Updating the writer’s previous essay in Currents, ‘Engaging the Psalms: Gains and Trends in Recent Research’ (1994), this extensive essay targets the many diverse books and articles reflecting the multi-faceted research on the Psalms published during the past two decades. While necessarily selective, this survey opens with article and book-length studies focused on the Psalter in its entirety. These studies range from those primarily intended for novice readers, to intricate, in-depth scholarly commentaries. Subsequently, many publications invested in more specific topics are discussed. These address the Psalms in their ancient Near Eastern milieu, probe crucial form-critical and rhetorical-critical issues, and focus on the shaping of the Psalter, its potential as a book of theology, and its reception across the centuries.

Continuing the Engagement: Psalms Research Since the Early 1990s

It is quite possible that the psalm appointed for this All Saints’ Day has already faded from memory. Perhaps the other readings (Dan 7:1– 3, 15–18; Eph 1:11–23; Luke 6:20–31) stuck in the mind a bit more—beasts coming out of sea, the glorious inheritance of the saints, the extreme discipline of the beatitudes—when the psalm did...what we expect psalms to do. It praised God, it exhorted us to praise God, and it did all that with rather shopworn verbiage. Sing a new song (v. 1b)? The refrain has grown (ironically) old. Timbrel and harp (v. 3)? They connote not so much ebullience or innovation as museum-like antiquity. The faithful rejoicing on their beds (v. 5b) sounds quaint, almost hobbitish. And so it behooves us to think again about praise; to see if we can refresh our sense of what it is and why the saints characteristically do it. The other readings lift up signature activities of the saints: withstanding the beasts, sharing in resurrection power, practicing radical love, even for enemies. But Psalm 149 directs us to another and arguably more essential activity, the one out of which the whole rest of our discipleship cascades, and that is: praise. ‘Praise the Lord!’ the psalm begins (v. 1a). The lines that follow help us to recognize what this entails. Praise is something verbal, something sung: ‘sing his praise’ (v. 1b). It is thus an action of the mouth and throat (‘let the praises of God be in their throat,’ v. 6a). But praise is also a whole-body activity, involving dance and the operation of musical instruments (v. 3b). Praise is celebration. It maxes out the celebratory capacities of whatever body-part it touches: human intelligence and creativity craft a new song. Mouths and throats sing and shout. Bodies dance and fingers play. Praise is a public matter. It takes place ‘in the congregation of the faithful’ (v. 1c). It is a shared commendation and enjoyment. But praise is also private, surging up in the most intimate spot, on one’s bed. Above all, praise celebrates God. This kind of all-encompassing, whole-body, thoroughly communal and intimately private celebrating is probably unfamiliar to most of us—in any context, let alone in connection with God. It is very far from measured corporate recitation of a psalm. It exceeds our experience of hymns sung together with gusto. At least as the psalms present it, such praising seems downright enthusiastic. We of North Atlantic cultures may not repeat the exact forms of psalmic rejoicing. But we can imagine how our bodies and minds would express an enormity of joy they have never yet before. But if this is what praise is, the question of its source arises. From whence does the saints’ celebration of God come? The psalm appointed for today points us firmly to the answer. Its first three verses list out a chain of commands: praise 6th November: All Saints’ Day

6th November: All Saints’ Day: Psalm 149

L'A. analyse le psaume 149 en presentant d'abord les problemes qu'il pose notamment quand au theme de la vengeance qui y est contenu, et quand a son genre, sa datation et sa structure. Il etudie la forme paralellique, le style et le vocabulaire du psaume, concluant qu'il est divise en deux strophes (versets 1-5 et 7-9) avec le verset 6 au centre. Le psaume a une intention persuasive et l'A. discute du genre auquel il se rattache.

Willem S. Prinsloo

Papers

Psalm 149: Fraise Yahweh with Tambourine and Two-edged Sword