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

Chapter 6: Composition of Psalms 3-8Psalms 5 and 6, but not Psalms 4 and 6. Psalms 4 and 6 belonged to thesame functional collection by virtue of the similarities in the genre (individuallaments) and headings (“with stringed instruments”), but were not linked bystrong verbal-thematic concatenation. The final editors of Book I of the Psalterthen inserted them between Psalms 3 and 7, creating a smooth transition atPsalms 3-4 and a sensible (though less natural) link at Psalms 6-7.With respect to Psalms 4-6, three conclusions can be drawn from thepreceding arguments. First, they were probably a pre-existing collection ofthree psalms belonging to the music director’s collection. Second, within themusic director’s collection, they were arranged on the basis of verbal-thematiclinks between adjacent psalms. Third, in the final editing of Book I, they wereinserted between Psalms 3 and 7 due to the strong affinities between Psalms3 and 4. The second “seam”, the one between Psalms 6 and 7, was plausible‏.אָ‏ יַב and קשש because of the hook words6.2.4 Exhaustive list of shared lexemes in Psalms 3-8For the sake of completeness, it seems necessary to conclude the analysis ofverbal links between Psalms 3-8 with an exhaustive list of shared lexemes.Table 6.10 presents such a list. I shall make a few comments about significant262