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

Chapter 5: Concatenation in Psalms 3-85.5 The relationships between Psalms 7 and 85.5.1 Verbal linksExcluding their headings, Psalm 7 contains 169 words with 102 uniquelexemes, while Psalm 8 has 92 words with 60 unique lexemes. 115 These arethe 17 shared lexemes (the numbers in parentheses indicate the frequency of,(7:3) בְ‏ ,(1:2) אֲ‏ שֶ‏ ש ,(1:2) אֶ‏ שֶ‏ צ ,(2:1) אֶ‏ ‏ֹלהִ‏ ים ,(1:1) אָ‏ יַב psalm): occurrence in eachמִ‏ ן ,(7:1) לְ‏ ,(2:4) כֹל ,(3:1) כּון ,(1:1) כָ‏ בוד ,(8:2) יהוה ,(22:10) וְ‏ ,(3:4) הַ‏ ,(1:1) בֵ‏ ן(1:2). Psalm 7 shares 17 percent (17/102) of שֵ‏ ם (2:1) and קשש (5:1), ףַ‏ ל (1:2),its vocabulary with Psalm 8, while Psalm 8 shares 18 percent (17/92) withPsalm 7. The gross verbal overlap is 12 percent (i.e., 17 of 145 lexemes areshared).The weightiest verbal link is the occurrence of שֵ‏ ם in the last line of Psalm 7and in the first and last lines of Psalm 8. The central theme of Psalm 8 is themajesty of Yahweh’s name ם־יהוה)‏ ‏,(שֵ‏ as is clear from the opening and closingrefrain (“Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth”), which115 These figures are calculated by counting the Hebrew article, conjunction and inseparableprepositions as separate words. If these conjoined lexemes were not counted separately,Psalms 7 and 8 would have 132 and 72 words respectively.221