed. Robert L. Foster and David M. Howard (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 3–18. I am focusing on the rhetorical situation within the psalm. 6 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 515: “One may suppose that there were services of mourning (…) also in the Babylonian gulag; v. 1 may be alluding to this (in retrospect). Perhaps, however, no cultic context at all is intended (…).”

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to recent scholarship that did not happen till probably the first century BCE – , he was also identified as the speaking voice within the psalms.7 And in their own way, some psalm superscriptions also pinpoint the occasion on which the words were uttered. In their case it was not a ritual or social occasion but an event in the biblical account of David’s life. Thus, for example, Psalm 3:1: “A psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom” (also Pss 7; 18; 34; 51; 52; 54; 56; 57; 59; 60; 63; 142; LXX Ps 151; Ps 102 has a non-Davidic superscription).

2 Psalm 137 Now we consider Psalm 137. Interpreters have belabored the question of whether the speaker, whom they think is the author, is still in exile or has returned to Judah and is now looking back on his exilic experience. The former position yields an exilic date for the psalm and the latter, more frequent among recent scholars, points to a postexilic date. If, however, one separates the speaker from the author, and the scenario from the historical place of composition, the question is meaningless. The speaker is or was in Babylonia, and he purports to describe his exilic experience, but this provides no information about the author (except that he wrote after 586 BCE). Unlike the speaker, the author may never have been in Babylonia. As Corinna Körting discerns, the situation described in verses 1–4 is fictive.8 While I have been stressing that the speaker is not the author, looking more closely at the speaker’s identity may yield historical information about the psalm. In this case it confirms that, as a number of scholars estimate for other reasons, Psalm 137 was written in Judah after the temple had been rebuilt. The speaker is not an ordinary exiled Judean. He is a professional musician; other deportees were unlikely to have come with lyres. Indeed, he is one of a group of temple singers, as noted already in the Targum (at verse 4) and reiterated in medieval Jewish commentaries. A few modern commentaries mention this identification in passing but accord it no significance.9 It is, however, significant for dating the psalm and for understanding a particular item of Second Temple thought. To explain this, I

7 On the lateness of the notion that David was the author of the book of Psalms, see James Kugel, “David the Prophet,” in Poetry and Prophecy: The Beginnings of a Literary Tradition, ed. James Kugel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 45–55; Eva Mroczek, “The Hegemony of the Biblical in Second Temple Literature,” JAJ 6 (2015): 2–35. 8 Corinna Körting, Zion in den Psalmen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 82. 9 For example, James Luther Mays, Psalms (Louisville: John Knox, 1994), 421, (conflating the speaker and the author) tentatively suggests that “The composer may have been one of the tem-



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first offer a “musical interlude” that will clarify the difference between cultic and non-cultic singers and will examine evidence of lyre-players. There is extrabiblical evidence that professional Judean musicians were deported, but it is doubtful that they were attached to the temple. The question I seek to answer is whether the First Temple had professional musicians among its clerical personnel.

2.1 Non-Cultic Singers There were non-cultic singers in ancient Israel, both male and female. Some belonged to the royal court. A report from Sennacherib’s third campaign lists the tribute he received from Hezekiah, including valuable materials “together with his daughters, his palace women, his male and female singers.”10 2Samuel 19:36 and Ecclesiastes 2:8 also mention male and female singers among the king’s luxury items, apparently for his personal entertainment and that of his guests. Ezra 2:65 records that there were 200 male and female singers among the returnees (Neh 7:67 puts the number at 245); these are not to be confused with the Asaphite singers, listed separately. 2Chronicles 35:25 notes that male and female singers recited laments for Josiah. Clearly, female singers were never part of the temple personnel, and it is safe to assume that neither were their male counterparts.

2.2 Lyre-players The lyre (‫ )כנור‬is associated with joy (Gen 31:27; Job 21:12) and the cessation of lyre-playing signals mourning. Job 30:31 says: “My lyre has become mourning; my pipe has become the sound of crying.”11 Ezekiel 26:13 warns Tyre: “I will put an end to the murmur of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more.” Isaiah’s picture of the languishing of the earth includes “Stilled is the merriment of lyres” (24:8). Thus the hanging up of the lyres in Psalm 137 signals

ple musicians carried into exile (…).” Mays dates the psalm to the beginning of the postexilic period, before the temple was rebuilt. 10 Mordechai Cogan, The Raging Torrent: Historical Inscriptions from Assyria and Babylonia Relating to Ancient Israel (Jerusalem: Carta, 2008), 115. 11 Job 30:31 has been misunderstood in TDOT 7:203 and in Joachim Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archaeological, Written, and Comparative Sources, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 17. They wrongly conclude from this verse that lyres were used in laments. The verse means the opposite, that the absence of lyre-playing signals mourning or lament. See the Excursus, “Music and Mourning,” at the end of the article.

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mourning, as well as suggesting that the musicians are going on strike, as it were, refusing to play what their captors demand. We know that conquering kings deported lyre-players along with other useful and high status professionals as a kind of cultural booty. Reliefs at Nineveh from both Sennacherib and Assurbanipal depict men (not women, who presumably would have been transported separately from men) holding lyres among the captives being deported to Assyria. One, from Sennacherib, is an illustration of the conquest of Lachish in Hezekiah’s time and pictures three lyre-players.12 Another from Assurbanipal, depicts conquered Elamite musicians, including eight harpplayers. Male singers who accompanied themselves with lyres are also mentioned in 1Kings 10:12 but it is not clear whether these singers belonged to Solomon’s court or to the temple. None of these sources demonstrate that the First Temple had singing and/or lyre-playing personnel. Sennacherib’s booty list includes Hezekiah’s male and female singers, that is, non-cultic singers. And the lyre-players on the Lachish relief would presumably not have been Temple musicians, for why would they have been at Lachish?

2.3 Were there Professional Musicians in the First Temple? I think it is important to distinguish between preexilic sources and postexilic sources. There is relatively little preexilic evidence of music in the First Temple and quite a lot of postexilic evidence. Most scholars merge the information from both but this yields misperceptions, if not actual inaccuracies.13 The Torah, so detailed about sacrifices, is utterly silent about music. Outside of Psalms, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, the evidence for First Temple music consists of perhaps the aforementioned verses in 1Kings 10:12, and several references in prophetic literature. Amos 5:23, warning of God’s rejection of Israel’s festival sacrifices, says “Spare me the sounds of your songs, and let me not hear the music of your lutes (‫)נבלים‬.” (See also Amos 8:10.) Isaiah 30:29 predicts “there shall be

12 See Bayer, “Rivers of Babylon,” 48–51; Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine, 150, illustr. IV.22; TDOT 7:201–202. 13 Thus Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Psalms as Hymns in the Temple of Jerusalem,” in Jesus and the Temple: Textual and Archaeological Explorations, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 95–122, argues (unconvincingly, I think) that hymns (words and music), including some of the psalms in the book of Psalms, were used in the First Temple and probably also in the temple at Bethel in the northern kingdom. Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine, also routinely combined preexilic and postexilic sources, sometimes leading to inaccuracies, as on page 149.



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singing as on a night when a festival is hallowed.” Ezekiel 40:44 describes a room for male singers in Ezekiel’s vision of the temple. But in Second Temple literature from the Persian period – Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles – temple musicians in the First Temple are in sharp focus. Ezra 2:41 (also v. 70) counts among the returnees with Zerubbabel 128 Asaphite singers (Neh 7:44 records 148). In Nehemiah 12:27–28 Levites with musical instruments and members of singers’ guilds (they seem to be separate groups) celebrate the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. In Chronicles Levitical singers often accompany the ark or celebrate the dedication of the (first) temple (1Chron 15:16,21,28; 16:5; 25:1,3,6, etc.). It seems that the Second Temple brought with it changes in temple personnel. Levitical singers play a much more important role than they had before, if, in fact, there had been Levitical musicians in the First Temple. This was a major change.14 One way to deal with such change is to make it appear that there was no change at all, by retrojecting the later practice back to an earlier time, making the past and the present into a seamless continuity. Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles, each in its own way, both accomplish this. Ezra-Nehemiah is most concerned with defining the authentic members of the restored Jewish community. Their definition requires having experienced the exile and the return, and proof of undiluted genealogical continuity with preexilic Israel. If temple singers, presumably a Second Temple innovation, were to be considered part of this community, it was vital that they be shown to have met the criteria for authenticity; so Ezra and Nehemiah “document” that Asaphite singers had been exiled by Nebuchadnezzar and returned in the first group of returnees. In other words, they had an ancient pedigree and will resume their duties in the restored Judah. Chronicles is unconcerned with exile and return but vitally concerned with the temple and its music. Indeed, Chronicles supplies temple music that is absent in Samuel and Kings. Even when music is mentioned in Samuel and Kings, Chronicles gives it more prominence and associates it with Levitical singers. The account in 1Kings 8 of Solomon’s dedication of the temple offers no record of music, but 2Chronicles 7:6 informs us of the presence of Levites with the instruments for the Lord’s music that King David had made to praise the Lord. Heze-

14 As Sara Japhet, I and II Chronicles: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 45, says: “Chronicles is one of the most important reflections of the changes which affected the structure and functions of the clerical orders during the Second Temple period.” Roland DeVaux, Ancient Israel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 2:392, likewise notes: “Indeed, one of the dominant features of the Chronicler is this interest in sacred music. Singing had come to occupy an important place in the liturgy, and the status of singers had risen as a result.”

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kiah’s reform in 2Kings 18:4–5 involves tearing down forbidden structures but 2Chronicles 29:25–27 and 31:2 note that Hezekiah also stationed the Levites with their instruments, including lyres, in the temple, as David and his prophets had ordained. In 2Samuel 6, David brings the ark to Jerusalem, accompanied by blasts of the shofar and with David’s dancing. The Chronicles version in 1Chronicles 15 has the Levites carrying the ark, accompanied by Levitical musicians playing several instruments, including lyres, and also singers. Even in the case of 1Kings 10:12, which says that Solomon received almug wood from Ophir and used it to make harps and lyres for musicians, the Chronicles version makes a subtle change. In 1Kings, the emphasis is on the exotic nature of the wood, “such wood had never come or been seen to this day.” But in 2Chronicles 9:11 it is not the wood (here called algum) that had never been seen, but the musicians “whose like had never been seen before in the land of Judah.” Now I am not arguing that there was no music in the First Temple; sources from that period provide slight evidence but it is hard to imagine the complete absence of song or music. But those earlier sources make no mention of a cadre of professional Levitical musicians as part of the temple personnel. We hear of Levitical musicians only in Second Temple sources, where they are retrojected back into the First Temple. In fact, Chronicles retrojects the Levitical singers back to the time of the ark, before the First Temple. “These [the Levites] were appointed by David to be in charge of song in the House of the Lord, from the time the Ark came to rest. They served at the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting with song until Solomon built the House of the Lord in Jerusalem” (1Chron 6:16–17). If Chronicles could insert music where it had not existed in earlier sources, it could insert Levitical musicians as well.

2.4 Temple Music in Psalm 137 and Chronicles So, the speaker in Psalm 137 is an exiled lyre-playing singer; he uses his right hand for playing the lyre, and his voice for singing (vv. 5–6). The songs that he cannot sing in exile (v. 4) are clearly temple songs (2Chron 7:6; 29:27).15 In the context of Second Temple literature he should be identified as a temple singer.

15 Songs of Zion = the songs of the Lord = temple songs. See Allen, Psalms 101–150, 307; Susan E. Gillingham, “The Levitical Singers and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms: Proceedings of the 57th Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense, Aug. 5–7, 2008, MariaTheresia Kolleg and Papst Adrian VI. Kolleg, Katholische Universitat Leuven, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 91–92 with n. 5. Additional support is the parallelism of Lord and



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Although our singer was exiled from the First Temple, he is fashioned in the image of a Second Temple musician. Or, to be more accurate, he is fashioned the way Second Temple literature describes First Temple personnel. Psalm 137 partakes of Chronicles’ view, shared by Ezra and Nehemiah, that there were professional singers in the First Temple.16 The psalm’s speaker could have stepped out of Chronicles’ First Temple. This reason alone is enough to date the psalm to the Second Temple period. Although its scenario is set in the exile, its author wrote in the time of the Second Temple. Psalm 137 is not the only psalm that shares Chronicles’ emphasis on temple music. The Psalms, at least as much as Chronicles, are concerned with song and instrumental music for praising God. Indeed, the purpose of psalms is to praise God, and the primary way to do it is with music and song. The superscriptions referring to musical instruments and instructions, choir-leaders, and the Levitical musicians mentioned in Chronicles, and, of course to David – the impresario (the term is James Kugel’s) of temple music in Chronicles’ view – align psalms with Chronicles. Indeed, the most frequent personal names in the superscriptions are the very names that Chronicles identifies with the planning and operation of the temple and its liturgy: David (73 times in MT Psalms and 14 additional times in the Greek Psalter in Books 4 and 5), and Ethan (once), Asaph (11 times), Heman (once), Jeduthun (3 times in combination with another name) and the Korahites (11 times). These superscriptions draw their psalms into the orbit of temple music as Chronicles described it. We might say that Chronicles supplies the music and Psalms supply the words. It is perhaps no accident that most of the superscriptions are found in Books 1–3 of the Psalter, where many of the psalms may be preexilic. These superscriptions seem to certify, as it were, that their psalms meet Chronicles’ criterion for temple use; that is, they are lyrics that were included in David’s musical plan for the temple and performed by Levitical singers. I would even entertain the thought that the elusive le-david term, which did not originally imply Davidic authorship, may have signaled that certain psalms were considered

Jerusalem (= Zion) in Jeremiah 51:50, equating Jerusalem and the Lord: “Remember the Lord from afar, and call Jerusalem to mind.” Others say that songs of Zion are secular and songs of the Lord are cultic. But verse 4 bases the refusal to sing all songs on a religious principle – the singers are on foreign soil, “out of range” of the temple; this reason would not pertain to secular songs. “Songs of Zion” surely do not refer to what many modern scholars label as Zion songs (Pss 46; 48; 76; 84, and the like). There is not a shred of evidence that ancient Israel categorized the psalms the same way that moderns do. 16 Whether one thinks that Chronicles reflects actual practice or is utopian does not affect my argument. See Steven J. Schweitzer, Reading Utopia in Chronicles, LHB/OTS 442 (London: T&T Clark, 2007).

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Davidic in the sense that they met the Davidic standard for inclusion in temple music, that in his plan for the temple, as Chronicles imagines it, David designated these psalms as part of the hymnody.17 Scholars who have studied the musical superscriptions in the Psalter, especially the correlation between the named Levitical singers in Chronicles and in the superscriptions, have concluded that Levites wrote these superscriptions and that Levites were the editors and compilers of the book of Psalms.18 Be that as it may, I do not suggest that a Levite composed Psalm 137 (pace Zenger). He is the speaker, not necessarily the author. I just want to point out that it seems perfectly natural to have an exiled First Temple singer in Psalm 137, despite the apparent anachronism (which would not have seemed anachronistic to Second Temple readers), given that parts of the book of Psalms share Chronicles’ view about the prominence of music and musicians in the First Temple. However, it is noteworthy that not all psalm superscriptions accord with Chronicles. Some of those that link psalms with David’s biography refer to events that are missing from Chronicles. Examples are Psalm 51: “a psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had come to Bathsheba,” and also Psalms 52; 54; 56; 57; 59. These are events that show David in weak moments, which do not fit Chronicles’ portrait of David. Were these biographical superscriptions added by a non-Levite editor? At a later time? Do they reflect the notion of David as author of at least certain psalms?19 In a different but equally important respect, Psalm 137 also parts company with Chronicles. The exilic experience looms large in the psalm, yet it goes almost unnoticed in Chronicles. 2Chronicles 36:17–21, accords a bare minimum to the telling of the Babylonian victory, the plundering of the temple and the burning of the temple and Jerusalem. The exile is summed up in one verse (v. 20): “Those who survived the sword he [the king of the Chaldeans] exiled to Babylonia, and

17 The usual explanations of le-david are that the psalm was part of a royal collection, or was dedicated to David or a Davidic king. Whether or not the le-david psalms were actually used in the temple is a separate question, beyond the scope of this paper. 18 Most recently, Susan E. Gillingham, “The Levites and the Editorial Composition of the Psalms,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, ed. William Brown (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 201–213; and eadem, “The Levitical Singers,” 91–124. See also Louis C. Jonker, “Revisiting the Psalm Headings: Second Temple Levitical Propaganda?,” in Psalms and Liturgy, ed. Dirk J. Human and Cas J.A. Vos, JSOTSup 410 (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 102–122; Mark M. Smith, “The Levitical Compilation of the Psalter,” ZAW 103 (1991): 258–263. 19 These superscriptions go unmentioned by those who ascribe the editing of the Psalter to the Levites. James Kugel, “David the Prophet,” 49, suggests that the biographical superscriptions imply a claim of Davidic authorship.



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they became his and his son’s servants, until the rise of the Persian kingdom.”20 Chronicles is an outlier in its lack of interest in the exile. In most Second Temple thought, the exile was such a crucial national event that its memory was kept alive long after the return. So a psalm that relives the Babylonian exile, as Psalm 137 does, would surely have a place in that Second Temple ideology; indeed, the psalm promotes the memory of the exile.21

3 Psalm 122 Psalm 122, like Psalm 137, contains a first-person account and an apostrophe to Jerusalem. As in the case of Psalm 137, the commentaries disagree about whether the speaker/author (they conflate them) is speaking where the event occurred or giving a retrospective account from another location. Is the pilgrim in Psalm 122 standing at the temple, giving a play-by-play description of what he sees, or is he looking back on his pilgrimage after having arrived home? The answer is largely based on the interpretation of the verbal form in verse 2: ‫עמדות היו רגלינו בשעריך‬ ‫ירושלם‬. Some see the action in the present: “Our feet now stand/are standing in your gates, Jerusalem.”22 Others opt for the past: “Our feet stood/were standing.”23 For me, this question is misguided because it conflates the speaker and the author. But the interpretation of the verbal form is important for my understanding of the psalm. Most commentaries assume that the psalm is describing a pilgrimage to the Second Temple. The temple is very much present – in verse 1 a pilgrimage to the

20 See Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 47, on Chronicles’ minimizing of the destruction and exile. 21 The idea of the on-going exile is discussed in Adele Berlin, “The Exile: Biblical Ideology and Its Postmodern Ideological Interpretation,” in Literary Construction of Identity in the Ancient World, ed. Hanna Liss and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 341–356. On Psalm 137 promoting the memory of the exilic experience, and hence the status of the benai ha-golah, see Bob Becking, “Memory and Forgetting in and on the Exile: Remarks on Psalm 137,” in Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Temple Judah, ed. Ehud Ben-Zvi and Christoph Levin (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 279–299. 22 NRSV, NIV, NASB, Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 332. 23 NJPS; Archibald van Wieringen, “Psalm 122: Syntax and the Position of the I-figure and the Text-immanent Reader,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms: Proceedings of the 57th Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense, Aug. 5–7, 2008, Maria-Theresia Kolleg and Papst Adrian VI. Kolleg, Katholische Universitat Leuven, ed. Erich Zenger, BETL 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 745–754; Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014).

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House of the Lord is being planned or is underway, and in verse 9 the speaker prays for the well-being of Jerusalem “for the sake of the house of the Lord.” Since the psalm is postexilic, reason most scholars, this must be the Second Temple. I, too, date the psalm to the Second Temple period, but I construe the scenario differently. While the “House of the Lord” in verses 1 and 9 refers to the Second Temple, the speaker is not describing his own pilgrimage to it. He is presenting an idealized reminiscence of a pilgrimage to the First Temple. He never says that he joined the other Second Temple pilgrims, only that he was happy that they were going to the temple. He then launches into his reminiscence of how pilgrimages used to be in the good old days. He is not describing Second Temple Jerusalem, but Jerusalem of the united monarchy. I begin with the phrase in verse 2, ‫עמדות היו רגלינו‬. The verbal form, ‫היה‬ plus participle, may be past progressive, future progressive, or jussive progressive, depending on the context. It often has a durative sense. In later books, the construction may be influenced by Aramaic usage, and is similar to Rabbinic Hebrew.24 The phrase ‫ עמדות היו רגלינו‬is best rendered “our feet would stand,” “our feet would be standing,” or “our feet used to stand.” Comparable examples are Jeremiah 26:18: “Micah used to prophecy”; Nehemiah 6:19: “they would say (…) they would bring forth”; 2Samuel 3:6: “Abner would be supporting the house of Saul”; 2Kings 18:4: “the Israelites had been offering sacrifices.” Therefore, I would render our verse: “Our feet used to stand in your gates, Jerusalem.” The speaker is imagining himself as a pilgrim to the First Temple. He recalls, in an idealized manner, how Jerusalem used to look (vv. 2–5).25 How is Jerusalem described?  

:‫ּלּה יַ ְח ָּדו‬-‫ה‬ ָ ‫רּוׁש ַלםִ ַה ְּבנּויָ ה ְּכ ִעיר ֶׁש ֻח ְּב ָר‬ ָ ְ‫[ י‬3] :'‫יָ ּה ֵעדּות ְליִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל ְלהֹדֹות ְל ֵׁשם ה‬-‫ [ ֶׁש ָּשם ָעלּו ְׁש ָב ִטים ִׁש ְב ֵטי‬4] ‫[ ִּכי ָׁש ָּמה יָ ְׁשבּו ִכ ְסאֹות ְל ִמ ְׁש ָּפט ִּכ ְסאֹות ְל ֵבית ָּדוִ ד‬5]

 

24 Bruce K. Waltke and Murphy O’Connor, Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 628–629. See also Paul Joüon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, trans. and revised Takamitsu Muraoka (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1993), 411–412; Angel Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language, trans. John Elwolde (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 121. 25 Van Wieringen, “Psalm 122,” 753 n. 28, agrees that the picture is of the First Temple, which led him to suggest that the speaker is in exile; so also the medieval exegete David Qimḥi. The apostrophe to Jerusalem in verse 2 does not resolve the issue, as in this figure of speech the entity addressed may be in the speaker’s presence or far removed, as Jerusalem is far from the speaker in Psalm 137 when he addresses her.



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Jerusalem is a built up city, bound together. “Built up,” ‫ ַה ְּבנּויָ ה‬, the way Jerusalem was before it was destroyed. “Built” is a term that, when used of Jerusalem, generally means “rebuilt,” as in various passages in Ezra and especially in Jeremiah 30:18 (which bears a striking resemblance to our psalm), Jeremiah 31:38, and Isaiah 44:28. Some commentaries translate “rebuilt,” which they understand as referring to Nehemiah’s Jerusalem because they interpret this as a Second Temple pilgrimage. I think that the speaker is describing pre-destruction Jerusalem but is using late terminology. He does this again in verse 4, “the tribes of Yah.” This unusual expression is similar to the designation of Israel or Judah in other exilic or postexilic writings as God’s allotted tribe, ‫( שבט נחלתו‬Jer 10:16; 51:19; Ps 74:2; Isa 63:17 has the plural, “Your allotted tribes”). In the psalm, the reference is to the tribes, all twelve of them, at the time of the Davidic-Solomonic monarchy, but the terminology is postexilic. The second part of verse 3, ‫ּלּה יַ ְח ָּדו‬-‫ה‬ ָ ‫ ֶׁש ֻח ְּב ָר‬, is obscure; it refers either to the city’s architectural features or to the city as a unifying focal point for all the tribes. In either case, it is not describing Nehemiah’s Jerusalem but preexilic Jerusalem, where “our feet used to stand.” It is the place to which the tribes of Yah ascended to give thanks to the name of the Lord, and where stood the thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David (vv. 4–5). Some commentaries assume that the speaker is describing what he actually saw, like a tour guide pointing out the historical sites on the Temple Mount.26 Had some ancient archaeologist shown him where the “thrones of judgment” had once been positioned? No, this is not a tour of Second Temple Jerusalem. It is an idealized memory of First Temple Jerusalem that does not require that the speaker was even on the Temple Mount. It is the Jerusalem of the united monarchy, where, in the past, the tribes (plural – all of them) came up. It was where royal justice was dispensed, and it was the seat of the Davidic dynasty.27 The emphasis is on Jerusalem as the political and religious capital of all Israel.28 For that reason I conclude that the main point is not a pilgrimage per se; the pilgrimage provides an opening for describing Jerusalem and what it symbolized. Encapsulated in this description are the two major unfulfilled

26 So Herbert Donner, “Psalm 122,” in Text and Context: Old Testament and Semitic Studies for F. C. Fensham, ed. Walter Claassen, JSOTSup 48 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 81–91. On p. 88 he analogizes from Latin Christian documents on pilgrimages to holy sites. 27 2Sam 8:15, 15:2, and 1Chron 18:14 associate the rendering of justice with David himself, and Isa 9:6, 16:5, and Jer 21:12 with the Davidic kings. Like Chronicles, Psalm 122 links the temple with David; another example of the worldview Psalms share with Chronicles. On Psalm 122 and the theology of Chronicles see Körting, Zion in dem Psalmen, 30. 28 Körting, Zion in dem Psalmen, 28, recognizes that this is an ideal picture of the Davidic monarchy, with the people united politically and religiously in Jerusalem.

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desires of postexilic thought: the re-establishment of the united kingdom and the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. Despite the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, these two hopes were never to be realized. What did this psalm mean to a Second Temple audience? This is not a celebration of pilgrimage to the Second Temple, nor is it a history lesson, “a look back at the ‘history of the beginnings’ of Jerusalem.”29 The pilgrimage is a literary scenario through which the psalm “remembers” the idealized Jerusalem in order to convey the postexilic ideology of complete restoration, still unfulfilled, that anticipates the re-unified kingdom of Israel as it was under David, with a Davidic king on its throne. Jerusalem symbolizes these hopes for the future. When the speaker prays for the well-being of Jerusalem at the end of the psalm, he is not just praying for the Jerusalem of his own time, but for Jerusalem as the symbol of the complete restoration in the future.

4 Conclusion Psalms 122 and 137, both Second Temple psalms, create scenarios in which the First Temple, or preexilic Jerusalem, is the central figure. Psalm 122 envisions an idealized Jerusalem during the united monarchy. Psalm 137 longs for preexilic Jerusalem, now destroyed and distant. For Second Temple Jews, these two times – the “golden age” of David and Solomon that marks the beginning of Israel as a nation, and the destruction and exile that mark its end – are the apex and the nadir of Israel’s past. These psalms, and other postexilic literature, read Israel’s national history through the vicissitudes of the temple and its city. The rebuilding of the temple points to a resumption, a recommencement, of Israel’s national history, which, they hope, will again reach its idealized apex in the future. The Second Temple may have been the reality for the restored Judah, but the First Temple was the epitome of the ideal Israel.

5 Excursus: Music and Mourning Jeremy Penner and Angela Kim Harkins called to my attention the phrase “the lyre of lament” in 1QHodayota 19:25a which seems to contradict my observation that lyres signal joy and that mourning is marked by the cessation of lyre-playing. Lines 24b–26 as reconstructed with the supralinear insertion read:

29 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 335.



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‫ולהגות הגי יגון ואנחה בכנור קינה לכול אבל יג[ו]ן ומספד מרורים עד כלות עולה וא[ין מכאוב‬ ‫…] ואין נגע להחלות ואז אזמרה בכנור ישועות ונבל שמח[ה ותוף גי]לה וחליל תהלה‬

To utter an utterance of groaning and sighing with the lyre of lament for all mourning, groaning and bitter dirge until the destruction of iniquity and (then) n[o pain] and no affliction to make one weak. And then I will sing upon the lyre of salvation, and the harp of jo[y and the timbrel of rejoi]cing and the flute of praise…. (my translation, based on Carol Newsom in Stegemann et al., DJD XL)

Does this show that the lyre was used for lament? Perhaps, but all the instruments here are being used metaphorically to signal human vocalization. Different musical instruments are combined with different “genres” of expression; for every type of expression there is an instrument. Substitute the word “sound” for each instrument: “with the sound of lament, with the sound of salvation, with the sound of joy, with the sound of rejoicing, with the sound of praise.” Using specific instruments in each case is poetically nicer than repeating the word “sound.” It is significant, I think, that to express groaning and sighing the verb is “utter” and to express happiness it is “sing,” implying musical accompaniment. Mourning or lamenting was done with the human voice, with words and/or with wailing and groaning, keening, but not with musical instruments. Note that in 2Chronicles 35:25 the male and female singers recited (but did not sing) the laments that Jeremiah composed for Josiah. Another relevant biblical verse is Jeremiah 48:36, “my heart moans like a flute.” Braun concludes from this verse that flutes were used in mourning, but I think Jeremiah means that the sound of the moaning will be like the sound a flute makes, a plaintive sound.30 Jeremiah is using a musical instrument metaphorically to indicate sound. I think 1QHodayot is doing the same. There is an interesting medieval afterlife to the metaphoric use of the lyre in a Hebrew poem by Judah Halevi (1075–1141), ‫ציון הלא תשאלי‬, “Zion, Will You Not Ask.”31 The poem opens: “O Zion, will you not ask how your captives are – the exiles who seek your welfare, you are the remnant of your flocks?” Several lines later the speaker says: ‫ ועת אחלום‬,‫– אני תנים‬ ‫לבכות ענותך‬ ‫– אני כנור לשירייך‬ ‫שיבת שבותך‬

When I weep for your affliction, I am jackals; But when I dream of your exiles’ return, I am a lyre for your songs.

30 Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine, 13. 31 The poem and an English translation (which I have departed from in order to render the words more literally) are in T. Carmi, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1981), 347.

Marko Marttila

Ben Sira’s Use of Various Psalm Genres 1 Introduction Current research on the Hebrew Bible considers the main bulk of biblical books to derive from the Persian and Hellenistic periods.1 This perspective has influenced Psalms research, too, and can be observed by assessing how commentaries and studies from different decades consider the origin of Psalm 137. This lament describes the circumstances in the Babylonian exile – which does not necessarily mean that it was written during the exile.2 The exile and its remembrance became a prominent motif in Israelite religion. In any case, the history of research on this particular psalm reveals that it has been regarded either as the earliest (Bernhard Duhm) or the latest (Ivan Engnell) psalm of the Psalter.3 One’s evaluation of Psalm 137 thus functions as a good yardstick of how to date the psalms in general.4 It can also be asked, how late might the latest psalms of the canonical Psalter actually be? One of the most extreme positions has been represented by Herbert Donner, who attempts to demonstrate that Psalms 74 and 110 derive from the Maccabean/ Hasmonean period.5 There seems to be at least two major schools among scholars as how best to assess the end redaction of the Psalter. One view is to assume a deliberate editing

1 “Die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft hat in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten einen Wandel erlebt, wie er in den historischen Geisteswissenschaften selten ist. Ein großer Teil der alttestamentlichen Literatur ist aus der israelitischen und judäischen Königszeit in die persische und zunehmend auch in die hellenistische Epoche gerückt.” Christoph Levin, “Die Entstehung des Judentums als Gegenstand der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft,” in Congress Volume Munich 2013, ed. Christl M. Maier, VTSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 1. 2 Cf. Adele Berlin's article in this volume. 3 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalmen 60–150, 7. Auflage; BKAT 15/2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2003), 1083. 4 “Als der eindeutigste Fixpunkt bei der Datierung gilt seit jeher der ‘babylonische’ Psalm 137, je nach Auffassung in extremis als der älteste oder der jüngste Psalmtext beurteilt, nach eigenem Zeugnis an den Wassern von Babylon im Jahre der Zerstörung Jerusalems und des Zion (586) entstanden, also zu Beginn der exilischen Epoche.” Klaus Seybold, Poetik der Psalmen, Poetologische Studien zum Alten Testament 1 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003), 31. 5 Herbert Donner, “Argumente zur Datierung des 74. Psalms,” in Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch. Beiträge zu Psalmen und Propheten, FS Joseph Ziegler, ed. Josef Schreiner (Würzburg: Echter, 1972), 41–50; idem, “Der verläßliche Prophet. Betrachtungen zu 1 Makk 14,41ff und zu Ps 110,” in Aufsätze zum Alten Testament aus vier Jahrzehnten (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994), 213–223. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-019



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process, which occurred in the period of 200–150 BCE, after which the Hebrew book of Psalms reached its final form. Another view – one that leans heavily on the evidence of the psalms scrolls from Qumran – insists that the last third of the Psalter was still in a state of fluctuation close to the turn of the era.6 I shall leave this debate aside at this point and instead focus on the question of how psalmody continued in the Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach). There are good reasons to choose Ben Sira’s work for such a case study. First of all, Ben Sira shows a marvelous awareness of scripture. It is probably not too audacious to argue that Ben Sira knew a remarkable number of the psalms that are nowadays included in the book of Psalms. The other reason is that we can rather confidently date Ben Sira’s work to 200–180 BCE. Only seldom can we achieve such accuracy when we date a biblical book. The period when Ben Sira was active as a wisdom teacher in Jerusalem is approximately the same period when some of the latest psalms to be included in the biblical Psalter were written. Therefore, Ben Sira’s reception of the psalm genres reveals how he borrowed and developed certain categories. For the next section of this article we will look at those Ben Sira’s passages that closest resemble familiar psalm genres.

2 Psalm-Like Passages in Sirach Ben Sira’s large work is full of instruction, much of which is similar to those found in the book of Proverbs. Ben Sira uses poetic language throughout his work. The number of texts that could be classified as psalms, however, is rather limited. At this point the question naturally rises, How do we define the term “psalm”? On the one hand, What type of religious poems should be considered psalms, and which texts? And on the other hand, Which texts cannot be included in this category of “psalms”? I would suggest that a “psalm” is a prayer addressed to Israel’s God. It has a recognizable poetic structure, often consisting of parallel stichs. A good practical approach is to compare Ben Sira’s poems with the psalm genres of the Psalter. Texts in Ben Sira’s work that show considerable resemblance with certain psalm genres provide examples of how these genres were used by a sage who lived and worked in Jerusalem. Ben Sira was, after all, heavily interested in cultic and priestly issues, although he himself probably was not a priest.

6 Ulrich Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalterrezeption im Frühjudentum. Rekonstruktion, Textbestand, Struktur und Pragmatik der Psalmenrolle 11QPsa aus Qumran, STDJ 49 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 20–22, criticizes Peter W. Flint’s assumption that the order of Psalms 90–150 remained open until the end of the first century CE, as well as, Flint’s opinion that 11QPsa represents a “canonical” Psalter.

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Psalms were divided into different categories by Wilhelm M. L. de Wette who wrote the first historical-critical commentary on the Psalms in the beginning of the 19th century. De Wette’s classification was modest but, in any case, it was the first step towards more detailed studies in this field. The actual “father” of this approach was Hermann Gunkel whose presentation of psalm genres (“Gattungen”) remains basically valid even 80 years after his epoch-making introduction to the Psalms appeared. The main genres are laments (both communal and individual), hymns, thanksgiving psalms, royal psalms, wisdom psalms, history psalms, and Torah psalms. Different genres are quite unevenly spread in the Psalter. If we simplify things a little, we could argue that the first half or the first two thirds of the Psalter are more dominated by laments, whereas the last third brings thanksgiving emphatically to the foreground. Finally, the Psalter ends with magnificent joy and praise. Consequently, thanksgiving and praise are the last words that the editors of the Psalter wanted to stress.7 From this point of view it is interesting to see which psalm genres dominate in Ben Sira’s presentation. Adapting psalm genres to the poetry of Ben Sira is not a new endeavor. In fact, at the same time when Gunkel classified psalms, another German scholar, Walter Baumgartner, applied this methodology to his research on Sirach.8 Scholars are not totally unanimous about the number of psalm-like passages in Sirach, but in my opinion Patrick Skehan and Alexander Di Lella have made competent suggestions in the introduction to their extensive commentary. They suggest the following passages represent genres familiar from the Psalter: a) hymns in praise of God can be found in Sirach 1:1–10; 18:1–7; 39:12–35; 42:15–43:33; 50:22– 24; 51:1–12; and 51:12a–o (another kind of hymn is in Sir 24:1–33 as there the personified Lady Wisdom tells about herself); b) prayers of petition in Sirach 22:27–23:6 and 36:1–17.9 Skehan and Di Lella argue that there are two fundamental modes of calling upon God: those of praise and petition. Therefore they reduce the number of possible categories to these two. This short summary indicates that in Sirach the category of hymns/praises is much larger than the number of petitions/laments.

