CHAPTER VIII

THE GROWTH OF THE JEWISH PSALTER

LD Testament criticism has established by analysis of

which have come down to us, the fact of a growth or evolution in the religion of Israel. An attempt is now being made to determine the relation of the Psalter to this religious evolution, and thus to fix the dates both of the Psalter and of the individual psalms which compose it.

The Psalter was, admittedly, a church hymnal. Now it is certainly true of the hymns contained in modern collections of hymns for Church use that few or none of those more than a century old are sung as they issued from the author's hand. The more popular a hymn, moreover, the more liable it is to change, and the great hymns of the Church have been gradually moulded into their present shape by a long process of manipulation. In fact, an excellent introduction to the study of the Psalter is the Te Deum. An ancient hymn of uncertain origin and gradual growth, in later ages confidently ascribed to those famous fathers of the Church, Ambrose and Augustine, and to a particular occasion in the life of the latter, it has a history instructively parallel to that of more than one of the Psalms of David. We may lay it down as a principle universally applicable in criticism of hymns and songs long in popular use, that they change and grow in the mouth of the people. If this is true of the West, even down to our own time, much more was it true of the days of primitive antiquity, and among the Oriental Hebrews, careless

as we know them to have been, until a comparatively late date, about any text but that of the Law.

We are not confined to an argument from principle and analogy. There are not a few psalms in which both change and growth are patent to the most casual observer. Such are Psalms ix. and x., which together originally constituted an alphabetic acrostic, every second verse commencing with a different letter in the order of the alphabet. Of the original poem, so easily traceable owing to this alphabetic arrangement, the first eighteen verses of the ninth and the last seven verses of the tenth Psalm, representing the first ten (D has dropped out) and the last four letters of the alphabet, are preserved almost unchanged. But instead of sixteen intervening verses, representing the other eight letters of the Hebrew alphabet, we now have thirteen verses entirely without acrostic arrangement. In other words, for some reason, this originally alphabetic psalm was afterwards modified by the removal of more than a third of the original number of verses and the substitution of others, in which no attempt was made to preserve the alphabetically acrostic arrangement. Moreover, the inserted verses (which, by the way, present a corrupt and ill-preserved text in striking contrast to the rest of the psalm) are quite opposite in tone to the original portion. This is hopeful and almost triumphant, while the newer part is mournful and complaining.

Another example of the addition of mournful verses to a joyful hymn is furnished in Psalm xliv. Here the first eight verses, closed with a Selah in the Hebrew, constitute an original triumph-song, to which a later poet added a much longer dirge of lamentation. This method of growth, by addition at the end rather than insertion in the middle, is naturally the more common. Still another example is Psalms xlii. and xliii. These two are one psalm, consisting of three strophes, each strophe closing with the same refrain. The last strophe is of later origin than the others, and was composed upon the second strophe as a basis. Similarly in Psalm iv. the last four verses are a later composition, made

up of citations from or allusions to other writings, after the manner of Psalm lxxxvi. It can be shown that Psalms iii., xlvi., lxxx., and not a few others, have grown in a similar way by the addition of new stanzas, sometimes as long as the original poem, or longer. In other cases two or more separate psalms have been welded into one, as in xix., xl., and lxxvii. This seems to have been a common method of composition in the later period. An excellent example of its use is furnished in 1 Chronicles xvi., where a psalm of David is composed, as if on purpose for our instruction, out of Psalms cv., xcvi., and cvi. Similarly Psalm cviii. was composed out of Psalms lvii. and lx.

There are also a few psalms in which we can show the composition of a longer liturgical hymn, or part of a hymn, for a more ancient, shorter liturgical formula as a theme or motive. Psalm lxviii., in its original form, was composed on the theme of the ancient formulæ of the ark contained in Numbers x. 35, 36. Psalm cxviii. is founded on the ancient sacrificial chant: "Give thanks to Yahaweh Zebaoth, for Yahaweh is good, for His mercy endureth for ever" (Jer. xxxiii. 11). Psalms cvi. and cvii. make free use of the same theme; Psalm cxxxvi. reborrows it from cxviii. and develops it still further. More common is the addition of a refrain to mark the close of a stanza musically, the insertion of single verses of an explanatory or parenthetical character, or the addition of what might be called a postscript at the end of a psalm. A good example of the addition of a refrain may be found in Psalm xlii., or still better in Psalm xlvi., where it is rendered more apparent by the fact that the refrain (vv. 7 and 11) is Yahawistic, while the psalm is Elohistic. In Psalm xlii. a later Yahawistic recension is evidently responsible for the insertion of verse 8, which destroys the symmetry of the strophes and interrupts the movement of thought. Verses 20 and 21 of Psalm li. may be taken as a specimen of the postscript. The object of these verses, according to nearly all the critics, was to give a sacrificial character to an anti-sacrificial psalm. Their relation to the remainder of the psalm in regard of

their content may be compared with the relation of the speech of Elihu (chaps. xxxii.-xxxvii.) to the remainder of the Book of Job. In several cases these postscripts are marked by the use of Adonai (Lord), where the psalm itself has consistently employed either Yahaweh (LORD), or Elohim (God). This would seem to indicate an Adonistic recension of the Psalter, or some parts of it. Such an Adonistic postscript has been added, for example, at the close of the already composite Psalm xliv.

This brief statement gives a very inadequate view of the amount and nature of the changes which have taken place in the growth of individual psalms and which render necessary the greatest caution in any attempt to date them by their contents.

Again, if the Psalter was the hymn-book of the Jewish Church, it follows from all analogies that it represents largely the popular side of religion. Now the spiritual leaders are in advance of the people, and even after they are canonised the general belief of the Church still lags behind them. Moreover, popular belief, or the belief of the Church at large, is inconsistent. It accepts the prophets on the one side, and inherited forms and even superstitions on the other; subscribes to the one, and practises in large measure the other. The popular belief of the Church can never be measured by the strict canons of the theologians. So it comes to pass that people will profess orthodoxy in their creeds and sing heresy : in their favourite hymns with the most naïve unconsciousness of any inconsistency between them. All this must be carefully taken into account in a critical study of the Psalter. I do not mean to deny that there are not a few psalms which are quite abreast of the thought of the spiritual leaders, having, indeed, been composed by them. I also recognise the fact that the whole Psalter received a certain priestly tinge or bias from its use in the Temple, and that a considerable portion of the last two books was actually composed in the Temple itself, or under the immediate influence of the Temple service. But, as a whole, the Psalter represents, like all hymnals, what we may roughly call the popular theology, inconsistent and un