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

Chapter 6: Composition of Psalms 3-8The headings of Psalms 4, 5 and 6 each mention the instruments that were toaccompany the singing of these hymns in public worship. Only eight psalmheadings mention instruments, namely, “stringed instruments” in Psalms 4, 6,54, 55, 61, 67 and 76 and “flutes” in Psalm 5. Psalms 4-6 are the only threepsalms in Book I for which instruments are indicated. They also form the onlychain of three consecutive psalms mentioning instruments. 126Since only eight psalms indicate musical instruments, the statistical probabilityof three of them occurring consecutively by random chance is remote (1 in9845 to be exact). It seems likely that Psalms 4-6 were originally a trio ofpsalms within the music director’s collection that the compilers positioned as atrio after Psalm 3, no doubt because of the striking verbal and thematicsimilarities between Psalms 3 and 4.The fourth feature of the headings is that Psalms 3 and 7 have similarheadings. They are two of the thirteen Davidic psalms containing an historicalnote in the superscription. Unlike the other four psalms in my corpus, theylack the designation “for the director of music” and they do not contain any126 Indeed, nowhere else in the Psalter are there two consecutive psalms that have headingsmentioning instruments.238