Smith DTh Thesis (final).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

Chapter 5: Concatenation in Psalms 3-85.1.1 Verbal linksExcluding its heading, Psalm 3 has 72 words, 53 of which are uniquelexemes. Psalm 4 contains 88 words with 64 unique lexemes. 96 Together thetwo psalms contain 99 unique lexemes; 18 of them occur in both psalms. Theshared lexemes, together with the frequency of occurrence in each psalm, 97,(1:1) יָשֵ‏ ן ,(5:6) יהוה ,(4:7) וְ‏ ,(1:1) הַ‏ ,(1:6) בְ‏ ,(1:2) אָ‏ מַ‏ ש ,(1:2) אֱ‏ ‏ֹלהִ‏ ים ,(1:1) אֶ‏ ל areרָ‏ שָ‏ א ,(1:1) קַ‏ ש ,(1:1) ףָ‏ נָ‏ ה ,(3:2) ףַ‏ ל ,(3:2) סֶ‏ לָ‏ ה ,(1:1) מָ‏ ה ,(3:5) לְ‏ ,(2:2) כִ‏ י ,(1:1) כָ‏ בוד(18/53) percent (1:1). This means that Psalm 3 shares 34 שָ‏ כַ‏ ב (1:2), שַ‏ ב (1:2),of its vocabulary with Psalm 4, while Psalm 4 shares 28 percent (18/64) of itswords with Psalm 3. Since 18 of 99 lexemes are shared, the gross verbaloverlap is 18.2 percent.If we exclude terms which are so common that their being shared by adjacentpsalms has little or no significance—conjunctions, prepositions, particles, the96 These figures are calculated by counting the Hebrew article, conjunction and inseparableprepositions as separate “words”; רָ‏ שְ‏ אִ‏ י ‏,בְ‏ for example, is counted as two words, שָ‏ א + בְ‏ ‏.רָ‏ Ifthese conjoined lexemes were not counted separately, Psalms 3 and 4 would have 64 and 73words respectively.97 The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of times the lexeme occurs in Psalms 3and 4 respectively.183