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

Chapter 6: Composition of Psalms 3-8On the basis of the observations made during this study, I believe it ispossible to reconstruct tentatively the editorial process the editors followed.1) They began with a large group of Davidic דָ‏ וִ‏ ד)‏ ‏(לְ‏ psalms. They thengathered together those psalms in which references to enemies playeda prominent role and accounted for the presence of several othercommon themes. This group included all six psalms in my corpus,Psalms 3-8. 1432) The group of “enemy psalms” included two existing sub-groupings.First, Psalms 3 and 7 were found together. Second, Psalms 4-6 weretogether in the music director’s collection.3) Careful reading showed strong affinities in terminology betweenPsalms 3 and 4. It also surfaced a few key links between Psalms 6 andpossible variations in the order and a few floating colours that either did not fit anywhereproperly or else could fit well in a few places.143 This would not prohibit there being psalms in other groups in which enemies play aprominent role. It is possible for there to be more than one collection of what might be termed“enemy psalms”. Alternatively, enemies might play a prominent role in certain psalms thatwere placed in a different group on the basis of one of their other prominent themes.292