Susan Gillingham - Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3

Plate 21Psalm 118:19–20: Christ Rides through the Gates of Jerusalem. From The Theodore Psalter , British Library MS 19352, fol. 157v (with permission from the British Library Board).

Plate 22Psalm 118: An invitation to Enter God’s Gates with Thanksgiving. From The Oppenheimer Siddur (Bodleian Ms. Opp. 776 Fol. 79b it).

Plate 23Psalm 124:7: Our Soul is Escaped like a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowlers. © Benn, Les Psaumes . Lyon: Musee des Beaux-Arts, 1970 (no page numbers).

Plates 24 and 25Psalm 126, with English and Hebrew text: © Psalm 126, Hebrew and English illuminations, from I Will Wake the Dawn: Illuminated Psalms , by Debra Band. Jewish Publication Society, 2007 (with permission of the author).

Plate 26‘By the Waters of Babylon’. From The Eadwine Psalter , Trinity College M.17.1, fol. 243v (with permission from the Master and Fellows of Trinity College).

Plate 27Psalm 137:5 ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem…’. Mosaic of Psalm 137 in the Chagall State Hall, Knesset (© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2020 ).

Plate 28Psalm 148 fol. 41v: ‘Christus Rex’. From Les Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry , Musée Condé Chantilly (© with permission from the Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux).

Plate 29Psalm 149:1: ‘Sing to the Lord a New Song’. From The Parma Psalter , Biblioteca Paletina, Parma, MS Parm 1870 (Cod. De Rossi 510), fol. 213b (with permission from the owners of the facsimile of The Parma Psalter , at www.facsimile-editions.com).

Plate 30Psalm 150: ‘Praise the Lord!’. Marc Chagall’s stained glass window at Chichester Cathedral (© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2020).

It was almost twenty-five years ago when my initial conversations with Christopher Rowland and John Sawyer resulted in a contract to produce a volume on the Psalms in the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series. It took two years of research to recognise the size of a project which was to examine the Jewish and Christian reception history of the Book of Psalms over two and a half millennia. The first step required setting up a data base, both digitally and in hard copy, which would organise the vast amount of material into time periods and types of reception. Even with the support of several short-term research assistants, and two sabbaticals, I was not able to start writing what would become Volume One until 2004. Very soon I realised that this publication could not be an actual commentary: it was a distinctive cultural history of the Psalter, referring to selected psalms as examples of different types of reception.

Before submitting that manuscript I had to seek permission to extend this work to a second volume which would then become the commentary. Hence the title Psalms through the Centuries: Volume One for the 2008 publication. It then became clear that I could not write any commentary until I had created another data base, psalm by psalm, adapting the earlier prototype. There was no other Psalms Commentary like it to use as a model, so the preparation time, even given two more sabbaticals and several effective research assistants, took far longer than anticipated. The contract for the entire commentary (Volume Two), was mainly achieved through the mediation of the then Old Testament editors of the Wiley Blackwell Bible Commentary Series, John Sawyer (Newcastle) and David Gunn (Fort Worth), but it was ultimately dependent upon the extraordinary support of the then Publisher for Religion, Rebecca Harkin.

Using the general chronological and geographical framework established in Volume One, the commentary required a particular format for each psalm. I start by assessing each psalm as part of the process of compilation of the Psalter as a whole, for this represents the earliest stage of its reception in Hebrew; I then look at corresponding evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls; this leads on to examining reception through translation, especially the Greek and Latin versions, which witness to both Jewish and Christian reception; I then turn to the Christian commentary tradition in the New Testament, Church Fathers, and Medieval and Reformation Commentators, and similarly the Jewish commentary tradition in the Midrash Tehillim , the Mishnah , the Targums , and Medieval Commentators. After this I assess non-verbal reception, especially the vast number of illustrated Psalters from the ninth-century onwards, both in the West and the East, at this point mainly Christian. This is followed by an evaluation of musical reception history, particularly from the fifteenth-century onwards, and thence to an assessment of poetic imitations of the psalms and their use in literature and film. At the final stage I explore the different sorts of discourse which develops from the seventeenth-century onwards—political, ethical, historical, and social.

Although I began writing up this commentary in 2011, I decided at the same time to undertake a more experimental work on just two psalms, looking at their reception history as comprehensively as possible. A Journey of Two Psalms: The Reception of Psalms 1 and 2 in Jewish and Christian Tradition was published by Oxford University Press in 2013. Its length was 140,000 words, and even allowing 70,000 words for each psalm, it was thirty-five times as much as I could allow for each of the 150 psalms in this present project. So for this Wiley-Blackwell commentary I tried to be as selective as possible, but by the time I had reached Psalm 89 the length was well over the limit originally agreed, and by 2015 it became clear that the commentary needed to be extended to a third volume. Understandably, these were difficult negotiations, and again I was extremely grateful to John Sawyer, David Gunn, Christopher Rowland, and Rebecca Harkin (in her new role as Publisher for Humanities) for being so persistent on my behalf. Volume Two was published in 2018, actually finishing at Psalm 72 to achieve the required word count: Psalm 89 would have been a more natural place, coming at the end of Book Three, but this was not a time to argue for niceties. 1

As I gained speed from experience, Volume Three has taken only three years to write. The format is as for Volume Two, except that here I often approach more contentious psalms thematically, selecting two or three key issues arising from their reception, integrating these themes into the template outlined above. This third volume has been supported by two younger editors representing the Wiley Blackwell Commentary Series, Andrew Mein (St. Andrews) and Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (Örebro). Their different skills have vastly improved this present manuscript: Lena has given it meticulous attention to detail and Andrew has brought to it many linguistic, musical and historical insights. I am equally grateful to Catriona King, now Director of the Global Publishing Team at John Wiley & Sons, and also to Juliet Booker, who did so much to promote the publication of Volume Two and prepare the way for Volume Three. Hannah Lee has taken important initiatives in the editorial management of this volume, and to my great relief both the copy-editor for Volume Two (Carolyn Holleyman) and the indexer for that volume (Caroline Jones) agreed to use their skills in this present volume as well.

Over this twenty-five year period it is difficult to single out the legacy of particular research assistants on this third volume. John Ritzema (London) and Natasha O’Hear (St. Andrews) deserve special mention, but Holly Morse (Manchester) undoubtedly stands out: she worked on the data base for both Volumes One and Two, and her contribution in matters of art history has been invaluable for Volume Three as well. Danny Crowther (Oxford) has also done sterling work, complementing Holly in his text-critical skills and in his passion for early Jewish reception. He has honed the data-base, making it more easy to access, managed the bibliographical resources, prepared many of the resources psalm by psalm, and has read through the text more times than I can remember. Lucinda Armstrong, undergraduate at Worcester and now a doctoral student, stepped in at the last minute to undertake some final proof-reading. I am grateful she did. Finally, I am also indebted to Eleanor Vivian, another undergraduate student turned graduate, now researching at Birmingham University, for her eagle eye for detail and her work on tedious end-projects such as the Glossary, list of Abbreviations, and the final Bibliography. It is now becoming a cliché, but it is nevertheless sincere: the mistakes that remain are solely my responsibility.