The Book of Psalms

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  • Psalm 126

    (a song of steps) * * * A marvelous interweaving of lines, Psalm 126 shows in its few verses that biblical poetics needs for an operating principle, its ars poetica, only the two-step of parallelism. If we feel like it, we readers can measure syllables and mark rhymes. But pairs and binaries are as simple Read more

  • Psalm 125

    (a song of steps) * * * It’s easy to miss how strikingly revisionary is the image that begins Psalm 125. Ordinarily, Mount Zion is depicted as the Lord’s home, his house, his throne (see for example, 1 Kgs 8, especially verses 11-14; see “my hallowed hill” Ps 2:6; “the Lord | who sits in Read more

  • Psalm 124

    (a song of steps, of David) * * * Each of the first five verses of Psalm 124 begins with a word that marks a logical argument: lulei, “if not” (1, 2), azai, “then” (3, 4, 5). It doesn’t take a degree in philosophy to see that such counterfactual claims are unfalsifiable. The language is Read more

  • Psalm 123

    (a song of steps) * * * Psalm 123 stands or falls on one gesture. The lifting of eyes, which began Psalm 121 in the imperfect form, half-fear, half-hope, here becomes more complicated still. The gesture that starts this psalm is presented as completed, not “I lift” but “I have lifted,” in the perfective form Read more

  • Psalm 122

    (a song of steps, of David) * * * In Psalm 122, a shared walk to the temple in Jerusalem, in the present tense, calls to mind past-tense unity, leading to an impassioned plea for present and future peace. In addition to this narrative movement from present experience (1) to cultural memory (2-5) and back Read more

  • Psalm 121

    (a song of steps) * * * One can live with words a long time and not see them for all they are. Psalm 121 is sung and said so often and its care runs so deep and clear it is easy to miss its more-than. At first glance or at five hundredth, the psalm’s Read more