7 Bernd Janowski, Konfliktgespräche mit Gott: Eine Anthropologie der Psalmen (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener, 2003), 264–266. 8 Walter Baumgartner, “Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weisheit des Jesus Sirach,” ZAW 34 (1914): 161–198, made a distinction between poems that were fully hymns and poems that included hymnic motifs. He classified only two texts as songs of thanksgiving (Sir 51:1–12 and 51:12a–o). See also Jan Liesen, “‘With All Your Heart’: Praise in the Book of Ben Sira,” in Ben Sira’s God: Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference, Durham-Ushaw College 2001, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel, BZAW 321 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 199–213 (esp. 199–200). 9 Patrick W. Skehan & Alexander Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, AB 39 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1987), 27–28.



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It would go far beyond the scope of this short study to analyze all the relevant passages of Sirach. Thus I have chosen one lament and one hymn/thanksgiving to elucidate the manner how Ben Sira uses these well-known psalm genres. The chosen lament is the national prayer from Sirach 36:1–17. The hymn in turn is a prayer that is only preserved in the medieval manuscript B and is usually referred to as Sirach 51:12a–o because it is placed in MS B between verses 12 and 13. There has been a wide debate concerning the authenticity of this prayer and I shall enter this discussion below. Suffice it to mention at this point that nowadays there seem to be many scholars who are inclined to accept Ben Sira’s authorship for this prayer. Some recent studies in German have focused either on prayers in Sirach10 or on the reception of the theology of the psalms in Sirach.11 Both of these works remarkably increase our knowledge of the psalmody in Sirach. Werner Urbanz concentrates – as the subtitle of his book reveals – on the Greek text of Sirach. This is understandable; by using the Greek Sirach we have the full text in front of us (except Sir 51:12a–o), while the extant manuscripts of the Hebrew text of Sirach thus far only cover about 68% of the text. But the comparison to the psalms of the Psalter is more useful if one studies both Ben Sira’s passages and the relevant psalms in Hebrew. This is also one reason why I have chosen Sirach 36:1–17 and 51:12a–o for a closer scrutiny. Both of these prayers are available in Hebrew and in the same manuscript B. They are textually rather well preserved.

10 Werner Urbanz, Gebet im Sirachbuch. Zur Terminologie von Klage und Lob in der griechischen Texttradition, Herders biblische Studien 60 (Freiburg: Herder, 2009). Urbanz (p. 231) has made statistics of Ben Sira’s use of “praise” and “lament” vocabulary and concludes that lament dominates Sir 1–41 (57% of the prayer vocabulary is branded by lament). But in Sir 42–51 it is praise that dominates (66% of the vocabulary used in prayers are semantically related to praise). Thus, the pattern is similar to that of the Psalter: one proceeds from lament to praise. Urbanz (p. 238) summarizes his observations with a sentence that is repeated by Bernd Janowski and others in psalm research: “Der lebendige Mensch ist dazu berufen, seines Schöpfers Lob zu singen; die Toten vermögen dies nicht mehr.” 11 Michael Reitemeyer, Weisheitslehre als Gotteslob: Psalmentheologie im Buch Jesus Sirach, BBB 127 (Berlin: Philo, 2000). One of Reitemeyer’s main observations is noteworthy (p. 8): “Sirach rezipiert biblisches Material, vor allem Psalmen, und verarbeitet sie zu eigenen Hymnen und stark theologisch geprägten Passagen. Dabei fällt z.B. auf, dass gerade zwischen der Psalterrahmung 1–2 und 146–150 und dem Sirachbuch eine sprachliche und theologische Verwandtschaft besteht. Möglicherweise fällt die Tätigkeit des Siraziden in eine sehr große zeitliche (und geistige) Nähe zur Endredaktion des Psalters.”

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2.1 The National Prayer in Sirach 36:1–17 2.1.1 The Text and Translation of Sirach 36:1–17 In the scholarly literature, the verse numbers referring to Ben Sira’s national prayer usually differ from each other because of the misplacement of this passage in the Septuagint. The sequence and enumeration used below are in accordance with Pancratius Beentjes’s text edition.12 The Hebrew text consists of 16 bicola. In addition, the Greek translation transmits one bicolon more (v. 9). Because of its non-existence in the Hebrew text, it has been suggested that verse 9 is to be regarded as secondary.13 Such a conclusion, however, is not forced, not even likely, since the content of the verse matches well with its surrounding context.14 The reasons why verse 9 is not available in the Hebrew MS B are unfortunately unknown to us. Text-critical discussion will be skipped here and the reader is advised to study my monograph on Ben Sira for a meticulous text-critical reading of the relevant passages.15 ‫( הושיענו אלהי הכל‬1‒2) ‫]ים פחדך על כל הגוים‬..[‫ו‬ ‫( הניף יד על עם נכר‬3) ‫]יך‬.[‫ויראו את גבור‬ ‫( כאשר נקדשת לעיניהם בנו‬4) ‫כן לעינינו הכבד בם‬ ‫( וידעו כאשר ידענו‬5) ‫כי אין אלהים זולתך‬ ‫( חדש אות ושנה מופת‬6) ‫האדר יד ואמץ זרוע וימין‬ ‫( העיר אף ושפוך חמה‬7) ‫] והדוף אוהב‬..[ ‫והכניע‬ ‫( החיש קץ ופקוד מועד‬8) ‫כי מי יאמר לך מה תעשה‬

(1–2) Rescue us, God of All and put the fear of you on all the nations! (3) Raise your hand against the foreign folk, and may they see your mighty deeds. (4) As you showed your holiness before them, amidst us, so show your glory to us amidst them. (5) Thus they will know as we know that there is no God but you. (6) Renew a sign and repeat wonder, show forth the splendor of hand, strengthen the arm and the right hand. (7) Rouse anger and pour out wrath, humble the enemy and scatter the foe. (8) Hasten the end and recall the appointed time, for who says to you: “What are you doing?”

12 Pancratius C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew: Text Edition of All Extant Hebrew Manuscripts and a Synopsis of All Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts, 2nd edition (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006). 13 Thus, for instance, Georg Sauer, Jesus Sirach / Ben Sira, ATD Apokryphen 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 248. 14 For more details, see Marko Marttila, Foreign Nations in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: A Jewish Sage between Opposition and Assimilation, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies 13 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 142. 15 Marttila, Foreign Nations, 122–124.



Ben Sira’s Use of Various Psalm Genres 

(9) ἐν ὀργῇ πυρὸς καταβρωθήτω ὁ σῳζόμενος, καὶ οἱ κακοῦντες τὸν λαόν σου εὕροισαν ἀπώλαν. ‫( השבת ראש פאתי מואב‬10)

‫האומר אין זולתי‬ ‫( אסוף כל שבטי יעקב‬11) ‫ויתנחלו כימי קדם‬ ‫( רחם על עם נקרא בשמך‬12) ‫ישראל בכור כיניתה‬ ‫( רחם על קרית קדשך‬13) ‫ירושלם מכון שבתיך‬ ‫( מלא ציון את הודך‬14) ‫ומכבודך את היכלך‬ ‫( תן עדות למראש מעשיך‬15) ‫והקם חזון דבר בשמך‬ ‫( תן את פעלת קוויך‬16) ‫ונביאיך יאמינו‬ ‫( תשמע תפלת עבדיך‬17) ‫כרצונך על עמך‬ ‫]ל אפסי ארץ‬.[ ‫וידעו‬ ].…[ ‫כי אתה אל‬

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(9) Let the fugitive be consumed in the rage of fire, and may those who oppress your people meet destruction. (10) Smash the head of the rulers of Moab, who says: “There is no one besides me!” (11) Gather all the tribes of Jacob, that they may inherit the land as in the old days. (12) Show mercy to the people called by your name, Israel, whom you named your first-born. (13) Show mercy on your holy city, Jerusalem, your dwelling-place. (14) Fill Zion with your splendor, and with your glory your temple. (15) Give evidence of your deeds of old and fulfill the prophecy that was spoken in your name. (16) Reward those who have waited for you, and may your prophets be verified. (17) You hear the prayer of your servants, according to your favor towards your people. And all the ends of the earth will know that you are the eternal God.

Remarks on the translation: Verse 7: The missing word in this lacuna is very likely ‫צר‬.16 Although Beentjes’s text edition gives ‫ אוהב‬as the last word of verse 7, the word in question must be – due to parallelism – ‫אויב‬. In fact, the reading of ‫ אויב‬can be verified with the aid of the old facsimiles of MS B.17 Verse 17: Although the last word of the sentence is missing from the manuscript, the gap is easy to fill with the aid of the context, the early versions, and the parallels from the Hebrew Bible. The title “eternal God” (‫ )אל עולם‬also occurs in Genesis 21:33.18

16 See Markus Witte, “‘Barmherzigkeit und Zorn Gottes’ im Alten Testament am Beispiel des Buchs Jesus Sirach,” in Divine Wrath and Divine Mercy in the World of Antiquity, ed. Reinhard. G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann, FAT II/20 (Tübingen: Mohr, 2008), 191. 17 Greg S. Goering, Wisdom’s Root Revealed: Ben Sira and the Election of Israel, JSJSup 139 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 258 n. 5. 18 On the other hand, Theophil Middendorp, Die Stellung Jesu Ben Siras zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 130, even argues that there is enough space in the lacuna for the longer phrase ‫אלוהי עולם‬.

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2.1.2 Commentary on Sirach 36 Due to its content and mood the prayer in chapter 36 is quite unique in Ben Sira’s work. Undoubtedly, Ben Sira’s fervent outburst against neighboring nations occurs also in Sirach 50:25–26, but the two texts are somehow related. Occasionally, Ben Sira can use harsh words and exhibit a temper that is hardly exemplary of a calm and prudent seeker of wisdom – the model that otherwise dominates his work. Because of the alien nature of chapter 36 it is no wonder that this “Fremdkörper” was thought to be a later addition. This view was emphatically maintained by Theophil Middendorp who also regarded all the poems in chapter 51 as secondary.19 Contrary to Middendorp’s conclusions, Johannes Marböck has defended the authenticity of Sirach 36. He rightly remarks that Ben Sira’s work is not completely devoid of eschatological features, therefore the prayer in chapter 36 is not incompatible with the other passages of Sirach. According to Marböck, this national prayer reflects the same reliance on God’s continuous activity in history as the “Praise of the Ancestors” (Sir 44–50).20 Other scholars have also participated in this debate. Lutz Schrader pays attention to the observation that apart from chapter 36 the Wisdom of Ben Sira does not contain references to God who punishes the Gentiles. Nor are there any messianic expectations elsewhere in Sirach. Schrader draws from this the conclusion that the prayer in chapter 36 was written during the religious persecution by Antiochus IV (169/167–164 BCE), and thus it does not represent Ben Sira’s own text.21 In my own monograph (2012), however, I clearly favored the view that Ben Sira himself is the author of chapter 36. This result was achieved through a careful lexical analysis, and it was also necessary to find a plausible setting for this kind of prayer. As will be argued

19 Middendorp, Stellung, 113–136. 20 Johannes Marböck, “Das Gebet um die Rettung Zions Sir 36,1–22 im Zusammenhang der Geschichtsschau Ben Siras,” in Gottes Weisheit unter uns, Herders biblische Studien 6 (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 149–166. 21 Lutz Schrader, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit: Studien zu Theologie und Textgeschichte des Sirachbuches, BBET 27 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994), 87–92. Similar skeptical views on the secondary nature of Sir 36 are also supported by John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, OTL (Louisville: Westminster, 1997), 111; Burkard M. Zapff, Jesus Sirach 25–51, NEchtB 39 (Würzburg: Echter, 2010), 236. A different solution is suggested by Edmond Jacob, “Wisdom and Religion in Sirach,” in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, ed. John G. Gammie et al. (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 247–260; and Goering, Wisdom’s Root Revealed, 212, as they argue that the prayer of Sir 36 actually is an older liturgical tradition that Ben Sira borrowed and put into his own composition. The weak point in this argumentation is that it does not explain why there are so many lexical similarities between the prayer and the other parts of Sirach, if Ben Sira borrowed a prayer that was written by someone else.



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below, it is possible that this national prayer was composed during the reign of Seleucus IV, slightly before the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Both at the beginning and at the end of the section Sirach 36:1–17 there is a supralinear Hebrew letter ‫ פ‬in MS B and above this letter the Masoretic symbol shegol can be seen, but upside down. This sign apparently draws demarcation lines between the prayer and its immediate surrounding context. The same sign also occurs in MS B before verse 51:12a and above the line that contains Sirach 38:13. In each one of the cases the sign has been drawn in a different handwriting than the actual text of the manuscript. Verses 36:1 and 51:12a certainly cause a break compared with the preceding text. The imperative petition in 36:1 evidently indicates a new beginning. The sign ‫ פ‬obviously reflects a kind of abbreviation from the period when MS B was copied (or the abbreviation can even be earlier if the copyists repeated it faithfully when making their copies). Unfortunately, both the origin and the meaning of the abbreviation are unknown.22 Regarding the genre of the prayer at Sirach 36:1–17, the most fitting definition would be a national lament which is found several times in the Psalter (e.g., Pss 44; 60; 74; 79; 80; 83; and 85). The characteristic features of this genre are an invocation at the opening and a promise of praise at the end. The body of the prayer between opening and closing usually includes expressions of confidence and trust, and the argumentative style often recalls promises of the past or God’s earlier acts of salvation, which are used to point out perceived contradictions of the present situation. To ameliorate this contradiction, the speaker appeals to God for divine intervention.23 The prayer begins with a direct appeal to God who is entitled as “God of All”. The prayer continues with imperative requests, and verses 4–5 contain references to past events; verse 10 also points to God’s earlier promises. Verse 13 clearly portrays the existing contradiction, since the tribes of Jacob are dispersed albeit they should be gathered together as was the case in earlier times. It is important to note that this national lament does not end with an explicit promise of praise,24 but instead there is an exhortative wish at the end of the prayer that all the ends of the earth should recognize Yahweh’s position as

22 Josef M. Oesch, “Textdarstellungen in den hebräischen Sirachhandschriften,” in Auf den Spuren der schriftgelehrten Weisen, FS Johannes Marböck, ed. Irmtraud Fischer et al., BZAW 331 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 316–317, sums up different alternatives to solve this riddle. 23 Marböck, “Gebet,” 156, also classifies Sir 36:1–17 as a national lament but notes its defective nature, since in his opinion only the element of request can be found. All the other typical features of the national lament are absent. 24 This is also mentioned by James L. Crenshaw, The Book of Sirach: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections, NIB 5 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), 800.

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the only true God. One notable missing theme in Sirach 36 is the confession of sin.25 That topic is simply not included in this national lament. Verse 1 addresses God as “God of All” (‫)אלהי הכל‬. This title cannot be found in the canonical texts precisely in this form, but Ben Sira was probably influenced by the earlier, little longer formulation, which describes God as the ruler of all earth (Josh 3:11,13; Mic 4:13; Zech 4:14; 6:5; Ps 97:5: ‫)אדון כל־ארץ‬. In any case, the expression “God of All” (‫ )אלוה כל‬occurs in Sirach 45:23 when it is said that Phinehas was zealous for the “God of All”. Furthermore, this same epithet is encountered in the Greek text of Sirach 50:22 (θεὸς πάντων), but the Hebrew is at that point slightly different. Noteworthy is Ben Sira’s solemn statement of God that he is all (‫ ;הוא הכל‬Sir 43:27). This phrase does not represent pantheism but it is Ben Sira’s manner to indicate that God is almighty. God is also the creator of everything (Sir 18:1; 24:8; 43:33; the same idea occurs in Sir 51:12d with the word pair ‫)יוצר הכל‬. The use of “God of All” in Sirach 36:1 is problematic for those scholars who deny Ben Sira’s authorship for the prayer, as this title nonetheless occurs a few other times in Sirach but is not found anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. It seems to be one of Ben Sira’s favorite terms to describe God. If the prayer was composed by someone other than Ben Sira, the poet must have been well acquainted with Ben Sira’s vocabulary. In the light of this divine title and its other occurrences in Sirach, the probability increases that Sirach 36:1–17 stems from Ben Sira himself. The request uttered in verse 2 is closely reminiscent of 1Chronicles 14:17 which is the concluding verse in a longer passage where David defeats the Philistines. This connection between 1Chronicles 14:17 and Sirach 36:2 has often been noted by scholars, but similar words are not sufficient to suppose dependence between these two texts. Also, the context between the supposed parallel texts should be identical so that we could confidently speak of one text quoting another.26 Sirach 36:3 continues the line of imperatives. It uses the verb ‫( נוף‬Hiphil) which occurs a few times with “hand” (‫ )יד‬as its object in the Hebrew Bible. This verb is used seven times in Sirach, but only thrice is it connected with battles against an enemy: Joshua fighting against the cities (Sir 46:2), David fighting against Goliath (Sir 47:4), and the wish that God may raise his hand against a foreign nation (Sir 36:3). Sirach 36:4 refers to the divine punishment that Israel had to face, which

25 Irmtraud Fischer, Wo ist Jahwe? Das Volksklagelied Jes 63,7–64,11 als Ausdruck des Ringens um eine gebrochene Beziehung, SBB 19 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989), 233. 26 Pancratius C. Beentjes, “‘Ein Mensch ohne Freund ist wie eine linke Hand ohne die Rechte’. Prolegomena zur Kommentierung der Freundschaftsperikope Sir 6,5–17,” in “Happy the One Who Meditates on Wisdom” (Sir. 14,20): Collected Essays on the Book of Ben Sira, CBET 43 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 73.



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also served as evidence of Yahweh’s holiness to the gentiles. The biblical background for this argumentation is primarily found in Deuteronomy 28:36–37 which presupposes the setting of the Babylonian exile. Noteworthy parallels are also Ezekiel 20:41; 28:25; 38:16; and 39:27. Sirach 36 firmly adheres to the proclamation of Ezekiel which promises the reversal of political powers. Israel has been humiliated and she has been scattered among the nations. This is one sign of the might of Yahweh, which even the foreign nations should acknowledge. But greater than this will be Yahweh’s act towards Israel when he gathers her dispersed tribes and leads them back to their own land. This idea is implicitly expressed in Sirach 36:4, and it reaches its concrete formulation in verse 11. The verb ‫( כבד‬Niphal) belongs to Ben Sira’s favorite words. This verb occurs in the Hebrew Bible and Sirach combined 114 times and as many as 26 occurrences of these are in Sirach.27 This observation is once again strong proof that this prayer of deliverance might have been written by Ben Sira. Although Sirach 36:4–5 predicts hard times for the foreign nations, the goal is not their ultimate annihilation. On the contrary, divine punishment is a means of education that aims to lead the foreign nations from darkness to light, from idolatry to the confession that there is no god beside Yahweh (v. 5). There are several close parallels in the Hebrew Bible for the formulation ‫ כי אין אלהים זולתך‬in Sir 36:5 (cf. Deut 4:35; 1Kgs 8:60; 1Chr 17:20; Isa 44:6; 45:5,21). Following the pattern of a national lament, the author recalls in Sirach 36:6 God’s earlier acts of salvation when he petitions God to renew the sign and repeat the wonder. The word pair “sign and wonder” (‫ )אות ומופת‬is very common in the Hebrew Bible having its background in the exodus narrative (e.g., Exod 3:7; Deut 4:34; 6:22; 7:19; 13:2–3; 28:46; 29:2; Dan 3:32; 6:28). The prayer’s strong adherence to biblical accounts and wordings is reaffirmed when we look at verse 6b. There the author asks God to show forth the splendor of his hand and strengthen his arm and right hand. Hand (‫)יד‬, arm (‫)זרוע‬, and right hand (‫ )ימין‬are expressions that are repeated time and again in deuteronomistic literature. The same three themes – Yahweh’s sovereignty, signs and wonders, and God’s strong arm – that are mentioned in two consequent verses in Sirach 36:5–6, are also mentioned in Deuteronomy 4:34–35. It is possible that these verses from Deuteronomy have influenced the poet of Sirach 36. Sirach 36:7 contains a fervent request: ‫העיר אף ושפוך חמה‬. These imperative petitions have parallels in Psalm 79:6 (“Pour out your wrath on the nations”), and also in the indicative in 78:38 (“He restrained his anger and did not stir up all his

27 Hugo Alberto Chávez Jiménez, La Misericordia en el Libro del Sirácida: Estudio Exégetico de Sir 35,11–24; 36,1–17; 18,1–14 (México: Universidad Pontificia de México, 2005).

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wrath”). Both of these Psalms – 78 and 79 – are psalms that recount history and contain many deuteronomistic expressions and features.28 There are no compelling reasons to interpret Sirach 36:8 in an apocalyptic light as many scholars have done. Ben Sira does not refer here to a cosmic battle at the end of time, but rather he has a concrete historical situation in mind from which he expects a divine rescue. He underlines the sovereign God whose power is unlimited, and therefore, no mortal being is allowed to criticize God’s works. Verse 9 fits well with its surrounding context, and perhaps its absence from MS B is due to the carelessness of the copyist. The latter colon reveals a similar attitude that is expressed, for instance, in Psalm 137:8–9 (“O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”). This verse is thus about divine retribution or vengeance. Such harsh language continues in Sirach 36:10, where the plea to crush the head of the rulers of Moab is clearly reminiscent of Numbers 24:17. Moab is used here as a code name, as the historical Moabite kingdom no longer existed when Ben Sira lived. Instead the kingdom of the Nabateans had expanded its realm and occupied the former Moabite areas. How is Ben Sira’s mention of “Moab” to be understood? It seems likely that the “rulers of Moab” refer to the Seleucid rulers, and some scholars have made an appealing suggestion that Ben Sira’s prayer was composed during the reign of Seleucus IV (187–175 BCE).29 Seleucus cancelled the privileges that his father and predecessor Antiochus III had granted to Jews. Moreover, Seleucus had a high official called Heliodorus, whom the king sent to inspect temples and sanctuaries throughout the vast empire. The purpose was to establish a stricter control over the economy and fiscal management of the temples. The mention of Heliodorus’s visit to the temple in Jerusalem (2Macc 3) is so legendary that it is impossible to say what exactly happened during that visit, but at least this story reveals that the temple was threatened. The ruling high priest in Jerusalem during Seleucus’s reign was Onias III (son of Simon II), who represented pro-

28 Klaus Seybold, Die Psalmen, HAT I/15 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), 303–315; Markus Witte, “From Exodus to David – History and Historiography in Psalm 78,” in History and Identity: How Israel’s Later Authors Viewed Its Earlier History, ed. Núria Calduch-Benages and Jan Liesen, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 37–39. 29 Marböck, “Gebet,” 106; Maurice Gilbert, “Prayer in the Book of Ben Sira. Function and Relevance,” in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel & Jeremy Corley, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 119; Maria Palmisano, “Salvaci, Dio dell’universo!” Studio dell’eucologia di Sir 36H, 1–17, AnBib 163 (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006), 310–314.



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Ptolemaic politics.30 This naturally increased the tension towards the Seleucids. This background makes it at least plausible that Sirach 36:1–17 dates back to the years of Seleucus’s reign, when the Jewish people were, with good cause, worried about the fate of their temple. Sirach 36:11 introduces an important theme which deals with the return of the tribes of Jacob. The horizon is no longer in the exilic event of the past but the prayer rather speaks of a future promise whose fulfillment would mean the end of the Diaspora. This theme is discussed several times by the Old Testament prophets (e.g., Isa 11:11–12; 27:13; Jer 3:18; 29:14; 30:3; 31:8,10; 32:37; Ezek 36:8–11; 39:25–27; Amos 9:14). The closest lexical parallel to Sirach 36:11 can be found in Isaiah 49:6 (‫להקים את־שבטי יעקב‬: “to raise up the tribes of Jacob”). This parallel is all the more significant when we bear in mind that in the Hebrew Bible the expression “tribes of Jacob” only occurs in Isaiah 49:6. If we accept the view that Sirach 36:11 refers to the end of the Diaspora, we have a very rare example of Ben Sira talking about the Diaspora. Even his long “Praise of the Ancestors” is curiously silent about it. Both Sirach 36:12 and 36:13 begin with an imperative ‫( רחם‬Piel). This twofold repetition is probably a rhetorical effect to evoke God’s compassion towards his people and the holy places of the people.31 Similar twofold imperatives are in 36:15–16 (‫)תן‬, and this pattern can also be seen in the Psalms (e.g., Pss 57:2,9; 103:1–2; in some psalms imperatives occur in threefold repetitions, like Pss 96:1–2,7–8; 103:20–22). Ben Sira first petitions that God would show mercy on the people that are called by his name. This emphasizes Israel’s special position among the nations. Jerusalem is seldom mentioned in the book of Ben Sira. Therefore, the occurrence of this city name in verse 13 is interesting. Prior to this verse, Jerusalem is explicitly be mentioned only in Sirach 24:11. The expression ‫ מכון שבתיך‬is formulated with nearly the same words as in 1Kings 8:39,43,49 (and in their parallels: 2Chr 6:29,33,39). Some other close variants can also be found in the Hebrew Bible: ‫( מכון שבתו‬Ps 33:14); ‫( מכון לשבתך‬Exod 15:17; 1Kgs 8:13; 2Chr 6:2). Showing mercy on Jerusalem is continued by the plea that Zion would be filled with splendor and the temple with God’s glory. Verse 15 refers to the acts of salvation that God has performed for his people since ancient times. The idea of this plea is that God proves those deeds right by

30 James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 192. 31 Pancratius C. Beentjes, “God’s Mercy: ‘Racham’ (pi.), ‘Rachum’, and ‘Rachamim’ in the Book of Ben Sira,” in “Happy the One Who Meditates on Wisdom” (Sir. 14,20): Collected Essays on the Book of Ben Sira, CBET 43 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 242.

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performing them continuously. Continuity between the past and the future is also touched upon in verse 15b which anticipates the fulfillment of earlier prophecies. The Hebrew word ‫ חזון‬is in the singular, but it is best understood as representing a larger number of prophecies that were given in the past (cf. Isa 1:1). Thus, the prayer of Sirach 36 includes a reference to the reliability of the prophetic visions. This view is further stressed in the colons of verse 16. An aspect concerning the prophets that seems to have been important for Ben Sira is that the prophets had been able to predict the future. The prayer in Sirach 36 is concluded in verse 17 which begins with a characteristically deuteronomistic formulation: “You hear the prayer of your servants” (cf. 1Kgs 8:30 and Dan 9:17). The universal dimension of verse 17b (‫)כל אפסי ארץ‬ is most likely a quotation from Isaiah 45:22. The final line of Ben Sira’s prayer emphasizes the monotheistic view of God. It is also of importance that the word ‫ רצון‬occurs at the end of the prayer. This word is found 56 times in the Hebrew Bible outside of Sirach, and the number of occurrences in Sirach is as many as twenty-three.32 It depicts both inter-human relationships and the relationship between God and human beings. This word is one of the weightiest concepts in Ben Sira’s teaching. Its appearance at the end of a prayer for deliverance gives a cue that this prayer is in line with the other parts of Sirach. God is merciful towards his people – that is the main thought in Sirach 36:17. Due to this mercifulness God should hear the prayer of his people and act accordingly.

2.2 The Hymn in Sir 51:12a–o 2.2.1 The Text and Translation of Sir 51:12a–o Sirach 51 includes a variety of texts that are at first sight only loosely connected to each other. The section formed by verses 12a–o is peculiar in many senses. It is a prayer, or rather a praise, between the thanksgiving prayer (51:1–12) and the acrostic wisdom poem (51:13–30). It is quite astonishing that this passage (12a–o) has only been found in one of the medieval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza (Manuscript B). It is not preserved in the Greek translation, nor in any of the early versions. This passage is noteworthy also in the sense that it includes a number of quotations or allusions to biblical texts, and affinities with some psalms are particularly intriguing. Moreover, the collective emphasis on Israel is easily perceptible in this text (most evident in 12o). Because this text is missing

32 Chávez Jiménez, Misericordia, 218–219.



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from so many central manuscripts and versions, there is currently no established manner of how to refer to these verses. For instance, the German translation Einheitsübersetzung does not number this insertion in any specific way; it is only a continuation of verse 12. Some other modern editors instead continue the numbering immediately after verse 12, thus verse 12a would correspond to verses 13, 12b to 14 etc. Then the verse numbers of the acrostic poem would differ from the accustomed form. Therefore, it is most recommendable to use signs 12a-o when referring to this passage.33 ‫( הודו לייי כי טוב‬12a) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לאל התשבחות‬12b) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לשומר ישראל‬12c) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו ליוצר הכל‬12d) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( […]ו לגואל ישראל‬12e) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫] נדחי ישראל‬..[‫]דו למק‬..[ (12f) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לבונה עירו ומקדשו‬12g) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו למצמיח קרן לבית דוד‬12h) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לבוחר בבני צדוק לכהן‬12i) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו למגן אברהם‬12j) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לצור יצחק‬12k) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לאביר יעקב‬12l) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו לבחר בציון‬12m) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( הודו למלך מלכי מלכים‬12n) ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬ ‫( וירם קרן לעמו‬12o) ‫תהלה לכל חסידיו‬ ‫לבני ישראל עם קרבו הללו יה‬

(12a) Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. (12b) Give thanks to God of the praises, for his mercy endures forever. (12c) Give thanks to the Guardian of Israel, for his mercy endures forever. (12d) Give thanks to him who formed everything, for his mercy endures forever. (12e) Give thanks to the Redeemer of Israel, for his mercy endures forever. (12f) Give thanks to him who gathers Israel’s dispersed, for his mercy endures forever. (12g) Give thanks to him who (re)builds his city and sanctuary, for his mercy endures forever. (12h) Give thanks to him who causes a horn to sprout for the house of David, for his mercy endures forever. (12i) Give thanks to him who chose the sons of Zadok as his priests, for his mercy endures forever. (12j) Give thanks to the Shield of Abraham, for his mercy endures forever. (12k) Give thanks to the Rock of Isaac, for his mercy endures forever. (12l) Give thanks to the Mighty One of Jacob, for his mercy endures forever. (12m) Give thanks to him who chose Zion, for his mercy endures forever. (12n) Give thanks to the King of the kings of kings, for his mercy endures forever. (12o) He raised up a horn for his people, a (motive of) praise for his devout, for the children of Israel, the people that is close to him. Praise the Lord!

33 This practice is also employed by Beentjes in his text edition.

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Remarks on the translation: Verse 12e: The beginning of this line is corrupted in MS B. Only the last letter of the first word is visible, but the lacuna is easy to fill due to the stereotypical structure of the prayer. Verse 12f: As in verse 12e, the first letters of this line are damaged in MS B, and the same is true concerning the word ‫ למקבץ‬where only the first three letters are legible. Even in this case, the reconstruction is simple because Isaiah 56:8 is clearly in the background of this verse.34 The use of participles in Sirach 51:12f and elsewhere requires the western translator to make a translation choice: Should the participles be translated with a form that is present, future, imperfect, or perfect? The structure ‫ הודו‬+ participle does not occur in biblical Hebrew. The temporal forms also pose a problem in verse 12g.35 Verse 12i: At least here it is most natural to translate the Hebrew participle in a past tense, because the election of Zadok had taken place long ago in Israel’s history (1Sam 2:35; 1Kgs 2:35). Textual criticism in the purest sense of the word cannot be practiced here because there are no manuscripts or versions for comparison. Nevertheless, the passage widely benefits from earlier biblical texts in the form of direct quotations and allusions.36 The language of the prayer is quite simple and stereotypical throughout, and thus it does not offer any great problems for the modern translator. The only term that does not directly rise from the Hebrew Bible is the expression ‫ התשבחות‬in 12b. The root consonants ‫ שבח‬are easy to recognize. In the texts of Qumran, this word occurs (both in singular and in plural) more than twenty times,37 for instance in 1QM 4:8.

34 Françoise Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira 51,12a-o Hébreu. L’Hymne aux Noms Divins,” RB 116 (2009): 347. 35 Here Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 568, translate with the past tense (“rebuilt”), but Sauer, Jesus Sirach, 347, favors present or future form (“baut”). Stefan C. Reif, “Prayer in Ben Sira, Qumran and Second Temple Judaism. A Comparative Overview,” in Ben Sira’s God: Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference Durham-Ushaw College 2001, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel, BZAW 321 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 333–334, translates the participles as imperfects in vv. 12d and 12g, as perfects in 12f, 12i and 12m, and as present in 12h. Whatever tense one prefers in particular verses, it has a great impact on how to understand the message of the hymn. In addition to the right tense, it is challenging to choose the right nuance in translating the Hebrew verb ‫בנה‬, whether it discusses building or rather rebuilding in its present context. See Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira,” 347–348. 36 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 571: “The psalm is completely biblical in its phrasing, orientation, and theology.” 37 Elisha Qimron, “The Derivation of the Noun ‫ תשבוחת‬in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Sirach, Scrolls, and Sages: Proceedings of a Second International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead



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In Sirach 51:12f and 12g, I have decided to use present/future tenses in my translation contrary to Skehan’s and Di Lella’s solution. The reason is based on the biblical texts that are in the background. Verse 12f has some close parallels to Isaiah 11:12, 27:13, 56:8, and Psalm 147:2. All these parallels speak of God’s future deeds. The same is true when the parallels of 12g are in question. Those biblical passages that mention the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem and Judah/ Zion are throughout orientated towards the future (e.g., Isa 44:28; Pss 51:20; 69:36; 147:2).

2.2.2 Lexical Connections between Sirach 51:12a–o and Other Parts of Sirach In Sirach 51:12b, the expression “God of the praises” means the God who is worthy of praise. The term ‫ התשבחות‬does not occur elsewhere in the Hebrew text of Ben Sira, but the invitation to praise God is naturally present throughout Ben Sira’s composition. Especially in the concluding chapter of Sirach 51, the elements of praise occur rather often (vv. 1,12,17, and 29). These surrounding descriptions of praise comprise a reasonable context and frame for the insertion of verses 12a–o.38 In 12d, the expression ‫ יוצר הכל‬deserves attention. There is a verbatim parallel in Jeremiah 10:16 (also Jer 51:19), but it is also important to note that an equivalent expression (ὁ κτίστης ἁπάντων) occurs in Ben Sira’s famous praise of wisdom (Sir 24:8). Unfortunately, this central chapter of Ben Sira is not preserved to us in its Hebrew form, but it is very likely that the original text included the structure ‫ הכל‬+ ‫יצר‬. Altogether, it is characteristic of Ben Sira’s language that he favors the abstract ‫( הכל‬particularly with the definite article),39 but such a procedure is not common in biblical Hebrew. A glance at the concordance reveals that in the preserved Hebrew portions of Ben Sira the term ‫ הכל‬occurs thirteen times40 and, in addition to this, such a structure can be retraced in many passages of Greek Ben

Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, and the Mishnah, held at Leiden University, 15–17 December 1997, ed. Takamitsu Muraoka and John F. Elwolde, STDJ 33 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 244. 38 Françoise Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira 51,12a–o Hébreu. L’Hymne aux Noms Divins (deuxième partie),” RB 116 (2009): 499, draws the following conclusion: “Le passage qui précède (Si 51,1–12) appelle nécessairement une louange, que l’on trouve précisément en 51,12a–o.” 39 Martin Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus. Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh.s v. Chr., 3rd edition, WUNT 10 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 26; Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira, 487. 40 Dominique Barthélemy and Otto Rickenbacher, Konkordanz zum hebräischen Sirach: Mit syrisch-hebräischem Index (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973), 184.

