Please note: This is an unpublished paper. It has not been prepared for publication. It is work in progress. So please so not cite it without asking the author's permission first.


The Book of Psalms, Where Men Are Men
On the Gender of Hebrew Piety



David J.A. Clines

University of Sheffiel
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'Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight' (Ps. 144.1 kjv). The speaker is a male (is he not?), since in ancient Israel, as in most societies, it is the males who do the fighting. But the readers of the psalm, its end-users, have been both male and female, and all the textbooks represent the Book of Psalms in general as an expression of an ungendered Hebrew piety. No one ever says, This is a male text, this Book of Psalms, and men and women alike should be on their guard in case they learn from it and internalize attitudes and prejudices that are specifically male-and therefore partial and discriminatory. That is what I am saying, though.
I came to the Psalms this time in a quest after the construction of masculinity in the Hebrew Bible. I had begun with an earlier paper on the images of masculinity in the David story -which was straightforward enough, since the principal character is a male, and there is a narrative where he and the men around him are constantly doing lots of very male things. I thought I should next make things more difficult for myself by asking about masculinity in a text where it was not at all obvious; so I chose the Book of Psalms, which is not a narrative text, and where the characters are not always immediately identifiable as male. I did, I'm afraid, start with the presumption that all the writings of the Hebrew Bible are male texts, written by men for men, but I suppose I had previously thought that, when it came to piety and prayer and the divine, the maleness might not be so intrusive and the spirit they breathe might be human and humane rather than indefeasibly masculine. You will soon see how wrong I was.
I found that I could identify the maleness of the piety in the Hebrew psalms in these categories: the rhetoric of war, the ideology of honour and shame, the construction of 'enemies', the role of women, the concept of solitariness, the importance of strength and height in its metaphorical system, and the practice of binary thinking.

1. Warfare
The speaker in the Book of Psalms is a warrior. I do not know whether the book projects a single speaker or a plurality of speakers, but I suspect that we only think of various voices in the book because we are prejudiced by our historical-critical certainties that the book has multiple authorship. We don't know that, of course; we don't know that the whole Book of Psalms is not the composition of a single poet. No matter; the question at the moment is simply how strongly the voice that speaks in the Psalms is that of a warrior.
In 2 the king will be smashing the nations like pots, in 3 the psalmist is surounded by ten thousands of foes and Yhwh is his shield. In 18 Yhwh trains his hands for war, so that his arms can bend a bow of bronze (v. 35 [34]), and Yhwh has girded him with strength for the battle (v. 40 [39]). The psalmist in consequence has pursued his enemies and overtaken them, thrust them through so that they could not rise, destroyed them and beat them fine as dust before the wind (vv. 38, 39, 41, 43 [37, 38, 40, 42]). In 20 the speakers hope that they will be able to shout for joy over the king's military victory and set up their banner of triumph (v. 6 [5]). In 21 the king's hand will find out all his enemies and he will put them to flight and aim at their faces with his bow (vv. 9, 13 [8, 12]). In 44 the speakers do not trust in their bow or sword, though they clearly have them, but through God they push and tread down their foes (vv. 6-7 [5-6]). In 45 the king girds his sword on his thigh, and his arrows are sharp in the heart of his enemies; people fall under him (vv. 4, 6 [3, 5]). In 58 the righteous will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked (v. 11 [10]). In 60 the speakers ask for divine help against the national enemies; it seems that God does not go out with the army, but when he does, with God they will do valiantly (vv. 12-14 [10-12]; similarly in 108.12-14 [11-13]). In 72 the king should have his enemies bowing down before him and licking the dust (v. 9). In 89 the king should see his foes crushed before him and those who hate him struck down (v. 24 [23]), but Yhwh has turned back the edge of his sword and the king has not managed to stand in battle (v. 44 [43]). In 110 the Lord, at the right hand of the king, will shatter kings and fill the nations with corpses (vv. 5-6). In 144 Yhwh trains the speaker's hands for war and subdues nations under him (vv. 1-2). In 149 the faithful should have the praises of God in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands to wreak vengeance on nations and bind their kings with chains (vv. 6-8).
The construction of the male as a warrior profoundly affects the construction of the divine also, of course. In the Psalms, Yahweh not only authorizes and enables men to kill other men; he himself is represented as an arch-killer. He is accoutred with sword (7.13 [12]; 17.13), two kinds of shield (hnx, gm, 35.2), bow (7.13 [12]), arrows (7.14 [13]; 18.15 [14]; 38.3 [2]; 64.8 [7]; 77.18 [17]; 120.4; 144.6), and spear (35.3). In 29 psalms, he is angry (2.5, 12; 6.1; 7.6; 18.7; 21.9; 27.9; 30.5; 38.1; 56.7; 59.13; 60.1; 69.24; 74.1; 76.7; 77.9; 78.21, 31, 38, 49, 50, 58, 59, 62; 79.5, 6; 80.4; 85.3, 5; 88.7; 89.38, 46; 90.7, 9, 11; 95.11, 102.10; 103.9; 106.23, 29, 40; 110.5), slow to anger indeed (86.15; 103.8; 145.8) but angry enough when he is roused. He kills the wicked and the enemies of the psalmist (139.19) and destroys them (5.6; 9.5; 21.10; ? 37.38; 143.12; 145.20). He is himself the shield of the psalmist or of Israel (3.3; 18.2, 30; 28.7; 33.20; 59.12 [11]; 84.10 [9], 12 [11]; 115.9, 10, 11; 119.14; 144.2); his salvation or faithfulness is a large shield (5.13 [12]; 18.36 [35]; 91.4) and small shield (hrjs, 91.4), or he is himself girded with a shield (35.2).
Now not of all these references may presuppose the imagery of battle or of God as a warrior; sometimes he may be detroying the wicked as a matter of executive justice. But the military language is strong and pervasive, and there can be little doubt the rhetoric of the (male) warrior has deeply influenced the image of the deity in the Psalms.

