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Towards a theology of the Psalm titles: The Davidic voice and the totus Christus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 July 2023
Abstract
This article explores the ways in which the thirteen ‘biographical superscriptions’ which are found throughout the Psalter contribute to the blending of the Davidic voice which they invoke and the corporate voice of the community which receives them. It suggests that by receiving these thirteen Psalms, the canonical community enters an intensive identification with David and participates in the Davidic life and experience. Once this is established, the discussion turns to examine these insights in a Christian theological context in conversation with Augustine's totus Christus principle. It is suggested that the hermeneutical situation created by the biographical superscriptions provides a way for the totus Christus principle to be re-invoked in contemporary interpretation.
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References
1 These Psalms are: Pss 3; 7; 18; 34; 51; 52; 54; 56; 57; 59; 60; 63; 142. There is some debate as to whether Ps 7 should be included in this list as it departs from the normal grammatical formula used to introduce the historical incident (ב + infinitive construct) and introduces the subject of David's song using על which elsewhere is used to indicate the rendering of the Psalm. See Childs, Brevard S., ‘Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis’, Journal of Semitic Studies 16/2 (Autumn 1971), pp. 137–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 A striking example of the suspicion directed towards the Psalm titles is their omission from the New English Bible (the translation of the Old Testament was published in 1970).
3 The most influential figures in this regard were, of course, Herman Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinckel. See Gunkel, Hermann, Introduction to the Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel, trans. Nogalski, James D. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962); cf. the assessment at the opening of Childs, ‘Psalm Titles’, p. 137.
4 See for instance, Childs, Brevard S., Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1979), pp. 504–25Google Scholar; Wilson, Gerald H., The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984)Google Scholar; deClaissé-Walford, Nancy L., Reading from the Beginning: The Shaping of the Hebrew Psalter (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Flint, Peter W. and Miller, Patrick D. (eds), The Book of Psalms: Composition and Redaction (Leiden: Brill, 2005)Google Scholar; cf. Willgren, David, The Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Mays, James Luther, ‘The David of the Psalms’, Interpretation 40 (1986), pp. 143–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nogalski, James D., ‘Reading David in the Psalter: A Study in Liturgical Hermeneutics’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 23/1 (2001), pp. 168–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rendtorff, Rolf, ‘The Psalms of David: David in the Psalms’, in Flint, Peter W. and Miller, Patrick D. (eds), The Book of Psalms: Composition and Redaction (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 53–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Johnson, Vivian L., David in Distress: His Portrait Through the Historical Psalms (London: T&T Clark, 2009)Google Scholar; Culley, Robert C., ‘David and the Psalms: Titles, Poems, and Stories’, in Linafelt, Tod, Camp, Claudia V. and Beal, Timothy (eds), The Fate of King David: The Past and Present of a Biblical Icon (London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 153–62Google Scholar; Heard, R. Christopher, ‘Penitent to a Fault: The Characterization of David in Psalm 51’, in The Fate of King David (London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 163–74Google Scholar; Adrian H. W. Curtis, ‘“A Psalm of David, When…”: Reflections on Some Psalm Titles in the Hebrew Bible’, in James K. Aitken, et al. (eds), Interested Readers: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David J. A. Clines (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2013), pp. 49–60; Witt, Andrew C., A Voice Without End: The Role of David in Psalms 3–14 (University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2021)Google Scholar. The concerns here are almost exclusively with David as he is presented through the Psalm titles. David only makes a significant appearance as a figure in the body of the text in Pss 78; 89; 132; see Knowles, Melody D., ‘The Flexible Rhetoric of Retelling: The Choice of David in the Text of the Psalms’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67/2 (April 2005), pp. 235–49Google Scholar.
6 There are comparable concerns in Howard N. Wallace, ‘King and Community: Joining with David in Prayer’, in Bob Becking and Eric Peels (eds), Psalms and Prayers: Papers Read at the Joint Meeting of the Society of Old Testament Study and Het Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België, Apeldorn August 2006 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 267–77.
7 Childs, ‘Psalm Titles’, p. 143.
8 Ibid., p. 137.
9 The exceptions being Ps 7 (see note 1 above) and Ps 18. The idiosyncrasies of Ps 18 can be explained through its connection with 2 Sam 22:1. Ibid., pp. 138–9.
