The Book of Psalms

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  • Psalm 84

    (director: on the Gath harp, of the Qorachites, lyric) * * * This psalm lurches interestingly. It’s so caught between different verse patterns and readymade phrases that it would be tempting to call it a hodgepodge or even a mess rather than “a lively exchange of various forms, motifs, and themes” (Kraus II 166). But Read more

  • Psalm 83

    (a song, an Asaph lyric) * * * As the final psalm in the sequence from Psalm 42-83, a grouping often called the Elohistic Psalter for its heavy use of the name ’elohim (“God”), Psalm 83 derives much of its meaning from association with the first psalm (or “psalms”) of the collection, Psalm 42-43. As Read more

  • Psalm 82

    (an Asaph lyric) * * * Psalm 82 is the best example in Psalms of the value of cherishing ambiguity, not just tolerating it. Where does God (’elohim) stop and the gods (’elohim) begin? There are no quotation marks here, no attributive tags to delimit who speaks when. So is it God who speaks in Read more

  • Psalm 81

    (the Gath harp, of Asaph) * * * At two poles of interpretation, Psalm 81 is either a cohesive whole or disjointed pieces. Seeing it as unified, some scholars have argued that it must have part of an actual liturgical rite, actually recited at a specific time— the beginning of the month at the new Read more

  • Psalm 80

    (director: to The Witness Lilies, an Asaph lyric) * * * Two images govern Psalm 80: the grapevine, an extended figure for Israel that’s common in the former and writing prophets, and the face, which shows up seven times throughout the psalm, sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden. Other metaphors arise, to be sure, tropes for leadership Read more

  • Psalm 79

    (an Asaph lyric) * * * Unlike the psalms that precede it, Psalm 79 centers on not remembering: “Don’t remember at us | our prior wrongs / hurry, let come at us | your tendernesses / for we have been so | abased” (8). The curious irony is that these three lines are preceded by Read more