2. Honour and Shame
These are key concepts in Mediterranean culture, as many recent writers have been pointing out; some even would call ancient Israel an 'honour­p;shame' culture. Biblical scholars, on the other hand, have little place for such concepts in their theologically determined thought structures, and it is both interesting and significant that neither term appears as an entry in The Anchor Bible Dictionary.
Honour and shame are especially relevant to this study, for Mediterranean culture is a patriarchal culture, and we may therefore expect that honour and shame are especially and characteristically male concerns. The cultural anthropologists concur. '[H]onor is a value embodied by adult males'; 'Honour is bound up with male ideology'.

Interaction between people is characterized by a competition with others for recognition. One is contstantly alert to defend one's own honor. Interaction often takes the form of challenge and riposte, most often verbally but also with symbolic gestures and even with the use of physical force When someone's claim to honor is recognized by the group, honor is confirmed, and the result is a certain status in society.

Honor is associated with a value cluster that includes: strength, courage, daring, valor, generosity, and wisdom. Weakness, cowardice, and lack of generosity indicate lack of honor, and hence, are despised
Honor is primarily a group value. Individual members of a group share in its honor. Kinship groups are said to inherit honor from their honorable ancestors

Honor is a claim to worth and social acknowledgment of that worth By conforming to certain social 'oughts', a person isentitled to cetain social treatment: a grant of honor, a grant of reputation If a person's calim to honor does not result ina social grant of reputation, then that person and their actions are labeled ridiculous, contemptuous, foolish.

A crucial difference betweeen the modern Western concept of 'shame' and what we encounter in the Psalms is that for us shame is an emotion whereas in the Psalms it is essentially an 'objective', external reality. No doubt the psalmists experience emotions, of grief, anger and so on, when they are 'put to shame' and 'dishonoured' but 'shame' is not the name of the feeling, as it is for us.
Kraus seems not a little confused on the subject, He writes,

For the individual, the life which he has received from Yahweh is the epitome of his honor (d/bk [kabod], Ps. 3:3; 7:5). A person's invaluable reputation, the dignity of his appearance, stands or falls with life. Every diminishing of life brings totally into question the life and thereby the honor of the individual.

The mistake here, in my opinion, is to tie 'honour' up with 'life'. It is no dishonour to die, it is no honour to be merely alive. Honour is acquired at birth by those of a certain class, and, on the part of others, by behaviour in accordance with certain social norms.