10 Ibid., p. 138.
11 Ibid., p. 148.
12 For a detailed chronicling of the Psalm titles in different witnesses, see Staerk, W., ‘Zur Kritik der Psalmenüberschriften’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 12 (1892), pp. 91–151CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Slomovic, Elieser, ‘Toward an Understanding of the Formation of Historical Titles in the Book of Psalms’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 91/3 (1979), pp. 350–80,CrossRefGoogle Scholar especially pp. 356–64; Pietersma, Albert, ‘David in the Greek Psalms’, Vetus Testamentum 30/2 (April 1980), pp. 213–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 218–9; Willgren, Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms, p. 186.
13 The evidence for the Second Temple as the centre of Psalm compilation is gathered in Susan E. Gillingham, ‘The Zion Tradition and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter’, in J. Day (ed.), Temple and Worship: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2005), pp. 308–41; Susan E. Gillingham, ‘The Levites and the Editorial Composition of the Psalms’, in William P. Brown (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms (Oxford: OUP, 2014), pp. 202–13; cf. Mark S. Smith, ‘The Levitical Compilation of the Psalter’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 103 (1991), pp. 258–63. Something like this scenario is sketched in Willgren, Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms, pp. 376–84. The biographical superscriptions are added, with the exception of Ps 142, to Psalms in Books 1–2 of the Psalter, which were probably the earliest portions to find a fixed form. For an account which seeks to make the case for pre-exilic use of certain Psalms, see Gary A. Rendsburg, ‘The Psalms as Hymns in the Temple of Jerusalem’, in James H. Charlesworth (ed.), Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archaeological Explorations (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014), pp. 95–122.
14 The vague term ‘canonical community’ is used here deliberately. Initially the dynamic that I look to describe is one which could apply to any community which received the Psalms as their authoritative answer to God. I will, later, take up the specific concerns of a Christian theological account. In speaking of the community's ‘answer’, I am recalling Gerhard von Rad's consideration of the Psalter under the category of ‘Israel's Answer’; see Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. David M. G. Stalker, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), pp. 356–70; an excellent account of the community reception of the Psalter is found in William L. Holladay, The Psalms Through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), pp. 95–190.
15 As I note, Childs’ suggestion seems plausible and offers a reasonable starting point for the conjunction of the intensive individualisation of certain Psalms and their communal use. Still, I am sceptical of the possibility of providing an account which moves from the plausible to the probable. A case for a slightly earlier dating can be found in Nogalski, ‘Reading David in the Psalter’, p. 190. See the scepticism of Slomovic, ‘Formation of Historical Titles’, p. 351; Slomovic suggests that it is ‘very difficult, if not impossible’ to fix the date of the various Psalm titles.
16 See the critique of Rudolf Smend (‘Ueber das Ich der Psalmen’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 8 (1888), pp. 49–147) in Emil Balla, Das Ich des Psalmen (Göttingen: Huth, 1912). In Balla's view, Smend exaggerated the corporate nature of the first-person singular in the Psalms. For a mediating position, see Mowinckel, Psalms, pp. 42–6.
17 Cf. Wallace, ‘King and Community’, pp. 270–1.
18 Wilson, Hebrew Psalter, p. 173; James Luther Mays, Psalms (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994), p. 13; Rendtorff, ‘Psalms of David’, p. 63; Johnson, David in Distress, p. 142; Willgren, Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms, p. 186. Much of what can be said about the biographical superscriptions could also be said about the more broadly used לדוד formula. However, by specifying the circumstances of the Psalm, the biographical superscriptions intensify the association.
19 So, it seems probable that the Psalm superscriptions allude to the text of Samuel or something like it, rather than to Chronicles, which depicts David in rather different terms; see the discussion of the superscriptions’ dating above.
20 Hence, more than half of these Psalm titles refer to situations when David was pursued by Saul (see Pss 34; 52; 54; 56; 57; 59; 142).
21 Twelve of the thirteen Psalms use the first-person singular. The exception is Ps 60 which I discuss below. Of course, these thirteen Psalms are not exceptional in using the first-person voice but here I am teasing out the significance of its conjunction with the superscriptions.
