A Radical Collection at the Heart of the Hebrew Psalter

‘The Conflict between Faith and Experience’ was also the title of Craig Broyles’ form-critical study of most of the lament psalms (1989). By contrast, Smith attends to only eleven psalms, not all of which merit the title ‘lament’. Furthermore, Psalms 73-83 have been the focus of several other seminal publications: Smith’s second chapter is a most helpful account of the current state of scholarship, giving initial attention to Gerald Wilson, J. Clinton McCann, Robert Cole, and Christine Jones. So what does Smith offer which is distinctive? Intriguingly, he adapts the theory of ‘parallelism’, normally applied to a psalm verse, to examine how this entire group of psalms exhibits at a macro-level, a complex parallelism in its patterning. Similar linguistic expressions occur not only within neighbouring psalms (for example, 80 and 81) but also between psalms more distant from each other (74 and 79). This patterning does not imply there is a narrative running throughout these psalms (a theory which is popular in contemporary psalms studies). The progression is more subtle and theological than this. Psalm 73 forms a programmatic introduction, challenging the core Israelite creed that ‘God is good to Israel’ (p. 188). Psalms 74-76 dispute the belief in God’s status as the Great King; Psalms 77-78 problematise the covenant theme as in Exod. 34:6-7; Psalms 79 and 82 question the confidence in God’s status as defender of justice; and Psalms 80-81 similarly contest the status of Israel’s God as one who saves and delivers. Psalm 83 stands outside this programme, creating a conclusion to it. Smith highlights the various parallel relationships between Psalm 73 and these other four ‘pairings’, thus presenting a more sanguine view of the Davidic/Zion traditions. Nor does the patterning imply an interest in the origins of these psalms. Smith it is more concerned with ‘how’ these psalms were brought together, rather than ‘why’: once discrete units, they were organised in this way by post-exilic exilic compilers to create a distinctive message and purpose. Not only is Psalm 83 peripheral, but so too is Psalm 50, the only other Asaphite psalm which was once an inherent part of this collection, and now split from it by the insertion of Psalms 51-72. Smith’s delineation of ‘literary parallelism’ thus applies primarily to Psalms 73 82. This raises questions about the parallelistic coherence of the Asaphite collection as a whole, but Smith would probably argue that this is what this Hebrew text suggests. This then leads us to ask whether the Dead Sea Scrolls and the LXX cast doubts on this analysis, where the DSS order and LXX syntax no longer exhibit the same sort of parallel connections. Nevertheless, this is an engaging and original work. Smith’s argument certainly makes one think about the theological impact of this radical collection, and its significance in being at the very heart of the Hebrew Psalter.