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

Chapter 6: Composition of Psalms 3-8(the קדר family of words). Psalm 7 does indeed have strong verbal links toPsalm 5 and equally strong links to Psalm 6, sufficiently strong to provide arationale for keeping Psalm 7 with Psalms 5-6. As I argued in chapter 5, therationale for linking Psalms 7 and 8 lay in their shared terminology, particularly“the name of the Lord” ם־יהוה)‏ ‏;שֵ‏ see §5.5 for a full discussion).Table 6.7 also shows that the verbal linkage between Psalms 4 and 7 is veryweak. This explains why the editors did not leave Psalms 3 and 7 togetherand insert Psalms 4-6 after Psalm 7, leaving the sequence 3-7-4-5-6. Thelinks between Psalms 4 and 7 were too weak to justify this arrangement,which would also not have allowed Psalms 7 and 8 to be juxtaposed.It seems clear that although the headings were a major factor that the editorstook into consideration when arranging this corpus, they were not the mostimportant factor. The editors gave pride of place to verbal and thematic linksbetween psalms. They were prepared to separate heading-defined clusters ofpsalms in order to ensure that there were strong verbal links betweenadjacent psalms. This priority emerges in their decision to insert Psalms 4-6between Psalms 3 and 7. Doing so divided what would have been longclusters of מִ‏ זְ‏ מוש and ַ ֵ לַ‏ מְ‏ נַ‏ psalms. Dividing these clusters was justified by thefact that the chosen arrangement produced strong verbal links between255