22 The role of authorial attribution as a strategy of authority conferral has been intriguingly challenged, through an examination of the Psalms, by Eva Mroczek who helpfully warns against conceiving of authorial attribution in any one way. See Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford: OUP, 2016), pp. 51–85. While authorial attribution may not have always carried the legitimising function it has sometimes been thought to have, the exemplary role of figures like Moses, David and Solomon still seems pertinent; cf. Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 1–40.
23 Wilson, Hebrew Psalter, p. 173; cf. Childs, Introduction, p. 521. Childs was criticised for this move by James Barr, ‘Childs’ Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 5/16 (1980), pp. 12–23, especially p. 19; and Roland E. Murphy, ‘The Old Testament as Scripture’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 5/16 (1980), pp. 40–4, esp. pp. 43–4.
24 Childs, Introduction, p. 520.
25 Gary A. Anderson explores the implications of the connection with David for the canonical community in slightly different, but perhaps complementary, terms; see Gary A. Anderson, ‘King David and the Psalms of Imprecation’, Pro Ecclesia 15 (2006), pp. 267–80.
26 There might be an analogy here with the way in which the generation listening to Moses on the plains of Moab is identified with those who heard God speak from Horeb in Deut 4–10. Here Moses identifies his hearers as those who had been at Horeb when, in terms of the Pentateuchal narrative, they could not have been. Presumably part of this chronological collapse is to invite the reader to also identify with the generation at Horeb. See Stephen D. Campbell, Remembering the Unexperienced: Cultural Memory, Canon Consciousness, and the Book of Deuteronomy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020).
27 Mays, Psalms, p. 213.
28 The possible exception being v. 11; but it seems plausible that this statement is actually part of the divine oracle of the preceding verses. See Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51–100 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1990), p. 107.
29 Biblical translations are my own.
30 Cf. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59, trans. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 506; Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51–100, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), p. 16.
31 The observations in Part 1 could be developed in a Jewish framework in conversation with the kind of statement found in Midrash Tehillim 18.1, ‘R. Yudan taught in the name of R. Judah: All that David said in his Book of Psalms applies to himself, to all Israel, and to all the ages’. The Midrash on Psalms, vol. 1, trans. William G. Braude (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 230. Cf. also Song of Songs Rabbah 4.4; although I am not qualified to assess this further.
32 For useful treatments of Augustine's approach to the Psalms and the totus Christus, see Rowan Williams, ‘Augustine and the Psalms’, Interpretation 58 (2004), pp. 17–27; Michael C. McCarthy, ‘A Ecclesiology of Groaning: Augustine, the Psalms and the Making of the Church’, Theological Studies 66 (2005), pp. 23–48; Aaron Canty, ‘Augustine's Totus Christus Hermeneutic for Interpreting the Psalms’, Biblical Research 53 (2008), pp. 59–67; Michael Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine's Early Figurative Exegesis (Oxford: OUP, 2012), pp. 165–212; Susannah Ticciati, ‘Wellness in the Light of the Eschaton: Reading the Psalms with Augustine’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 42 (2020), pp. 208–25, especially pp. 210–2; and Kevin Grove, Augustine on Memory (Oxford: OUP, 2021).
33 See Michael Fiedrowicz, ‘General Introduction’, in Expositions of the Psalms: 1–32, trans. Maria Boulding (New York: New City Press, 2000), p. 44. See also, his book-length treatment in Michael Fiedrowicz, Psalmus vox totius Christus: Studien zu Augustins ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos’ (Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 1997). On Augustine's christological approach to the Old Testament more generally, see Michael Cameron, ‘The Christological Substructure of Augustine's Figurative Exegesis’, in Pamela Bright (ed. and trans.), Augustine and the Bible (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), pp. 74–103.
34 See the helpful account of Augustine's prosopological exegesis and in particular the distinction between prosopological exegesis and prosopopoeia, in Cameron, Christ Meets Me, pp. 171–85; cf. also Adam Ployd, Augustine, the Trinity, and the Church: A Reading of the Anti-Donatist Sermons (Oxford: OUP, 2015), pp. 59–66.