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Sira. On this basis, the expression ‫ הכל‬could testify for Ben Sira’s authorship of 51:12a–o, but this evidence is not sufficient alone. In 12a–o, the name “Israel” (‫ )ישראל‬occurs altogether four times which is quite remarkable because of the brevity of the prayer. In the other extant Hebrew parts of Ben Sira, the name ‫ ישראל‬appears eighteen times,41 and most of these occurrences are in the “Praise of the Ancestors” (chs. 44–50). Some biblical figures listed in the liturgical prayer of 51:12a–o are common to the “Praise of the Ancestors” as well: Abraham (Sir 44:19–21/Sir 51:12j), Isaac (Sir 44:22/Sir 51:12k), Jacob (Sir 44:23/Sir 51:12l), and David (Sir 47:1–11/Sir 51:12h). The metaphor “Rock of Isaac” mentioned in verse 12k brings to mind the Hebrew text of Sirach 4:6 as preserved in MS A. In this verse, God is referred to by using the attribute ‫ צור‬as so often is the case in the complaint psalms of an individual (e.g., Pss 42:10; 71:3). The Greek translator, however, has understood Sirach 4:6 in a different sense, which is shown by the use of the word ποίησας. This change is caused either accidentally (‫ יצר‬is visually close to ‫ )צור‬or intentionally (even the LXX Psalter often renders the metaphors of God without imagination by simply using the word θεός).42 Verse 12m deals with the election of Zion. The term ‫ ציון‬occurs rather seldom in the extant Hebrew manuscripts of Sirach; in addition to this verse, it occurs only in 36:19, 48:18, and 48:24.43 For the grandiose epithet “the King of the kings of kings” there is no parallel elsewhere in Sirach, nor in the Hebrew Bible. But a corresponding title can be found in the Mishnaic tract m. Abot (3:1 and 4:32).44 The thought of God as a king is certainly presupposed in Sirach 50:7 which mentions the “temple of the king.” In that connection, the king can only mean God.45 The term ‫ קרן‬as a symbol of power and might occurs in verses 12h and 12o. In 12h, it refers to the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. The term is often used in a similar context in many biblical books (for instance, in Ps 132:17). Ben Sira uses

41 Barthélemy and Rickenbacher, Konkordanz, 167. 42 Staffan Olofsson, God Is My Rock: A Study of Translation Technique and Theological Exegesis in the Septuagint, ConBOT 31 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1990), 35–37; Jerome F. D. Creach, Yahweh as Refuge and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, JSOTSup 217 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 28–29. Olofsson, God Is My Rock, 45, draws the apt conclusion: “A literal rendering of ‫ צור‬was consistently avoided when it referred to God.” But it is curious, however, that in 2Sam 22:32 the LXX uses κτίστης although the Hebrew text contains ‫ ;צור‬about the discussion, see Olofsson, God Is My Rock, 37. 43 Barthélemy and Rickenbacher, Konkordanz, 338. 44 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 571. 45 Sauer, Jesus Sirach, 339: “Der Tempel wird ‘Heiligtum des Königs’ genannt, womit der himmlische König gemeint ist, eine Bezeichnung, die in der liturgischen Sprache des Tempels seit Jesaja (Jes 6,5) heimisch geworden war.”



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the word ‫ קרן‬twice in the Praise of the Ancestors when he describes the deeds of David (Sir 47:5 and 47:11). Verse 12o is a verbatim quotation from Psalm 148:14. Several scholars have understandably regarded the passage 51:12a–o as an unauthentic, secondary addition to MS B.46 The comparison of the vocabulary, however, already revealed some noteworthy connections between this prayer and other parts of Sirach; perhaps the most significant of these was the use of ‫הכל‬. According to many scholars, the most obvious feature that distinguishes verses 12a–o from the rest of the material in Ben Sira’s book is the concept of priesthood (see v. 12i in particular). Nowhere else does Ben Sira speak of the priesthood of Zadok’s family. Ben Sira definitely deals a lot with all kinds of cultic matters and he unmistakably had a keen interest towards priestly duties, but for Ben Sira the priesthood was exclusively Aaronite. This can be noted when we examine how much space Ben Sira devotes to the presentation of Aaron in the Praise of the Ancestors. Aaron is introduced at 45:6–22 and allotted 16 verses, Moses in 45:1–5 and allotted only 5; Phinehas as an Aaronite priest is given attention in 45:23–26. If we follow the development of different concepts concerning priesthood in biblical books, it can be noted that the Priestly Code in particular emphatically favors the Aaronite priesthood, whereas its contemporary, the book of Ezekiel, supports the Zadokite priesthood (Ezek 40:46; 43:19; 44:15; and 48:11).47 The Chronistic History concentrates above all on the Levites,48 and naturally the Levites play a central role in the composition of the Priestly Code. But differing from the Priestly Code, Ben Sira does not emphasize the Levites, because only in Sirach 45:6 the tribe of Levi is mentioned. It is astonishing when we observe that Ben

46 For instance, Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 569; Sauer, Jesus Sirach, 347. A sort of compromise is suggested by József Zsengellér, “Does Wisdom Come from the Temple? Ben Sira’s Attitude to the Temple of Jerusalem,” in Studies in the Book of Ben Sira: Papers of the Third International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, JSJSup 127 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 146, who argues that Sir 51:12a–o is poem that was created sometime before the rise of the Hasmonean priesthood. Thus, the prayer at least would nearly date back to the era when Ben Sira still was active, if he was not himself the author. 47 According to Thilo A. Rudnig, Heilig und Profan. Redaktionskritische Studien zu Ez 40–48, BZAW 287 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 288–290, only Ezek 44:15 is secondary in its context, but the other three occurrences are additions and these occurrences of Zadok are composed on the basis of Ezek 44:15. Only the Zadokites are regarded as real priests. In this respect, Rudnig observes a setting of competition in relation to the Priestly Code. Only in the Chronistic History, both the Aaronite and the Zadokite priesthood are combined to the same pedigree (1Chr 5:27–41; 6:35–38; see Rudnig, Heilig und Profan, 303). 48 Heinz-Josef Fabry, “Jesus Sirach und das Priestertum,” in Auf den Spuren der schriftgelehrten Weisen, FS Johannes Marböck, ed. Irmtraud Fischer, Ursula Rapp, and Johannes Schiller, BZAW 331 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 269–270.

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Sira does not mention Zadok or Ezra at all.49 The same ideological line continues in Sirach 50:1–21 where the High Priest Simon II (reigned circa 219–196 BCE), who was a Zadokite, is interpreted as if he had been an Aaronite. Heinz-Josef Fabry assumes that by adding the lines 51:12a–o, a later editor has endeavored to revise Ben Sira’s pan-Aaronite orientation towards a more Zadokite direction.50 This assumption is not the only solution. I am increasingly inclined to agree with Françoise Mies, who argues that the concepts of “the sons of Aaron” and “the sons of Zadok” are neither contradictory nor exclusive towards each other. These expressions can be understood in the manner that the “sons of Zadok” represent a part of the wider concept that is the “sons of Aaron.”51

2.2.3 Lexical Connections between Sir 51:12a–o and the Canonical Books of the Old Testament The whole line of Sirach 51:12a is a direct quotation from Psalm 136:1. Exactly the same wording occurs also in Psalm 118 verses 1 and 29,52 but Psalm 136 offers structurally the closest parallel to Sir 51:12a–o, because in both texts (apart from 51:12o) the latter stich of the verse always repeats the words ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬.53 The very same pattern is also found in Psalm 118 verses 1–4 and 29. This structure

49 Peter Höffken, “Warum schwieg Jesus Sirach über Esra?,” ZAW 87 (1975): 187, regards the picture of the Levitical Ezra drawn by the Chronicler as the reason why the anti-Levitically orientated Ben Sira does not mention Ezra in the Praise of the Ancestors. Höffken’s conclusions are rightly criticized by Juha Pakkala, Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemia 8, BZAW 347 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 273 n. 112. 50 Fabry, “Jesus Sirach,” 278–279. 51 Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira,” 489. 52 Christoph Levin, “Psalm 136 als zeitweilige Schlußdoxologie des Psalters,” in Fortschreibungen: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, BZAW 316 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 315–318, 321, analyzes the mutual relationship between Pss 118 and 136. Levin plausibly estimates that the Hebrew formula ‫ הודו ליהוה כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו‬has grown out from a longer form that occurs in Ps 100:5. In addition to Pss 118 and 136, a similar thanksgiving formula occurs in Jer 33:11; Ezra 3:11; Pss 106:1; 107:1; 1Chr 16:34,41; 2Chr 7:3; 20:21. The passages of 1–2Chronicles clearly depend on the parallels in the Psalter; see Levin, “Schlußdoxologie,” 321 n. 30. 53 Of course it is not completely excluded that both Ps 136 and Sir 51:12a–o would have been composed independently of each other on the basis of an earlier model; thus George H. Box and William O. E. Oesterley. “Sirach,” in APOT I, ed. Robert H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 514, but this is rather unlikely. Otto Mulder, “Three Psalms or Two Prayers in Sirach 51? The End of Ben Sira’s Book of Wisdom,” in Prayer from Tobit to Qumran, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 183, says that Ps 136 and Sir 51:12a–o are characterized by the same pattern with an identical



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probably reveals the earliest core of Psalm 118, around which the other material has grown secondarily.54 However, Sirach 51:12a–o does deviate from the model given by Psalm 136 in the sense that the A-stich is also governed throughout by a stereotypical structure. Excluding verse 12o, all the other verses begin with an imperative request ‫( הודו‬with the preposition ‫)ל‬. A remote parallel to this phenomenon can be found in the Hodayot psalms from Qumran, in which the stereotyped opening formula is often ‫אודך‬. It is difficult to find any close parallel to the content of the A-stich of verse 12b. As it was mentioned earlier, the expression ‫ התשבות‬does not occur in the canonical scriptures. Although God is of course mentioned several times as the recipient of the praises, and people are urged to praise God, for instance, in different parts of the Psalter (Pss 22:4,24; 48:2; 66:2; 69:31,35; 105:1–3, etc.). The first part of verse 12c is a plain quotation from Psalm 121 that belongs to the Psalms of Ascents. “The Guardian of Israel” occurs in Psalm 121:4; the verb ‫ שמר‬is also used in Psalm 121:5,7–8. For the expression ‫ יוצר הכל‬of v. 12d there are parallels in Jeremiah 10:16 and 51:19.55 Both verses are probably very late in the composition history of the book; Jeremiah 51 in particular is a late appendix. Sirach 51:12e speaks of the Redeemer of Israel; such thoughts are based on the proclamation of Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 44:6 and 49:7). Verse 51:12f mentions God as the one who gathers the dispersed of Israel, and there are a lot of affinities for this kind of description in many canonical books (mostly in Isaiah; see 11:12; 27:13; and 56:8; this last parallel seems to have been the passage that the author of Sir 51:12f has quoted).56 Furthermore, this topic comes forth in several psalms (for example, Pss 69:36–37; 102:23; 147:2). Like in Sirach 51:12g, God is introduced as the (re)builder of Jerusalem and Judah/ Zion in many passages throughout the Old Testament (e.g., Isa 44:28; Pss 51:20; 69:36; 102:17; and 147:2). All these mentioned psalm passages represent late theological layers in the book of Psalms.57 The restoration of Jerusalem is in the foreground also in certain verses from the book of Tobit (Tob 13:10,16–18).

refrain. It is a psalm of thanksgiving to Yahweh with a Sitz im Leben in the liturgy of the temple recited as an anthem or a litany to be sung responsively by a soloist together with a choir. 54 Levin, “Schlußdoxologie,” 315–318. 55 Reiterer, “Review,” 51: “Other close parallels to the concept of ‘the Creator of All’ can be found in Isa 44:24; 45:7 and Sir 11:14; 18:1 and 43:33. God’s title of ὁ κτίστης ἁπάντων (Sir 24,8) is not to be found anywhere in the Old Testament, but occurs three times in Jubilees (11,17; 22,27; 45,5).” 56 See Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira,” 347. 57 Marko Marttila, Collective Reinterpretation in the Psalms: A Study of the Redaction History of the Psalter, FAT II/13 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 158–159 (Ps 51) and 105–118 (Ps 69).

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Sprouting the horn for the house of David is the main theme in verse 12h, and it naturally refers to the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. This topic has its origin in the famous prophecy of Nathan (2Sam 7:11,27). The wording of verse 12h arises rather directly from Psalm 132:17. This is an interesting Psalm in the respect that it – together with Psalm 89 – is one of the most deuteronomistic psalms in the Psalter.58 Psalm 132 also contains collectively orientated theological features. A close parallel is represented by the secondary conclusion in the Song of Hannah (1Sam 2:10b).59 Further close parallels for the use of the term ‫ קרן‬can be found in the prophetic books, e.g., Ezekiel 29:21, and some more remote parallels in Isaiah 11:1–5; Jeremiah 23:5; and 33:15–17. The historical background of the Zadokite priesthood mentioned in verse 12i is according to 1Kings in the measures taken by King Solomon, who after his enthronement dismissed priest Abiathar that had belonged to the family of Eli, and appointed Zadok to serve as the leading priest instead (1Kgs 2:35; see also 1Sam 2:35 and 1Kgs 2:26–27). In favor of Zadok’s priesthood, the Temple Vision in the book of Ezekiel (chs. 40–48) is the weightiest evidence. These chapters are a secondary addition to the Book of Ezekiel.60 Otherwise, the priesthood of Zadok is a topic that is only seldom discussed in the biblical texts. The Shield of Abraham (v. 12j) undoubtedly has its origin in Genesis 15:1. The military term “shield” also appears a few other times in the Old Testament as a metaphor of God (e.g., Pss 18:3; 84:12; and 115:9–11). The term “the Rock of Isaac” (v. 12k) does not as such occur in the Old Testament, but there are some close parallels, such as “the Rock of Israel” (Gen 49:24), “Yahweh, the Rock of Israel” (Deut 32:30), and “the Refuge of Israel” (2Sam 23:3; Isa 30:29). The mere “rock”

58 Marttila, Collective Reinterpretation, 173–177. 59 The last bicolon of Hannah’s Song (‫ )ויתן־עז למלכו וירם קרן משיחו‬shares some striking affinities with those psalms that contain secondary collective elements. For instance, the similarity between 1Sam 2:10b and Ps 28:8 is quite evident, because the terms ‫ עז‬and ‫ משיח‬occur in both texts. According to some scholars (e.g., Christoph Rösel, Die messianische Redaktion des Psalters: Studien zu Entstehung und Theologie der Sammlung Psalm 2–89, CThM 19 [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1999], 125), one should replace the form ‫ למו‬in Ps 28:8 by ‫ ;למלכו‬thus the connection between Hannah’s Song and Ps 28 would be even more apparent. But I suppose that it is here better to follow the early versions and on the basis of their evidence the Hebrew word would originally have been ‫ ;לעמו‬see Marttila, Collective Reinterpretation, 149–150; idem, “The Song of Hannah and Its Relationship to the Psalter,” UF 38 (2007): 519. It is also possible to interpret 1Sam 2:10b as a secondary royal reinterpretation of the song, see Timo Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie: David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung, AASF B 193 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1975), 121 n. 86, 122 n. 97. 60 Rudnig, Heilig und Profan, 8–28, briefly surveys the scholarly opinions concerning the composition of Ezek 40–48.



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(‫ )צור‬as a metaphor of God occurs often in the Psalms (e.g., Pss 18:3; 42:10; 71:3; 94:22). In addition to this, the word ‫ צור‬is often employed in the Song of Moses (Deut 32:4,15,18,31).61 The expression “the Mighty One of Jacob” (‫ ;אביר יעקב‬Sir 51:12l) does have counterparts in different parts of the Old Testament. First of all, it occurs in the Blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:24). It is in the very same context where the term ‫צור‬ was used (“the Rock of Israel”). It is very likely that this passage from the Blessing of Jacob has strongly affected the author of Sirach 51:12a–o, at least when the verses 12k–l are in question. In any case, the Blessing of Jacob (Gen 49) represents one of the latest layers in Genesis, because it clearly presupposes the existence of the twelve tribes.62 Moreover, the expression ‫ אביר יעקב‬is found in Psalm 132:2 and 5, which is noteworthy, because this psalm seems to have served as an ideological background for verse 12h as we noted above. The composer of Sirach 51:12a–o has clearly known the content of Psalm 132 and adopted it into his own composition. Furthermore, the expression “the Mighty One of Jacob” occurs in Isaiah 49:26 that also mentions God as the Redeemer of Israel. The same theme is repeated in the texts of Trito-Isaiah: “Your Redeemer is the Mighty One of Jacob” (Isa 60:16). Finally, it is worth paying attention to Isaiah 1:24 in which the speaker is Yahweh Sabaoth, the Mighty One of Israel. Regarding verses 51:12j–l, it can still be added that naturally the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are often mentioned together, for example, Exodus 2:24; 3:6,15–16; 4:5; 6:3,8; Num 32:11; Deut 1:8; Jer 33:26; and – curiously enough – with the order reversed in Leviticus 26:42, which is part of the Holiness Code.63 Jeremiah 33:26 belongs to the same context as 33:15–17, which focuses on the restoration of the Davidic dynasty and has thus influenced the content of verse 12h. Obviously, the content of Jeremiah 33 has either directly or indirectly affected the author who is responsible for Sirach 51:12a–o. The election of Zion (Jerusalem) is the dominant theme in verse 12m. The verb ‫ בחר‬with Jerusalem as its object is one of the most characteristic features of the deuteronomistic language.64 The basis of the deuteronomistic cult centralization law is formed by the statement that Yahweh has chosen Jerusalem to be

61 Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira,” 350–351. 62 There may be some ancient extracts in Gen 49, but at least the final form and structure are late because the content of the Priestly Code is presupposed, see Christoph Levin, “Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels,” in Fortschreibungen: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, BZAW 316 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 116–117. 63 See Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 570. 64 Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 324–326.

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the only legitimate cult place (Deut 12).65 Elsewhere in the vast Deuteronomistic history the election of Jerusalem is mentioned, for instance, in the following verses: 1Kings 8:44,48; 11:13,32; 14:21; 2Kings 21:7; 23:27. Once more it is worth noting the appearance of this theme in Psalm 132 (v. 13): “God has chosen Zion.” The person responsible for Sirach 51:12a–o most often quotes Psalm 132 when he deals with psalms. This particular psalm has offered many theological models and examples for Ben Sira’s composition. The election of Jerusalem is also thrice mentioned in the book of Zechariah (1:17; 2:16, and 3:2). Especially, the first two occurrences are characteristically futuristic by their orientation: Yahweh will once again choose Jerusalem to be his own city. On this basis it is possible that the participial expression ‫ לבחר‬in verse 12m could be translated as a future form. According to Skehan and Di Lella, it is probable that verse 12m contains a veiled polemic against the Samaritans and their cultic place on Mount Gerizim.66 The sanctuary of Gerizim was still in use when Ben Sira lived and worked, because it was not destroyed until 129/128 BCE.67 Ben Sira’s polemical attitude towards the Samaritans is visible in the first epilogue of the book (Sir 50:26), where Ben Sira addresses the Samaritans as the foolish folk of Shechem. On the other hand, it has to be stressed that the criticism towards the Samaritans is not evident in verse 12m. The grandiose title used in verse 12n is as such not encountered in biblical texts. Of course, the image of God as a king has been widely used (e.g., Isa 6:5; Jer 46:18; 48:15; 51:57; and many occurrences in the Psalter: 22:29; 24:7–10; 47:3; 93:1; 95:3; 96:10; 97:1; 98:6; 99:1; 145:1). Noteworthy is also Deuteronomy 10:17 that in its wordings comes close to Sirach 51:12n. The triple formulation “King of the kings of kings” is a Semitic superlative and the closest parallel to it can be found only in the post-biblical rabbinic literature. I suppose that verse 12n may have gained impressions from the concluding verse of Psalm 136 (v. 26), as well as from verses 2a and 3a which are close parallels to the grandiose formulation of verse 12n. In any case, Psalm 136:26 urges its readers to thank the God of Heavens. The structure in Sirach 51:12n and Psalm 136:26 is quite similar. Because the beginning of Sirach 51:12a–o is adopted from Psalm 136, it is likely that the

65 In Deut 12, some of the verses that use the verb ‫ בחר‬belong to the layer DtrH, and some others to the later layer DtrB; see the recent presentation in Timo Veijola, Das Fünfte Buch Mose / Deuteronomium: Kapitel 1,1–16,17, ATD 8,1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 262–279. 66 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 571. 67 Herbert Donner, Geschichte des Volkes Israel und seiner Nachbarn in Grundzügen 2. Von der Königszeit bis zu Alexander dem Großen: Mit einem Ausblick auf die Geschichte des Judentums bis Bar Kochba, 3rd edition, GAT 4/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 486–487.



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conclusion of the psalm also influenced Ben Sira. As such 12n would comprise a natural colophon for the thanksgiving prayer that begins in verse 12a. Verse 12o that still follows is both structurally and metrically clearly different from the preceding lines. Moreover, verse 12o is a verbatim quotation from Psalm 148:14. Verses 12a–n are characterized by a strong emphasis on Israel and thus they form a consistent continuation to the Praise of the Ancestors. When verse 12o speaks of a horn (‫ )קרן‬as the symbol of a national power, it builds a bridge to the preceding verse 12h. Regarding Psalm 148 and its use in verse 12o, the basic form Psalm 148 probably consists of verses 1–13.68 This hymn praises God’s work of creation, and, as concerning the contents, a close parallel to Psalm 148 can be located in the later apocryphal texts, the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men (LXX Dan 3). The structure of Psalm 148 seems to be deliberate and well-planned. Firstly, the members of the celestial court are mentioned as the potential figures to praise God, then different celestial bodies are urged to praise Yahweh, then plants and animals of different species. Ultimately, the poet turns to people and the list begins with noblemen. Gradually, the shift downwards is completed thus covering all humankind. Verse 13 would as such be a sufficient conclusion for this hymn that unambiguously presupposes the biblical creation accounts, but also some later theological features – like the angels and the heavenly court. Nevertheless, Psalm 148 in its present final form still includes verse 14, in which it is returned from the universal perspectives to a more local level and reference is made solely to the people of Israel. On the basis of the psalm’s overall content, the people of Israel can be understood as the crown of God’s creation. This is a very obvious example of the kind of collective reinterpretation which many psalms have gone through. Moreover, Christoph Levin’s observation is convincing when he argues that verse 14 is not uniform, but that the words ‫ תהלה לכל חסידיו‬would be an even later interpolation.69 These words are syntactically rather awkward in their present context and they also overload the metrical structure of the verse. In any case, the strong emphasis on Israel in Psalm 148:14 has pleased the poet who wrote Sirach 51:12a–o and consequently he wanted to conclude his prayer in a similar way in verse 12o. It should be stressed that Psalm 148:14 is a very late addition, because even on the level of the basic text, Psalm 148 belongs with great likelihood to the latest psalms of the Psalter which can be verified due to its

68 Marttila, Collective Reinterpretation, 165–167. 69 Christoph Levin, “Das Gebetbuch der Gerechten. Literargeschichtliche Beobachtungen am Psalter,” in Fortschreibungen: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, BZAW 316 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 311.

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position in the collection of the Minor Hallel. This collection is the doxology that concludes the whole Psalter.70 If we still take a glance at the final forms of Sirach 51:12a–o and Psalm 148, we may, generally speaking, perceive some interesting affinities. Before their last lines both texts are formed according to the pattern that favors imperative requests (‫)הודו–הללו‬. In this respect, only Psalm 148:6 deviates from the “rule” (it may well be a later gloss). In Sirach 51:12a–n, the B-parts of the stichs always include a justification for the requests to thank. In Psalm 148, there is only one common justification in verse 13 that begins with the particle ‫כי‬. Perhaps, the poet of Sirach 51:12a-o endeavored to achieve a structure similar to Psalm 148, and in order to accomplish this he added a verbatim quotation from Psalm 148 to his ‫–הודו‬prayer. 2.2.4 The Supposed Qumranic Origin of Sirach 51:12a–o Many scholars who have analyzed Sirach 51:12a–o have referred to the possibility that this section originally comes from the community of Qumran.71 Unfortunately, scholars too often mention this connection without presenting any profound evidence to support their claims, but there are also those scholars who dispute the relationship between Sirach 51:12a–o and the Qumran community.72 In the analysis below, I attempt to go beneath the surface of the text and examine if it is justified to regard verse 12a–o as a literary product from Qumran. First of all, it is evident that Sirach was known in Qumran, because fragments of it have been discovered in the caves of the Judean desert. Some parts of Sirach 6 are legible in 2Q18,73 and the acrostic poem of Sirach 51 is included in the famous

70 Janowski, Konfliktgespräche, 114, 117. 71 Thus, for instance, Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom, 569; Johannes Marböck, “Sirach / Sirachbuch,” in TRE 31, ed. Gerhard Müller (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 311–312; Fabry, “Jesus Sirach,” 279. 72 For instance, Middendorp, Stellung, 117. 73 For more details, see Corrado Martone, “Ben Sira Manuscripts from Qumran and Masada,” in The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research: Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference 28–31 July 1996 Soesterberg, Netherlands, ed. Pancratius C. Beentjes, BZAW 255 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 81–88. It is a pity that 2Q18 is in such a fragmentary state. There are, in fact, two fragments but scholars disagree as to which passage in Sirach the other fragment belongs. But there are some other connections between Qumran texts and Ben Sira, as Martone, “Ben Sira Manuscripts,” 92–94, elucidates. See also Émile Puech, “Ben Sira and Qumran,” in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology, ed. Angelo Passaro and G. Bellia, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 79–118.



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Psalms Scroll 11QPsª. It is not, however, incontestable whether Sirach 51:13–30 is authentic to Ben Sira or a poem that people at Qumran could have known from other sources.74 The following points have been suggested to speak in favor of the Qumranic origin for Sirach 51:12a–o: 1) The closest parallels to the term ‫ התשבחות‬of verse 12b can be found in certain texts of Qumran.75 The more detailed connections between 51:12a–o and Qumran texts must be explored with careful work using a concordance.76 This word is almost without exception used in the plural. It usually occurs without the definite article which is, of course, a slight difference as compared with Sirach 51:12b. The same root ‫ תשבחה‬occurs in Aramaic in a few texts from Qumran.77 2) The Zadokite priesthood was appreciated in the community at Qumran. The origin of the Qumran community is an obscure matter. Particularly in earlier research, it was assumed that the community was established as a protest to the incidents of the year 152 BCE when the Zadokite high priest was replaced by the Hasmonean high priest Jonathan.78 Hence, the emphasis in verse 12i would fit well within the context of Qumran. But one must also add that the Aaronite priesthood is repeatedly mentioned in Qumran texts as well. 3) Verse 12h can be interpreted messianically, and as we know, expectations of the Messiah were rather central in the writings of the Qumran community. In fact, the members of the community anticipated two kinds of messianic figures: both Aaronic and Davidic. The Aaronic Messiah had clearly the leading role in these expectations. 4) The Qumranic origin of verses 12a–o could explain why this section has not been transmitted to the early versions (LXX and Peshitta) together with the other Ben Sira material.

74 Middendorp, Stellung, 118. See also James A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa), DJD 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 83, and the criticism in Manfred R. Lehmann, “11QPsa and Ben Sira,” RevQ 11 (1983): 239–241. 75 The occurrences are in the following texts: 1QM 4:8; 4Q88 8:8; 4Q200 6 4; 4Q286 1ii 5; 4Q334 1 2; 3 1; 4 5; 4Q400 1i 21; 2 1; 4Q403 1i 3,28,32; 1ii 25,36; 4Q405 20ii 22 13; 4Q414 26 2; 4Q433a 1 5; 4Q510 1 1; 4Q511 2i 8; 6Q18 2 8; 11Q5 22:11; 11Q17 4:7,8; 10:5. 76 The consulted concordance for Qumran texts has been Martin G. Abegg et al., ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance: The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran Volume I:1–2 (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 77 1Q20 11:13; 4Q201 1ii 10; 4Q204 1i 29; 4Q212 1ii 15; 4Q542 1i 11. 78 Alexander Di Lella, The Hebrew Text of Sirach: A Text-Critical and Historical Study, Studies in Classical Literature 1 (Hague: Mouton, 1966), 104.

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5) For the expression ‫( יוצר הכל‬Sir 51:12d) there is a longer parallel in 1QHa 8:17 containing ‫ברוך אתה אדוני יוצר הכל‬. Building or rebuilding the city and the sanctuary (cf. Sir 51:12g) are recurring themes in the texts from Qumran. At least the other one of the components is mentioned, for instance, in 1QpHab 10:6,10; 4Q216 4:7. But the combination ‫ קרן‬+ ‫( צמח‬cf. Sir 51:12h) does not occur in any of the Qumran texts. Consequently, the expression ‫ בית דוד‬is not typical of the non-biblical texts of Qumran, but it does occur in 4Q522 22–25,4. Close to this also comes the openly messianic text of 4Q252 5:4. It is definitely noteworthy that the priest Zadok is so often mentioned in the texts of Qumran.79 Even the expression ‫ בני צדוק הכוהנים‬that clearly resembles verse 12i occurs several times in various Qumran texts.80 But there seem to be no equivalents in Qumran texts for the metaphors used in Sirach 51:12j–l. None of the above arguments are fully convincing. We saw above that the Aaronite and the Zadokite priesthoods are not necessarily opposite to each other in Ben Sira’s thought. Regarding the lexical connections, it is evident that the contacts between Sirach 51:12a–o and the Hebrew Bible are far more numerous than the contacts between 51:12a–o and the texts from Qumran. Moreover, the language used in 51:12a–o accords relatively well with the other parts of Sirach.81 An answer is still needed for the riddle of why Sirach 51:12a–o is absent from the Greek version and other early versions. The least speculative and therefore quite plausible suggestion is made by Mies who argues that any reference to the Zadokite priesthood would have been inappropriate during the period when Ben Sira’s grandson translated the wisdom work into Greek.82 Consequently, Ben Sira’s prayer fell into obscurity until the Hebrew manuscripts were discovered from the Geniza of Cairo. So far MS B is the only textual witness to this prayer of thanksgiving.

79 CD 4:1,3; 5:5; 1QS 5:2,9; 1QSa 1:2,24; 2:3; 1QSb 3:22; 3Q15 11:3,6; 4Q163 22 3; 4Q174 1–2 I 17; 4Q266 5i 16. 80 1QS 5:2,9; 1QSa 1:2,24; 2:3; 1QSb 3:22; 4Q266 5i 16. 81 Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira,” 500: “L’hymne s’insère bien dans le livre de Ben Sira. Le vocabulaire utilisé dans l’hymne se retrouve ailleurs dans le livre.“ 82 Mies, “Le Psaume de Ben Sira,” 501: “La version grecque, due au petit fils de Ben Sira, remonte à la seconde moitié du II siècle av. J.-C. (à partir de 132 av. J.-C.), soit une période où le grand prêtre n’était plus de lignée sadocite. Il devenait difficile de reprendre un hymne qui, en son centre, exaltait les fils de Sadoq.”



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3 Conclusion Ben Sira was a sage and wisdom teacher who knew well the biblical traditions. Our survey revealed that he was notably familiar with the Psalms, their language and poetic structure. On several occasions, Ben Sira composes poems that can be labeled as psalms. Ben Sira not only imitates certain psalm genres, but he even seems to imitate the Psalter’s overall scheme “from lament to praise.” At the end of Ben Sira’s large work it is precisely the praise that dominates. This article examined in closer detail two prayers (Sir 36:1–17 and Sir 51: 12a–o), both of which have been the subject of much debate about their origins. In both cases the evidence was argued to favor Ben Sira’s authorship of the prayers. The evaluation was done chiefly on the basis of lexical observations. These two psalms are fine examples as demonstrations of how masterfully Ben Sira uses vocabulary and style of the now-canonical psalms. Features of a national lament can be seen in Sirach 36. It is an emotional plea to God who can annihilate all the enemies and oppressors of his chosen people. Ben Sira repeatedly refers back to the mighty deeds that God has done in history. In this respect, Sirach 36 is closely related to the Praise of the Ancestors (Sir 44–50). Ben Sira concludes his prayer with a monotheistic emphasis. The hymn or song of thanksgiving in Sirach 51:12a–o is a type of response to the promise of praise that is uttered in the preceding prayer of 51:1–12. Almost every phrase in 51:12a–o is biblical in content and wording. The audience of this prayer is exhorted to praise God whose mercy endures forever. References are again made to God’s earlier acts of salvation and at the same time this hymn includes many promises that still anticipate their fulfilment. Trust in God’s guidance and praise to Israel’s God are Ben Sira’s basic convictions throughout his wisdom teaching. These same aspects are also underlined in this joyful psalm.

Marika Pulkkinen

“There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3 1 Introduction In this article, I will examine the catena of quotations from the Septuagint (LXX) Psalms found in Romans 3. I will use text criticism to evaluate the agreements and disagreements between the manuscript evidence for the psalms and the Pauline citations. In determining which reading should be attributed to Paul and which to his Vorlage, I will also analyze deviations in light of Paul’s argumentative aim and Pauline studies in general. First, I will focus on Paul’s use of Psalm 116:11 (LXX: 115:2) and Psalm 51(LXX: 50) in Romans 3:4, which serve as a part of his argumentation on God’s sovereignty. In this passage Paul struggles with how God’s salvation plan applies to both Jews and Gentiles: How is Paul able to explain from scripture that while God first made the covenant available to Israel, Gentiles have now been included without the requirement to fulfill the Law? I argue that by using the language of lamentation from Psalm 116(115) and repentance and atonement from Psalm 51(50), Paul aims to prove that the inclusion of the Gentiles into the covenant does not contradict God’s promises to Israel. Second, I will analyze Romans 3:10–18, a passage in which Paul uses a catena composed of explicit quotations from various psalms (Pss 5:10; 10:7 [LXX 9:28]; 14[LXX 13]:1–3; 36[LXX 35]:2; 140[LXX 139]:4) and Isaiah 59:7–8. Understanding the function of the quotations in Romans 3:4 also reveals the argumentative aim of the catena in Romans 3:10–18 where Paul starkly illustrates the unfortunate Article Note: This article is a reworked version of two papers presented at the Greek Bible session at the SBL annual meeting in Atlanta, November 24, 2015, and at the Nordic Workshop, Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period, in Helsinki, September 24, 2015. I wish to thank the organizers of the workshop and the editors of this volume for accepting my contribution. In particular, I would like to extend a warm thank-you to Mika Pajunen, who helped patiently guide the process of writing my first academic article, for providing valuable suggestions, and for sharing his knowledge on psalms scholarship. Special thanks are also due to my supervisor Anneli Aejmelaeus, who provided helpful comments on this manuscript during several phases of the process, particularly the text critical arguments I present. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Vanessa Fuller for providing English-language revision and making this text more readable. Special thanks belong also to Jeremy Penner for the final polishing of field-specific English expressions. Any remaining idiosyncratic formulations are my own responsibility. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-020



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plight of human beings. Throughout the entire passage (vv. 10–18), Paul attempts to tackle the problem emerging from the tension between particularism (God’s promises towards his chosen people) and universalism (salvation promised also to Gentiles through faith). Paul leads his audience to contemplate human sinfulness in order to reveal the general inability of human beings to carry out any good deeds without God’s mercy. By fostering a pessimistic view of humanity, Paul uses psalms that explicitly illustrate lamentation (Ps 116 [115]) and penitence (Ps 51 [50]). Since the psalms Paul uses (Pss 5; 10[9]; 14[13]; 36[35]; and 140[139]) are not concerned with universal sinfulness, but instead present a hostile and exclusive image of the “other,” Paul constructs an argument through employing only specific and selective portions of these psalms to present a prototypical and inclusive image of the sinful human. Third, I will claim that the LXX manuscripts have been harmonized with Paul’s composition in Romans 3:10–18 since verses 13–18 agree verbatim with the majority of the manuscript evidence from LXX Psalm 13:3. This harmonizing expansion does not appear in Codex Alexandrinus or the Lucianic Text. Finally, it is worth already noting that the functions of the quotations in Romans 3:4 and the catena in 3:10–18 differ. Paul’s use of Psalm 51(50):6 in Romans 3:4 coincides with the text’s popularity during the late Second Temple period, and his audience would have recognized even a vague and partial reference to it. Yet, the catena in Romans 3:10–18 reveals that the quotes within the Pauline context serve as evidence of universal sinfulness, and thus a departure from the original textual context. Before proceeding to the specific passages, I will first provide a brief overall account of Paul’s use of psalms.

