(director: lyric, of David)

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This psalm is as compelling in its parts as it is as a whole. Its overall structure and movement are clear, with three intertwined motifs. First, a prayer for “answer” (1, 6, 9) and “help” (2) or “rescue” (5, 6 [x2]. 9). Second, a call for remembrance (3, 7). Third, the raising of the divine name: the Lord’s four-letter personal name appears five times (1, 5, 6, 7, 9), “God” three times (1, 5, 7), and maybe most significantly, the word “name” itself appears three times: once as an appellation (1), once as a source of celebration (5), and finally as an object of memory (7). With these strands braided together, the psalm becomes both collective memorial and continuing prayer, for it ends with almost the same wishes with which it began: “The Lord answer you” becomes “may he answer us” (1, 9). The overall movement is from benedictions upon a singular “you” (1-4, 5c) to a homiletic plural “we” (5a-b, 6-9), which makes the appeals and the memories collective. It’s camera work. Cue: a speaker saying “the Lord answer you.” Cut to: “His anointed he answers” (6). Cut to: “may he answer us” (9), where that last “he” is pointedly ambiguous in its reference to either the Lord or the king (as the Masoretic Text preserves).

At the center of this whole are the dramatic words “Now I know” (6), which reveal the first-person speaker and locate the psalm in the present tense. But what does the speaker now know? That “the Lord has rescued”— another perfect tense, showing completion. After all, in verse 5, the speaker has just called for banners and shouts to be raised “for your rescue.” How does this accomplishment of victory in the middle of the poem, anticipatory or actual, affect the last verse? Having been answered already by God, does the collective “we” now call on the king in turn? Or does this last call for rescue suggest that the “rescue” celebrated earlier was only in process, “mission accomplished,” or imagined? It seems a psalm that would have to be repeated. Now. No, now.

While the psalm works well as a whole, what seem like stanzas also read like they would fit different settings and contexts. They seem detachable: verses 1 and 2, verses 3 and 4, verse 5, verse 6, verses 7 and 8, verse 9. Each part has its own coherence and deserves its own attention. The first two verses, for example, tightly crafted, are valedictory. The next two are liturgical, a benediction for prosperity. The stanza of collective memory in verses 7 and 8 are a gem on their own: “These of chariots | these of horses / we of the name of the Lord | our God make remembrance” (7). The particle represented here by “of,” before “chariots,” “horses,” and “the name,” can be translated in multiple ways: we make a memorial of the name, a memorial in the name, a memorial by, with, or through the name. Most English translations supply “trust in” or “boast in” before the chariots and horses. But the verb is already there: “to cause to remember.” What making remembrance means may not be apparent. That it must be enacted, however, is the point of the line, the stanza as a unit, the psalm as a whole. 

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20:1 the name of Jacob’s God  The reference to Jacob may just be a synonym for Israel. It also calls to mind Jacob’s name change and his request to know God’s name in Genesis 32.

20:2 the hallowed place  I.e., the sanctuary in Jerusalem

20:3 your meat offering | may it drip fat  The verbal root dashein literally means to become rich and greasy, and has specific ritual meanings (Exod 27:3 and Num 4:13). In the Book of Proverbs, it also suggests prosperity (e.g., Prov 11:25, 15:30). Alter comments that this line is “a linguistic survival (not necessarily a theological one) of the pre-monotheistic idea that the gods took pleasurable nourishment offered them” (66 n4). While the exact parameters of the ancient whole-offering (rendered here as “meat offering”) are described in detail in Leviticus and afterward, the origins of the practice are not known (see Jastrow et al., “Burnt Offering” The Jewish Encyclopedia). The pleasures of meat, fire, smoke, and fat are hardly merely “pre-monotheistic.”