The psalmists, as is well known, are extremely concerned for their honour. While they are in the grip of their wicked enemies and not free autonomous males, they are dishonoured (69.19; 89.45). Shame has covered their face (44.15; 69.7) They frequently express the desire not to fall into such a state, not to be 'put to shame' (25.2, 20; 31.3, 17; 34.5; 37.19; 69.6; 71.1; 74.21; 119.6, 31, 46, 80, 116; 127.5). They ask God to honour and comfort them (71.21), to bestow honour (84.11; 91.15); on God rests the psalmist's honour (62.7)

There is a rich vocabulary for honour and shame in the Psalms. The key word is of course dwbk 'honour', with its synonyms or near-synonyms rdh 'splendour'. On the other side is tvb 'shame', hlmk 'reproach' and hprj 'reproach'.
References to the 'shame' (verb vwb, nouns tvb and hvwb) of the psalmists occur in 14.6; 22.6 (5); 25.2, 3, 20; 31.2 (1), 18 (17); 37.19; 44.16 (15); 69.7 (6), 20 (19); 71.1; 89.46 (45); 119.6, 31, 46, 80, 116; 127.5 (nineteen times in all). The enemies' shame is mentioned in 6.11 (10); 31.17; 35.4, 26; 40.15 (14), 16 (15); 44.8 (7); 53.6 (5); 70.4 (2); 71.13, 24; 83.17; 86.17; 97.7; 109.28, 29; 119.78; 125.5; 132.18 (nineteen times in all).
Psalmists are often treated with 'reproach' (verb rj, noun hprj): in 22.7 (6); 31.12 (11); 39.9 (8); 42.11 (10); 44.14 (13), 17 (16); 55.13 (12); 57.4 (3), 69.8 (7), 10 (9), 11 (10), 20 (19), 21 (20); 74.10, 18; 89.42 (41), 51 (50), 52 (51); 102.9 (8); 109.25; 199.22, 39, 42. Reproach is the lot of the enemies in 71.13; 78.66; 79.12.
Psalmists are subjected to 'humiliation' (verb µlk, nouns hlmk, twmlk) (4.3 [2]; 44.10 [9], 16 [15]; 69.7 [6], 8 [7], 20 [19]; 74.21), and their enemies in 35.4, 26; 40.15 (14), 70.3 (2); 71.13; 109.29. 'Abasement' (verb and noun lpv, verb °km) is the term for shame in 106.43; 136.23; 138.6; 147.6, of the psalmists, and in 18.28 (27); 75.8 (7), of the enemies. 'Scorn' (noun slq) is the form of shame of the psalmists in 44.14 (13) and 79.4. Shaming 'laughter' (verb and nouns g[l) is directed against psalmists in 22.8 (7); 44.14 (13); 79.4; 80.7 (6); 123.4, and against enemies in 2.4; 59.9 (8); the verb qjc is used only of the shaming of enemies (2.4; 37.13; 52.6; 59.8). The psalmist is the object of 'mockery' (verb yl) in 119.51, and the enemies in 1.1. 'Contempt' (noun "wlq) is shown to enemies in 83.17 (16). Other forms of shaming include winking (rq as shaming the psalmist in 35.19), shaking the head ([wn in 22.8 [7]; 109.25; dwnm in 44.15 [14]; all as shaming the psalmist), shooting out the lip (rfp hi. in 22.8 [7], against the psalmist).