2 References to and Quotations from Psalms in Paul’s Letters The four scriptural books Paul quotes explicitly and most frequently consist of Isaiah (28x), different Psalms (19x), Genesis (15x), and Deuteronomy (15x). Paul usually quotes scripture by adding the explicit citation formula “(as) it is written” or something similar prior to his use of the source text.1 In some cases, he also

1 The citation formula γέγραπται commonly appears in Jewish literature and represents a translated form of the Hebrew ‫כתוב‬. Paul uses the verb γράφω 34 times in his quotation formula; γέγραπται 29 times; κὰθως γέγραπται (ὅτι) 18 times; γέγραπται (γάρ) 6 times; and the verb λέγω 19 times. For more on this issue, see, for example, Dietrich-Alexander Koch, Schrift als Zeuge

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specifies to which composition he refers. Concerning psalms, Paul mentions David twice,2 indicating that he attributes the authorship of the psalms – at least in these two instances – to David. The letter to the Romans contains 15 explicit quotations from the now canonical Psalms;3 1Corinthians contains four,4 and 2Corinthians two.5 Aside from the explicit quotations, Paul refers more subtly to psalms in 64 instances scattered throughout the genuine Pauline letters, with the exception of Philemon.6 In all, Romans and 1Corinthians contain the majority of the more subtle references (48 instances altogether) and explicit quotations (19 instances).7

des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), 25–30. 2 We find this in Rom 4:6 referring to Ps 31(32) and in Rom 11:9 referring to Ps 68(69). Ps 32 (MT) includes the Hebrew superscript ‫לדוד משכיל‬, translated in Greek Ps 31 (LXX) to τῷ Δαυιδ συνέσεως; Ps 69 (MT) features the Hebrew superscript ‫ לדוד על־שושנים למנצח‬translated in Ps 68 (LXX) to εἰς τὸ τέλος ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀλλοιωθησομένων τῷ Δαυιδ. David is mentioned in only six different psalms apart from the superscripts (Pss 18:50; 78:70; 89:3,20,35,49; 125:5; 132:10,11,17; 144:10). 3 Rom 3:4 (Ps 51[LXX 50]:6); Rom 3:10–12 (Ps 14[13]:1–3); Rom 3:13 (Ps 5:10); Rom 3:14 (Ps 140[139]:4); Rom 3:18 (Ps 36[35]:2); Rom 4:7–8 (Ps 32[31]:1); Rom 8:36 (Ps 44[43]:23); Rom 11:9– 10 (Ps 69[68]:23–24); Rom 15:3 (Ps 69[68]:10); Rom 15:9 (Ps 18[17]:50); Rom 15:11 (Ps 117:2 [117:1]). Direct quotation without the quotation formula: Rom 2:6 (Ps 62:12[61:13]); Rom 3:4 (Ps 116:11 [115:2]); Rom 10:18 (Ps 19[18]:5); Rom 11:2 (Ps 94[93]:14). 4 1Cor 3:20 (Ps 94[93]:11); 1Cor 10:26 (Ps 24[23]:1); 1Cor 15:25 (Ps 110[109]:1),27 (Ps 8:7). 5 1Cor 4:13 (Ps 116[115]:10); 2Cor 9:9 (Ps 112[111]:9). 6 This figure is based on Nestle-Aland’s28 marginal notes, literature reviews, and my own parallel reading of Paul and the Psalms. For the terminology and definition of scriptural citations, I follow Richard B. Hays’ classification from Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 29–32, which allows for more subtlety with scriptural references. By explicit quotation, I refer to a citation marked with an explicit quotation formula; by implicit quotation, I refer to verbatim citation without a quotation formula. Hays uses the terms “echo” and “allusion” often interchangeably, which has caused some confusion. There have been later attempts to clarify these terms: see, for example, Stanley E. Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley, SBLSymS 50 (Atlanta: SBL, 2008), 29–40. 7 No comprehensive study exists regarding Paul’s use of Psalms in his letters, which is rather striking due to its clearly important status in his argumentation. My doctoral thesis on Paul’s use of Psalms aims to fill this gap. See, for example, Matthew Scott’s recently published doctoral dissertation, The Hermeneutics of Christological Psalmody in Paul: An Intertextual Enquiry, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 158 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Alan Harmon’s [“Harman” appears on the title page of his dissertation] dissertation “Paul’s Usage of the Psalms” from Westminster Theological Seminary (1968) is not comprehensive and focuses on both Pauline letters and the representation of Paul from Acts. This dissertation remains unpublished, although an abridged, yet more extensive study appeared in, idem, “Aspects of Paul’s use of the Psalms,” WTJ 32 (1969): 1–23. A fair number of articles have been



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The use of certain psalms alongside the Torah and the Prophets as source material to interpret Israel’s history represents a well-established phenomenon from the latter half of the second century BCE onwards among new Jewish groups emerging after the Maccabean revolt. During this period, the use of psalms as prophecy increased, which is particularly evident in the texts found at Qumran.8 Correspondingly, in addition to the Prophets and the Law, Paul also refers to certain psalms in order to gain authority for his arguments.9

written dealing with the influence of Psalms on New Testament writers. See, for example, Moisés Silva, “The Greek Psalter in Paul’s Letters: A Textual Study,” in The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma, ed. Robert J. V. Hiebert, Claude E. Cox, and Peter J. Gentry, JSOTSup 332 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 277–288; Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken, ed., Psalms in the New Testament, New Testament and Scriptures of Israel (London: T&T Clark International, 2004); Richard B. Hays, “Christ Prays the Psalms: Israel’s Psalter as Matrix of Early Christology,” in The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 101–118. In addition, some monographs have appeared regarding the entire New Testament. See, for instance, Ulrich Rüsen-Weinhold, Der Septuagintapsalter im Neuen Testament: Eine textgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Wuppertal: Neukirchner Verlag, 2004). In these, however, the view of Paul’s usage remains rather narrow. 8 On the changing function of psalmody during the Second Temple period, see, for example, Mika S. Pajunen, “The Influence of Societal Changes in the Late Second Temple Period on the Functions and Composition of Psalms,” in Material Philology in the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Approaches for New Text Editions: Proceedings of the International Conference at the University of Copenhagen, 3–5 April, 2014, ed. Kipp Davis and Trine Björnung Hasselbalch, STDJ (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 9 On the correlation between the authorial and referential status of a text, see, for example, George J. Brooke, “Scripture and Scriptural Tradition in Transmission: Light from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Scrolls and Biblical Traditions: Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki, ed. George J. Brooke, Daniel K. Falk, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, STDJ 103 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 11: “(…) in representing what they depend on they confer authority on their hypotexts, the texts that lie underneath them (…).” Furthermore, whether the tripartite division  – Torah, Prophets, Writings  – of scripture already existed at the time when Paul wrote his letters remains disputed. Compare also Rom 1:1, where Paul mentions “prophets” promising the gospel; but since he further refers likewise to the Torah and Psalms, he appears to also include other biblical books in “prophets.” The tripartite distinction is often attributed to the Greek expansion of Ben Sirach’s prologue: (…) διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἠκολουθηκότων δεδομένων (…), and thus dated to the second century BCE; but see Anneli Aejmelaeus, “Die Septuaginta als Kanon,” in Kanon in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion: Kanonisierungsprozesse religiöser Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Ein Handbuch, ed. Eva-Marie Becker and Stefan Scholz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 315–327, who argues that only the Torah (i.e., the five books of Moses) can be granted a fixed status with any certainty by the middle of the third century BCE on the basis of the Greek translation. For other books, however, their status and stage during which their translations first appeared in the first century BCE remain unclear (see, in particular ibid., pp. 315–316,

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3 God’s Sovereignty through Psalm 116:11 (LXX 115:2) and Psalm 51 (LXX 50):6 In Romans 1–2, Paul appears to blur the distinction between Jews and Gentiles: he claims that Jews cannot fulfill the Law (2:17–24) and that Gentiles may occasionally do so (2:14–15,26), thus turning the assumptions of his readers upside down. His aim is to show that both ethnic groups are equally incapable of fulfilling the requirements of the Law. In chapter 3, Paul moves on to argue from scripture that universal sin applies to all human beings (as stated in v. 9, “both Jews and Gentiles are under the sin”). In verse 1, he asks, “What advantages do Jews have or what is the value of circumcision?” (Τί οὖν τὸ περισσὸν τοῦ Ἰουδαίου ἢ τίς ἡ ὠφέλεια τῆς περιτομῆς;). Paul responds to this rhetorical question with, “Much in every way!”10 (πολὺ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον), and continues by stating that the words of God (τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεου, v. 2) were first entrusted to the Jews. In verse 3, Paul poses a further rhetorical question: “How so? If some have not believed, does their disbelief destroy God’s faithfulness?” This question is answered through a strong diatribic denial, “By no means!” (μὴ γένοιτο, v. 4a), and followed with an explicatory exclamation: “Let God become true, but every person a liar!” (γινέσθω δὲ ὁ θεὸς ἀληθής,11 πᾶς δὲ ἄνθρωπος ψεύστης, v. 4b–c). The latter part (πᾶς δὲ ἄνθρωπος ψεύστης, v. 4c) of this exclamation represents an implicit quotation from LXX Psalm 115:2 (MT 116:11).12 The arrangement

322). Furthermore, Mika S. Pajunen, “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSOT 39 (2014): 140–163, criticizes the claim that the book of Psalms, i.e., the MT Psalter, already enjoyed authoritative status due to references to Psalms in the manuscripts found at Qumran. Pajunen argues that the primary reason for the vast quantity of different psalmic manuscripts found in the Judean Desert suggests many different applications of the psalms that are related to their arrangement. 10 Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 326. 11 Fitzmyer, Romans, 328, notes that the word and its cognates are often used in the LXX to refer to God’s covenantal fidelity (e.g., Ps 89:2,6,9,15,25, and 34). 12 Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 204 n. 33, classifies this as an echo. According to Bernd Janowski, “Dankbarkeit. Ein athropologischer Grundbegriff im Spiegel der Toda-Psalmen,” in Ritual und Poesie: Formen und Orte religiöser Dichtung im Alten Orient, im Judentum und im Christentum, ed. Erich Zenger, HBS 36 (Freiburg: Herder, 2003), 91–136, the psalm can be attributed to the temple cult and more specifically to the todah celebration which represented an offering of thanks to the nation. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3: A Commentary on Psalms 101–150, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 215, apply more cautious labeling to the psalm, as a “thanksgiving song drawing on the ritual of a thanksgiving sacrifice.” See also Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101–150, WBC 21 (Waco: Word Books,



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of Psalm 116 (MT) differs from its representation in the LXX, as verse 10 introduces a new psalm in the Greek translation (LXX 115:1). Most commentators consider the LXX version as secondary.13 Evaluating whether Paul knew the psalm in its MT or LXX form remains difficult to determine on the basis of his quotations.14 Paul’s quoted exclamation, “(…) every human being is a liar,” encapsulates the theological emphasis of the psalm according to its MT form. According to the psalmist, human beings remain unreliable and their lives are full of danger and anguish (v. 3), while God stands as trustworthy and will redeem the speaker (vv. 5–9). If Paul knew the psalm in its MT form, the surrounding context (vv. 1–9), which contains elements of lamentation and thanksgiving, as well as the themes of God’s sovereignty, served well to support Paul’s argumentation.15 In Psalm 116:5, the confession of God’s mercy is reformulated from Exodus 34:6, a theological motif central to Paul’s thinking (compare also Pss 111:4; 112:4).16 Still, we must note that a characteristic of Paul’s style of argumentation is to take a biblical text out of context in order to support his claims. Finally, Paul quotes explicitly from LXX Psalm 50(51):6 marking it with the quotation formula “as it is written”: Romans 3:4d–f : (…) καθὼς γέγραπται· ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῇς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου καὶ νικήσεις17 ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε.

1983), 114, who concludes that, on the basis of vv. 14,18, and 19, the psalm was “(…) evidently composed for recitation at a service offering thanks in the temple courts during one of the great festivals (…).” Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Psalms, NCBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 501–502, note that, as a Hallel psalm used during Passover, the elements of deliverance (from Egyptian bondage in the Jewish context) became appropriate for New Testament writers. The cup of salvation (Ps 116:13) “came to be associated with the Eucharist in the Christian tradition.” 13 For example, see Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 101–150, HTKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 300–301; Emilie Grace Briggs, The Book of Psalms II, CEC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1907), 398. 14 He refers to this psalm twice: in Rom 3:4 to Ps 116:11b (LXX 115:2b) and in 2Cor 4:13 to Ps 116:10a (LXX 115:1a). Among other early Christian writers, Jerome divides the psalm according to the LXX: from verse 10 onward the new psalm begins. 15 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 101–150, 294, consider v. 10 as a summary of vv. 1–9 and a lead into the entire psalm. 16 Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalmen 101–150, 300. 17 N-A28 reads the verb in future indicative according to ‫ ﬡ‬A D K 81. 2464 pm (incert. 33. 1506). The verb form is in aorist subjunctive in B G L Ψ 365. 1175. 1505. 1739. 1881 pm. Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 87, states that the future indicative suits the Pauline context better than the aorist subjunctive “emphasizing the absolute certainty

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(…) just as it is written: “so that you may be justified in your words and will be victorious when you go to court” 18 LXX Psalm 50(51):6: σοὶ μόνῳ ἥμαρτον καὶ τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιόν σου ἐποίησα ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῇς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου19 καὶ νικήσῃς ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε20 Against you alone did I sin, and what is evil before you I did, so that you may be justified in your words and may be victorious when you go to court

While Paul does not quote verse 6 in its entirety, he does emphatically scrutinize the fundamental difference between a human being and God in this passage. Paul leaves out the confession of sin lead-in: “Against you alone did I sin, and what is evil before you, I did.” Instead, Paul moves directly to the final clause (ὅπως ἄν + subj.): “so that you may be victorious when you go to court” It seems to me that Paul expects his reader to recognize this quotation and, therefore, to add the confession of human sinfulness (“Against you alone did I sin, and what is evil before you I did”) before the cited line.21 In this way only, they can agree with Paul that God’s righteousness is at stake here: God may be justified and victorious in law. Without knowing the quotation’s origin, confusion becomes likely, since a change in the reference point to the second person singular emerges without any explanation and returns to address Paul’s (imagined) interlocu-

of God’s victory over those who would seek to question his ways.” He proceeds by weighing the possibility that the future indicative reading would originate from an LXX Vorlage that Paul used – if he used some text – and thus the Pauline reading would attest to an older form. Stanley still points out that the aorist subjunctive fits better in the psalmic context. Similarly, Fitzmyer, Romans, 328, argues that the reading in the aorist subjunctive (νικήσῃς) harmonizes Paul’s modification (indicative future) according to the LXX and the former verb (δικαιωθῇς). 18 I have modified the NET translation in order to show the Greek tense changes as well as the word choices for the latter part. 19 According to Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51–100, WBC 20 (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 6, several Hebrew manuscripts, LXX, Symmachus, Vulgata, and Rom 3:4 read or assume the form ‫בדבריך‬ “in your words.” In MT, the form is qal infinitive with the second singular masculine suffix. The reading in the LXX (and other witnesses) could represent the original based on lectio difficilior, since it violates the parallelism with the following expression: “blameless in giving judgment.” But, according to Tate, a similar treatment exists concerning this word: some Hebrew manuscripts read “in your judgments”; the LXX changes the verb into the passive or middle voice, but the meaning of the verb is the same “in judging.” 20 Variant: με in MS 2013. 21 Compare this to Stanley, Paul and the language, 87, who claims that “Paul eliminates entirely the self-abasement theme that figured so prominently in the original” textual context. Paul twists a humble acknowledgement that God is also just in judging sin, asserting that even if someone seeks to challenge him, God will be vindicated. According to Thomas Tobin, Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Contexts: The Argument of Romans (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004), 119, Paul points out, by quoting this psalm, that even when judging sinners, God is proven just (δικαιόω).



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tor in verse 5. Paul demarcates the first part based on rhetorical reasons since the confessional exclamation would interrupt his treatment.22 He then continues his diatribe with the reader: his denial in verse 4 requires scriptural justification which he accomplishes by conflating LXX Psalms 115:2 (MT 116:11) with 50(51):6. Psalm 51(50) is perhaps the best known of the so-called traditional seven penitential psalms (Pss 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; and 143).23 The superscript of Psalm 51(50) hints at its consideration as a penitential psalm by attributing it to David’s confrontation with the prophet Nathan after committing adultery with Bathsheba, an act that prompted David to arrange for the death of her husband Uriah (cf. 2Sam 11–12).24 It is not surprising that the superscript originates from the Hel-

22 According to Stanley K. Stowers, “Paul’s Dialogue with a Fellow Jew in Romans 3:1–9,” CBQ 46 (1984): 707–722, the denial in verse 3 should be understood as Paul’s voice, whereas verse 4 represents the interlocutor’s phrasing. Stowers views vv. 1–9 as following a sharply planned rhetorical structure and not a digression, contrary to many other commentators. 23 Tate, Psalms 51–100, 8, adds that the “full confession of sin (in Ps 51:3–7) is without parallel in any other biblical psalms (though such confession in the past is recalled in Ps 32:5; also note Pss 38:19; 41:5; 69:6; 130:1–8).” Nevertheless, recent studies have criticized the assertion that all of these psalms can be classified as penitential prayer. For different ways of defining and classifying penitential prayers, see Rodney A. Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution, SBLEJL 13 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), who argues that penitential prayer “(…) is a direct address to God in which an individual or group confesses sins and petitions for forgiveness. Frequently, the petitioner hopes that the prayer will also be the first step toward removing the problems facing the community or the petitioner. (p. 2)”; Mark J. Boda, Praying the Tradition: The Origin and Use of Tradition in Nehemiah 9, BZAW 277 (New York: de Gruyter, 1999), 28, defines six characteristic elements that identify penitential prayer: 1) praise, 2) supplication (a. depiction of need, b. muted lament, c. implicit request), 3) confession of sin (a. admission of culpability, b. declaration of solidarity with former generations, c. consistent use of the hitp. of ‫ )ידח‬4) history (a. anthological use of historical sources, b. use of the contrast motif [divine grace/Israel’s disobedience], 5) themes (a. covenant, b. land, c. law), and 6. purpose. See also the discussion on the definition of penitential prayer in Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline, ed., Seeking the Favor of God, vol. 1: The Origins of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, SBLEJL 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Samuel Balentine, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialogue (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). Using these criteria, the above-mentioned psalms do not fit into the category; but, instead, Daniel 9, Nehemiah 9, and Ezra 9 more clearly represent penitential elements. 24 The psalm composition consists of different parts dated in the following way: vv. 19–20 are thought to postdate the erection of the Second Temple (520–515 BCE), since the building of the wall in Jerusalem and the sacrificial practice is presupposed in these verses. This addition is thus attributed to a later liturgical context with an eschatological emphasis. The critical view of the temple cult in vv. 18–19 that creates tension with the sacrificial theology in v. 21 added

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lenistic period, to a time when historical explanations were sometimes added to certain psalms, and the number of penitential prayers in circulation increased.25 Furthermore, verse 6 contains sin-confessional language. Thus, I conclude that Paul’s use of Psalm 51(50) indicates that the psalm was well known and, therefore, easily related to themes dealing with sin and redemption. In the section that follows, I will show how Paul develops the theme of human sinfulness he introduced in Romans 1–2 with a climactic catena of quotations in Romans 3:10–18.

4 The Catena of Quotations in Romans 3:10–18 When one encounters deviations between the psalms and epistle, the following questions arise: Should the deviations be attributed to (a) quoting from memory (and, hence, to memory lapses)26 or (b) deliberate modification? I argue the latter by showing that Paul intentionally changed the text on lexical, compositional, grammatical, and conceptual levels. This argument stems from the hypothesis that when we find a reading suitable to Paul’s argumentation from his quotations and which further deviates from the LXX reading (in parallels, not in the expansion of Psalm 13:3), such modifications can be attributed to Paul. Thus, by detecting Paul’s motivation behind such modifications, we may trace the direction of deviations between the texts – that is, either a Pauline original or an earlier reading. I argue that Paul’s use of LXX Psalms in Romans 3:10–18 lead to a harmonization between the two texts at a later date. I base this conclusion on

later is particularly noteworthy. In addition, the older part of the psalm dates to the exilic or post-exilic period. (Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 51–100, HTKAT [Freiburg: Herder, 2000], 45, 48). 25 Pajunen “The Influence of Societal Changes.” Ps 51(50) features a superscript both in its masoretic and Septuagint forms. Still, since some psalms (LXX Pss 24; 48; 81; and 94) add the superscript, some scholars suggest that the liturgical use of the psalms increased during the Hellenistic period. 26 Favoring the memory thesis, see John T. A. Robinson, Wrestling with Romans (London: SCM, 1979), 36; Otto Michel, Paulus und seine Bibel, BFCT 18 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1979), 80, who claims that Paul thought about Pss 13(14); 5; 139(140); and 9 when dictating Rom 3:10–18 (“Offenbar hat Paulus diese ganze Kompostition aus dem Gedächtnis zusammengestellt und nicht aus einem Florilegium”[italics mine]). Compare with Dietrich-Alexander Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 94. Later, in his commentary on Romans, Otto Michel, Der Brief an die Römer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955), 143, argues that such catenae existed for different purposes, but does not say explicitly that Paul used a fixed composition.



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the observation that verses 13–18 emerged in most LXX manuscripts at Psalm 13:3, which (vv. 1–3) Paul uses as a starting point in the quotation catena. The expansion appears broadly in various textual streams (B; D; R; S‫٭‬, U; 286) as well as in daughter translations of the LXX (Aeth; ArabParRom; Boh; Lat; Sah; Syr) and in seven minuscule manuscripts (115, 174, 180, 189, 191, 227, 273);27 it is missing only from A (with 55), the Lucianic, and Theodoret Texts. Some scholars have claimed that the catena represents a later interpolation also in Romans and should not be attributed to Paul.28 This, in my view, remains unsubstantiated, since Paul’s argumentation does not work without the catena of quotations, and the text would not flow smoothly without it. Second, it is possible that Paul quoted verbatim from his Vorlage, which, in theory (though highly doubtful), could have appeared in the expanded form of the later LXX manuscripts (excluding A and the Lucianic Text). Thus, these scholars argue that we cannot claim that he changed anything at all. I find this option highly improbable, since the expansion in LXX Psalm 13:3 – according to the witnesses above – follows Paul’s composition verbatim, whereas the wordings in parallel instances (Pss 5:10; 10:7 [9:28]; 14[13]:1–3; 36[35]:2; 140[139]:4; and Isa 59:7–8) deviate from the Pauline quotations. A third possibility is that the catena represents a pre-Pauline Jewish composition which Paul could have used as such. Yet, no pre-Pauline or contemporary witnesses exist in which the same composition appeared. Thus, I argue that Paul composed the catena on his own, possibly using an anthology he collected beforehand at which point he used a written source.29 Previous

27 Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta-Studien II: Der Text des Septuaginta-Psalters (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907), 42, 52. In addition, the enlargement is preserved in MS 2019 (Lond230 = London, British Museum Papyrus 230) containing Pss 11:7–14:4, which dates to the end of third century CE, found at Fayum. Rahlfs, Septuaginta-Studien II, 15–16, groups the papyrus into the B, S, and the Bohairic text. See also Sidney Jellicoe, The Septuagint and the Modern Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 228. 28 Hans-Martin Schenke, “Aporien im Römerbrief,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 92 (1967): 882–887, esp. 885: “Nach alledem erhebt sich für mich die Frage, ob das Problem der Sphinxgestalt des Schriftzitats sich nicht am besten literarkritisch lösen läßt, d. h., ob nicht ursprünglich V 19b die direkte Fortsetzung von V 9b ist und ob entsprechend das Schriftzitat (V 10–18) samt V 19a nicht als eine sekundäre Einschaltung angesehen werden sollte.” 29 Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, 74–77, lists several parallel phenomena in ancient literature – both in Greek and Latin as well as in Jewish religious texts. For instance, in Xenophon’s Memorablia (1.6.14: καὶ τοὺς θησαυροὺς τῶν πάλαι σοφῶν ἀνδρῶν, οὓς ἐκεῖνοι κατέλιπον ἐν βιβλίοις γράψαντες, ἀνελίττων κοινῇ σὺν τοῖς φίλοις διέρχομαι, καὶ ἄν τι ὁρῶμεν ἀγαθὸν ἐκλεγόμεθα) the verb ἐκλέγω means to “collect.” Aristotle, Topics 1.14, encourages taking notes from written sources. Plutarch, Peri Euthymias 464f, explicitly describes his practice of using notebooks (ὑπομνήματα) to compose a literary work. In the Latin-speaking world,

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scholars have suggested that the catena served a liturgical function;30 if this were the case, it would fit with Paul’s use suspiciously well. Justin Martyr (c. 100–165 CE), who uses the catena in Dialogue with Trypho 27,2ff, represents the earliest preserved witness quoting the catena in its Pauline form. We find three options: 1) Justin depends on Paul; 2) Justin used the already extended LXX–Ps Vorlage; or 3) Justin used the same source, either Jewish or Christian in origin, possibly behind Paul’s catena. I conclude that Justin most likely used Paul’s composition in Romans 3:10–18.31 Furthermore, the context of Justin’s use hints at a reliance on Paul, since Justin uses the passage in a polemical context: the entire dialogue is written in an apologetic and polemical tone against Judaism.32 The accusations leveled at Jews in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Rom 2:17–24; 9:31–33; 10:14–11:11) more directly inspires this type of use than those accusations used in the plain composition of the specified psalms. The most plausible explanation for these deviations is thus that Paul modified the text he quoted, whereby a later copyist inserted Paul’s wording into some recensions of LXX Psalm 13. However, we must bear in mind that we lack direct

Cicero, De Inventione 2.4, similarly describes how he first collected all of the works on a particular subject and then excerpted (excerpimus) “what seemed the most suitable precepts from each.” 30 Michel, Der Brief an die Römer, 143, formulates his claim cautiously. It depends on whether the composition in Rom 3:10–18 reflects similar compositions in Judaism for catechetic, liturgical, or apologetic purposes or whether the composition that Paul uses is his own or an example of a suggested liturgical composition: “Es besteht die Möglichkeit, daß schon das Judentum Zitatenkompositionen zu katechetischen und apologetischen Zwecken geschaffen hat und daß die alte Kirche solche übernommen und ähnliche neu geschaffen hat. Die besondere Kunstform unseres Psalmes weis mehr auf eine liturgische als auf katechetische Abzweckung.” 31 Similarly, Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 182, points out that Justin depended on Paul: either Justin quoted Paul directly or used the text form of the psalm already influenced by the Pauline reading: “Umfangreichere Zitatumgestaltungen, die nicht auf Paulus zurückgreift, liegen nicht vor.” Contrary to Leander A. Keck, “The Function of Rom 3:10–18: Observations and Suggestions,” in God’s Christ and His People: Studies in Honour of Nils Alstrup Dahl, ed. Jacob Jervell and Wayne A. Meeks (Oslo: Universitetforlaget, 1977), 150, who claims that Justin’s parallel “provides evidence that Rom 3:10–18 once existed independently. “(…) Since it is not clear why Justin would have abbreviated Rom 3:10–18, it appears that he relies on a shorter (earlier?) version of the same catena.” On Justin Martyr’s quotation techniques, see Oskar Skarsaune, The Proof from Prophecy: A Study of Justin Martyr’s Proof Text Tradition, NovTSup 56 (Leiden: Brill, 1987). 32 For more on this discussion, see Oskar Skarsaune, “Judaism and Hellenism in Justin Martyr,” in Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion. Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag. III Frühes Christentum, ed. Hubert Cacik, Hermann Lichtenberger, and Peter Schäfer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 585–611.



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access to the Greek texts circulating in the first century CE and, thus, comparisons remain impossible without an evaluation of the direction of the textual influences. In order to proceed cautiously, I will deal with the passage verse by verse, discussing each of the deviations in detail and weighing whether they should be attributed to Paul or to his Vorlage.33   Table 1: Rom 3:10b compared to its source text and parallels Romans 3:10b

οὐκ ἔστιν δίκαιος οὐδέ εἷς,

Psalm 13(LXX):1 Ecclesiastes 7:2034 εἰς τὸ τέλος ψαλμὸς τῷ Δαυιδ εἶπεν ἄφρων ἐν καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν θεός διέφθειραν καὶ ἐβδελύχθησαν ἐν ἐπιτηδεύμασιν οὐκ ἔστιν ποιῶν χρηστότητα ὅτι ἄνθρωπος οὐκ ἔστιν δίκαιος οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός ἐν τῇ γῇ ὃς ποιήσει ἀγαθὸν καὶ οὐχ ἁμαρτήσεται Psalm 13:3c–d οὐκ ἔστιν ποιῶν χρηστότητα οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός

33 I have indicated the differences between the texts by placing in bold those words appearing in both Paul and the psalms. Verbatim agreement is underlined in the Septuagint text. The English translations are modified from NET and NETS and the most important changes are in bold. I have altered the word choices or tenses in order to indicate when Paul’s quotation follows LXX and when Paul deviates from it. 34 Others have also suggested that Paul might have conflated the psalm texts with Eccl 7:20, where the word δίκαιος occurs. See, for example, Otfried Hofius, “Der Psalter als Zeuge des Evangeliums. Die Verwendung der Septuaginta-Psalmen in den ersten beiden Hauptteilen des Römerbriefes,” in Paulusstudien II, WUNT 143 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 38–57, esp. 47 n. 37; George Brooke, “Weak or Sinful? Body of Rhetoric – on the Use of Physical Metaphors in Romans 3 and the Hodayot,” in Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran, ed. Jörg Frey and Enno Edzard Popkes, WUNT 390 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 251–262, esp. 255,257. If Paul here refers to Eccl, this is the only instance in the NT where a reference to Eccl appears. James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, WBC 38A (Dallas: Word Books Publisher, 1988), 150, also mentions the parallels to Rom 3:10 appearing in the Qumran texts regarding the confessional element in 1QH 4:30–31 [in the DJD 40 numbering 12:31–2]: “But as for me, I know that the righteousness does not belong to humankind nor perfection of way to a mortal. To God Most High belongs all the work of righteousness […]”; 7:17,28–29 [DJD 40: 15:21,32–34]; 13:16–17 [DJD 40: 5:31–36]; 16:11 [DJD 40: 8:28]; 11QPsa Ps 155:8.

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There is no one righteous, not even one,

1 Regarding completion. A Psalm. Pertaining to David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They caused corruption and were abominable in their practices; there is no one practicing kindness; there is not even one.

For as to humanity, there is no one righteous in the earth who will do good and will not sin.

3 All turned away, as well they became useless; there is no one practicing kindness; there is not even one.

At the beginning of the quotation, Paul leaves out the first part of the LXX Ps 13:1; thus, he diminishes the distinction between ἄφρων (“foolish,” v. 1) and συνίων (“the one who understands,” v. 2). While not explicit, the Psalmist identifies himself as wise.35 Crucial to note here is that the psalm itself does not make the claim that no human being does good. Instead, “the foolish says in his heart ‘there is no God’” (v. 1) and “God peers down from the heaven on the sons of men to see if there were any who understands or who seeks God” (v. 2). But, Paul delimits the quotation: he leaves out the distinction between “the one who understands” and the “foolish” present in the psalm. By doing so, Paul focuses on the sinfulness of all humanity before God, rather than making a group distinction between the righteous and foolish. In addition, Paul makes lexical changes. He applies the adjective δίκαιος (“righteous”) instead of the expression ποιῶν χρηστότητα (“the one who does good”), the first specifically characterizing Pauline language. Paul uses the expression ποιῶν χρηστότητα, however, later in the catena, namely in verse 12. In addition to the lexical modification (δίκαιος instead of ποιῶν χρηστότητα) in verse 10, Paul also changes the expression ἕως ἑνός (“not even one”) into the form οὐδέ εἷς (“not even one”), which semantically correspond with one another.36

35 Compare to Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, WBC 19 (Waco: Word Books, 1983), 148–149. 36 Concerning verse 1e, some LXX witnesses (Lucianic text, Tht, Sy, 55) omit the words οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός, and Ga marks them with obelus indicating a deviation from the Hebrew text. However, none of these LXX manuscripts follow the wording in Rom 3:10 (οὐδέ εἷς).



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Table 2: Romans 3:11–12 compared to its source text Romans 3:11 οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ συνίων, οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ ἐκζητῶν τὸν θεόν.

there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. Romans 3:12 πάντες ἐξέκλιναν ἅμα ἠχρεώθησαν· οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ ποιῶν χρηστότητα,37 [οὐκ ἔστιν]38 ἕως ἑνός. All have turned away, as well they became useless, there is no one who practices kindness, [there is] not even one.

Psalm 13:2 κύριος ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ διέκυψεν ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων τοῦ ἰδεῖν εἰ ἔστιν συνίων ἢ ἐκζητῶν τὸν θεόν The Lord peered down from the sky on the sons of men to see if there was any who had understanding or who sought after God. Psalm 13:3a–d πάντες ἐξέκλιναν, ἅμα ἠχρεώθησαν, οὐκ ἔστιν ποιῶν χρηστότητα, οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός. All turned away; as well they became useless; there is no one practicing kindness; there is not even one.

Romans 3:11 appears to be heavily modified: Paul disregards the first part of Psalm 13:2 and begins his quotation from verse 2b. He replaces the infinitive construction τοῦ ἰδεῖν (“to see”) with a negation: “there is no one,” substituting the particle εἰ (connected to the infinitive construction) with the negation οὐκ. Thus, Paul adds the repetition οὐκ ἔστιν, which occurs twice, whereas in Psalm 13:2 it does not appear. Paul also applies the definite articles before the participles in verses 11 and 12. As such, the latter represents a verbatim quotation from Psalm 13:3a, after which the passage becomes intriguing, particularly from a text critical perspective. 

