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

Chapter 5: Concatenation in Psalms 3-8point for the study. Although Psalm 9 balances well with Psalm 7, it should benoted that Psalms 9-10 originally formed a single poem (see §5.2.1 above),which ruins the perfect symmetry of Psalms 7-9. I believe it is best to interpretthe move from lament (Ps 7) to praise (Ps 8) as the climactic end of the firstgrouping of psalms (i.e., the first crescendo). Psalm 9-10 takes this climax,adoration of Yahweh’s majestic name, as its point of departure to begin thenext grouping of psalms. Therefore, it is proper to consider Psalm 8 as theending point of the group beginning with Psalm 3.5.6 ConclusionsThe objective of this chapter was to identify links between adjacent psalmsand analyse how they might have served as the editorial rationale forjuxtaposing psalms. An attempt was made to weigh both (a) whether there isenough linkage to suggest purposeful placement of each pair of psalms and(b) if the answer is yes, then which links did they use as the basis ofconcatenation?I noted strong links between three pairs of psalms—Psalms 3-4, 4-5 and 7-8.For each of these pairs, there is convincing evidence of concatenation, so thequestion of whether there was purposeful arrangement received a confidentaffirmative answer. Psalm 6 emerged as the black sheep of the family. Its227