Susan Gillingham - Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3

By contrast, the illuminated initial C to verse 1 in the * St Albans Psalter ( C onfitebimur tibi Deus ) depicts the psalmist rejoicing in the fate of the just, whilst God looks down from heaven with three of the faithful who have been saved: this hints at verse 7, ‘putting down one and lifting up another.’ 57

A final image is from Moshe *Berger. The image has a deep blue background on three sides, with a turquoise semi-circular wreath-shape set against it; a bright white light emerges from the fourth side and in the centre is an emblem, in purple and red, of David. Berger comments that David still praises God’s faithfulness, for even when he sent the seed of Jacob into exile, he remained Israel’s God and protector. 58

So the psalm as a whole is an example of the very different, irreconcilable interpretations given by Jewish and Christian interpreters, although each speak about God’s judgement on their enemies.

Psalm 76 has some correspondences with Psalms 46 and 48. 59Its mood is more positive: here the God of Zion can redeem his people. However, the more prophetic elements in Psalm 76, and its references to the terror of God’s judgement, make it closer to the more negative tenor of Psalm 75. If one reads ‘Salem’ in verse 2 as a reference to a northern sanctuary, then verses 1–3 of the psalm might pertain to the Assyrian crisis; these verses would then have been ‘received’ in the South sometime after Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701. This is certainly the way this was understood in the *Septuagint: an addition to the title reads ‘A Song against [in view of] Assyria’, whilst verses 1–3, the most likely verses from this period, are presented in the past tense. Later Jewish tradition tended to read the psalm as influenced by the Assyrian crisis.

This is a difficult psalm to organise into strophes. Verses 1–3 might be seen as one unit; verses 4–6 suggest another, perhaps from an ancient hymn; verses 7–9 suggest another, marked at the end by *selah; and verses 10–12 could be another, later, addition. So this is another composite psalm also with several problems in translation. 60

Much of the psalm’s reception history relates to the violent imagery in the psalm. *Targum tries to temper the harsh tone by adding to verse 4 (Eng. v. 3) that God’s *Shekinah dwelt with his people when they did his will, and the reading of verse 11 (Eng. v. 10) is ‘When you are angry with your people, you will have compassion on them, and they shall praise your name; and you will gird yourself with the residue that remains to you of the heat of your anger with which you raged, to destroy the nations’. 61*Kimḥi reads the psalm as about the last battle against Gog and Magog, bringing in the end of the exile and establishing God’s world rule. The eleventh-century *Talmudic scholar, Hai Gaon, is more specific: this war would be waged during the month of Tishri, at the time of Tabernacles and hence the psalm is to be the ‘Song for the Day’, that day, according to the Talmudic tractate Sopherim (19:2), being the first of *Sukkot. 62Because of the addition of ‘Assyria’ to the title in Greek, as well as the reference to the deposition of the nations in verse 13 (Eng. v. 12), Hezekiah is discussed as a potential Messiah; however, being too proud in his own might, and refusing to sing songs, the honour was returned to David. 63The shared concern in all these writings is with the eventual release of the Jews from exile and the coming of God’s kingdom.

A Christian reading again moves in a different direction. *Ambrose is amongst the first to read the psalm as about the epiphany of God through Christ, causing the earth to tremble. By interpreting ‘Zion’ in verse 2 as the Christian church, a Christian narrative is possible which begins with Christ’s ‘dwelling place’ in Zion: this begins in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (verse 2), and ends with the earthquake announcing his resurrection (verses 8–9). 64So a Gloria to this psalm runs ‘Glory be to the Father, known in carnal Jewry; glory be to the Son, known in spiritual Jewry.’ 65*Cassiodorus connects the ‘terror of judgement’ in verses 8–9 with the saving ‘all the oppressed of the earth’: this is exemplified in Jesus Christ, who when he judges the earth will save the meek. 66These readings explain the use of the psalm as an offertory for Easter Sunday, as seen in the Terra tremuit et quievit settings of verses 8–9. *Handel took up this celebratory theme in his use of verse 6 (alongside Ps 89) in the seventh of his Chandos Hymns (1718–19), ‘Why so full of grief, O my soul?’ which finishes with a joyful chorus celebrating God’s saving justice. 67

The celebration of the faithful over the wicked is vividly portrayed in the * Eadwine Psalter (fol. 132r) in its reinterpretation of the *Utrecht Psalter in colour. The *Christ-Logos sits on a globe in the heavens, surrounded by six angels, and just below it is a fortification which appears to be the tabernacle (verse 2) where the righteous are praising God (verse 11); also taken from this verse is a man outside the walls, with his hand to his mouth, making his vow. The Christ-figure is also in the middle of the scene, subduing the wicked (verse 3). Below him three men on horseback appear to be in some sort of stupor (verses 5–6). This is an allegory of Christ’s defence of the church. 68

Jewish art occasionally represents the celebratory tone of the psalm: this focusses on God’s defence of his people in Zion. The * Parma Psalter (fol. 105A) has an image of a human figure with an eagle’s head, playing a stringed instrument. Four other instruments, most unusually, are also represented in the spaces above the psalm and below the initial word. Together they illustrate part of the heading of the psalm in Hebrew: ‘with stringed instruments’. 69

A different mood of majesty and serenity is captured by Mary *Sidney, who chose a hexameter metre to suggest a royal and heroic theme; the lack of structure in the Hebrew is now turned into five stanzas of a-b-a-b-c-c. The last stanza, based on verses 10–12, reads: 70

Then let your vows be paid, your off’rings offerèd

Unto the Lord, O you of his protection:

Unto the fearful let your gifts be profferèd

Who loppeth princes’ thoughts, prunes their affection.

And so himself most terrible doth verify,

In terrifying kings, the earth doth terrify.

John Endicott was a fierce Puritan who sailed to the New World in 1628 and co-founded the New English Company in Massachusetts. In 1629 the Indian name of that first English settlement was changed from Naumkeag to ‘Salem’. Tradition has it that this was an intentional allusion to ‘Salem’ in Ps. 76:2 (‘His abode has been established in Salem’): this was the New Jerusalem, in line with Puritan political theology.

Christian reception succeeded in reading positively all four psalms of this *Asaphite collection; but this is the first psalm in the collection which Jewish reception also viewed in a more optimistic way. So even though this psalm has been interpreted very differently throughout Jewish and Christian tradition, both concur that God will have victory over the forces of evil.

Psalm 77 again suggests earlier northern elements: verse 15, with the reference to Jacob and Joseph, is the best example. However, the final cause for the lament is more likely to be the Babylonian exile rather than the Assyrian crisis: its use of cosmic and mythological traditions to describe the crossing of the Sea has correspondences with Psalm 74. 71Like the two previous psalms, there are a few complexities of translation: for example, * ketib/qere’ occurs three times, and the tenses and moods of the verbs are hard to follow. Two long strophes might be suggested: a lament in verse 1–12, with the theme of ‘remembering’ in verses 3, 6 and 11; and a hymn anticipating God’s victory in verses 13–20, which moves from the world of myth to a Jewish view of their history.