37 In Rom 3:12 χρηστότητα according to MSS B; S; U; L; A; R; Ga (as in Ps 52:4) read ἀγαθόν. 38 MSS B 6; 1739 omit. Stanley, Paul and the Language, 91–93, considers the expression οὐκ ἔστιν – which appears in N-A(27th and 28th) brackets – should be attributed to Paul: “The omission of the initial οὐκ ἔστιν from part of the Pauline tradition for v. 12c would represent a deviation to be investigated here only if it proved to be original, which is highly doubtful. (…) The reading that includes these words [οὐκ ἔστιν] is therefore secure, despite the C rating and brackets assigned to it by the UBS Committee.” Stanley considers it most plausible that Paul modified the verse for rhetorical purposes by placing the closure ἕως ἑνός after the repetition of οὐκ ἔστιν. In particular, we must note that, in this verse, Paul renders the expression ποιῶν χρηστότητα, following the psalm’s wording, not replacing it with δίκαιος as in verse 10. Stanley further mentions that uncial R and the Gallican Psalter of Jerome read ἀγαθόν instead of ποιῶν χρηστότητα. A similar variation with lexemes also appears in the twin psalm, Ps 52:1–4. See also Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 55–56.

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Table 3: Romans 3:13a–b compared to its possible source texts and parallels Romans 3:13a–b

Psalm 13:3e–f

Psalm 5:10c–d ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν ἀλήθεια ἡ καρδία αὐτῶν ματαία τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος ὁ λάρυγξ [τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος ὁ λάρυγξ τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος ὁ λάρυγξ αὐτῶν, ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν αὐτῶν ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν αὐτῶν ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν ἐδολιοῦσαν, ἐδολιοῦσαν] ἐδολιοῦσαν Because there is no truth in their mouth, their heart is vain; Their throats are an opened their throat are an opened Their throats are an opened grave, with their tongues they grave, with their tongues they grave; with their tongues they deceive would deceive. deceive, […]

In Romans 3:13a–b, Paul shifts to quote Psalm 5:10. He demarcates the first two parallel cola (“Because there is no truth in their mouths; their heart is vain”). He inserts the second parallel expression into his catena (“Their throats are an opened grave; with their tongues they would deceive”). While the New Testament manuscripts remain uniform, the case becomes more complex when all the available witnesses to Psalms are taken into consideration: Psalm 5:10c–d (= Rom 3:13a–b) – along with everything that follows in Paul’s catena until verse 18 – appears as an expansion to LXX Psalm 13:3. This expansion does not appear in the Masoretic Text of the psalm (Ps 14:3). Furthermore, it is altogether absent from 11QPsc (11Q7), of which fragments 4–7 attest to Psalm 12:5–14:6.39 Regarding the Greek manuscripts, A (with 55), the Lucianic text, and Theodoret all lack this expansion in verse 3. Comparatively, the expansion remains preserved in all other codices (B; D; R; S‫٭‬, U), in 286, and in the daughter translations of the LXX (Aeth; ArabParRom; Boh; Lat; Sah), as well as in seven minuscule manuscripts (115; 174; 180; 189; 191; 227; 273).40 The Psalter of Jerome (Psalterum Gallicanum) attests to the expansion by marking it with obelus indicating a deviation from the Hebrew text. The earliest witness to trace back the Pauline addition in the LXX manuscripts is found in a papyrus (Rahlfs’s siglum 2019) dating to the end of the third

39 See Florentino García Martínez, Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, and Adam S. van der Woude, Qumran Cave 11. II: 11Q2–18, 11Q20–31, DJD 23 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 55. The manuscript dates to the first half of the first century CE. 40 Alfred Rahfls, Septuaginta-Studien II, 42, 52; idem, Psalmi cum Odis: Vetus Testamentum Greacum, vol. X, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), 67 (§7.6).



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century CE.41 I will deal with the origin of the catena in more detail in the discussion section of this article below. Table 4: Romans 3:13c compared to its possible source texts and parallels Romans 3:13c

Psalm 13:3g

ἰὸς ἀσπίδων ὑπὸ τὰ χείλη αὐτῶν·

[ἰὸς ἀσπίδων ὑπὸ τὰ χείλη αὐτῶν]

the poison of snakes is under their lips.

the poison of snakes is under their lips.

Psalm 139:4 ἠκόνησαν γλῶσσαν αὐτῶν ὡσεὶ ὄφεως ἰὸς ἀσπίδων ὑπὸ τὰ χείλη αὐτῶν διάψαλμα They made their tongue sharp as a snake’s; poison of snakes is under their lips.

In verse 13, the quotation from Psalm 139(140):4b fully agrees with the LXX manuscripts, appearing rather uniform.42 Paul modifies the quotation by leaving out the first part of the parallel expression from verse 4: “They made their tongue sharp as a snake’s.” Furthermore, from a text critical perspective, it is fascinating that the cola quoted from Psalm 139(140):4 in Romans 3:13c is copied to the Sahidic version of Psalm 5:10. Cumulatively with the above-mentioned example, this shows that New Testament quotations may have – deliberately or by accident – influenced or even been harmonized with in the manuscript of the quoted texts during the transmission process.  Table 5: Romans 3:14 compared to its possible source texts and parallels Romans 3:14 ὧν τὸ στόμα43 ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει

Psalm 13:3h ὧν τὸ στόμα ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει

Psalm 9:28 οὗ ἀρᾶς τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ γέμει καὶ πικρίας καὶ δόλου ὑπὸ τὴν γλῶσσαν αὐτοῦ κόπος καὶ πόνος

41 Alfred Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 14. See also idem, Septuaginta-Studien II, 15–16, in which he uses a siglum Lond230. 42 Only MS U reads the singular ασπιδος instead of the plural in LXX Ps 13:3. Furthermore, concerning other translations of this psalm, i.e., LXX Ps 139:4, Latin versions LaG Aug Uulg disagree by using “linguam” (sg. acc. according to the singular Hebrew noun ‫ ) ָׂש ָפה‬instead of “linguas” (pl. acc.) as in LaR, which corresponds to the plural in the LXX. 43 MSS B and 33 (Stanley, Paul and the Language, 94, mentions also MS 17 and Cyp) add αὐτῶν.

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Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness

him whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness and deceit; under his tongue are grief and hardship.

The changes in verse 14 concern vocabulary, word order, and person. Paul omits the possessive pronoun (despite it appearing in B and 33) and the noun δόλος (“guile” or “treachery”) – the latter word is omitted perhaps because Paul uses the verb δολόω in a previous verse.44 The word order in Romans 3:14 appears less ambiguous than in Psalm 9:28: the nouns ἀρά (“curse”) and πικρία (“bitterness”) appear next to each other,45 connected by καί.46 Furthermore, Paul applies the third person plural pronoun ὧν, instead of the third person singular οὗ. Table 6: Romans 3:15–16 compared to its possible source texts and parallels Romans 3:15 Psalm 13:3i Isaiah 59:7a(–b) ὀξεῖς οἱ πόδες αὐτῶν ὀξεῖς [οἱ πόδες αὐτῶν οἱ δὲ πόδες αὐτῶν ἐπὶ ἐκχέαι αἷμα, ἐκχέαι αἷμα] πονηρίαν τρέχουσιν ταχινοὶ ἐκχέαι αἷμα (καὶ οἱ διαλογισμοὶ αὐτῶν διαλογισμοὶ ἀφρόνων) […] "Their feet are fast to Their feet are fast to And their feet run to evil, shed blood, shed blood swift to shed blood, (and their reasonings are reasonings of fools)

Proverbs 1:16 οἱ γὰρ πόδες αὐτῶν εἰς κακίαν τρέχουσιν καὶ ταχινοὶ τοῦ ἐκχέαι αἷμα

For their feet run to evil and they are quick to shed blood.

44 This is also suggested by Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 116 n. 3. Yet, Paul characteristically uses the same word root in the same passage. 45 The LXX deviates from the MT. Following the Hebrew word order, the LXX translates ‫ָא ָלה‬ (“oath,” “curse”) using ἀρά (“curse”), while the LXX adds the noun πικρία (“bitterness”) before ‫“( ִמ ְר ָמה‬fraud,” “deceit”) translated as δόλος (“guile,” “treachery”), which is not attested to in Paul’s oeuvre. Rahlfs does not mention this deviation between the MT and LXX. Since the word ἀρά (“curse”) is used most often (21 occurrences out of 27) in the LXX to correspond to the Hebrew “oath” (‫) ָא ָלה‬, and πικρία (“bitterness”) normally corresponds to various Hebrew words, it is probable that the Greek equivalent πικρία was secondarily written in the margin as a close semantic equivalent and later accidentally added to the text. 46 Stanley, Paul and the Language, 95, points out that shifting the finite verb γέμω (“to be full of something,” “contain”) to the end of the verse agrees with the entire structure of the catena, where the finite verb – aside from the emphatic οὐκ ἔστιν – appears at the end of the clause (compare to vv. 12a,13b, and 17).



Romans 3:16 σύντριμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν, destruction and misery are in their paths,

“There is no one righteous”: Paul’s Use of Psalms in Romans 3 

Psalm 13:3j [σύντριμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν ] destruction and misery are in their paths

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Isaiah 59:7c […] σύντριμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν […] destruction and misery are in their paths.

Verse 15 provides additional complications compared to the previous verse; Paul completely rearranges it. In Romans 3:15, Paul quotes Isaiah 59:7, for which Proverbs 1:16 provides a parallel.47 These two parallel statements become encapsulated into one clause in Romans, which I attribute to Paul’s intentional modification. Paul further rewords his scriptural sources through lexical changes. In LXX Isaiah, the expression ‫ ָל ַרע‬translates as ἐπὶ πονηρίαν and in Proverbs as εἰς κακίαν. In both the verb ‫ מהר‬is translated using the adjective ταχινός + verb εἶναι. Paul uses the equivalent ὀξύς instead of the adjective ταχινός. How can we explain this? Is this change deliberate, or did Paul use a source text that differs from the readings of Isaiah and Proverbs? Why does he replace the lexeme ταχινός by ὀξύς? The adjective ὀξύς represents a hapax legomenon in the Pauline vocabulary, occurring 19 times in the whole LXX,48 and 8 times in the New Testament of which 7 instances appear in Revelation.49 Since this appears to be an unintentional substitution, I argue that Paul simply followed his Vorlage, which deviates from the preserved LXX texts of both Isaiah and Proverbs.50

47 The readings of Isa 59:7 and Prov 1:16 are identical according to the MT (with the exception of Matres lectionis), but the LXX translators render various equivalent wordings and, in Prov 1:16, the translator added τοῦ before the infinitive ἐκχέαι (“they [are] swift to shed blood”). 48 The adjective ὀξύς corresponds to six different Hebrew equivalents: ,‫ ָמ ִהיר‬,‫ ַקל‬,‫ ֶח ֶרׂש‬,‫ ָח ַדר‬,‫ַחד‬ ‫ ֶׁש ֶטף‬,‫ׁשנן‬. The semantic field of the Greek ὀξύς is rather broad carrying meanings such as “sharp” (4Macc 9:26; 11:19; 14:10; Job 16:10; 41:30; Wis 18:15; Isa 5:28 [in Hebrew the verb root 49:2; ‫;]ׁשנן‬ Ezek 5:1), “skilled” (Prov 22:29; Wis 7:22 [describing the spirit of Wisdom]; 8:11 [describing judgement]), and “fast” or “swift” (3Macc 2:23; 4:5; Ps 13:3; Amos 2:15; Hab 1:18). The adjective ταχινός occurs only five times in LXX; only in Prov 1:16 and Isa 59:7 appearing with the verb εἶναι translated from the Hebrew equivalent ‫מהר‬. 49 Rev 1:16; 2:12; 14:14,17; 18:18 (twice); and 19:15. In each of these cases, the adjective refers to a sharp weapon (sword or sickle), whereas in Pauline usage it equates with “quick” or “fast.” 50 See also Martin C. Albl, “And Scripture Cannot Be Broken”: The Form and Function of the Early Testimonia Collections, NovTSup 96 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 173 n. 59, although I do not agree with his conclusion which relies on the assumption that Paul used an existing (non-Pauline) catena when he composed Rom 3:10–18.

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In addition to the word changes, Paul inserts the adjective at the beginning, making the verse shorter by omitting the expression ἐπὶ πονηρίαν / εἰς κακίαν τρέχουσιν. Furthermore, it is rather clear that Paul (one way or another) consulted the text form of Isaiah 59:7, since what follows in Romans is from Isaiah 59:8, which is unparalleled in Proverbs.51 Dietrich-Alexander Koch points out that the omission of the middle part of Isaiah 59:7 (καὶ οἱ διαλογισμοὶ αὐτῶν διαλογισμοὶ ἀφρόνων) finds a parallel in Paul’s handling of Psalm 13(14). That is, he avoids any reference to the foolish (ἄφρων) by omitting the first part of verse 1.52 In this manner, Paul emphasizes the universality of misbehavior. He does not deal with the misbehavior of a particular group, as in Psalm 13(14) and Isaiah 59:7. This omission represents a solid example of Paul’s selective use of scripture. His scriptural proof of universal human culpability becomes sustainable only with these deliberate modifications. Table 7: Romans 3:17 compared to its possible source texts and parallels  Romans 3:17 Psalm 13:3k Isaiah 59:8 καὶ ὁδὸν εἰρήνης οὐκ ἔγνωσαν καὶ ὁδὸν εἰρήνης οὐκ ἔγνωσαν καὶ ὁδὸν εἰρήνης οὐκ οἴδασιν53 καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν κρίσις ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν αἱ γὰρ τρίβοι αὐτῶν διεστραμμέναι ἃς διοδεύουσιν καὶ οὐκ οἴδασιν εἰρήνην and the way of peace they and the way of peace they And a way of peace they do not have not known. have not known. know, and there is no judgment in their ways, for their paths, through which they travel, are crooked, and they do not know peace.

51 Compare to Enno Edzard Popkes, “Essenisch-qumranische und paulinische Psalmen-Rezeptionen. Ein Beitrag zur frühjüdischen Schrifthermeuneutik,” in Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran, ed. Jörg Frey and Enno Edzard Popkes, WUNT 390 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 248, who believes Paul cited Prov 1:16. 52 Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 119. Thus, also Stanley, Paul and the Language, 97–98. 53 Alexandrian text group (A 106 Q 26 86); Qmg –oI᾽ (88-Syh-109–7362); 403; Clem.; Eus.; Hi. read ἔγνωσαν. According to Joseph Ziegler, Isaias, Vetus Testamentum Greacum: Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 341, it seems that Rom 3:17 influenced this.



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In verse 17, Paul deviates from the wording in Isaiah 59:8 applying ἔγνωσαν instead of οἴδασιν. In addition, Paul changes the tense of the verb to an aorist. This deviation appears again in Psalm 13:3k through the influence of Romans 3:17. Is this change Pauline in origin? The difference between οἶδα and γινώσκω is slight: the former bears the meaning “to have knowledge of,” whereas the latter, which Paul uses, means “to comprehend.” Thus, since the semantics between these words overlap in several cases, illustrated by their interchangeability appearing in Greek manuscripts in general, perhaps γινώσκω should be attributed to Paul’s Vorlage, from which he adopted it.54 Table 8: Romans 3:18 compared to its possible source texts and parallels Romans 3:18

Psalm 13:3l

Psalm 35:2 φησὶν ὁ παράνομος τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν οὐκ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ [οὐκ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν] οὐκ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ Says the transgressor of the law in himself, in order to sin: There is no fear of God before there is no fear of God before there is not fear of the divine their eyes. their eyes. before his eyes

In verse 18, Paul returns to quote the psalms. He uses Psalm 35(36):2 with a minor change: he renders the third person plural possessive pronoun (“their eyes”) instead of the third person singular (“his eyes”) as in the psalm. In the context of this psalm, the reference point of the possessive pronoun (or suffix in Hebrew) remains rather ambiguous. Grammatically, it could refer either to a wicked one (ὁ παράνομος / ‫ )רשע‬or to God; in the Pauline context, however, as well as in LXX Psalm 13:31, the pronoun clearly refers to the previously described evil-doers: there is no fear of God before their eyes.55

54 Thus, Stanley, Paul and the Language, 98, who still acknowledges the possibility that γινώσκω, which refers to personal responsibility, suits Paul’s argumentation better. This view is supported by Koch, Schrift als Zeuge, 143. See also the preceding footnote on the textual variant and Ziegler’s verdict on its Pauline origin. 55 The preposition ἀπέναντι occurs 91 times in the LXX. In Deut 28:66, its function comes close to the Pauline usage: καὶ ἔσται ἡ ζωή σου κρεμαμένη ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν σου καὶ φοβηθήσῃ ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς καὶ οὐ πιστεύσεις τῇ ζωῇ σου. In Josh 24:1, it appears as an expression of the relationship with God: ἀπέναντι τοῦ θεοῦ (compare to similar uses, e.g., in 1Chr 13:10; 17:16). With

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5 Discussion of the Origin of the Catena in Romans 3:10–18 George Brooke has identified five approaches used by modern interpreters of the catena.56 First, there are those who focus on the catena as proof from scripture that it applies to everybody – particularly those who fall under the authority of scripture.57 Second, there are those scholars who concentrate on the notion that humans’ universal vulnerability to the power of sin is central to Paul’s argument.58 Third, others view the use of the catena as possessing rhetorical force as serving as “a kind of list of prosecution witnesses.”59 Fourth, some scholars claim that the catena enables Paul to make a hermeneutical move distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked to argue that all are sinful.60 Finally, the last approach focuses on the shift within the catena away from the original quoted texts.61 While Brooke utilizes the anthropological terms within these scriptural texts as a rhetorical key to understanding the catena (see below for further discussion), I concentrate on the origin of the catena – and its afterlife in textual transmission. Since I argue that Paul himself arranged the texts into the catena, I concentrate on textcritical questions, on the one hand, and Paul’s argumentative aim on the other. As I have shown above, the most plausible explanation for the origin of the catena in Romans 3:10–18 is that Paul himself composed it. Other evidence for the compilation of catenae from the late Second Temple period exists, suggest-

regard to the so-called anthropomorphic use referring to God, compare to, for example, Jdt 11:13 (ἀπέναντι τοῦ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν); Hos 7:2 (ἀπέναντι τοῦ προσώπου μου); Isa 1:16 (ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν μου); Jer 16:17 (ὅτι οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου ἐπὶ πάσας τὰς ὁδοὺς αὐτῶν καὶ οὐκ ἐκρύβη τὰ ἀδικήματα αὐτῶν ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν μου); and Lam 2:19 (ἀπέναντι προσώπου κυρίου). 56 Brooke, “Weak or Sinful,” 254, where he refers to Steve Moyise, “The Catena of Romans 3:10– 18,” ExpTim 106 (1994–1995): 367–370, making such a distinction between modern approaches to the catena. Moyise’s classification deviates slightly from Brooke’s. But, since Moyise does not provide such a compact list of approaches, I followed Brooke’s classification. 57 William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902), 74–75; Charles K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, BNTC (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1962), 69–70. 58 Robinson, Wrestling with Romans, 36. 59 Brooke, “Weak or Sinful,” 254, referring to Nils Alstrup Dahl, “Romans 3:9: Text and Meaning,” in Paul and Paulinism (London: SPCK, 1982), 184–204. 60 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 149. 61 S. L. Edgar, “Respect for Context in Quotations from the Old Testament,” NTS 9 (1962–1963): 56. Similarly, Käsemann and Stanley pay attention to the original context of the quotations, but emphasize that the shift was not a concern of ancient authors (see Moiyse, “The Catena of Romans 3:10–18,” 368).



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ing that Paul composed a similar sort of compilation from a number of sources. At Qumran, we find numerous examples: Florilegium (4Q174)62 as well as 4Q158, 4Q177, and 4Q176.63 Philo of Alexandria provides another example of practices among Paul’s contemporaries to quote the psalms. Similarly to Paul, also Philo compiles different psalms under one quotation formula.64 Paul’s composition in Romans 3:10–18 later appeared in one LXX manuscript of Psalm 13, possibly initially in the margin, which a later copyist could have inserted into the text. This provides an example of how that composition eventually spread more broadly into various textual streams (B; D; R; S‫ ;٭‬U; 286) as well as in daughter translations (Aeth; ArabParRom; Boh; Lat; Sah; Syr) and in minuscule manuscripts (115; 174; 180; 189; 191; 227; 273). At which point during the textual transmission this addition emerged in LXX Psalm 13 remains difficult to determine, but it must have occurred at a very early stage in order to be distributed so widely. The earliest evidence (MS 2019) attesting to this addition dates to the end of the third century CE, by which time the Pauline expansion had emerged in the manuscript. The Codex Alexandrinus (with 55), dating to the fourth or fifth century, lacks the Pauline expansion.65 The expansion appears in neither the Lucianic Text66

62 For further details, see George J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context, JSOTSup 29 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985). 63 Stanley, Paul and the Language, 76–77, lists these as a parallel to Paul’s method for creating excerpts. For basic editions of the manuscripts, see John M. Allegro, Qumran Cave 4, DJD 5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968). 64 In Somn. II 245–246, Philo uses a quotation formula “one of the disciples of Moses says” (τις τῶν ἑταίρων Μωυσέως ἐν ὕμνοις εἶπεν) introducing Ps 64(65):10, and then simply adds “another song” (καὶ ἕτερον ᾆσμα τοιοῦτον) before the next quotation from Ps 45(46):5. In Deus. 74–82, he quotes Pss 100(101):1; 74(75):9; 61(62):12. Only the first quotation is marked by the quotation formula (“the psalm-singer says somewhere”; καθάπερ καὶ ὁ ὑμνῳδὸς εἶπέ που), whereas the second more vaguely “elsewhere it says” (ἐν ἑτέροις εἴρηται), as well as the third (καὶ τὸ ἑτέρωθι λεχθὲν). For further details on Philo’s use of psalms, see Jutta Leonhardt, Jewish Worship in Philo of Alexandria, TSAJ 84 (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2001). Yet, she does not argue whether the deviation in the wording between Philo’s quotations and the LXX text should be traced back to quotations from memory, with deliberate changes or a different text (compare pp. 152–153). 65 Codex Vaticanus (B) appeared much earlier. Alfred Rahlfs, “Alter und Heimat der vaticanischen Bibel-handschrift,” JTS 9 (1907–1908): 77–78, predates B to 367 CE, since the order and extent of the biblical books that it includes correspond to the list of Athanasius’s 39th Festal Letter written in 367 CE. Furthermore, Rahlfs situates B to Egypt, since Athanasius resided with the bishop in Alexandria and the festal letter served as the only authority in that region. 66 Rahlfs includes about 150 younger minuscule manuscripts collated by Holmes and Parsons with the Lucianic text. In total, 96 of these attest to Ps 13 and lack the expansion. The earliest

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nor the Theodoret.67 The Lucianic text became the most common text by the fifth century.68 Only fragments of Origen’s Hexapla remain preserved and, thus, we possess no material from it concerning Psalm 13(14). Jerome marks the expansion in LXX Psalm 13:3 under obelus in his Psalterum Gallicanum.69 From the point of view of Paul’s argumentative habits, we observe that this represents the only example in which he inserts such a long catena of quotations into his letter without interrupting the quotation with explanatory notes.70 One reason for not doing so could stem from Paul’s use of an exegetical method or principle later appearing in the rabbinic literature known as gēzěrāh šāwāh.71 This method is characterized by conflating various biblical passages based on lexical correspondence. While the texts that Paul uses in Romans 3:10–18 do not contain the same lexemes, the anthropological terms describing the “other” form a semantic bridge. Paul appears to use them as catchwords as follows: Psalm 13(14) heart, ἡ καρδία (v. 1 which Paul does not quote) Psalm 5:10 throat, ὁ λάρυγξ – tongue, ἡ γλῶσσα Psalm 139(140):4 lip, τὸ χεῖλος

(39 / E) of these minuscule manuscripts dates to the ninth century CE. See Rahlfs, SeptuagintaStudien II, 7. The Lucianic text bears the martyr Lucian’s (died in 312 CE) name, since the Antiochian Church Fathers Chrysostom and Theodoret cite according to the Lucianic text. 67 Concerning the Hebrew witnesses to Ps 14, evidence from Qumran exists that manuscript 11QPsc (11Q7) dated to the first century CE attests to Ps 14(MT):3 without the expansion. 68 Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 60 (§ 7.1) 69 Rahlfs, Septuaginta-Studien II, 140, claims that it implies that he used Origen’s Hexapla, where the same place was marked under an obelus as well. 70 Paul also uses combined quotations in Rom 9:25–29; 10:18–21; and 11:8–10. These instances differ from Rom 3:10–18, however, because Paul inserts a quotation formula (“Hosea says”; “But Isaiah cries out about Israel”; “And as Isaiah has said before”) at the beginning of each quotation. I do not consider the lack of interpretive quotation formulae as proof of a non-Pauline origin of the catena. The argument ex silentio – namely, the lack of interpretive formulae – does not undermine the Pauline origin of the catena. 71 For the different instances in Paul, see Friedrich Avemarie, “Gab es eine vorrabbibische Gezera schawa? Schriftauslegung durch lexematische Assoziation in Qumran, bei Paulus und in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur,” in Neues Testament und frührabbinisches Judentum, ed. Jörg Frey and Angela Standhartinger, WUNT 316 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 345–391, esp. 375–376. In addition, Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran, 138–139, 147–148, points out that the method called gēzěrāh šāwāh in later rabbinic literature is used in the Qumranic texts: 4QFlorilegium 1:10–13 alludes to the word ‫ הקימותי‬in Amos 9:11 and 2Sam 7:11, since the word occurs in both instances. And similarly, in 4QFlorilegium 1:14, the method allows us to make a connection between Ps 1 and Isa 8:11 through their analogical use of ‫דרך‬, and between Ps 1 and Ezek 37:23 through the analogical use of ‫מושב‬.



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Psalm 10:7 mouth, τὸ στόμα Isaiah 59:7 (Prov 1:16) foot, ὁ πούς Psalm 35(36):2 eye, ὁ ὀφθαλμός Brooke among others72 analyzed this element of the Pauline catena.73 He identified the character of different body parts mentioned in the catena portraying various emotions – more specifically, either as active or passive aspects of the subject. In the Hebrew Bible, body parts, such as bones and inner organs, are used more often to describe the state of the passive self as under threat from “the other” rather than in an emotional state.74 By contrast, visible body parts (facial parts such as the lips, mouth, eyes, nose, and ears, as well as the hands and feet) represent the active role of the self  – that is, the deeds and intentions of both the wicked and the righteous. At times the same body part represents either the passive or the active aspect. For instance, the heart may illustrate a loss of courage in a passive role or it can function as the seat of cognition in an active role.75 Furthermore, anthropological terminology forms a group identity – not only Jewish or Gentile, but an identity before the divine. Thus, in the Pauline catena, by using the terminology of active body parts, Paul creates an image of a person that – in contrast to the quoted psalms – generically qualifies all humanity as inclined to sinful actions. As Brooke concludes, “That all humans share the same identity before God is an important part of Paul’s argument.”76

6 Conclusions In the context of Romans 3, it is central to Paul that he convinces his audience that all humans sin and lack God’s righteousness. Paul did not invent this theology; but, instead, he used the material from lamentation (Ps 116) and penitential (Ps 51) psalms supporting his point of view. At the same time, he attempts to show that his proclamation of the Gospel does not contradict God’s faithful-

72 Fitzmyer, Romans, 333–340; cf. also, e.g., Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken,’ 172. 73 Brooke, “Weak or Sinful,” 255, further clarifies that the anthropological terms do not function as pure catchwords since this rhetorical device would require the repetition of the same or a similar word, not thematically similar words. 74 Brooke, “Weak or Sinful,” 251. 75 Brooke, “Weak or Sinful,” 251. 76 Brooke, “Weak or Sinful,” 258.

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ness to Jews. In addition, I argue that Psalm 51(50) must have been well known among those believers in Christ with a Gentile background. This stems from the assumption that Paul assumes his audience recognizes the surrounding context of the psalm text, in particular, its sin confessional lead-in: “Against you alone did I sin, and what is evil before you, I did.” Paul quotes only the latter part of this verse, emphasizing the essential difference between humans and God as his central pursuit. Concerning the origin of the catena in Romans 3:10–18, I find it improbable that Paul quoted an already existing enlarged text present in LXX Psalm 13:3 as some scholars claim.77 My assertion is supported by the following: first, no other parallel phenomenon exists. Paul does not quote such a extensive passage from scripture anywhere else in his letters, but instead he conflates quotations from different sources as he did in Romans 3:10–18. Second, the enlargement in LXX Psalm 13 follows Paul’s composition verbatim, whereas wordings in parallel instances deviate from the Pauline quotation. The most plausible explanation for these deviations suggests that Paul modified the text he was quoting, and Paul’s wording was later copied in the manuscripts of LXX Psalm 13. The deviations between the LXX and the catena are in many cases characteristic of Paul; when Paul quotes selectively, the quoted portions are well-suited with the context. This, in my view, shows that the catena does not carry a pre-Pauline origin. I must admit that Paul could have modified a fixed composition of these psalms if we presume that such a composition was at his disposal. Nevertheless, as long as we do not possess any evidence of such a pre-Pauline composition, we cannot substantiate this hypothesis. Furthermore, since the composition seems to fit precisely with Paul’s argument, it supports the notion that he most probably created it. Finally, one must bear in mind that we do not have direct access to the text that a) Paul wrote or b) that he (one way or another) cited. What renders the task even more difficult is that in some cases, the LXX manuscripts were harmonized with Paul’s wording, as I have demonstrated in this article. Thus, the catena of quotations in Romans 3 serves as an example of a case in which the LXX was harmonized according to a New Testament writing. By compiling the different psalms into a catena, it is possible that Paul exercised exegetical methods developed later within rabbinic exegetical traditions, such as gēzěrāh šāwāh. The catena in Romans 3:10–18 shows that Paul conflated Isaiah with psalms, which comprise lamentation language and imagery of the wicked other depicted using body parts. I disagree with the view that all these texts were already compiled together and used for specific purposes in the

77 Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken’.



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late Second Temple period. Instead, I find it plausible that Paul arranged them himself. Within the context of Romans 3 and Paul’s overall aim in the epistle, the hostile imagery served as proof of universal sinfulness.

Årstein Justnes

Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological Psalm from the 20th Century To say that the history of research on Philippians 2:6–11 shows that scholars have been more interested in the hypothetical pre-pauline use of this text than in its function in the letter to the Philippians or in its post-pauline reception, is a truism, but one worthy of note.1 For close to ninety years Philippians 2:6–11 has been treated as a song, often by some of the best scholars in the field. Back in the early nineties Gordon D. Fee spoke of “[t]he almost universal judgment of scholarship (…) that in Phil 2:6–11 we are dealing with an early hymn about Christ.”2 However, the tide is changing. Over the last two decades a growing number of scholars have argued – some of them quite convincingly – that Philippians 2:6–11 is not a song, a psalm, or a hymn designed to be sung.3 In a 2015 study building heavily on Michael Peppard’s well-known 2008 article,4 Benjamin Edsall and Jennifer R. Strawbridge even indicate that “the hymn-hunting industry is dying down.”5 Against the background of a survey of the reception of Colossians 1:15–20 and Philippians 2:6–11 in early Christian writings, they conclude

1 Cf. also Michael Peppard, “‘Poetry’, ‘Hymns’ and ‘Traditional Material’ in New Testament Epistles or How to Do Things with Indentations,” JSNT 30 (2008): 319–342, p. 319: “The guild of modern mainstream biblical scholarship has suffered from insatiable desires for the sources that lie behind and the forms that lie within the biblical texts.” New Testament scholars have traditionally been quick to give poetic material in the Pauline letters a prehistory. 2 Gordon D. Fee, “Philippians 2:5–11: Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?,” BBR 2 (1992): 29–46, p. 31. 3 In addition to the more recent studies mentioned below, see Fee, “Philippians 2:5–11;” Ralph Brucker, 'Christushymnen' oder 'epideiktische Passagen'?: Studien zum Stilwechsel im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt, FRLANT 176 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997); Adela Yarbro Collins, “Psalms, Philippians 2:6–11, and the Origins of Christology,” BibInt 11 (2003): 361–372. For an instructive and up-to-date discussion of the form-critical criteria used to identify hymns, see Benjamin Edsall and Jennifer R. Strawbridge, “The Songs We Used to Sing? Hymn ‘Traditions’ and Reception in Pauline Letters,” JSNT 37 (2015): 293–296. 4 Peppard, “‘Poetry’.” 5 Edsall and Strawbridge, “The Songs,” 293 n. 15. This is, however, balanced by another statement in the main text, on the same page: “(…) there remains a relatively optimistic ‘hymn-hunting’ industry.” More generally, Edsall and Strawbridge, “Songs,” 305, advise that “given the lack of constructive evidence, scholars should reconsider the enduring and widespread operative assumption that these passages [Phil 2:6–11 and Col 1:15–20] are hymns.” Michael Wade Martin, and Bryan A. Nash, “Philippians 2:6–11 as Subversive Hymnos: A Study in the Light of Ancient Rhetorical Theory,” JST 66 (2015): 90–138, represent an exception to this broader tendency. They try to vindicate the “old reading” on rhetorical-critical grounds. DOI 10.1515/9783110449266-021



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“that it provides no positive support for identifying these passages as ‘hymns’.”6 It is symptomatic that even long-time Christ-hymn enthusiast Larry W. Hurtado is now in the process of changing his mind.7 The implications of all this are vast, and a strong research tradition reaching back to prominent New Testament scholar Ernst Lohmeyer is now under pressure.8 With this new development, it is no longer viable to recruit texts like 1Corinthians 14:15,26, Colossians 3:16, Ephesians 5:19, and Plinius (Ep.  10.96–97) to create a context, a textual milieu, and/or even a Sitz im Leben for Philippians 2:6–11 (or Col 1:15–20).9 The fact that the first Christians sang provides no evi-

6 Edsall and Strawbridge, “Songs,” 290. None of the Pre-Nicene fathers ever refers to this piece as a hymn or uses it as such. See also Peppard, “‘Poetry’,” 324: “(…) not one source from early Christianity regards any of the passages identified as poems or hymns; if dozens of native Greek speakers made no mention of the poetic or hymnic qualities of such passages in their biblical commentaries, it is not very likely that modern German and English speakers can ascertain such rhythmic qualities vis-à-vis the surrounding supposedly non-rhythmic Greek.” 7 See his two relatively recent blogposts: “Are Philippians 2:6–11 and Colossians 1:15–20 ChristHymns?” https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/are-philippians-26-11-and-colossians-­ 115-­20-­christ-hymns/ (May 5 2015; accessed March 24 2016) and “Another New Article on Philippians 2:6–11” https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/another-new-article-on-­philippians-­26-11/ (May 7 2015; accessed March 24 2016). I quote from the latter: “Given the impressive (to me) compositional qualities of Philip 2:6–11, I confess that I’m less confident that it arose as a spontaneous and inspired oral composition in the context of worship. The verbal resonances (e.g., morphe theou/morphe doulou; hyparchon/labon; christos/patros), and the structured nature of the passage may more readily reflect composition as a text (or so it seems for the moment!).” The recent developments in the research on Phil 2:6–11 (and Col 1:15–20) weaken Hurtado’s hypothesis about a significant mutation in the Jewish monotheistic tradition, especially his point about “hymnic practices”; cf. Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism, 3rd ed. (London: T&T Clark, 2015), 105: “(…) [S]ix features of the religious devotion of early Christianity (…) indicate a significant mutation in the Jewish monotheistic tradition: (1) hymnic practices, (2) prayer and related practices, (3) use of the name of Christ, (4) the Lord’s Supper, (5) confession of faith in Jesus, and (6) prophetic pronouncements of the risen Christ. (…) [T]hese features indicate that early Christian devotion may be characterized as strikingly binitarian and that this development can be traced back into the earliest years of the Christian movement.” 8 Ernst Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil 2,5–11, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1927/28, 4. Abhandlung, 2. Auflage (Heidelberg: Winter, 1961). 9 This procedure is instructively evaluated and criticized by Edsall and Strawbridge, “Songs,” 392–393. This (or similar) network(s) of texts can, interestingly enough, be shown to lead back all the way to Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus. It is repeated by notabilities like Ralph H. Martin, Martin Hengel, “Hymns and Christology,” in Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983), 78–96, 188–190, Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 250, and Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about

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dence that these verses were ever sung, or that the text emanated from a worship setting.10 In this article I will argue that the author of the “psalm” or “hymn” in Philippians 2:6–11 was neither Paul nor a nameless pre-pauline figure. Rather, it was Ernst Lohmeyer, working within the context of the form-critical “revival” in Germany in the 1920’s.11 After a review of Lohmeyer’s work, I will show how it has influenced the works and Christologies of three major scholars who for years have worked in the “hymn business:” Ralph H. Martin, Martin Hengel, and Larry W. Hurtado.

Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 84 n. 4; idem, One God, 105–107, just to mention a few. See for instance Martin, “Carmen Christi,” 2: “Our knowledge of early Christian hymnody is strictly limited, aside from the clear evidence that the churches of the New Testament period were in the habit of using ‘psalms, hymns, and songs of the Spirit’ (Col. 3:16/Eph. 5:19) and that at least some of such specimens were addressed liturgically to the exalted Christ (e.g., Rev 5:1–14; Pliny’s report of carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere).” Especially the phrase ἕκαστος ψαλμὸν ἔχει in 1Cor 14:26 has often been pushed beyond its limits in the service of early hymnology, see for instance Hengel, “Hymns and Christology,” 78–79: In I Cor. 14.26 the apostle writes about how things should be done in worship. ‘What then, brethren? When you come together, each one has a hymn (…), a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.’ This list indicates the multiplicity of gifts of the Spirit which are at work in worship. So it is all the more striking that Paul puts the hymn at the beginning. (…) Paul could be referring to the tradition from which the composition of religious songs in his community, prompted by the Spirit, derived. It further emerges from the context that the ψαλμός at the beginning will hardly have been an Old Testament ‘psalm’ learnt off by heart; it will have been a new composition, inspired by the Spirit. It is obvious that this song was rendered in a way which everyone could understand; in some circumstances it could have been learnt off by heart so that everyone could join in the singing. All this is about the three words in the beginning of the verse. From the fact that hymn/psalm is mentioned first, Hengel, infers that the service began with the singing of hymns. 10 These texts confirm only that there was singing in the early church. They say little or nothing about the function and importance of singing, or for that matter, about how the first Christians sang. It is further noteworthy that relatively late texts (i.e., from Colossians, Ephesians, and Pliny [early second century]) are used to establish a supposedly very early phenomenon, the singing of Christological hymns. 11 See Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu (Berlin: Paternoster, 1919); Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tübingen: Mohr [1919], 6. Auflage 1971); Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht [1921], 10. Aufl. 1995).



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1 A Brief Note on Terminology Let me start with a brief note on terminology: The term hymn is notoriously unclear,12 and is used to denote a whole range of different meanings in scholarly literature.13 I will therefore not go into endless discussions about definitions,14 but just emphasize that we already at the outset need to make a fundamental distinction between (1) hymns made for, emanating from, or inspired by a worship setting, and (2) other kinds of hymns, i.e., what we perhaps could call “hymns with a modifier:” prose hymns (sometimes synonymous with heightened prose), encomia, subversive hymns, etc.15 The difference between these two categories is fundamental, but is often neglected. While the first implies that the text in Philippians has a pre-history, the latter moves the text closer to a Pauline, epistolary context, and in most cases deprives it of a pre-history.

12 Cf. Peppard, “‘Poetry’,” 338: “(…) most scholars, when they use the term ‘hymn’, do not provide evidence in their publications that they know exactly what they are talking about. They are not imagining the sort of hymnody that likely was practiced in Philippi – a hymn newly created and sung by one person to a god as a public display of piety and a showcase of epideictic rhetoric. Rather, most scholars have imagined a hymn more like a modern Christian assembly – an old favorite sung by a limited group of people as a private experience of worship.” See also p. 322: “(…) most of the major scholarship on this subject has not so much argued for the hymnic qualities of certain New Testament texts as much as it has assumed these qualities and then analyzed them (…) In his book A Hymn of Christ, Ralph P. Martin manifests how a scholar can subtly skim over his methodology and move straight on to analysis.” The critique against Martin is substantiated by Edsall and Strawbridge, “Songs,” 294: “Ralph Martin, in his influential 1967 study, proposed five criteria that have been more or less accepted by subsequent scholars. They are: (1) the presence of an introductory formula (citing Eph. 5.14 and 1 Tim. 3.16), (2) the use of rhythmical style and (3) unusual vocabulary, (4) the presence of theological concepts (especially Christological doctrines) expressed in ‘exalted’ and ‘liturgical’ language, and (5) a cultic milieu for the passage (again citing Eph. 5.14) (Martin 1967: 18–19). None of these criteria is valid on its own terms, and even collectively they do not amount to finding a hymn.” 13 While Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, for the most part called Phil 2:6–11 a psalm (see for example p. 10), he could also characterize it as “Lied” (p. 5, n. 2,8,9,10,11,30,37,49,51,66,67), “Christuslied” (p. 33), “Kyrioslied” (pp. 88–89), “ein jubelndes Gebet,” “eine Art überlieferten urchristlichen Chorals” (p. 7), “ein Carmen Christi in strengem Sinne” (p. 7), or “eine euvcaristía im strengen Sinne” (p. 11). 14 Peppard, “‘Poetry’,” 323, aptly sums up the main problem with the glut of research on Philippians 2: “There has not yet emerged a method to identify poetry or hymns in the New Testament that could be regarded as scientific, and by ‘scientific’ I primarily mean a type of inquiry whose results are repeatable when applied by different people on the same texts.” 15 Collins, “Psalms,” 367, describes the text as rhythmic prose, a “prose hymn, or a brief encomium.”

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2 Ernst Lohmeyer as Psalmist The title of Lohmeyer’s legendary 1928 study Kyrios Jesus was a play on the title of Wilhelm Bousset’s influential work Kyrios Christos.16 In the latter Bousset argued that the worship of Christ as divine arose among Hellenistic Gentile communities under the influence of pagan cults of divine heroes and cultic divinities. According to Bousset the Hellenistic church’s declaration of “Jesus as Lord” was a transformation of the pre-Christian Judaic community’s understanding of Jesus as the Son of Man. Lohmeyer rejected this, and in an attempt to provide the earliest documentation for how the declaration was used he constructed a form and a setting for Philippians 2:6–11.17 More concretely, he managed to push the confession backwards in time – to pre-pauline times, even to the early Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem. And at the same time he gave birth to a song. According to Lohmeyer, Philippians 2:6–11 was a traditional early Christian psalm, with a pre-history possible to reconstruct, and with origins close in time and mileu to Jesus: It belonged to the liturgy of the Jerusalem church, and was sung at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.18 Lohmeyer is the first modern scholar to treat Philippians 2:6–11 as a song.19 He arranged the text in six strophes, each with three lines, with a clean structural

16 Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des Christentums bis lrenaeus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht [1913], 2. Auflage 1921). See also Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus: With a New Introduction by Larry W. Hurtado, trans. John E. Steely (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2013). Bousset was a key figure in the so-called “religionsgeschichtliche Schule.” 17 See Colin Brown, “Ernst Lohmeyer’s Kyrios Jesus,” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Brian J. Dodd (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 7. 18 Despite fundamental differences between Bousset’s Gentile Christian primitive community and Lohmeyer’s primitive Jewish church, there are several similarities between Bousset’s description of the cultic significance of the Kyrios title, and Lohmeyer’s construction of a Sitz im Leben for Phil 2:6–11. See Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History, 134–136. 19 See Ralph P. Martin, “The Form-analysis of Philippians 2, 5–11,” in Studia Evangelica 2/3, ed. F. L. Cross (Berlin: Akademia-Verlag, 1964), 611–620, p. 611: “The history of the Form-analytical approach to Phil. 2, 5–11 begins with the epoch-making study of Ernst Lohmeyer in 1928. Before this time there had been hints and suggestions of the rhythmical, poetic and confessional character of the Pauline verses, with tentative proposals of a strophic arrangement by J. Weiß and A. Deißmann. The former arranged the verses into two main strophes, each with four lines, while Deißmann divided the section into two strophes of seven lines, in full recognition of its poetic style.” Cf. Johannes Weiß’s review of Marvin R. Vincent, A critical and exegetical commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1897) in Theologische Literaturzeitung 9 (1899): 262–263, p. 263, and Adolf Deißmann, Paulus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1925),



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outline, and observed numerous patterns in the text at different levels. Since the appositional θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ in verse 8 distorted the rhythm in the third strophe, he treated the expression as a later Pauline addition. He also changed the relative pronoun ὅς in verse 6 into a definite article (“Zum Liede gehört das Relativum kaum, da es weiter keine Funktion hat”). And in the benign spirit of form criticism he presented his new creation as the “original” psalm:20 (1) 6[ὁ] ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (2) 7ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος (3) 8καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτόν γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου, [θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ]. (4) 9διὸ καὶ ὁ θεὸς ὑπερύψωσεν αὐτόν καὶ ἐχαρίσατο αὐτῷ τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα (5) 10ἵνα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ ἐπουρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων καὶ καταχθονίων (6) 11καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσηται ὅτι κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς εἰς δόξαν θεοῦ πατρός.21

149–150. Martin further noted that C. Guignebert, “Quelques Remarques d’exégèse sur Phil. 2. 6–11,” RHPR 3 (1923): 533, had commented on the psalm-like appearance of Phil 2 and its place in Christian worship, and quoted also Hans Lietzmann, who used the term “Lied” to characterize Phil 2:6–11 (noted also by Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, 4–5, n. 3). See Hans Lietzmann, Messe und Herrenmahl: eine Studie zur Geschichte der Liturgie, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 8 (Bonn: Marcus und Weber, 1926), 178. 20 Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, 5–6. 21 In an attempt to capture the spirit of Lohmeyer’s interpretation, Brown, “Kyrios Jesus,” 8, gives a literalistic English rendering of the text, based on Lohmeyer’s interpretation in Kyrios Jesus and his German translation in Die Briefe an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon, KEK 9 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht [1930]; 9th ed.), ed. Werner Schmauch (1953): (1) 6[The one] existing in the form of God considered it not plunder to be like God, (2) 7but sacrificed himself, having taken the form of a slave,

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More specifically, Lohmeyer argued that Philippians 2:6–11 was a slightly reworked pre-pauline psalm – “ein von Paulus nicht geschaffener, sondern übernommener urchristlicher Psalm.”22 With its almost mythical origin, Lohmeyer also managed to give the anonymous author and text an unrivalled authority: Aber gerade wenn dieses Lied ein Dankgebet bei der Feier des Abendmahles war, so bleibt es dennoch die Schöpfung eines namenlosen Dichters und Propheten; denn in der Kraft seiner Fügung, der durchsichtigen Tiefe seiner Gedanken ist es nur wenigem vergleichbar, was das Neue Testament an ursprünglichen und hohen Zeugnissen seines Glaubens uns übermittelt; es setzt die fast unpersönliche und begeisterte Schau eines Sangers voraus, dem das „Schauen seiner Herrlichkeit“ d. h. eines göttlichen Sinnes und seiner Verwirklichung in Geschichte und Welt alles Genüge bedeutet. Und wieder schlingt sich damit ein Band zu den großen Worten des johanneischen Prologes: „Wir sahen seine Herrlichkeit“. Aber dieser Psalm ist vor Johannes und auch vor Paulus. So wird er eines der kostbarsten Dokumente ältesten Christentums und ein leuchtendes Beispiel der reichen und vielfältigen Kräfte, die in ihm lebendig waren.23

Looking back, we now know the name of this “namenlosen Dichters und Propheten:” It is Ernst Lohmeyer. It was he who first established the passage as a selfcontained unity, with an introductory formula (v. 5), and a definite beginning and conclusion. The influence of Lohmeyer has been tremendous and his work literally provides the starting point for modern engagement with Philippians 2:6–11. Hence, the great majority of subsequent scholars took Lohmeyer’s text as their point of departure when they engaged with “the song.”24 Lohmeyer further pro-

having become an image of humanity; (3) and [though] being found “as Son of Man” 8 he humbled himself, having become obedient unto death [death on a cross]. (4) 9And therefore God exalted him highly and bestowed on him the name above every name, (5) 10that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, earth, and the underworld, (6) 11and every tongue acclaim: “Jesus Christ is Lord” to the glory of God, the Father. 22 Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, 11 and 14. 23 Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, 67. 24 Cf. for instance Martin, “Form-analysis,” 615: “Since 1928 there has been no attempt to reverse his [Lohmeyer’s] judgment of the liturgical character of the Philippian verses. It has been a sentential recepta of literary criticism that Phil. 2, 5–11 is clearly to be differentiated from its



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vided several keys to the text’s subsequent success by suggesting a particular layout, theories concerning its place in the eucharistic worship of the primitive Jerusalem church, and its role in the development of Christology, etc. Much of the pre-pauline glory and mystery that Lohmeyer created has also stayed with the text, in one way or another, up until our time.

3 The Lohmeyerization of Philippians 2:6–11 in Novum Testamentum Graece The layout of Philippians 2:6–11 in Nestle-Aland26–28 has striking correspondences with Lohmeyer’s organization of the text (cf. the indentation and division into strophes).25 Nestle-Aland26–28 have virtually adopted his layout of the passage26 and by implication his basic understanding of the text. It is taken out of the flow of Paul’s argument, and into the stream of German Formgeschichte –, isolated from its surroundings and pointing to a Sitz im Leben.27 Together with the other indented christological hymns of Pauls’ letters, Philippians 2:6–11 forms a textual milieu of christological super-texts. The indentation makes these texts look older and, accordingly, more worthy of study.

neighbouring verses, and its language and style must be treated as totally unlike the language and style of epistolary prose. In the years from 1928 until the present the main lines of Formanalyse in reference to Phil 2 have been in modification of Lohmeyer’s original work.” 25 The editors of Novum Testamentum started indenting this passage in NA26 (1979), and have done so ever since. In earlier editions Phil 2:6–11 was just part of the running text, with the confession in the last part of v. 11, i.e., ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΚΡΙΣΤΟΣ, marked with capital letters. Both the indentation in NA26–28 and the capitalization of the confession in NA21–25 reflect an interest for the original setting of the text. 26 So also Hurtado, “Philippians 2:6–11.” 27 Ralph P. Martin’s comment to 2Cor 1:20–21 in Worship in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 37, illustrates well this particular mode of thinking: “2 Corinthians i, 20 f. pictures a scene which most likely takes us back to early worship. (…) The liturgical terminology of the whole passage is especially rich, and quite possibly Paul is alluding to the rite of Christian baptism under the figure of the ‘seal’.”

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4 The Idealization of a (Christological) Form An essential part of the reception of Philippians 2:6–11 presents the text as paramount in most things,28 often repeating features already visible in Lohmeyer’s Kyrios Jesus. Among scholars it goes almost without saying that it is a text of major importance, one of the best there is. Notable scholars like Martin, Hengel, and Hurtado have continued the project of pushing the text back to a time shortly after the death of Jesus.29

4.1 An Early Hymn as an Ideal Christological Topos Lohmeyer characterized the text as a “locus classicus urchristlicher Christologie,”30 and Martin described it as a fixed starting point for all later development,31 or even as where Christology began[!].32 Philippians 2:6–11 has been used as one of the main proof texts that Christians virtually from the outset had a high Christology,33 and “the hymn” has been one of the major tools to push a high Christology back to the earliest days of the church. The power of the idea of an early hymn as a Christological topos becomes especially clear in instances where vague and hypothetical statements about an early worship setting are used to introduce bold claims about early Christology. Some of Hurtado’s and Martin’s statements about Philippians 2:6–11 are tentative and hypothetical, but often effectively function as evidence: “(…) if this passage was originally a hymn sung in early Jewish Christian gatherings, then it provides evidence that Christ was an object of cultic veneration, something unparalleled in

28 Cf. for instance Hurtado, How on Earth, 83: “Among New Testament passages expressive of early Christian devotion to Jesus, Philippians 2:6–11 holds a particular importance (…).” 29 Cf. for instance Hengel, “Hymns and Christology,” 93: “(…) the hymn to Christ grew out of the early services of the community after Easter, i.e. it is as old as the community itself.” 30 Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, 88; cf. also p. 4. 31 Martin, “Carmen Christi,” 2: “Philippians 2 has been regarded by a host of interpreters (from Jeremias to Hengel) as providing a fixed starting point for all later development.” 32 Ralph P. Martin, “Carmen Christi Revisited,” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Brian Dodd (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 1–5. See also more recently James D.G. Dunn, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 40: “[Philippians 2.6–11 and Colossians 1.15–20] have been prominent in all recent attempts to understand the earliest christologies of the New Testament (…).” 33 Cf. Peppard, “‘Poetry’, ‘Hymns’,” 337.



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the Jewish treatment of chief agents,”34 and “If the evidence of Philippians 2 is a pointer to such an example of christology-in-worship, then we may conclude that the same data show how the enthroned Lord was hailed as on a par with Israel’s covenant God as worthy of liturgical praise.”35 The logic of “if X then it provides evidence of Y” and “if X then we may conclude Y” is notoriously problematic if X remains hypothetical. Still, it is used as a means to produce evidence and conclusions.36 This is also part of the inheritance from Lohmeyer. The hypothetical early hymn has been important for establishing a phenomenon that many in the New Testament guild are quite interested in and pleased by: early praise of Jesus.

4.2 Philippians 2:6–11: An Ideal (Display) Window for (Very) Early Worship The text of Philippians 2:6–11 has often been considered a place where scholars could, as it were, go and watch early devotion to Christ, and see how the first Christians enacted such piety.37 In his 1998 discussion of the history of interpretation, Martin summarized: (…) [T]he literary form of the passage gives rise to the suggestion that here we are in touch with the worshiping life of the early Christians. (…) The agreed conclusions are that Philippians 2:6–11 gives us a window into the liturgical beliefs and practices of Christian groups that either antedated Paul or were contemporary with his ministry.38

Hurtado uses the same language: “This is commonly regarded as a hymn deriving from a Jewish-Christian setting. Here (…) in this document from the middle of the first century C.E. we have a ‘window’ opening upon the faith and devotion of Jewish Christians from still earlier years.”39 In another formulation he character-

34 Hurtado, One God, 101. 35 Martin, “Carmen Christi,” 2–3. 36 In Hurtado’s celebrated book, One God, where Phil 2:(5)6–11 plays a major part, even the status of the text changes along the way, so to speak. It starts as a possible hymn (p. 4.), but progressively changes to a full hymn, backed up by a seemingly robust scholarly consensus. In other words, what starts out as a possibility, evolves into a probability, and ends up being regarded as a fact. 37 Hurtado, How on Earth, 7, says Phil 2:6–11 is “widely thought to comprise the wording of an early Christian ode or hymn used in worship.” 38 Martin, “Carmen Christi,” 2. 39 Hurtado, One God, 100.

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izes Philippians 2:6–11 as “a crucial passage that comprises a particularly revealing ‘window’ upon early Christian belief and piety, especially with reference to the place of Jesus in early Christian faith and practice.”40 Such bold statements are sometimes backed up by vague depictions of a more general setting: (…) [T]he evidence suggests strongly that (…) within the first two decades of Christianity, Jewish Christians gathered in Jesus’ name for worship, prayed to him and sang hymns to him, regarded him as exalted to a position of heavenly rule above all angelic orders, appropriated to him titles and Old Testament passages originally referring to God, sought to bring fellow Jews as well as Gentiles to embrace him as the divinely appointed redeemer, and in general redefined their devotion to the God of their fathers so as to include the veneration of Jesus.41

In other descriptions, Hurtado groups Philippians 2:6–11 with other New Testament hymns in an effort to show that devotional life of early Christianity involved hymnic celebration of the risen Christ: A perusal of the New Testament hymns to Christ will show variations in emphasis and in linguistic features, probably indicative of various situations in which the hymns were composed, and also certain similarities in content and intention. They all celebrate Christ as the supreme agent of God, whether in creation (e.g., Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 1:3; John 1:1–3), earthly obedience (Phil. 2:5–8) and redemptive suffering (Rev. 5:9–10), or eschatological triumph (Phil. 2:9–11; Col. 1:20). In short, and most important, they show that the devotional life of early Christianity involved the hymnic celebration of the risen Christ in the corporate worship setting.42

Descriptions like this de facto construct an idealized context for Philippians 2:6–11 on the basis of clusters of isolated texts, slightly modified to reflect something that we in fact do not find in Paul’s letters: hymns to Christ.

4.3 Mystical Origin The labelling of Philippians 2:6–11 as a “psalm” or “hymn” has often come with a sense of a glorious or mysterious past – and with an age and authority that outweighs that of Paul the apostle. In his blog post from May 5 2015 (see footnote 7),

40 Hurtado, How on Earth, 83. 41 Hurtado, One God, 12. 42 Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 108.



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Hurtado notes supportively that “(…) Martin Hengel contended that early Christian hymns/odes, spontaneously prompted by experiences of religious/spiritual exaltation, were a crucial mode of earliest Christological expression.” Hengel tended to describe the authors of what he called hymns to Christ, Philippians 2:6–11 included, as spirit-inspired: It is one of the peculiarities of the hymns to Christ in the New Testament that they often describe the very event which the seer depicts in his vision of the opening of the heavens, and that in so doing they are also a partial anticipation of the end. What the seer saw ‘in the Spirit’ as a real scene in heaven has been summed up in a few verses by unknown poets, inspired by the spirit. (Emphasis mine)43

For Hengel there was an established connection between singing, spiritual experience, and Christology. He spoke eloquently of (…) the intrinsic connection between the development of christology and the singing of hymns which in earliest Christian worship was regarded as a particularly important testimony to the work of the Spirit and which was already influential in the earliest community as a medium of developing Christological conceptions.44

In another formulation he even linked the new spirit-inspired hymns to a time that preceded Christological thought[!]: Among other elements, from the beginning the tradition of the Last Supper was the Sitz im Leben for this tradition. The messianic psalms of the Old Testament were not only used as proof texts but still more were sung in services as hymns in praise of the Messiah Jesus. Through the inspiration of the Spirit new hymns were created for this enthusiastic form of worship which preceded christological thought (emphasis mine).45

4.4 Hymns as Early Christological Texts Par Excellence In some of Hurtado’s writings, most of the features reviewed above are mentioned in one and the same passage (all emphases are mine):

43 Hengel, “Hymns,” 83–84. 44 Martin Hengel, “Preface,” in Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983), xi. 45 Martin Hengel, “Christology and New Testament Chronology: A Problem in the History of Earliest Christianity,” in Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983), 46.

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(…) These christological hymns exhibit the earliest observable stages of Christian reflection on the significance of Jesus and are probably the result of the fervent religious enthusiasm of the early Christian communities. Indeed, it is likely that such lyrical proclamations of Christian belief, arising from the religious experiences of the first generation of believers, set the pace for, and influenced the whole development of, christological thought. (…) There are several good reasons to think that the practice of singing hymns in Christ’s honor goes back to the earliest stratum of the Christian movement. First, the religious enthusiasm, involving eschatological joy and excitement arising from the conviction that Jesus had been exalted to heavenly glory, which generated such compositions seems to have characterized Christian groups from the very beginning. Furthermore, several New Testament passages (e.g., Phil. 2:5–11) can be taken as glimpses of the worshiping life of Jewish Christian groups. This means that the hymnic celebration of Christ cannot be restricted to gentile churches.46

Taking into account that Hurtado’s main interest is in the (re)construction of early Christology, all of this contributes to give christological hymns an authority beyond comparison according to an implicit value system, where psalms and hymns are better than other literary forms; Jewish is better than Gentile or Hellenistic; early is better than late; pre-pauline is better than Pauline; and spiritual experience is to be rated above everything else.47

46 Hurtado, One God, 106, see also pp. 4–5: In Paul’s letters there are a number of passages that reflect the devotion of Christians of the period prior to Paul’s gentile mission, which began no later than the 40s C.E.: creedal statements (e.g., Rom. 1:3–4; 10:9–10); fragments of church prayers (e.g., Rom. 8:15; 1 Cor. 16:22; Gal. 4:6); and possibly some hymns (e.g., Col. 1:15–20; Phil. 2:5–11). Some of these fragments of early church tradition may take us back to churches of a Palestinian setting and to Christians whose native language was Aramaic (e.g., the untranslated Aramaic prayer fragment in 1 Cor. 16:22, ‘Maranatha’). Thus we seem to be afforded glimpses of Christian devotion from what must include Jewish Christian groups very close in time, culture, and geographical setting to the origin of Christianity. And the indications are that already in these groups the exalted Jesus had begun to play a significant role as the object of religious devotion, indeed as an object of cultic veneration. In the gatherings of the Christians with which Paul was familiar, it appears that they sang “hymns” honoring and celebrating Christ, baptized converts “in the name of Jesus,” and very likely had rituals of “calling upon” Jesus and “confessing” him as “Lord” (e.g., Rom. 10:9–10; 1 Cor. 12:3). In all of this they seem to have seen themselves as reflecting the heavenly and eschatological veneration of Jesus anticipated in Phil. 2:9–11 (cf. Rev. 5:1–14). 47 See also Hengel, “Hymns,” 93. Hengel for instance links the phenomenon “hymn to [!] Christ” itself back to almost the same milieu and time that Lohmeyer constructed for Phil 2:6–11:



Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological Psalm from the 20th Century 

 423

5 Overrated Song, Underestimated Author of a Letter „Solche Satzfügung ist nicht gleichsam zufällig, sondern bewusst geformt; man hat ein Recht, die Periode nach Strophen und Zeilen zu gliedern“48

Lohmeyer’s approach to Philippians 2:6–11 was highly intuitive. Beneath the words in these verses he sensed the will of a pre-pauline poet, and for Lohmeyer the patterns he observed were not coincidental. As a result he did not really distinguish between the form and the text. He created a form tailor-made for this particular text, and he used the comparative material primarily to calibrate the psalm he “composed” on the basis of Philippians 2:6–11 – not for establishing the form per se. His quest for non-pauline terminology, encouraged by the Zeitgeist of the time, reflected a stronger belief in the dataset and in his tools than in the author of the Letter to the Philippians. I have elsewhere argued that several of the core expressions in Philippians 2:6–11 lie fully within the reach of what we could expect from Paul.49 Edsall and Strawbridge’s reminder should also be taken to heart: The ‘moment’ of writing (…) was not a slapdash event with little thought or preparation, but a process of deliberate composition in which a section of heightened prose with (more or less) balanced phrases is intelligible without the need to posit quotation from ‘tradition’ of one sort or another.50

The hymn to Christ grew out of the early services of the community after Easter, i.e. it is as old as the community itself. The starting point was formed by the ‘messianic psalms’ which were discovered in a new way after Easter and to which new compositions were added. In the case of Pss. 110; 8, we can demonstrate influence on the new ‘hymn to Christ’. It was regarded as an effect of the prophetic spirit of the end-time and had its independent function: alongside the other manifestations of the spirit in worship: in prayer, in prophetic admonition, exegesis of scripture and the re-presentation of the tradition about Jesus. It was part of the community’s general praise of God, but had its own special place within that, since in the ‘hymn to Christ’ the work, nature and destiny of the crucified and exalted Lord were presented. That is, in contrast to the hymn to God it took on a marked narrative character. Thus one could regard the hymn to God and to Christ as a fruit of the earliest post-Easter enthusiasm. Its extemal form came from Judaism and took up Jewish psalmody. 48 Lohmeyer, Kyrios Jesus, 5. 49 Årstein Justnes, “Un-Pauline Paul? Philippians 2.6–11 in Context,” Symbolae Osloenses 86 (2012): 155: “Especially the close thematical links between Phil 2.1–11 and Rom 15.1–13; 14.11 and the notable ties between the phraseology in Phil 2.7–8 and Gal 3.13; 4.4; Rom 8.3 illustrate how well our text fits in within a Pauline universe of thought.” 50 Edsall and Strawbridge, “Songs,” 291.

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Philippians 2:6–11 does not bear traits emanating from experience, or from a devotional setting. There is no evidence that early pauline Christology was born in song, but plenty of evidence that modern scholarly ideas about early singing have given birth to much speculation about early Christology.51 Perhaps it is time to turn some of the essential questions around and ask: What does the absence of Christological hymns or songs in Paul’s letters tell us? What are we to deduce from the fact that Paul’s letters do not contain psalms or songs to Christ?52

6 Conclusion and Outlook In the last 20 years, the glory of Philippians 2:6–11 as a Christological hymn has been fading. After a long career as a pre-pauline super-hymn, it is now slowly but steadily returning to an integral part of the letter to the Philippians that most scholars date to the beginning of the 60s CE. The history of research on Philippians 2 admonishes us to caution. Previous scholarship longed for something that the Pauline letters could not give it: a hymn to Christ and a window into early worship praxis. Many scholars found what they were looking for in Lohmeyer’s carefully constructed Christological psalm. But what many of them read as a product of an early, spirit-filled, Christian song writer, was in reality an idealized composition made by a brilliant German professor using form-critical tools.53

51 I play here with a formulation from Ben Witherington III, Jesus the sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 249–250: Though it is perhaps an exaggeration to say that early Christology was born in song, one may certainly say that early Christology grew out of the worship of Christ and was accordingly expressed in various liturgical forms –hymns, prayers, creedal statements, testimonia, and doxologies. Some of these forms no doubt came initially from a spontaneous response in worship to what was felt to be the leading of the Holy Spirit, but some also seem to reflect a careful and calculated composition prepared in advance for use in worship. Various sources suggest that psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs were perhaps the most crucial forms not only in the earliest period (c. A.D. 35–55) but at least well into the second century. It is not just Pliny the Younger (Ep. 10.96.7) who bears witness to the fact that what distinguished early Christians was ‘carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicum’. 52 Cf. also Vermes, Changing, 79: “(…) we have substantial and unanimous evidence that Paul’s prayers and liturgical blessings are regularly addressed to God or the Father, and not to, though often through, Jesus Christ. As a result, Christ is neatly distinguished from God.” Dunn, First Christians, 41: “Christ is clearly the subject of these hymns; they can properly be called ‘Christ hymns’.” Against Hengel and Hurtado, Dunn, however, stresses: “What they are not, however, is hymns to Christ. If they are hymns of the first Christians (…), they are hymns to God praising God for Christ.” 53 I thank Line Reichelt Føreland who has assisted me in several phases of the work on this article.

