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

Chapter 2: History of Psalms Studiesredactors deliberately used authorship designations to bind groups of psalmstogether and “to mark strong disjunctions” (p. 339). Within books two andthree of the Psalter, he also demonstrated conscious use of genredesignations to soften changes between authorship groupings when no strongdisjunction is intended.Wilson also found what he called tacit evidence of purposeful redaction. In thefourth and fifth Books of the Psalter, authorship designations are too scarce toserve as indicators of organisational intent. However, in the tradition ofMesapotamian hymn collections that often use “praise” or “blessing” to“conclude documents or sections within documents” (Wilson 1984:349), heobserved that the redactors of the fourth and fifth Books used hallelujahpsalms, that is, psalms opening and/or closing with הַ‏ ַֽ לְ‏ לּויָּה (praise the Lord!),to indicate the closing “boundaries of discrete segments of the largercollection” (p. 350). Furthermore, each group of hallelujah palms is followedby a psalm opening with “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for hislovingkindness is everlasting” (the so-called הודּו psalms). Wilson interpretedthis as a marker of the beginning of a new subgroup of psalms. He concluded:All these factors confirm that the conjunction of hllwyh and hwdwpsalms in these texts is not coincidental, but is the result ofconscious arrangement according to accepted traditions and28