35 See Augustine Ennarationies in Psalmos [hereafter en. Ps.] 1.1; 3.1.
36 Fiedrowicz notes that, for Augustine, a Psalm can be read as ‘a word to Christ (vox ad Christum)’, ‘a word about Christ (vox de Christo)’, ‘a word spoken by Christ himself (vox Christi)’, ‘a word about the Church (vox de ecclesia)’ or ‘a word spoken by the Church (vox ecclesiae)’. Fiedrowicz, ‘Introduction’, pp. 44–5; cf. en. Ps. 21(2).3; 24.1; 68(2).1.
37 See for instance, en. Ps. 26(2).11; 32(2).2; 34(1).1; 37.6; 44.20; 91.11; 140.3.
38 Ticciati, ‘Light of the Eschaton’, p. 211. Ticciati quotes from en. Ps. 37.6 (‘We have to distinguish as we listen, but the voice is one.’) to capture the totus Christus hermeneutic ‘in a nutshell’.
39 Cf. Williams, ‘Augustine’, pp. 20–1; en. Ps. 85.1.
40 See for instance, en. Ps. 3.9; 17.51; 34(2).1; 39.5; 40.1; 87.13; 91.10; 140.3.
41 ‘[Augustine] does not seem to have applied the totus Christus statically, as a grid placed over the text, but was a careful reader who could hear nuanced Christocentric persona [sic] speaking through the prophet David’. Witt, Voice Without End, p. 47. McCarthy notes some of the ways Augustine's hermeneutic develops; see McCarthy, ‘Ecclesiology of Groaning’, pp. 30–4.
42 Here I follow the numeration of Augustine's Latin Psalter. Augustine's Psalter followed the numbering of the LXX, which combined Pss 9 and 10, such that for Augustine Ps 38 is Ps 37. The numbering evens out again at Ps 147, which in the LXX is split into 146 and 147. On Augustine's relationship with the LXX, see De civitate Dei contra paganos 18.42–43; Edmon L. Gallagher, ‘Augustine on the Hebrew Bible’, Journal of Theological Studies 67 (2016), pp. 97–114; Colton Moore, ‘Graeca Veritas: Saint Augustine's Historical and Theological Rationale for the Septuagint as Authoritative Scripture’, in Mariusz Szram and Marcin Wysocki (eds), The Bible in the Patristic Period (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), pp. 155–64; cf. Anne-Marie La Bonnadière, ‘Did Augustine Use Jerome's Vulgate?’, in Bright, Augustine and the Bible, pp. 42–51.
43 en. Ps. 37.6; the English translation here is taken from Saint Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms: 33–50, trans. Maria Boulding (New York: New City Press, 2000), pp. 150–1; the Latin text is found in CCSL XXXVIII, pp. 386–7.
44 Another account which might have been fruitfully engaged is that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Das Gebetbuch der Bibel: Eine Einführung in die Psalmen (Bad Salzuflen: Verlag für Missions und Bibel-Kunde, 1940); given the limited scope of this discussion I have confined my engagement to Augustine's totus Christus.
45 See for instance, the classic appeal of Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), especially pp. 96–131.
46 Williams, ‘Augustine’, p. 21.
47 Ibid., pp. 19–20.
48 This point is made repeatedly in the scholarly literature, but see Slomovic, ‘Formation of Historical Titles’, pp. 350–1.
49 On the figural reading of the Old Testament, see Seitz, Christopher R., Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), pp. 3–10Google Scholar; Radner, Ephraim, Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016)Google Scholar; Collett, Don C., Figural Reading and the Old Testament: Theology and Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020)Google Scholar.
50 Williams, ‘Augustine’, p. 21.
51 For the language of figural extension, see Childs, Brevard S., Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 724Google Scholar.
52 This distinction may go some way to offsetting some of the difficulties with seeing David as a type of Christ. These are helpfully laid out in Chapman, Stephen B., 1 Samuel as Christian Scripture: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016), pp. 246–51Google Scholar. As we saw illustrated in en. Ps. 37.6, Augustine is sensitive to the difficulties of identifying Christ with sinful humanity, indeed, this is one of the issues that the totus Christus addresses.