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Index of Ancient Sources Hebrew Bible Genesis

247, 249, 250, 332, 336, 385 2:1 270 2:18 296 6:5 270 8:21 270 12:1–3 50 12:3 56 14 42 15:1 375 17:8 325 21:9–10 182 21:33 361 31:27 345 48:17 36 49 253, 377 49:24 376, 377

19:5–6 299 20:5 295 23:17 294 23:20–23 267 26:34–36 182 28:16–20 182 29:20–22 182 30:37–31:2 182 34:6 389 34:7 295 34:9 92 34:23 294 35:3–5 182 36:32–38 182 37:29–38:7 182 39:1–16 182 39:17–19 182

Exodus 247 2:24 377 3:6 377 3:7 365 3:15–16 377 3:20 127 4:5 377 6:3 377 6:8 377 8:13–19 182 9:9–12 182 10:19–20 182 12:37 127 13:20–22 267 14:10 182 14:12–21 182 14:31 299 15 162, 253, 308, 332 15:1–18 (Song of the Sea) 162, 318, 319 15:16–19 168, 182 15:17 367 15:22–26 182 17:3–8 182 18:13–16 182

Leviticus 5:21 64 9:22 36 11:1–2 182 11:17–24 182 11:32 182 11:40–45 182 13:6–8 182 13:15–18 182 13:51–52 182 16 151 18:26–28 182 23:42–24:2 182 25:7–9 182 26 141, 314, 316, 317 26:17–32 182 26:42 316, 377 26:45 271 26:46 316 Numbers 1:1–5 182 3:26–30 182 4:47–49 182

468 

 Index of Ancient Sources

6:1–21 37 6:22–27 37 6:24–26 41, 52, 317 7–8 37 7:1 182 8:11–12 182 9:15–10:3 182 13:12–25 182 13:29–30 182 15:26–28 182 17:20–24 182 20:24 134 24:17 366 27:11 182 32:11 377 36:1–2 182 Deuteronomy 67, 247, 276, 385 1:8 377 1:9–13 179 3:25 180 4 130 4:7–9 218 4:9 324 4:13–17 180 4:23 130 4:25 130 4:28–29 130 4:31–32 180 4:34 365 4:34–35 365 4:35 365 4:40 130 5:9 295 6:4–9 324 6:22 365 7:2–5 181 7:3–4 180 7:6–7 181 7:10 295 7:15 243 7:16–21 181 7:19 365 7:21–25 181 8:1–5 180 8:8–9 179 9:10 179

9:11–12 180 9:17–19 180 9:29–10:2 180 10:5–8 180 10:17 378 11:2–4 180 11:9–13 180 11:18–19 180 11:21 36 11:28 181 11:30–31 179 11:30–12:1 181 12 322, 378 12:11–12 181 12:18–19 180 12:26 180 12:30–31 180 13:2–3 365 13:5–7 180 13:11–12 180 13:16 180 14:19–22 181 14:26–29 181 15:1–5 180 15:5–6 181 15:8–10 181 15:14–15 179 15:15–19 180 16:2–3 180 16:5–11 180 16:16 294 16:20–17:5 180 17:6–7 180 17:15–18:1 180 17:16 179 19:2–3 181 19:20–20:1 182 21:8–9 179 22:3–6 181 23:12–15 181 24:10–16 179 25:13–18 179 26:11 317 26:19–27:2 180 27:12–13 37 27:24–28:14 180 28 37, 50



28:3–6 42 28:15–18 181 28:18–20 180 28:20 181 28:22–25 180 28:29–30 180 28:36–37 365 28:44–48 179 28:46 365 28:48–50 180 28:52 258 28:61 180 29:2 365 29:3 268 29:9–11 179 29:12–20 179 29:17–19 180 29:18–19 40 29:24–27 180 30:3–14 180 30:19–31:6 179 31:7–10 179 31:9–17 180 31:12–13 179 31:16–19 180 31:24–30 180 32 161, 180, 182, 253, 259, 320 32:1–3 180 32:1–43 (Song of Moses) 162, 164, 166, 377 32:3 180 32:4 377 32:6–8 181 32:9 196 32:10–11 181 32:13–14 181 32:15 377 32:17–21 179 32:18 377 32:21–22 179 32:22–29 179 32:30 376 32:31 377 32:37–43 180 33:2–8 181 33:29–34:1 181

Hebrew Bible 

 469

Joshua 3:11 364 3:13 364 8:33–34 37 22 291 Judges 5:2–31 (Song of Deborah) 162 16:15 65 1Samuel 347 2 253 2:10 376 2:35 370, 376 17:44 58 17:46 58 2Samuel 347 3:6 352 6 348 7 227, 318 7:11 376, 406 7:19 319 7:27 376 8:15 353 11–12 391 15:2 353 19:36 345 22:32 372 23:3 376 23:7 178, 184 24 329 24:17 329 24:25 329 1Kings 126, 347, 348 2:26–27 376 2:35 370, 376 8 113, 297, 321, 329, 330, 347 8:12–13 297 8:13 367 8:22–53 329 8:23–26 330 8:30 368 8:39 367 8:43 367

470 

 Index of Ancient Sources

8:44 378 8:46 330 8:46–53 330 8:47 321, 329, 330 8:47–48 126 8:48 378 8:49 367 8:60 365 10:12 346, 348 11:13 378 11:32 378 14:21 378 2Kings 126, 347 17 66 18:4 352 18:4–5 348 21:7 378 22:19 125, 126 23:27 378 1Chronicles

126, 291, 292, 309, 310, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 353, 374 5:27–41 373 6:16–17 348 6:35–38 373 14:17 364 15 348 15:16 347 15:21 347 15:28 347 16:5 347 16:8–22 308 16:34 296, 308, 374 16:35–36 308 16:41 308, 374 17:20 365 18:14 353 21:12–13 260 25:1 347 25:3 347 25:6 347 28:2 123, 127 28:8 123, 127

29:13 123, 127 29:15 125 2Chronicles

126, 291, 292, 309, 310, 346–351, 353, 374 5:13 308, 309 6–7 126 6:2 367 6:29 367 6:33 367 6:37 329 6:39 367 7:3 296, 309, 374 7:6 309, 347, 348 7:14 125, 126 9:11 348 12:6–7 126 20:21 308, 309, 374 29:25–27 348 29:27 348 30:8 199 31:2 348 32:9 196 32:26 126 33:23 126 35:25 345, 355 36:17–21 350 36:20 350 16, 291, 292, 309, 346, 347, 349, 353 2:41 347 2:65 345 2:70 347 3:11 296, 309, 374 7:6 131 9 149, 261, 274, 391 9:6 92 9:6–15 109 9:7 92 9:10 92 9:13 92 9:14 92 9:15 92 10:9 129 10:9–11 129 Ezra



10:13 124, 124, 129 16:12 144 16:17 144 16:39 144 Nehemiah

16, 291, 292, 309, 346, 347, 349 1 149 1:5–11 109 6:19 352 7:67 345 7:44 347 9 108, 127, 128, 136, 149, 152, 261, 274, 308, 321, 331–335, 339 9:1–5 332 9:2 321, 331, 332, 336, 338 9:3 332 9:5 308 9:6 332 9:6–31 332 9:6–37 109, 332 9:7 299 9:7–8 332 9:7–35 128 9:9 127, 332 9:9–22 332 9:12 308 9:17 308, 333 9:19 333 9:23 332 9:23–31 333 9:28 308 9:29 332 9:30 332 9:31 333 9:32–37 332, 333 9:34–36 333 9:36 269, 333 10:28–29 128 10:30 131 12:27–28 347 13:26 286

Hebrew Bible 

 471

Esther 114 9:28 143 Job 162 7:7 308 7:11–13 181 13:18–20 181 13:23–27 181 14:13–18 181 21:12 345 27:15 308 30:31 345 31:14–19 181 32:3–4 181 33:23 181 33:25–30 181 36:11 308 38 218 38:41 218 Psalms (Psalter)

8, 14, 15, 50, 120,121, 156–158, 160, 162, 164, 167, 175, 176, 212–215, 219, 220, 222, 227, 228, 231, 232, 237, 244, 247, 249, 253, 254, 264, 281, 283, 287, 335, 336, 346, 349, 350, 357, 358, 359, 375, 385, 386, 388, 131, 296, 303, 318, 406 1–2 220 1–6 176 1–89 169, 170, 232 1:1 241 1:4 296 1:6 241 2 318 2–89 222 2:1 242 2:1–8 178 2:6–7 173 2:9 263

472 

 Index of Ancient Sources

3 234 3:1 344 5 385 5:8–6:1 176 5:9–13 173 6 105, 391 6:1–4 173 6:2–4 178 6:2–5 244 7 344 7:13–8:1 179, 184 8:4–10 179, 184 9:3–6 178 9:3–7 178 9:12–10:6 179, 184 10 385 10:7 384, 393 10:8–10 179, 184 10:18 179, 184 11:1 243 11:1–5 179, 184 12 243 12:3–5 64 12:4 52 12:5–14:6 178, 398 12:6–13:3 179, 184 12:7 200, 243 13:2–3 243 13:5 243 14 385, 402, 406, 406 14:1–3 384, 393 14:2–4 179, 184 14:3 398, 406 15:1–16:1 179, 184 16 243 16:7–9 173, 181 17 243 17:5–9 177, 183 17:9–18:2 178 17:14 177, 183 17:15–17 178 18 344 18:3 376, 377 18:3–14 173, 181 18:6–9 177, 183 18:6–13 179, 184

18:10–13 177, 183 18:16–18 173, 181 18:17–43 179, 184 18:26–29 178 18:33–41 173, 181 18:39–42 178 18:50 386 19:4–8 178 22 159 22:4 375 22:4–9 179, 184 22:14–17 169, 174 22:15–21 179, 184 22:24 375 22:29 378 23 297 23:2–6 179, 184 23:6 293 24:1–2 179, 184 24:7–10 378 25:2–7 178 25:4–6 179, 184 25:15 173 26 170 26:7–27:1 160 26:7–12 169, 176 26:9 160 27 170 27:1 160, 169, 176 27:12 160, 176 27:12–14 173, 181 27:13 176 28:1–2 173, 181 28:3 64 28:4 173, 181 28:8 376 29 317 29:1–2 179, 184 30 170 30:3 179, 184 30:5 296 30:9 160, 176 30:9–13 160, 169, 176 31:3–22 179, 184 31:21 272 31:24–25 173 31:25 176



32 105, 386, 391 32:5 391 33:1–12 173 33:1–18 176 33:2 296 33:14 367 33:17–18 218 34 344 34:2 174 34:8 268 34:16 268 35:2 173 35:4–20 176 35:14–20 173 35:26–28 173 35:27–28 173, 181 36 385 36:1–9 173 36:2 384, 393, 403, 407 36:13–37:4 178 37 237, 238, 240 37:7 239 37:12 239 37:15 272 37:16 240 37:18–19 173, 181 37:20 240 37:23–24 240 37:32–33 268 38 105, 391 38:2–12 173 38:16–23 173 38:19 391 39:13–40:2 178 41:5 391 42 65, 67 42:5 176 42:10 372, 377 42–72 175 43:1–3 178 44 363 44:2 324 44:3–5 172 44:4 172 44:7 172 44:23–24 172

Hebrew Bible 

 473

44:25 172 45 237 45:2 237 45:6–8 178 45:8–11 173, 181 46 349 46:5 405 47:2 173 47:3 378 47:10 290 48 349 48:1–7 175 48:2 375 49:1–17 173, 181 49:6 175 49:9–12 175 49:15 175 49:17 175 50 113 50:3–7 178 50:14–23 173, 181 51 67, 68, 105–110, 112–117, 121, 270, 271, 344, 350, 375, 384, 385, 391, 392, 407 51:1–5 173, 181 51:3–7 391 51:3–11 110, 111 51:4 111 51:5–6 115 51:5–7 106 51:6 107, 385, 388, 389, 390–392 51:7–8 115 51:7–9 111 51:8 114, 115 51:9 114 51:9–11 110 51:11–12 115 51:12–13 270 51:12–14 110, 112–114 51:12–19 110 51:15–17 112 51:16–17 113 51:18–19 391 51:19 270

474 

 Index of Ancient Sources

51:19–20 391 51:20 371, 375 51:20–21 114 51:21 391 52 344, 350 52:4–5 64 52:6–11 173, 181 53:1 173, 181 53:4–7 173 53:5 58, 59 54 344, 350 54:1–6 173 56 344, 350 56:4 173 57 344, 350 57:2 367 57:9 367 59 344, 350 59:5–8 178 60 344, 363 60:9 178 62:12 405 62:13 173 63 344 63:2 272 63:2–4 173 63:7 272 63:9 272 65 149 65:2–30 296 65:7 296 65:10 405 66:2 375 66:16–20 173 67:1–7 173 68:1–5 178 68:14–18 178 69 52, 57, 375, 386 69:1–19 173 69:3 272 69:6 391 69:15–16 272 69:23–25 57 69:24 52 69:25 57 69:26 52 69:31 375

69:35 375 69:36 371, 375 69:36–37 375 71:1–14 173 71:3 372, 377 74 356, 363 74:2 353 75:9 405 76 349 76:8 124 76:10–12 174 77:1 174 77:18–78:1 178 78 123, 127, 132, 133, 267, 308, 310, 311, 313, 320, 321, 323–325, 327, 328, 329, 334, 366 78:1 132 78:1–2 322, 323 78:2 322 78:3 324 78:3–11 322 78:4 322, 324 78:5 316, 322, 323, 324 78:5–12 178 78:6 324 78:6–7 132, 174, 323 320, 323, 335 78:8 78:12 323 78:12–13 127 78:12–16 321 78:12–72 321 78:14 308 78:17 321 78:17–53 321 78:18 322 78:22 328 78:23–25 308 78:24 308 78:25 308 78:27 308 78:31 323 78:31–33 174 78:32 328 78:32–39 323



78:33 308 78:34 130 78:34–35 132 78:36–37 178 78:38 365 78:39 308 78:39–40 132 78:40 323 78:41 322 78:43 127 78:43–51 321 78:44–50 308 78:53 321 78:54–72 321 78:56 322 78:56–64 321 78:57 323 78:58 322 78:60 319 78:64 308 78:65 322 78:65–72 322 78:68 308 78:70 318, 386 79 363, 366 79:6 365 80 363 81–85 161 81:2–3 169, 174 81:4–9 178 81:5–17 169 81:6–85:6 178 82:1–8 169 83:1–19 169 84 149, 349 84:1–13 169 84:12 376 85 363 85:1–6 169 86:10–11 174 86:11–14 178 88:1–4 174 88:15–17 176 89 283, 376 89:3 386 89:20 386 89:20–22 177

Hebrew Bible 

 475

89:23 177 89:26 177 89:27–28 177 89:31 177 89:35 386 89:44–46 174 89:49 386 89:50–53 174 90–150 169, 222, 232, 283, 357 90:7 296 90:9 296 91 158, 272 91:1 176 91:3 290 91:3–4 272 91:5–8 173, 181 91:6 290 91:12–15 173, 181 92 158, 295– 299, 303 92:1 298 92:4–5 297 92:4–8 173, 181 92:12–14 172, 179 92:13 297 92:13–15 173, 181 92:14 297 92:15 297 93:1 378 93:1–3 178, 183 93:3–5 175 93:5 297 94 158 94:1–4 173, 181 94:7 290 94:8–9 173, 181 94:10–14 173, 181 94:17–18 173, 181 94:21–22 173, 181 94:22 377 95:3 378 95:3–6 175 95:11 172, 179 96:1–2 172, 179, 367 96:4–5 290 96:7–8 367

476 

 Index of Ancient Sources

96:10 378 97 290 97:1 378 97:5 364 97:6–9 175 97:7 290 97:8 290 97:9 290 98:4–8 175 98:6 378 99:1 378 99:2 288 99:4 290 99 293 99–103 158 99:1–5 175 99:5–6 173, 181 100:1–2 173, 181 100:5 374 101:1 405 101:1–102:2 177, 183 101:7 297 102 105, 344, 391 173, 181 102:10–17 102:17 375 102:18–25 173, 181 102:18–103:1 177, 183 102:22 288 102:23 375 102:26–103:3 173, 181 103 254, 260, 264, 267 103:1–2 267 103:2–11 173, 180 103:3 173 103:4–6 173, 181 103:6 266 103:6–10 266 103:7 266 103:8 267, 295 103:9 266 103:9–11 173, 181 103:11–14 173, 181 103:20–21 173, 181 103:20–22 367 104 158, 159, 164, 167, 223–225, 254, 265

104:1–3 174 104:1–5 164, 173, 181 104:1–6 177, 183 104:3 218, 224 104:3–5 160, 175, 182 104:6–11 173, 180 104:8–11 159, 164, 173, 181 104:8–15 164 104:11–12 160, 175, 182 104:12–14 159, 164 104:13–14 218, 224 104:14–15 164, 173, 181 104:20–21 174 104:22–25 164, 173, 181 104:22–35 177, 183 104:33–35 164, 173, 181 104:48 167 105 123, 127, 132, 133, 225, 267, 290, 299, 305, 308, 310, 311, 313, 314, 316, 317, 319, 320, 325–329, 333–335 105:1–3 375 105:1–12 177, 183 105:1–15 308 105:5 133, 308 105:6 290, 321, 326, 335 105:6–11 299 105:9 290 105:9–11 325 105:10 225, 290 105:11 225, 291, 325 105:12 325 105:12–45 226, 325 105:15–20 225 105:17–18 299 105:22 308 105:22–25 174 290, 325 105:23 105:25 225 105:25–45 177, 183 105:26–36 308 105:26 308 105:27 127 105:27–36 325 105:29 308



105:36–45 174 105:42 290, 299 106 14, 121, 123, 127, 132, 133, 149, 152, 215, 223, 224, 305, 308, 310, 313, 314, 317, 319–321, 326–330, 333–335 106:1 296, 308, 374 106:2 308 106:2–5 133, 312 106:4–5 308 106:6 321, 328–331, 335, 338 106:6–7 133 106:7 127, 133, 308, 327 106:12 327, 328 106:14–15 311 106:22–23 127 106:23 308,327 106:24 327, 328 106:25 308, 310 106:26 327 106:27 327 106:34 291 106:37 309 106:40–41 309 106:43 308, 309 106:45–46 327 106:47 309, 329 106:48 308 107 159, 224, 290 107:1 296, 374 107:2–4 174 107:3 261 107:8–11 174 107:13–15 174 107:18–19 174 107:22–30 174 107:35–42 174 108:8–9 291 109 52, 57, 159, 301 109:4–6 174 109:7 52 109:8 52 109:9 52 109:9–15 57

Hebrew Bible 

 477

109:10 52 109:11 52 109:13 174 109:14 295 109:20 57 109:21–31 177, 183 109:25–28 174 110 356 110:2 288 111 293 111:4 389 112 158, 168, 176, 293 112:1–9 176, 182 112:4 389 112:4–5 173, 181 113 215 113–115 290 113–118 (Hallel) 228 113:4 290 114 292, 295, 299, 303, 309 114:1 290, 299 114:1–2 300 114:2 290, 300 114:3 300 114:4 300, 309 114:5 300 114:6 300 114:7 290 114:7–8 175 115:1–4 175 115:4–7 290 115:9–11 376 115:11 288 115:15–18 174 115:16–116:1 178 116 158, 385, 389, 407 116:1–3 174 116:1–9 389 116:3 389 116:5 295, 389 116:5–9 389 116:5–10 175 116:10 389, 116:11 384, 388, 389, 391 116:13 389 116:14 389

478 

 Index of Ancient Sources

116:17–19 173, 181 116:18 389 116:18–19 297 116:19 389 117–118 295 118 158, 225, 374, 375 118:1 177, 178, 183, 374 118:1–3 173, 181 118:1–4 374 118:4 288 118:6–11 173, 181 118:8–9 177, 183 118:15–16 177, 178, 183 118:18–20 173, 181 118:23–26 173, 181 118:24–29 177, 183 118:26 297 118:29 173, 177, 181, 183, 296, 374, 119 131, 159, 160, 163, 168, 175–177, 179, 182, 183, 218, 292, 293 119:1–6 177, 183 119:2 131 119:10 131 119:10–21 159, 175, 182 119:11 65 119:15–28 177, 183 119:37–43 174, 181 119:37–49 177, 183 119:43–48 172, 179 119:44–46 174, 181 119:45 131 119:49–50 174, 181 177, 183 119:59–73 119:63–65 178 119:73 174, 181 119:77–79 172, 179 119:81–83 174, 181 177, 183 119:82–96 119:89 293 119:90–92 174, 181 177, 183 119:99–101 119:104 177, 183 119:105–120 177, 183 119:111 131

119:113–120 177, 183 119:128–142 177, 183 119:150–164 177, 183 119:169–170 293 119:171–176 177, 183 120–134 (Songs of Ascent) 290 120:6 174 121 375 121:1–123:2 177, 183 121:4 375 121:5 375 121:7 317 121:7–8 375 121:8 56 122 288, 341, 351–354 122:1 297, 351, 352 122:2 351, 352 122:2–4 163 122:2–5 352 122:3 353 122:4–5 353 122:9 297, 352 123:1 297 124:8–127:1 177, 183 125:1–2 288 125:2–5 174 125:5 386 126 301 126:1–5 174 127:1 183 127:1–5 172 127:3–5 294 128 293 128:3 172, 293 128:4–131:1 177, 183 128:5 288 129:5 288 129:8 174 130 105, 303, 391 130:1–3 174 130:1–8 391 132 288, 376, 377 132:2 290, 377 132:5 290, 377 132:8–18 177, 183 132:9 287 132:10 386



132:11 386 132:13 378 132:17 263, 372, 376, 386 133:1–3 178, 183 134 178, 184, 223 134:1 297 135 215, 290, 309, 320, 334 135:1–9 177, 183 135:2 297 135:4 290 135:5 290 135:6 309 135:6–8 175 135:6–16 175 135:8–12 291 135:11–12 175 135:12 291 135:15–17 290 135:17–136:12 177, 183 135:19–20 309 136 290, 308–310, 317, 320, 334, 374, 375, 378 136:1 296, 374 136:1–2 309 136:1–26 309 136:5 309 136:6 309 136:17–22 291 136:21–22 291 136:23–24 175 136:26 177, 183, 378 137 334, 341, 342, 344, 348–352, 354, 356 137:1 177, 183 137:1–4 342, 344 137:4 348, 349 137:5 342 137:5–6 348 137:7 289 137:8–9 366 137:9–138:8 177, 183 139:7–10 297 139:8–24 177, 183 140 385, 406

Hebrew Bible 

 479

178, 184 140:1–5 140:4 384, 393, 399 141:5–10 178, 183 141:10 178 142 344 142:4–143:8 178, 183 143 105, 391 143:2–4 175 143:6–8 175 144:1–2 178 144:1–7 178, 183 144:10 386 144:15 178, 183 145 220, 221 145–150 216, 220 145:1 378 145:1–7 177, 183 145:8 295 145:13–32 177, 183 145:21 220 146 158, 215–217, 220, 221, 223 146–148 221, 224, 226 146–149 221 146–150 215, 217, 219, 221, 223, 226 146:2 221 146:3–4 218, 221 146:5 290 146:9 221 146:9–10 177, 183 146:10 173, 181, 221 147 123, 127, 158, 159, 167, 214–217, 219–227, 288 147:1 215–216, 221, 222 147:1–3 173, 177, 181, 183 147:1–4 164 147:1–11 217 147:1–20 293 147:2 222, 261, 371, 375 147:2–3 218, 224 147:2–6 217 147:3 217 147:4–5 217 147:6 217, 221, 222 147:7 217, 222

480 

 Index of Ancient Sources

147:7–11 225 147:8 218 147:8–9 224 147:9 218 147:10 221, 222 147:10–11 218 147:12 218, 221, 222 147:12–20 217 147:13 222 147:13–14 218, 224 147:13–17 164, 181 147:13–20 164, 173 147:15–18 218 147:15–20 219 147:16–18 218 147:18–19 161, 178, 219 147:18–20 177, 183 147:19 222, 290 147:19–20 218, 225 147:20 173, 181 148 220, 221, 222, 291, 379, 380 148–150 215, 221 148:1–12 177, 183 148:1–13 379 148:6 380 148:13 379, 380 148:14 373, 379 149 220, 222 149:1 222, 287 149:2 222 149:3 222 149:4 222 149:5 218, 291 149:9 222 149:9–150:6 178, 183–184 150 219, 220, 221 150:1–6 161, 178 Proverbs 50, 162, 238 1:27–2:1 182 3:19 309 6:12–14 64, 67 6:17–19 67 9:16 182 12:10–22 64 13:6–9 182

14:5–10 182 14:6–10 182 14:12–13 182 14:31–15:8 182 15:11–12 182 15:19–31 182 16:22 317 26:24–26 64 Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) 137 2:8 345 3:1 137 3:4 137 7:20 395 8:3 309 Isaiah

227, 247, 249, 269, 276, 385 1–66 179 1:1 235, 368 1:24 377 6:5 378 8:11 241, 406 9:6 353 11:1–5 263, 376 11:11–12 367 11:12 217, 371, 375 14 54 16:5 353 22:4 145 24:8 345 261, 367, 371, 375 27:13 30:29 346, 376 31:1–3 218 32:17 64 37:30 243 40–46 261 40–55 (Second Isaiah) 119, 270, 272, 273, 289, 300, 375 261, 263 40:4 40:6–8 124 40:9 261 40:12–14 10 40:26 43 41:10 270 41:13 270 41:26 219



42:6 270 42:9 219 42:16 267 43:12 219 44:6 365, 375 44:8 219 44:28 353, 371, 375 45:1 270 45:5 365 45:21 365 45:22 368 46:11 263 48:1 300 48:16 270 49:2 270, 272, 401 49:6 367 49:7 375 49:26 377 49:54 218 51:18 270 52:1 144 54:11 269 55:6–7 130 55:10–11 218 56–66 (Third Isaiah) 300 56:8 217, 370, 371, 375 57:15 270 57:16 272 58:9 130 59:1–4 67 59:7–8 384, 393 60:7 144 60:16 377 61:1 270 61:2 270 61:10–62:6 168, 179 62:3 144 62:5 269 63 128 63:7–64:11 109, 320 63:10–11 112, 128 63:11 128 63:17 353 64:4 127 64:5–11 128 65 129

Hebrew Bible 

 481

65:1 130 65:9 300 65:17–18 269 66:2 129 66:5 129 66:13 269 66:14 129 66:15 129 Jeremiah

67, 82, 119, 120, 149, 227, 249, 257, 276 3:18 367 7:15 258 8:19 145 8:21–23 145 9:2–5 64 9:6 145 10:16 353, 371, 375 10:19–20 148 11–20 120 14–15 141 14:17 145 19:1–15 62 20:13 268 21:12 353 23:5 376 25 93 25–29 94 26:18 352 27–29 94 29 93, 130 29:10–13 130 29:13–14 130 29:14 367 30:3 367 30:18 353 31:8 261, 367 31:10 261, 367 31:31–34 317 32 127 32:37 367 33:6 267 33:11 374 33:15–17 376, 377 33:26 377 44 286

482 

 Index of Ancient Sources

46:18 378 48:15 378 48:36 355 51:19 353, 371, 375 51:50 349 51:57 378 Lamentations

137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147, 149, 151, 152, 257, 276 1–2 120 1–4 162 1:1 259 1:6 259 1:10–12 168, 180 1:18 149, 258 1:20 149 2:1 143, 259 2:11 145 3 120 3:48 145 3:53–62 168, 180 4–5 120 4:3 145 4:6 145 4:10 145 4:17–19 183 5:1 143 67, 119, 227, 249, 257, 276 4:2 258 8:12 289 9:6 258 9:9 289 9:15 124, 124 11:17 261 20 127 20:5 299 20:41 261, 365 21:22 258 23:14–18 259 23:38 258 26:13 345 28:7 259 28:25 365 Ezekiel

28:31–32 54 29:21 376 36 78 36:8–11 367 37 235 37:23 242, 406 38:16 365 39:25–27 367 39:27 365 40:44 347 40:46 373 40–48 376 43:19 373 44:15 373 48:11 373 Daniel 16, 94, 97, 134 3:32 365 6:28 365 9 82, 90, 93, 97, 98, 100, 108, 149, 151, 261, 274, 321, 331, 391 9:1–2 82 9:2 94 9:2–3 82 9:4 82 9:4–19 81, 109 9:4–20 331, 9:5 321, 329, 331 9:5–8 82 9:5–10 92 9:6 331 9:7a 82 9:8 331 9:13 92 9:14–16 82 9:15 82, 92 9:15–16 92 9:16 331 9:17 368 9:17–19 82, 83 9:20–23 82, 83, 92 9:20–27 81 9:21 82–82 9:21–27 98 9:24–17 82, 83



10 98 10:2–18 99 11:40–45 54 12:3 196 Hosea 247 2:16–20 272 5:8 243 Joel 2:1 261 2:11 124 Amos 5:23 346 8:10 346 9:11 406 9:14 367 Micah 227, 247 4:13 364 Nahum 247 2:11 243

Septuagint (LXX) and Apocrypha 

Habakkuk 247 Zephaniah 247 Haggai 1:2 289 2:6 198 2:21 198 Zechariah 227 1:17 378 2:16 378 3:2 378 3:8 272 3:9 243 4:14 364 6:5 364 7 142 7:5 141 8 142 8:19 141 Malachi 247 3:2 124 3:3 113

Septuagint (LXX) and Apocrypha Numbers 6:24–26 52 18:20 56 Deuteronomy 28:66 403 Joshua 24:1 403 2Samuel (2Kingdoms) 22:32 372 1Chronicles 13:10 403 17:16 403

1Esdras 8:73–90 108 2Esdras 3 120 Esther 115 Additions to Esther A–F 114 C 114, 117 C 1–11 116 C 5–7 116 C 12–30 115 C 16–18 115 Judith 92 11:13 404

 483

484 

 Index of Ancient Sources

Tobit 3:5 338 13:10 375 13:16–18 375 1Maccabees 2:7 120 2Maccabees 3 366 14:5 53 3Maccabees 2:23 401 4:5 401 4Maccabees 9:26 401 11:19 401 14:10 401 Psalms

15, 157, 219, 234, 349, 384, 386 5 392 5:10 384, 393, 398, 406 385, 392 9 9:28 384, 393, 399, 400 10:7 407 11 52 11:7–14:4 393 11:13 53 12 52 12:4 52 13 385, 392, 394, 402, 405, 406, 408 395, 396, 396 13:1 13:2 396, 397 13:1–3 384, 386, 393 13:3 385, 392, 393, 395, 397, 398, 399, 399, 400, 401,402, 403, 406, 408 13:31 403

15:22 53 17:50 386 18:15 386 22:10 53 23:1 386 24 228, 392 24:8 53 25:4 53 26:26 53 27:22 53 31 386 31:1 386 31:23 53 35 385 35:2 384, 386, 393, 403, 407 43:23 386 45:5 405 48 228, 392 50 384, 385, 391, 392, 392, 408 50:6 385, 386, 388, 389, 390, 390, 391 52:1–4 397 52:4 58, 59, 397 61:12 405 61:13 386 64:10 405 52, 386 68 68:10 386 68:23–24 386 68:24 52 68:26 52 74:9 405 81 228, 392 82 228 89:2 388 89:6 388 89:9 388 89:15 388 89:25 388 89:34 388 92 228 93 228 93:11 386 93:14 386 94 228, 392



100:1 405 108 52 108:7 52 108:8 52 108:9 52 108:10 52 108:11 52 109:1 386 111:9 386 115 385 115:1 389 115:2 384, 386, 388, 389, 391 115:10 386 117:1 386 120:8 56 139 385, 392 139:4 384, 393, 399, 406 145 223 145–151 222 146 216, 217, 222 148 223 149–151 223 150 216 151 17, 223, 344 Prayer of Manasseh (Odes 12) 17, 108, 113, 114, 116 14–15 116 Proverbs 1:16

400, 401, 402, 407 22:29 401 Job 16:10 401 41:30 401 Wisdom of Solomon 7:22 401 8:11 401 16:20 308 18:15 401

Septuagint (LXX) and Apocrypha 

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)

 485

50, 162, 357, 358, 359, 360 1–41 359 1:1–10 358 4:6 372 6 380 6:14–15 180 6:20–31 180 11:14 375 16:7–11 127 18:1 364 18:1–7 358 18:4 308 22:27–23:6 358 24:1–33 358 24:8 364, 371, 375 24:11 367 36 362, 364, 365, 368, 383 36:1 363, 364 36:1–17 358, 359, 360, 361, 363, 364, 367, 383 36:2 364 36:3 364 36:4 364, 365 36:4–5 363, 365 36:5 365 36:5–6 365 36:6 365 36:7 361, 365 36:8 366 36:9 360, 366 36:10 363, 366 36:11 365, 367 36:12 367 36:13 367 36:15 367, 368 36:15–16 367 36:16 368 36:17 361, 368 36:19 372 38:13 363 39:12–35 358 42–51 359 42:15–43:33 358 43:27 364

486 

 Index of Ancient Sources

43:33 364, 375 44–50 362, 372, 383 44:19–21 372 44:22 372 44:23 372 45:1–5 373 45:6 373 45:6–22 373 45:23 308, 364 45:23–26 373 46:2 364 47:1–11 372 47:4 364 47:5 373 47:11 373 48:18 372 48:24 372 50:1–21 374 50:7 372 50:22 364 50:22–24 358 50:25–26 362 50:26 378 51 310, 362, 368, 3 80 51:1 371 51:1–12 358, 368, 383 309, 359, 363, 51:12 369, 371 51:12a–n 379, 380 51:12a–o 358, 359, 368, 369, 371–375, 377–383 369, 374, 379 51:12a 51:12b 369, 370, 371, 375, 381 51:12c 375 51:12d 364, 370, 371, 375, 382 51:12e 370, 375 51:12f 370, 371, 375 51:12g 370, 371, 375, 382 51:12h 370, 372, 376, 377, 381, 382 370, 373, 376, 51:12i 381, 382 51:12j 372, 376, 377, 382

51:12k 51:12l 51:12m

372, 376, 377, 382 372, 377, 382 370, 372, 377, 378 51:12n 378, 379 51:12o 368, 372, 373, 374, 375, 379 51:13 359, 369 51:13–30 177, 183, 368, 381 51:14 369 51:17 371 51:29 371 Psalms of Solomon

17, 48, 51, 253–259, 261–263, 267, 269, 273–275, 276 1 48, 54 1:2 258 1:3–4 54 1:5–8 54 1:6 258 2 48, 49, 61, 258 2:1–10 258 2:3 49 2:7–19 257 2:13 259 2:19–22 258 2:22 260 2:25–30 48 2:26–31 61, 260 2:34–37 258 2:36–40 257 3:3–11 257 3:9–12 60 4 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 56, 59, 61, 62 4:1 58 4:2 59 4:2–3a 54 4:4–5 54 4:5 54 4:6 55 4:7 55 4:9 54



4:9–13 49 4:14 56 4:14–18 55 4:16 57 4:18–19 57 4:18–22 56 4:19 59 4:19–20 57–58 4:20–22 49 4:23–25 58 4:24 56 5:1–5 49 6:1–8 257 7 48 7:3 260 7:5 260 8 48, 49, 263 8:7–14 257 8:11–13 49 8:28–29 260–261 9 108 9:1–4 261 9:1–17 257 10:1–6 257 11 261 11:1–2 261 12 49, 50, 52, 58, 59, 61, 62 12:1 58 12:3 58 12:3–4 59 12:4 59 13–15 261 13:4–9 257 14 50 15:1 260 16:9–15 257 17 48, 260, 262 17:4–7 262 17:5–7 49 17:7 48 17:9 48

Septuagint (LXX) and Apocrypha 

 487

17:18–19 48 17:28–32 260 Hosea 7:2 404 Amos 2:15 401 Habakkuk 1:18 401 Isaiah 1:16 404 5:28 401 59:7 400–402, 407 59:8 402, 403 Jeremiah 15:17 53 16:17 404 Baruch 134 1:15–3:8 108 1:19 338 4:36–5:9 261 Lamentations 2:19 404 Ezekiel 5:1 401 Daniel 3 379 Additions to Daniel 1 115 Prayer of Azariah 379 Song of the Three Young Men 310, 379 61–63 309 67–69 309

488 

 Index of Ancient Sources

The Dead Sea Scrolls 1Q5 (1QDeutb)

168, 179

1QIsaa 179 50:8–17 168 1Q10 (1QPsa)

159, 163, 168, 172, 179

1Q11 (1QPsb)

163, 172

1Q12 (1QPsc)

163, 172

1Q14 158 1QpHab (Pesher Habakkuk) 239 2:9 235 7:5 235 7:8 235 10:6 382 10:10 382 1Q16 237 1Q20 (1QapGen, Genesis Apocryphon) 13, 42, 156, 249 11:13 381 1Q28 (1QS, Community Rule) 21, 37–40, 44, 46, 55–56, 59, 70–71, 128, 131, 250 1–2 16 1–3 37–38 1:3 235 1:18–20 38 1:21 128 1:25 338 2:1–4 38, 40 2:2–4 41, 317 2:5–9 188, 195 2:8–9 56 2:9 190 2:11–12 40 2:15–17 55

2:19–22 38 3:1 135 3:4–6 44 3:13–15 72 3:13–4:26 40 3:18–19 71 3:19–21 71 3:21 195 4:2–14 72 4:6 131 4:12 131 4:20 71 4:23 71 5:2 382 5:9 382 6 18 6:3–7 21 6:6–8 250 6:7–8 307 7:1 250–251 8:15–16 251 9:4–5 194 9:11 235 10:10–16 46 11:15–16 31 1Q28a (1QSa) 1:2 382 1:24 382 2:3 382 1Q28b (1QSb, The Rule of Blessings) 7, 11, 39, 42 1:1 39 1:3 39 2:22–28 42 3–4 199 3:22 382 3:22–23 39 3:28 39 1Q30 1QLiturgical Text? A 172 1Q33 (1QM, War Scroll) 4:8

10, 15, 31, 39, 156 370, 381



The Dead Sea Scrolls 

11:3 309 13 39 13:1 39 14:4 31 19:1–8 15 22:7–16 15

18:6 308 19:25 354

1Q34 (Festival Prayers) 3i 6–7

7, 147, 165, 171 46

1Q37–40 11

Hodayot

6–8, 13, 15–20, 22–23, 77–78, 128, 165, 171, 188, 255, 265, 274, 282, 338, 375

1QHa (1QHodayota)

11, 20, 43, 165, 273, 282, 355 1–8 88 4:29 78 4:30–31 395 4:34 338 5:30 77 5:30–31 77 5:31–36 395 5:32 77 6:22 78 6:36 78 7:25 78 8:17 382 8:28 395 8:29 78 9:23 77–78 9:24 77 9:27–31 43 11:20–37 198 11:29 198 11:33–35 198 11:34 198 12:16 235 12:31 42 12:31–32 395 13:18 200 15:21 395 15:32–34 395 17:31–32 124

1Q35 (1QHb)

 489

11, 165

1Q36–40 7

1Q38 (1QHymnic Composition?) 180 2Q14 (2QPs)

158, 168, 173, 180

2Q18 (2QSir)

162, 168, 180, 380

3Q2 (3QPs)

156, 163, 173

3Q3 (3QLam)

168, 180

3Q4 (Commentary on Isaiah) 235 3Q15 11 3 11 6

382 382

4Q14 (4QExodc) 156 4Q29 (4QDeutb)

168, 180

4Q30 (4QDeutc)

168, 180

4Q44 (4QDeutq)

161, 164, 166, 168, 180

4Q45 (4QpaleoDeutr)

168, 181

4Q83 (4QPsa)

163, 167, 173

4Q84 (4QPsb)

157–158, 162–163, 166–169, 173, 181

4Q85 (4QPsc)

156–157, 168, 173, 181

490 

 Index of Ancient Sources

4Q86 (4QPsd)

4Q87 (4QPse)

133, 157–159, 162–164, 166–170, 173, 181, 217, 223–226 14, 156–157, 163, 174, 224–225

4Q88 (4QPsf )

14, 159, 162–163, 166–170, 174 8:8 381 Apostrophe to Zion (Apst. Zion) 159, 169, 174 Eschatological Hymn (Esch. Hymn) 159, 169, 174 Apostrophe to Judah (Apst. Judah) 4Q89 (4QPsg)

4Q90 (4QPsh)

159, 169, 174

4Q98c (4QPst) 176 4Q98d (4QPsu) 176 4Q98e (4QPsv) 176 4Q98  f (4QPsw)

