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

Chapter 6: Composition of Psalms 3-8language, abounds with terms pertaining to righteousness, justice andjudgement. Yahweh is a “righteous God” (7:10) and a “righteous judge” (7:11).He has “appointed judgement” (7:7) and “judges the peoples” (7:9) so as to“establish the righteous” (7:10) and to “save the upright” (7:11). The psalmistalludes to himself using the terms “righteousness” (7:9), “integrity” (7:9) and“upright in heart” (7:11). As a theme, while there is an implied contrastbetween the wicked enemies and the more righteous psalmists throughoutPsalms 3-8, only Psalms 4 and 7 strongly emphasise the righteousness of thepsalmists.Joy and praise. These two themes surface in some way in each psalm exceptPsalm 3, but are prominent only at the end of Psalm 5 and throughout Psalm8. In Psalm 4:8, the psalmist credits Yahweh for putting “joy in my heart”,while Psalm 5 closes with a request that God would cause his own people to“rejoice” (5:12), “sing for joy” (5:12) and “exult 138 in you” (5:13). Psalm 6:6implies that if Yahweh spares the psalmist’s life, he will “give you praise”.Psalm 7 closes with vows to “give thanks” (7:18a) and to “sing praise” (7:18b)138 Swanson (1997:§6636.1) defines the underlying Hebrew word, לַ‏ צ ‏,ףָ‏ as follows: “(qal)rejoice, be jubilant, i.e., be in a state of joy, which may include verbal expressions of joy andpraise” (emphasis in original).283