Psalm 3 Discourse

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Psalm Overview

About the Discourse Layer

Our Discourse layer includes four analyses: macrosyntax, speech act analysis, emotional analysis, and participant analysis. (For more information, click 'Expand' to the right.)

Discourse Visuals for Psalm 3

Macrosyntax

Psalm 003 - Macrosyntax.jpg

Notes

Discourse Discontinuities

  • The discourse can be divided based on the recurrence of selah at the ends of sections (vv. 3b, 5b, 7b) and vocatives at the beginnings of sections (vv. 2a, 4a, 8a).

Vocatives

  • v. 2. The opening vocative is clause-initial, as often at the beginning of psalms (cf. Pss 6; 7; 8; 15; 21; 109; etc.; but see e.g., Pss 4; 5; 10; 13; 16; 17; 18; etc., though in several of these examples [e.g., Pss 4; 5; 10; 13] there are poetic and/or pragmatic explanations for the non-initial position of the vocative). The initial position of the vocative at the beginning of a psalm might reflect the discourse function of the clause-initial vocative to signal the beginning of a conversational turn.[1]
  • v. 4. The vocative "YHWH" is placed after וְאַתָּה to allow for adversative waw and create the intensive focus reading of the pronouns (אַתָּה), as claimed by Miller.[2]
  • v. 8. The fact that the imperatives in v. 8 ("rise... save") occur before the vocatives ("YHWH... my God") might increase the urgency of the imperatives.

Conjunctions

  • v. 6. The כִּי in v. 6 is causal, explaining how it is that the psalmist was able to wake up safely, without having been killed in his sleep.
  • v. 8. The כִּי in v. 8 is a speech-act causal כִּי.[3] The psalmist grounds his request for YHWH to save (v. 8a) in the recollection of YHWH's past acts of salvation (v. 8bc). See The Verbal Semantics of Psalm 3:8b–c for details.

Word Order

  • vv. 2b, 3a. Although רַבִּים could be read as the unmarked topic of a verbless predication in these two clauses, we have preferred to interpret the topic of these clauses as קָמִ֥ים עָלָֽי, (since צָרָ֑י "my adversaries" has already been discourse-activated in v. 2a), such that the comment, רַבִּים, is clause-initial. Thus, the initial placement of this comment seems to function as scalar/confirming focus (see the grammar notes for further details).
  • v. 5a. The first constituent of the clause is the noun phrase קוֹלִי ("aloud," lit.: "my voice"). The pre-verbal position of this constituent might not be related to information structure but to some unique usage of the phrase קוֹלִי.[4] It also results in the poetic juxtaposition of "my voice" at the beginning of v. 5 and "my head" at the end of v. 4. The fronting of the prepositional phrase "to YHWH" is probably related to information structure, marking this prepositional phrase as focal.
  • v. 6a. The previous clause describes YHWH's action, while this section (vv. 6-7, following the selah of v. 5b) is now about the psalmist and his actions. The independent pronoun אֲנִי marks this transition and activates "I" as the topic of the following clauses.[5] The presence of the personal pronoun also contributes to the division of these poetic sections (see poetic structure).[6]
  • v. 6b. The כִּי clause at the end of v. 6 has subject-verb word order, marking the clause as a thetic, which grounds the previous propositional content.
  • v. 7b. The adverb סָבִיב ("all around") is fronted, probably for marked focus. The enemies do not just take position against him on one side (which would allow him an escape route), but on every side, all around him.
  • v. 8c. The fronting of the object "wicked people's teeth" (שִׁנֵּי רְשָׁעִים) results in a symmetrical structure with the previous line: A. you have struck B. my enemies C. on the jaw // C. the teeth B. of wicked people A. you have broken.
  • v. 9a. The prepositional phrase לַיהוָה is fronted for exclusive focus. Victory belongs to no one else but YHWH; he alone determines who wins and who loses.
  • v. 9b. The phrase "on your people" is fronted for exclusive focus. YHWH's blessing is not on the enemy "people" (see v. 7), but on his own "people."

Speech Act Analysis

Summary Visual

Psalm 003 - Speech Act Summary.jpg

Speech Act Chart

Psalm 003 - Speech Acts.jpg

Emotional Analysis

Summary visual

Psalm 003 - Think-Feel-Do.jpg

Emotional Analysis Chart

Psalm 003 - Emotional Chart.jpg

Affective Circumplex

Psalm 003 - Affective Circumplex.jpg

Participant analysis

There are five participants/characters in Psalm 3: Psalm 003 - Participants.jpg

  • The speaker in this psalm is David, the king of Israel and the representative of YHWH's people.
  • YHWH is David's God. YHWH made a covenant with David, promising to give him an eternal dynasty and kingdom and to rescue him from all of his enemies (see 2 Sam 7; Ps 89).
  • The enemies in this psalm are the many people who joined in rebellion against David under the leadership of Absalom, David's own son (see 2 Sam 15ff). Absalom is David's third-born son, the first by his wife Ma'acha, daughter of Talmi, king of Geshur (a "small Aramaic state between Bashan and Hermon" [HALOT, 205]) (2 Sam 3:3).

Participant Relations Diagram

The relationships among the participants may be abstracted and summarized as follows:

Psalm 003 - PA Relations Diagram (Triangle).jpg

Psalm 003 - Participants mini story.jpg

Participant Analysis Table

Psalm 003 - Text Table.jpg

  • The psalmist alternates from addressing YHWH in the second person (vv. 2-4, 8, 9b) to speaking about him in the third person (vv. 5-6, 9a). The clearest instance of such person shifting is in v. 9, where the first half mentions "YHWH" in the third person, and the second half addresses him in the second person ("your"). This kind of person shifting is common in Hebrew poetry and also occurs in prose, e.g., when someone is speaking to a king (see e.g., Esth 3:8-9; Ps 45:2). When the psalmist says something about YHWH in the third person, it does not necessarily imply that he is no longer speaking to YHWH (cf. Pss 7; 18).

Participant Analysis Summary Distribution

Psalm 003 Participant Distribution.jpg

Bibliography

Kennicott, Benjamin. 1776. Vetus testamentum hebraicum : cum variis lectionibus.
Kim, Young Bok. 2023. Hebrew Forms of Address: A Sociolinguistic Analysis. Atlanta: SBL Press.
Locatell, Christian. 2019. “Causal Categories in Biblical Hebrew Discourse: A Cognitive Approach to Causal כי.” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 45 (2).
Locatell, Christian S. 2017. “Grammatical Polysemy in the Hebrew Bible: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to כי.” PhD Dissertation, Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch.
Miller, Cynthia L. 2010. “Vocative Syntax in Biblical Hebrew Prose and Poetry: A Preliminary Analysis.” Semitic Studies 55 (1): 347–64.

References

  1. ↑ Cf. Kim 2023, 213-217.
  2. ↑ Miller 2010, 357.
  3. ↑ See Locatell 2017, 162; cf. Locatell 2019.
  4. ↑ See e.g., Ps 27:7; 142:2; cf. Ps 66:17, with פִּי; cf. GKC §144l-m.
  5. ↑ Though we would typically expect וַאֲנִי for such a topic shift, Kennicott 206 (see VTH: vol. IV, 308) indeed reads such.
  6. ↑ Alternatively, the sentence beginning אֲנִ֥י שָׁכַ֗בְתִּי could be read as thetic, but there appear to be too many verbal predicates to accommodate such a construal.