168, 176, 182

4Q98g (4QPsx) 177 4Q99 (4QJoba)

168, 181

4Q101 (4QpaleoJobc)

168, 181

4Q102 (4QProva)

156, 168, 182

4Q103 (4QProvb)

168, 182

4Q158 405

156–157, 159–160, 168, 172, 174, 177, 181

4Q163 22 3

159–160, 163, 168, 172, 175, 177, 182

4Q165 (Isaiah Commentary E) 1–2 1 235

4Q91 (4QPsj) 175 4Q92 (4QPsk)

163, 175

4Q93 (4QPsl)

156, 160, 163, 166, 168, 175, 182

4Q94 (4QPsm)

158, 163, 175

4Q95 (4QPsn)

163, 175

4Q96 (4QPs ) 175 o

4Q97 (4QPsp) 175 4Q98 (4QPsq) 176 4Q98a (4QPsr)

4Q98b (4QPss) 176

156, 160, 163, 168–170, 176

4Q166 II 5

382

235

4Q171 (4QpPsalmsa, Commentary on Psalms A) 237–239, 241 1–10 II 13–20 238 4Q173 237 4Q174, 4Q177 (4QMidrEscha,b, 4QEschatological Midrash) 227, 237, 241–242 4Q174 (Eschatological Commentary A, Florilegium) 277, 318–319, 405 1–2,21 I 14–19 241 1–2 I 17 382 4Q176 405



4Q177 1–4 14 1–4 24 31 2–8

The Dead Sea Scrolls 

243–244, 405 242 242 242

4Q179 (4QApocryphal Lamentations) 23, 103, 137–138, 143–152 1i1 148 1i 2 144 1i 2–4 145 1i 4 144, 149 1i 6 151 1i 14 145 1i 15 145 1ii 1–13 145 2iii 146 4Q185 (4QSapiential Work) 103, 122–136 1–2i 7 136 1–2i 7–8 124 1–2i 7–9a 124, 130 1–2i 7–13a 124, 131 1–2i 9b–13a 124 1–2i 12 130 1–2i 13b–ii 1a 125, 131 1–2i 14–15 123, 129 1–2ii 1 129, 135 1–2ii 8 135 1–2ii 8–12 130 1–2ii 11–12 130–131 1–2ii 12 135 1–2ii 13–15 130 1–2ii 14 135 1–2ii 15 135 4Q200 6 4

381

4Q201 1ii 10

381

4Q204 1i 29

381

4Q212 1ii 15

381

4Q216 4 7

381

4Q243–244 (4QPseudo–Daniela–b ar) 13 2 308 12 3 308 4Q252–254a 249 4Q252 5 4

381

4Q265 7 8

235

4Q266 (4QDa) 42, 47 3iii 18 235 5i 16 382 11:7–14 42 11:17–18 43 4Q267 2 6

235

4Q269 4i 2

235

4Q286–287 (4QBerakhot) 46, 47 4Q286–290 (4QBerakhota–e, Berakhot) 8, 165 4Q286 (4QBerakhota) 15 1ii 5 381 3 5 195 4Q287 (4QBerakhotb) 15 4Q292 2 4

235

4Q334 1 2 3 1 4 5

381 381 381

 491

492 

 Index of Ancient Sources

4Q364–367 (4QReworked Pentateuchb-e) 249

4Q400–407 (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice) 8, 22, 36, 42, 165, 171, 192, 199

4Q365 (4QRPc) 182 6a ii and 162 6b 168 6c 162

4Q400 1i 1 1i 21 2 1

192 381 381

4Q370 1i 3–4 1ii 8

125, 126 198 129

4Q401 14i 6

195

4Q372 3 9

316

4Q403 1i 3 1i 28 1i 32 1ii 25 1ii 36

381 381 381 381 381

4Q405 20ii 22 20ii 13

381 381

4Q380 (4QNon–Canonical Psalms A) 8, 14, 153, 161–164, 166–171, 177, 213, 234, 312 1i 7–11 133, 308 4Q381 69 8

8–9, 14, 213 195

4Q385 22 7

235

4Q385a (4QApocrJer Ca) 156 4Q385b 1 2

235

4Q390 2i 4–7 2i 5 2i 6

195 235 195

4Q392 (4QWorks of God) 1 8

128

4Q393 3 128 4Q397 14–21 10 14–21 15

235 235

4Q411 11 4Q414 (4QRitual of Purification A) 44 2ii+3 44 4 5–8 44 4QInstruction

247, 276

4Q417 (4QInstructionc) 2i 15–16

124

4Q418 (4QInstructiond) 81+81a 1

43, 44

4Q422 III 4–12 III 7–11

311, 313 308 308

4Q427–432 (4QHa–f ) 165 4Q427 (4QHa) 8 4Q428 165



The Dead Sea Scrolls 

4Q433 (4QHodayot–like A) 11, 165

4Q444 (4QIncantation)

70, 75, 185

4Q433a (4QHodayot–like B) 11, 165 1 5 381

4Q448 (4QApocrPs)

156, 165

4Q454 (4QPrayer E?) 1 3

308

4Q458 15 2

235

4Q486 1i 4

235

4Q434–438 (4QBarkhi Nafshia–e, Barkhi Nafshi) 8, 14, 31, 67–68, 165, 229, 253–254, 257, 260, 264–276 4Q434 265 1 266–268, 272, 274 1i 1 264, 273 1i 2 273 1i 3 273 1 3–4 268 1 9 268 2 267–269 7 272 4Q435 2i 1–5 4Q436 1 1i 1 1i 5–6 1i 10–1ii 4 1i 10 1ii 2 1ii 4

68

67, 264, 269–271, 274 273 68 68 68 69 69

4Q437 1 1 264 2 265 2i 271–273 2i 12 273 4Q438 253 3 2 273 4Q440 (4QHodayot–like C) 11, 165

 493

4Q491 (4QMa) 156 4Q491–496 10 4Q492 1 15 4Q496 10 4Q498 11 4Q502 11 4Q503 10 33i+34 19 195 4Q504 (Words of the Luminaries) 9, 17, 123, 133–136, 252, 261, 274, 282, 337 1ii 7–12 134 1–2iii 13 235 1–2v 8 195 1–2vi 7–8 195 2 135 2 6 125 XVII 6–7 308 XIX 5–7 337 4Q505 10 4Q506

10, 337

4Q507 147

494 

 Index of Ancient Sources

4Q508

147, 165

4Q509

10, 147, 165

4Q510–511 (Songs of the Sagea-b)

71, 185–210

4Q510 (Songs of the Sage A) 10, 15, 153, 165, 185, 191 1 192 1 1 36, 381 1 1–9 209 1 3–4 198 1 4 193 1 4–5 36, 193–194, 202 1 4–6 189 1 5 187 1 5–9 185 1 8 187 4Q511 (Songs of the Sage B) 10, 15, 153, 165, 185–186, 191, 198, 203–204 1 197, 205 1 3–5 36 1 4–7 197 1 6–7 193 2i–2ii 196–197, 204 2i 195 2i 1 192–193 2i 2 187 2i 2–3 195 2i 4 195 2i 6–10 199 2i 8 381 2ii 3 187 3 2–7 190 8 192–193 8 4 187, 193 10 192 10 1 187 10 1–3 189 10 1–8 185 10 8 187 10 9 187

205 18i 8–10 18ii 1–10 206 18ii 5 187 18iii 6–10 207 28–29 207 28–29 2–3 188 30 1–6 207 35 1–2 198 35 1–3 199 35 1–5 199 35 1–9 206 35 4 199 35 5 187 35 6–7 188, 193 35 7 125, 187, 202 37 198, 205 41 1–2 207 44+46 208 45 1–6 208 47 1–2 208 47 3–8 208 48–49+51ii 1b–6a 71 48–51 187, 208 48–51 2–3 193, 202 52 209 54 209 55 209 57 209 59 209 60 190, 210 63–64ii 194, 210 63–64ii 2 188 63–64ii 4 187, 194 63iii 194, 211 63iii 1 187 63iii 1–2 194 63iii 4–5 197 63iii 5 187, 194 63iv 1–3 187, 211 75 2 187 76 197 4Q512 10 29–32 4–5 44 33+35 5–6 44



Other Judean Desert Sites 

 495

4Q521 (4QMessianic Apocalypse) 168, 183 2ii 162

Plea for Deliverance 69, 73 (col. 19) 22:11 381

4Q522 163 22–25 4 381

11Q6 (11QPsb)

14, 163, 178

11Q7 (11QPsc)

163, 178, 398, 406

4Q525 (4QBeatitudes)

168, 183

4Q542 (4QTQahat ar) 1i 11

156 381

4Q544 (4QVisions of Amram) 1 11–12 72 5Q5 (5QPs)

159, 168, 177, 183

5Q7 (5QLamb) 183 6Q5 (6QpapPs?)

163

6Q18 2 8

81

8Q2 (8QPs)

168, 177, 183

11Q5 (11QPsa)

14, 15, 69, 162–163, 167–168, 172, 177, 183, 213, 217, 224–225, 232–233, 235, 283, 308, 357, 381, 395 6–14 159 7:14–8:15 169 27:11 233

11Q8 (11QPsd) 163, 178 2 159 11Q9 (11QPse) 178 11Q11 (11QapocrPs) VI 3–13

8, 13, 190 272

11Q13 (11QMelchizedek)

237

11Q14 (11QSefer ha–Milḥamah) 41 1ii 3–4 42 1ii 7–12 42 11Q17 4 7 4 8 10 5

381 381 381

11Q19 (11QTa, Temple Scroll) 13, 38, 156, 249, 277, 315–317 29 316 59:8 195 60:9–11 38 11Q20 (11QTb) 156

Other Judean Desert Sites Mas1e (MasPsa)

161, 163, 166, 168–169, 178, 184

Mas1  f (MasPsb)

156–157, 161, 163, 166–169, 178, 223, 229

Mas1k 165 MasSir 162 Mur3 (MurIsa)

161, 164

496 

 Index of Ancient Sources

5/6Hev 1b (5/6HevPs)

156–157, 168, 179, 184

XHev/Se 6 (XHev/SeEschatological Hymn) 2 8 308

Other Ancient Jewish Documents and Authors CD (Damascus Document) 37, 42, 47, 235, 310, 313, 314, 338 3:5–7 127 3:8 308, 310 3:21 235 4:1 382 4:3 382 4:13 235 5:5 382 5:6–8 49 6:1–2 235 7:10 235 7:17 235 16:4–5 37 19:7 235 20:28–29 338 Josephus 237, 315 Jewish Antiquities (Ant.) 8.109–119 233 14.3–4 48 14.16 48 14.91 53 Jewish War (J.W.)

1.6–7 48 1.17–18 48 Philo of Alexandria 86, 405 That God is Unchangeable (Deus) 74–82 405 Who is the Heir? (Her.) 270 86 On the Life of Joseph (Ios.) 86 214 On the Life of Moses (Mos.) I 139 86 That Every Good Person Is Free (Prob.) 159 86 On Dreams (Somn.) II 245–246

405

On the Virtures (Virt.) 88 86

Other Bible Translations Syriac Psalms 152–155 223 154:3–19 177, 183 155:1–19 178, 183 155:8 395

Latin (Vulgate) Psalms (Psalterum Gallicanum)

397, 398, 406

Sahidic Psalms 5:10 399



New Testament 

Pseudepigrapha Aramaic Levi Document (ALD) 69, 308, 310 13:6 308 Assumption of Moses (As. Mos.) 10:4 198 2Baruch (Syriac Apocalypse) 11:4 120 Book of Giants 247 1Enoch 59, 71, 190, 247 1–5 56 1:4–7 198 1:8 56 5:6–7 56 6:6–8 197 10:1–2 73 12:5 190 13:1 190 15 73 16:4 190 38:3 55 51:3 309 62:9–12 55 69:17 309 75:1–2 189 82:4–6 189 94:6 190 102:2 197 103:8 190 Jubilees

42, 72, 73, 249, 316 1 73 1:12 49

1:14 49 10 73, 190 11:17 375 12:19–21 73 15:31 197 22:27 375 23 197 23:19 49 23:21 49 45:5 375 Pseudo–Philo Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (L.A.B.) 12 10:7 308 19:5 308 Odes of Solomon 17 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs 74–77 Testament of Asher (T. Ash.) 75 1:5 75 1:6 76 1:6–8 76 Testament of Dan (T. Dan.) 2:4 76 Testament of Judah (T. Jud.) 20:1–2 75 Testament of Levi (T. Levi) 74 Testament of Reuben (T. Reu.) 75

New Testament Matthew 4:6 272

Mark 12:36 234

 497

498 

 Index of Ancient Sources

Luke 311 1:46–55 (Magnificat) 17 10:17–19 272 John 1:1–3 420 Acts 234, 386 1:16 234 2 236 2:25–30 234 4:25 234 7 311 Romans

339, 386, 393, 402 1–2 388, 392 1:1 387 2:6 386 2:14–15 388 2:26 388 2:17–24 388, 394 3 384, 388, 407, 408, 409 3:1 388 3:1–9 391 3:3 388, 391 3:4 384, 385, 386, 388, 389, 391 3:5 391 3:9 388 3:10 395, 396, 397 3:10–12 386 3:10–18 384, 385, 392, 394, 404, 405, 406, 408 3:11 397 3:11–12 397 3:12 396, 397, 400 3:13 386, 398, 399, 400 3:13–18 385, 393 3:14 386, 399, 400 3:15 400, 401 3:15–16 400 3:16 401 3:17 400, 402, 403

3:18 386, 403 4:6 386 4:7–8 386 5 271 5:41 258 8:3 423 8:15 422 8:36 386 9:25–29 406 9:31–33 394 10:9–10 422 10:14–11:11 394 10:18 386 10:18–21 406 11:2 386 11:8–10 406 11:9 386 11:9–10 386 14:11 423 15:1–13 423 15:3 386 15:9 386 15:11 386 1Corinthians 313, 386 3:20 386 4:13 386 10:26 386 11:23–26 313 14:15 411 14:26 411 15:25 386 15:27 386 2Corinthians 386 1:20 420 1:20–21 417 4:13 389 9:9 386 Galatians 3:13 423 4:4 423 4:6 422



Church Fathers and Early Christian Literature 

Ephesians 411 5:14 413 5:19 411, 412 Philippians 410, 413, 423 2 417, 419 2:5 416 2:5–8 420 2:5–11 422 2:6–11 410, 411, 413, 414, 416–424 2:9–11 420 Colossians 411 1:15–17 420 1:15–20 410, 411, 420 3:16 411, 412

1Timothy 3:16 413 Philemon 386 Hebrews 1:3 420 12:26 198 Revelation 401 1:16 401 2:12 401 5:1–14 412, 422 5:9–10 420 14:14 401 14:17 401 18:18 401 19:15 401

Ancient Greek and Latin Authors Xenophon Memorablia (Mem.) 1.6.14 393

Plutarch De tranquillitate animi (Peri Euthymias) 464f 393

Aristotle Topics (Top.) 1.14 393

Cicero De Inventione rhetorica (Inv.) 2.4 394 Pliny the Younger Epistulae (Ep.) 10.96–97

412, 424 411, 424

Church Fathers and Early Christian Literature Epistle of the Apostles (Epistula Apostolorum) § 19 234 § 35 234 Shepherd of Hermas

75

Nicene Creed

281

Athanasius Festal Letters (Ep. fest.) 39 405 Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho (Dial.) 27.2 394

 499

500 

 Index of Ancient Sources

Rabbinic Literature Mishnah Pesaḥim 5:7 228 9:3 228 10:6–7 228

Babylonian Talmud b. Ber. 28b 317

Ta‘anit 2:10 143 4:6–7 143

Targum Proverbs 21:19 289 25:7 289 25:24 289

Abot 3:1 372 4:32 372 Tamid 7:4 228 Soferim (Sop.) 42 143

Zoroastrian Literature Yasna 30.3 72

Targum Lamentations 143

Targum Psalms 137:4 344 Lamentations Rabbah 147 Yigdal 281 Birkat HaMinim

281

Index of Modern Authors Abrams, Meyer H. 84 Aejmelaeus, Anneli. 384, 387 Aitken, James K. 29–32, 40 Albertz, Rainer 286 Albl, Martin C. 401, 407–408 Albrecht, Felix 255 Alexander, Philip S. 71–72, 187 Allegro, John M. 122, 126, 143, 235, 405 Allen, Leslie C. 216, 218, 342, 348, 388 Amir, Yoshua 293 Anderson, Arnold A. 296 Anderson, Gary A. 92 Anderson, Jeff S. 32, 37, 62 Angel, Joseph L. 10, 38, 153, 185–187, 189, 191–192, 196, 199, 204 Archer, John 89 Ariès, Philippe 85 Arnold, Russell C. D. 7, 21, 134, 282 Assavavirulhakarn, Prapod 28, 30 Atkins, Peter 312–313 Atkinson, Kenneth 48, 53–54, 253–254, 256–259, 262–263 Austin, John L. 31, 60 Avemarie, Friedrich 406 Avigad, Nahman 156 Baars, Willem 255 Baethgen, Friedrich 107 Baillet, Maurice 8–9, 185–186, 194, 196, 337 Balentine, Samuel E. 105, 122, 293, 391 Ballhorn, Egbert 215–218, 220–222 Barrett, Charles K. 404 Barstad, Hans M. 140 Barthélemy, Dominique 8, 172, 179, 371–372 Barton, John 236, 247 Battaglia, Deborah 63 Baumgarten, Albert I. 287 Baumgarten, Joseph M. 43, 235 Baumgartner, Walter 358 Bayer, Bathja 343 Beaulieu, Paul-Alain 286 Becking, Bob 286, 351 Beckwith, Roger T. 287 Beentjes, Pancratius C. 360–361, 364, 367, 369

Bellah, Robert N. 103, 118 Bellinger Jr., William H. 16, 218, 224, 389 Berge, Kåre 132 Berges, Ulrich 140 Berlejung, Angelika 139 Berlin, Adele 133, 143–144, 146–147, 150, 256, 339, 341, 351, 356 Berner, Christoph 331 Berquist, Jon L. 286, 302–303 Berrin, Shani L. 249 Bezzel, Hannes 120 Biberger, Bernd 323, 327, 332–334, 336 Blank, Sheldon H. 50–51, 62 Blau, Josua 216 Blenkinsopp, Joseph 284–285, 287 Boda, Mark J. 109, 121, 127–128, 131, 141, 149–151, 331, 391 Bonanno, George A. 86 Bons, Eberhard 52 Bousset, Wilhelm 414 Boyer, Pascal 87–90, 98 Brady, Christian M. 143 Brand, Miryam 68–71, 73 Braun, Joachim 345–346, 355 Bray, Peter 88 Brettler, Marc Z. 67, 254, 277, 279, 293–294 Brichto, Herbert Chanan 41 Briggs, Charles A., and Emilie G. 107, 389 Broida, Marian W. 40, 42 Brooke, George J. 14–15, 18, 23, 41, 133, 227, 233, 237, 242, 244, 246, 249, 264, 265, 275, 277, 305, 307–308, 310–312, 314–317, 337, 387, 395, 404–407 Brown, Colin 414–415 Bruce, Steve 284 Brucker, Ralph 410 Brueggemann, Walter 218, 224, 294, 389 Bruin, Tom de 73–75 Buhl, Frants 106–107 Bultmann, Rudolf 412 Buss, Martin J. 301 Butler, Trent C. 291 Campbell, Jonathan G. 310 Carmi, Ted 355

502 

 Index of Modern Authors

Carmignac, Jean 11 Carr, David M. 19 Caubet, Annie 297 Chaniotis, Angelos 91 Chávez Jiménez, Hugo Alberto 365, 368 Chazon, Esther G. 6–7, 9–10, 17, 29, 47, 81, 128, 134–135, 185, 282, 337 Clifford, Richard J. 326 Cogan, Mordechai 345 Cohen, Mark E. 138–139 Cohn, Yehudah B. 36 Collins, Adela Yarbro 410, 413 Collins, John J. 20–21, 38, 362 Cook, Edward M. 264 Craigie, Peter C. 396 Creach, Jerome F. D. 372 Crenshaw, James L. 363 Croft, Steven J. L. 298 Crow, Loren D. 288, 294 Csordas, Thomas 88, 91 Czachesz, István 32, 34–35, 41, 93 Dahl, Nils Alstrup 404 Dahmen, Ulrich 172, 179, 357 Davies, Philip R. 284–285 Davis, Kipp 153, 155–156, 165, 178 deClaissé–Walford, Nancy 220, 238, 351 deVaux, Roland 347 De Troyer, Kristin 114 DeVries, Simon J. 330 Dibelius, Martin 412 Di Lella, Alexander A. 358, 370–373, 377–378, 380–381 Dimant, Devorah 227, 306, 319 DiVito, Robert 63, 65 Dixon, Thomas 86 Donald, Merlin 118 Donner, Herbert 353, 356, 378 Duhaime, Jean 99 Duhm, Bernhard 106–107, 356 Dunn, James D.G. 395, 404, 418, 424 Durkheim, Émile 302 Ebersole, Gary 93 Edgar, S. L. 404 Edsall, Benjamin 410–411, 413, 423 Ego, Beate 297 Ehrlich, Arnold Bogumil 107 Ehrlich, Uri 122

Eisma, Maarten C. 88 Embry, Bradley J. 256–257, 261 Emmendörffer, Michael 138 Eppel, Robert 75 Eshel, Esther 70, 188–190, 195 Evans, Craig A. 234 Ewald, Heinrich 106 Fabry, Heinz-Josef 225, 373–374, 380 Falk, Daniel K. 6, 10–11, 14, 16, 18, 103, 109, 128, 135, 150–151, 305–306, 337 Fee, Gordon D. 410 Fischer, Irmtraud 364 Fishbane, Michael 295 Fishman, Talia 292 Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 388, 390, 407 Fleming, Daniel E. 285 Fletcher-Louis, Crispin 196 Flint, Peter W. 157–161, 164, 167, 169, 173–177, 180–182, 214, 223–225, 232–233, 283, 305, 357 Flusser, David 69 Flynn, Shawn 291 Fraade, Stephen 250–251 Frevel, Christian 142 Füglister, Notker 322, 325 Gager, John G. 49 Gallagher, Shaun 95 García Martínez, Florentino 12–13, 23, 33, 55, 316, 398 Geertz, Armin W. 27–28, 95, 302 Geertz, Clifford 61 Geller, Stephen A. 283 Gerstenberger, Erhard S. 216, 218–219, 287, 294, 298, 303 Gevirtz, Stanley 300 Gilbert, Maurice 366 Gillingham, Susan E. 301, 306, 348, 350 Goff, Matthew J. 123, 132 Goering, Greg S. 361–362 Goldingay, John 216–219, 291 Gordley, Matthew E. 19, 255, 259 Goulder, Michael D. 293 Grabbe, Lester L. 298 Grant, Deena E. 296 Gray, Buchanan 253–254 Greenberg, Moshe 279 Grohmann, Marianne 294



Grol, Harm W. M. van 303 Gunkel, Hermann 1, 12, 16, 103, 106–108, 113–114, 293, 296, 301, 320, 322, 358 Gärtner, Judith 127–128, 320, 324–330, 336 Haag, Ernst 323 Haag, James W. 96 Hacham, Noah 147 Hahn, Robert B. 51 Hansen, Susan 284 Hanson, Paul D. 284 Haran, Menahem 300 Harkins, Angela Kim 6, 12, 22, 25, 80, 88, 92, 94, 282, 354 Harmon, Alan 386 Harvey, Graham 284 Hasselbalch, Trine Bjørnung v, 18, 20 Hawley, Robert 39 Hays, Richard B. 386–388 Heatherton, Todd F. 65 Heiler, Friedrich 301–302 Hempel, Charlotte 38 Hengel, Martin 371, 411–412, 418, 421–422, 424 Henrich, Joseph 97 Hillers, Delbert R. 140, 142 Hitzig, Ferdinand 106–107 Hoffman, Lawrence A. 281 Hofius, Otfried 395 Hollander, Harm W. 76 Holst, Søren 245, 249 Horgan, Maurya P. 143–144, 146, 236, 238, 249 Hornkohl, Aaron D. 283 Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar 106, 110, 112–114, 213, 216–218, 220–222, 238, 283, 286, 291–292, 296, 298, 321–322, 324, 327, 343, 351, 354, 388–389, 392 Houtman, Cornelius 286 Hurtado, Larry W. 411–412, 414, 417–422, 424 Hurvitz, Avi 283 Höffken, Peter 374 Høgenhaven, Jesper 143–145, 147, 150, 229, 231, 244, Ibba, Giovanni 187 Ilan, Tal 147 Jacob, Edmond 362

Index of Modern Authors 

 503

Jacobson, Rolf 220, 238, 343, 351 Jacobson, Yisachar B. 281 Jain, Eva 15, 158–161, 167, 169–170, 172, 174–179, 181–184, 219–220, 223–225, 232, 305 James, William 65 Janowski, Bernd 64, 220, 358–359, 380, 388 Janzen, Waldemar 148 Japhet, Sara 292, 347, 351 Jellicoe, Sidney 393 Jokiranta, Jutta 25, 27, 284, 307 Jonker, Louis C. 350 Joosten, Jan 29, 52, 255, Joüon, Paul 352 Joyce, Paul M 143 Justnes, Årstein v, 155, 339, 410, 423 Kampen, John I. 123, 132, 287, Keck, Leander 394 Keller, Carl A. 29–30, 37, 42 Kessler, John 286 Kim, Jinkyu 220 King, Daniel 86 Kislev, Itamar 291 Kister, Menahem 68–69, 196 Kittel, Rudolf 106–107 Kitz, Anne Marie 49–51, 57–58, 62 Klein, Anja 277, 308–309, 316, 318–329, 331–336, 338 Knoppers, Gary N. 285–287, 290, 300 Koch, Dietrich-Alexander 385, 392, 394, 397, 400, 402–403 Koch, Klaus 215 Koenen, Klaus 140–142 Konstan, David 86 Kraemer, Ross S. 287 Kratz, Reinhard G. 215, 300, 334–336 Kraus, Hans-Joachim 106, 140–141, 216, 218, 238, 342–343, 356 Kugel, James L. 73–76, 299, 344, 349–350 Kugler, Robert A. 20–21, 73 Kutsko, John F. 289 Kuzmičová, Anežka 93–94 Käsemann, Ernst 404 Körting, Corinna 103, 133, 137, 288, 344, 353 Laato, Antti 288 Labuschagne, Casper J. 289 Lakoff, George 64–65

504 

 Index of Modern Authors

Lambert, David 74, 97 Lane, Nathan C. 295 Lange, Armin 18, 69, 170, 189, 219–220, 223–225, 308–309, 315 Langer, Ruth 281, 305 Lapsley, Jacqueline E. 66 Larson, Erik 235 Lehmann, Manfred R. 381 Lehmann, Otto H. 317 Leonhardt, Jutta 405 Leuenberger, Martin 215, 217, 220, 222, 327 Levin, Christoph 356, 374–375, 377, 379 Licht, Jacob 11 Liesen, Jan 358 Lim, Timothy H. 249, 273 Linafeldt, Tod 120 Lipinski, Edward 90 Lohmeyer, Ernst 411–19, 422–424 Luhrmann, Tanya 88, 95–96 Machiela, Daniel 11 Mackey, Peter W. 74 Magonet, Jonathan 303 Mahmood, Saba 95–96 Mandolfo, Carleen R. 109–110, 120 Marböck, Johannes 362–363, 366, 380 Martin, Leonard L. 87 Martin, Michael Wade 410 Martin, Ralph P. 411–419 Martone, Corrado 380 Marttila, Marko 131, 339, 356, 360, 375–376, 379 Mathias, Dietmar 325 Mauss, Marcel 21, 302 Mays, James L. 219–220, 344–345 McNamara, Patrick 95, 97, 313 Metzger, Bruce 245 Michel, Otto 392, 394 Middendorp, Theophil 361–362, 380–381 Mies, Françoise 370–371, 374–375, 377, 382 Milgrom, Jacob 241, 243, 299 Millard, Matthias 220, 228 Miller, Patrick D. 215, 221 Miller II, Robert D. 289 Mitchell, David C. 213 Mittermaier, Amira 81, 96, 99–100 Mowinckel, Sigmund 16, 107–108, 150, 301 Moyise, Steve 404

Mroczek, Eva 167, 170–171, 344 Mulder, Martin J. 330 Mulder, Otto 374 Murray, Dwight 64 Najman, Hindy 13, 306 Nasuti, Harry P. 105 Nebe, Wilhelm 178, 184 Newman, Judith H. 81, 114, 116–117, 150, 152, 306 Newsom, Carol A. 16–17, 19–20, 22, 25, 63, 72, 78, 110, 125, 165, 255, 274, 282, 307, 313, 355 Neyrey, Jerome 86 Nickelsburg, George W. E. 19, 48, 56 Nielsen, Eduard 106 Nitsche, Stefan Ark 140 Nitzan, Bilhah 21–22, 134, 187–189, 201, 305, 318 Nongbri, Brent 86 Obiorah, Mary Jerome 297 O’Connor, Kathleen M. 119–120, 143 Oesch, Josef. M. 363 Olofsson, Staffan 372 Oorschot, Jürgen van 334 Paden, William E. 284 Pajunen, Mika S. 5, 7, 9, 13–15, 46, 122, 131, 161, 166, 187, 229, 232, 234, 250, 252–254, 257, 264–266, 268, 272–273, 282, 284, 303, 306–308, 312, 337, 384, 387–388, 392 Pakkala, Juha 374 Palmisano, Maria 366 Pelikan, Jaroslav 281 Penner, Jeremy 5, 17, 46, 134, 188, 252, 260 Peppard, Michael 410–411, 413, 418 Ploeg, Johannes van der 8 Popkes, Enno Edzard 402 Porter, Stanley E. 386 Pröbstl, Volker 330, 332, 334 Puech, Émile 9, 11, 380 Pyysiäinen, Ilkka 32 Qimron, Elisha 11, 123, 194, 196, 198, 250–251, 264, 370 Quinn, Naomi 64 Rahlfs, Alfred 393, 398–400, 405–406 Rappaport, Roy A. 21, 35, 60 Regev, Eyal 284



Reif, Stefan C. 370 Reitemeyer, Michael 359 Rendsburg, Gary A. 346 Reynolds, Kent Aaron 131 Rezetko, Robert 283 Richards, Kent H. 30 Ringgren, Helmer 23 Ro, Johannes 287 Roberts, Jimmy J. M. 289–290 Robinson, John T. A. 392, 404 Rom-Shiloni, Dalit 285 Rosen-Zvi, Ishay 63, 69, 73–75 Rudnig, Thilo A. 373, 376 Rudolph, Wilhelm 148 Rüsen-Weinhold, Ulrich 387 Ryle, Herbert 56 Römer, Thomas 322, 324, 327–328, 331, 336 Rösel, Christoph 376 Sáenz-Badillos, Angel 352 Sanday, William 404 Sanders, James A. 14, 213–214, 225, 232–233, 381 Sarna, Nahum M. 300 Satlow, Michael L. 292 Sauer, Georg 360, 370, 372–373 Schaper, Joachim 140, 286, 291–292 Scharbert, Josef 32 Schattner-Rieser, Ursula 11 Schenke, Hans-Martin 393 Schiffman, Lawrence H. 20, 146 Schmid, Konrad 332 Schmidt, Karl Ludwig 412 Schnabel, Eckhard J. 53 Schofield, Alison 21 Schrader, Lutz 362 Schroer, Silvia 64–65, 148 Schüler, Sebastian 95 Schuller, Eileen M. v, 1, 5–6, 11–12, 14, 150, 162–163, 165–167, 177, 305–306, 312, 317 Schunck, Klaus-Dietrich 332 Schwartz, Seth 292 Schweitzer, Steven James 349 Scott, John 285 Scott, Matthew 386 Seely, David 14, 253, 264–265, 269, 271

Index of Modern Authors 

 505

Segal, Michael 249 Searle, John R. 31 Seigel, Jerrold 63 Sekki, Arthur E. 71 Seybold, Klaus 356, 366 Shaver, Judson R. 292 Shear, M. Katherine 88 Silva, Moisés 387 Skarsaune, Oskar 394 Skehan, Patrick W. 223, 358, 370–373, 377–378, 380 Slyke, Daniel G. van 29 Smith, Barry D. 265 Smith, Eliot R. 95 Smith, John A. 301 Smith, Mark M. 350 Smith, Mark S. 291 Sommer, Benjamin 297 Sosis, Richard 97 Spieckermann, Hermann 291, 295, 321, 324 Stanley, Christopher D. 386, 389–390, 393, 397, 399–400, 402–405 Staubli, Thomas 64–65 Steck, Odil H. 90 Stegemann, Hartmut 9, 11, 20, 186 Steudel, Annette 156, 242 Stowers, Stanley K. 391 Strugnell, John 8, 122–123, 126–127, 131–132, 145, 236 Stulman, Louis 119 Sukenik, Eliezer 7, 11, 156 Swanston, Hamish F. G. 311 Sweeney, Marvin A. 297 Sørensen, Jesper 32–37, 39–42, 44–45, 47 Tate, Marvin E. 298, 390–391 Tajfel, Henri 279–280 Talmon, Shemaryahu 134, 178, 184, 219–220 Taylor, Charles 25, 63–64, 77 Thackeray, Henry St. John 233 Tigchelaar, Eibert 13, 55, 69, 270, 316 Timmer, Daniel C. 40–41 Tobin, Thomas 390 Todd, Cain 84, 100 Tomasino, Anthony J. 83, 99 Tov, Emanuel 122, 156–158, 162–163, 166, 168, 171–172, 180, 185, 247, 311

506 

 Index of Modern Authors

Trafton, Joseph L. 51, 253–255 Tso, Marcus 239, 244 Ulrich, Eugene 245–246 Urbanz, Werner 359 Uusimäki, Elisa 131 VanderKam, James C. 20, 73, 367 Veijola, Timo 376, 378 Venter, Pieter M. 151 Vermes, Geza 424 Versnel. Hendrik S. 49 Wagner, Andreas 31 Walter, Tony 85 Waltke, Bruce K. 352 Weber, Beat 322, 326 Webster, Brian 172, 179 Wellhausen, Julius 53, 107 Weinfeld, Moshe 18, 253, 264–265, 269, 271, 295, 377 Weiser, Artur 342 Weitzman, Steven 99 Werline, Rodney E. 25, 48–49, 61–62, 103, 109, 117, 126, 128, 130, 134, 149, 151, 252, 391 Westermann, Claus 106–109, 111, 113–120, 141 White Crawford, Sidnie 180, 182, 306 Wieringen, Archibald van 351–352 Wilke, Alexa F. 140

Willgren, David 153, 212, 215–216, 227, 229, 232 Williamson, Hugh G.M. 332 Wilson, Bryan R. 285 Wilson, Gerald H. 212–215, 220, 222, 226 Winninge, Mikael 253–254, 256 Wischnowsky, Marc 138, 149 Wise, Michael O. 316 Witherington, Ben III 411, 424 Witte, Markus 321, 361, 366 Wolff, Hans Walter 64–65 Wolfson, Elliot R. 96 Wright, Jacob 66 Wright, Robert B. 48, 51–52, 57, 253–255, 258 Würthwein, Ernst 330 Yadin, Yigael 156, 316 Yarchin, William 217 Yishay, Roni 15 Young, Ian 283 Zahn, Molly M. 306 Zapff, Burkard M. 362 Zenger, Erich 106, 110, 112–114, 213, 215–223, 238, 283, 286, 291–292, 295–296, 298, 321–322, 324, 327, 342–343, 350–351, 354, 388–389, 392 Zimmerli, Walther 326 Zsengellér, József 373