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

Chapter 6: Composition of Psalms 3-8Books I-III belonged to the music director’s collection. Thepsalms לַ‏ מְ‏ נַ‏ ֵ ַappear to have been an earlier collection that the final editors attempted tokeep together in the final arrangement of the Psalter. Their clustering points toלַ‏ מְ‏ נַ‏ deliberate grouping rather than random arrangement. Amongst the 55 ַ ֵpsalms, we find one group of thirteen (Pss 49-62), one of seven (Pss 64-70),a string of six (Pss 8-14, counting Pss 9/10 as one psalm), one of five (Pss18-22), two of four (Pss 39-42 and 44-47), two triplets (Pss 4-6 and 75-77)and three pairs (Pss 80-81, 84-85 and 139-140). In a string of 32 psalmsspanning Psalms 39-70, only three did not belong to the music director’scollection. 124 Once again, the fact that Psalm 7 breaks what would otherwisebe a sequence of nine consecutive ַ ֵ לַ‏ מְ‏ נַ‏ psalms (Pss 4-14) 125 points towardsits positional significance.124 This assumes that any psalm not designated ַ ֵ לַ‏ מְ‏ נַ‏ did not belong to the music director’scollection. This assumption is by not means certain, but it is reasonable given that thepresence of ַ ֵ לַ‏ מְ‏ נַ‏ in the heading is the only evidence we have by which to identify psalmswhich once belonged to this collection.125 I am once again counting Psalms 9/10 as a unit so that the heading of Psalm 9 coversPsalm 10 as well.237