Reading the Psalms as Scripture (eBook)

II

READING THE PSALMS WITH THEIR SUPERSCRIPTIONS

Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech,

so that he drove him out, and he went away.

PSALM 34, SUPERSCRIPTION

Because the superscriptions were included in the Psalter received as inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore canonical, we will treat them as true and valid guides to our reading of the Psalter. Here we look at the arrangement and distribution of the superscriptions to see what those who put the Psalter in its canonical form intended to communicate by them.

Many of our favorite Christian hymns have back stories with which we’re familiar. Horatio Spafford penned “It Is Well” shortly after all four of his daughters drowned when the vessel carrying them sank. Joseph Scriven wrote a poem to his mother after the death of his fiancée—this after another woman to whom he was engaged years earlier had died the day before they were to wed. We now know the poem as “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

Imagine every time you sang those songs you were given a one to two line summary of the context surrounding them. This would, for one, serve as a reminder that the best art does not fall from the sky but arises out of (often painful) concrete circumstances. And two, it would influence the way you read and sing those songs.

Or imagine learning that certain hymns were intended for use at a certain point of the worship service, or that a writer produced a certain set of hymns to mark an historical occasion, or that a composer borrowed a previous melody and employed it to great and lasting effect, as Bach did with the Latin hymn, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” All these details would prove significant for our reception of the songs. This is what we have in the superscriptions of the Psalter.

English translations often print the superscriptions in “small caps,” which are capital letters that are the same size as lowercase letters. The text in small caps next to the number of the psalm is the superscription, and it is part of the canonical text. Sometimes translation committees will add a summary thought above the psalm. These subtitles are not part of the canonical text. So the beginning of Psalm 3 in the ESV looks like this:

The previous chapter made clear that we hold the superscriptions to be significant factors for how to read the Psalms. This chapter asks and answers two questions regarding the superscriptions: first, how should the superscriptions be regarded—as later accretions from uninspired authors, or as inspired components of the canonical text? The second question is: how should the superscriptions guide our interpretation of the Psalms? The very fact that we think they should do so reveals that we think the superscriptions are inspired elements of the canonical text, to which we turn our attention.

ARE THE SUPERSCRIPTIONS INSPIRED?

The simple fact is that no textual witness to the canonical Psalter lacks the superscriptions. While there are witnesses to the text of the Old Testament, such as the translation of the Psalter into Greek, that have clearly added to the superscriptions, this in no way indicates that the Psalter was received into the growing collection of canonical Scriptures without the superscriptions.

In addition to the witness to the canonical text found in the actual manuscripts—the Hebrew text and the Greek translations—we also have indications within the canonical Old and New Testament texts that the superscriptions were regarded as containing true information about who wrote the psalms.

For instance, 2 Samuel 22:1 states, “And David spoke to the LORD the words of this song …,” and what follows in the rest of the chapter (2 Sam 22:1–51) essentially matches Psalm 18. The author of Samuel believed that the content of Psalm 18 came from David. Similarly, 1 Chronicles 16:8–36 consists of content from a number of different Psalms, and that content is prefaced in 16:7 by the words, “Then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the LORD by Asaph and his brothers.” The clear implication, as attested in translations from the KJV (“David delivered first this psalm … into the hand of Asaph”) to the NIV84 (“David first committed to Asaph and his associates this psalm of thanks”), is that David provided the song that Asaph and his brothers would sing.

Later in Chronicles we have indication that the psalms whose superscriptions name David and Asaph were understood as having been written by those men when we read in 2 Chronicles 29:30, “And Hezekiah the king and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the LORD with the words of David and of Asaph the seer.” This idea from the Old Testament itself, that the psalms were “the words of” those named in the superscriptions, which the authors of Samuel and Chronicles both articulate, no doubt resulted from the attempt to clarify who wrote what, an attempt attested in the additional superscriptions found in the Greek translation. The New Testament authors likewise understand the superscriptions to indicate authorship of the psalms, and they bear witness to the Lord Jesus himself doing the same.

This does not mean there are no difficulties. For instance, the superscription of Psalm 34 names Abimelech where the narrative of Samuel gives the name Achish (1 Sam 21:10). Many today recognize that this is probably not a simple error. Such an error might be made by someone with only cursory knowledge of Samuel, but David had more than a cursory knowledge of the king of Gath’s name. Even if an error had initially been made, it likely would have been quickly corrected. But there “Abimelech” stands where we would otherwise expect to see “Achish.” Perhaps the most common explanation today is that, given the way that Abraham and Isaac both encountered Philistine kings named Abimelech (Gen 20:2; 26:1), Abimelech may have been a name or title shared by all Philistine kings, so that Abimelech is another way of referring to Achish.

We would suggest that whether or not this is the case, David can be understood as identifying the king of the Philistines in the land of promise whom he encountered with the kings of the Philistines in the land of promise encountered by Abraham and Isaac. In other words, David is identifying Achish as his own version of Abimelech. Such an identification forges connections not only between the various Philistine kings but also between Abraham, Isaac, and David. If the superscription prompts us to identify David with Abraham and Isaac in the reading of Psalm 34, that superscription will have definitely influenced our interpretation of the psalm.

To that subject—how the superscriptions influence our interpretation of the Psalms—we now give our attention.

HOW SHOULD THE SUPERSCRIPTIONS GUIDE OUR INTERPRETATION?

The superscriptions of the psalms help us to identify smaller units of psalms within the Psalter’s Five Books, and these units further enable us to see flows of thought within both the smaller units and the Five Books of the Psalter. Examination of the superscriptions and the smaller units they help us discern also reveals literary structuring that advances our interpretation.

SMALLER UNITS

We discussed the way that Psalms 1–2 introduce the Psalter in the previous chapter, and here we can continue with an observation on how the superscriptions of Psalms 3 and 9 connect to one another. Having introduced the nations raging against Yahweh and his anointed in Psalm 2:1–3, the superscription of Psalm 3 indicates that the psalm presents David’s response to the kind of rebellion against Yahweh and his king described in Psalm 2.

The superscription of Psalm 3 reads, “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom, his son.” What does it look like when the nations rage against Yahweh and his anointed? It looks like Absalom stealing the hearts of the men of Israel and trying to kill his father and make himself king in his stead. The “evening prayers” of Psalms 3 and 4 (see Ps 3:5; 4:8) give way to the “morning prayer” of Psalm 5 (see 5:3), before David calls on Yahweh not to give him what his enemies deserve in Psalm 6—all these appeals stem from Psalms 1 and 2. David then pleads his innocence in Psalm 7, whose superscription ties it to the kinds of accusations Shimei made against David as he fled from Absalom (see 2 Sam 16:5–8). This is followed by Psalm 8, where David articulates the glory of Yahweh through the son of Adam, king from the line of David, son of man and son of God exercising dominion (see Gen 1:28; Ps 8:6–8). All this sets up the way the superscription of Psalm 9 works as a bookend with that of Psalm 3.

The ESV renders the superscription of Psalm 9, “To the choirmaster: according to Muth-labben. A Psalm of David.” The phrase “Muth-labben” has simply been transliterated into English letters. One way to translate the phrase into English words would result in the reading, “concerning the death of the son,” a phrase that could be taken to signal the end of Absalom’s revolt with his death at the hands of Joab (2 Sam 18:14–15). This understanding would see all of Psalms 1–9 working together as follows: Psalms 1 and 2 introduce the...