Is honour in the Psalms peculiarly male? In 8.6 (5) God is said to have crowned humanity (v/na, µdaA"b, v. 5 [4]) with honour (d/bk) and splendour, but though the term vwna may well include women in certain contexts and by no means expressly excludes them here, it is improbable that women are at all in view here. Women have no honour in the Psalms. Some English versions have 'honourable women' (kjv, rv), 'honoured women' (niv), 'ladies of honor' (rsv) or 'maids of honour' (jb) as the companions of the royal bride in 45.10 (9), but the Hebrew term is rqy, which means 'expensive' (as of precious stones). 'Expensive' women are women who cost money; while the neb has caught the class aspect of this term with its 'noblest of your women', Moffatt has caught the economic aspect: 'kings' daughters in their jewels move to meet you, and on your right your queen wears gold of Ophir'. It is the bridegroom himself and the fathers of the foreign princesses who are honoured by the display of wealth, not the women themselves, who are merely the vehicles for the men's honour. The traditional rendering of v. 14 (13), that the princess is 'all glorious within' (kjv) may be misleading; the adjective dWbK; 'glorious' is a rare one, being used elsewhere only of a 'stately' (?) bed (Ezek. 23.41); the reference in Psalm 45 must be to the splendour of her robes, as the next phrase indicates: 'from checkered-work of gold' (bhz   twxbvmm)-not to her own personal standing. Several commentators and versions in fact read hd:WbK] 'glorious' as t/dWbK] 'glorious things', referring to her ornaments, and rsv has 'with gold-woven robes' (jb 'dressed in brocades'), omitting any allusion to her 'honour'.
Have women, in fact, any honour at all in the Hebrew Bible? The Ten Commandments indeed urge their middle-aged male addressees to 'honour your father and mother' (dbk pi., Exod. 20.12; Deut. 5.16), but it is hard to think of another place where women are honoured. A son honours his father and a servant his master, that is the rule (Mal. 1.6). Wisdom has riches and honour in her left hand (Prov. 3.16), but it is not her own honour but the gift she will bestow on the proper young man (cf. 4.8). The one apparent exception to the rule is Prov. 11.16: A gracious woman (jAtva) lays hold of (°mt) honour, and violent men lay hold of riches'. Since a 'gracious woman' is almost certainly a beautiful one (cf. 31.30 where "j is parallel to ypy 'beauty' and both are said to be vain and deceitful), the question arises whether the honour she 'lays hold of' is her own or her husband's. The riches that violent men lay hold of is not their own; so perhaps it simply means that a beautiful woman has the best chance of catching a wealthy husband. Another interesting text in this connection is Isa. 66.11, where Jerusalem as a mother is said to have glory. Those who mourn for her are to suck and be satisfied with her breasts of consolation; they should drain them out and delight themselves 'in the fullness of her glory' (hdwbk   zyzm). So perhaps women do have honour or glory after all: it is full breasts. It reminds one of the idea that a woman's long hair is her honour (1 Cor 11.15). Honour or not, these are not the kinds of honour that the psalmists have in mind when they complain that their honour is in the dust or pray not to be dishonoured by their enemies.
women and shame/modesty-see Moxnes, Honor and Shame, 168.
What we can be rather sure of is that anyone who makes a fuss about honour is a man, and that the Psalms, so full of anxiety about honour, represent male interests. That conclusion is entirely in conformity with cultural anthropological studies generally, where it is recognized that 'honor is a value embodied by adult males', whereas shame is the value embodied by females. Their shame 'is neither won nor claimed. It is, rather, presupposed and then maintained as a veil of privacy and of personal and sexual integrity'. It is associated with privacy, reserve, and purity.

3. Enemies
Enemies are all over the Psalms. They persecute the psalmists, attack them, seek to kill them, tell falsehoods about them, hate them, and so on. There are enemies in view in Psalms 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, (? 16), 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, (?28), 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 86, 89, 92, 94, 97, 101, 102, 105, 108, 109, 110, 112, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 127, 129, 132, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 149. That is 98 psalms, or two-thirds of them.
Two consequences may be drawn from this observation. On the whole, either you write a psalm when you are attacked by enemies, or else when you write a psalm you believe you are attacked by enemies. Of course, the psalms are literary texts, not real-life experiences. I should rephrase the consequences, then. On the whole, I should say, poets writing psalms adopt the position of a person in confrontation with enemies. That means that most of the expressions of Hebrew piety we call the psalms are particularized to a situation of confrontation with opponents. Most of these expressions of devoutness, of confidence in the divine, or appeal to God, presume a situation of conflict.
Who is it who represents reality as, on the whole, conflict? Is it men or is it women? Given that a fundamental construction of masculinity in ancient Israel is of the male as warrior, it is not likely to be men? Even when psalmists are writing poetry and not actually fighting they imagine life as a battlefield, and themselves as harassed by armed enemies. Women have enemies too, I dare say, but do their enemies pursue them and seek their life and do they spend a lot of time envisaging the destruction and death of their opponents?
persecution complex.


4. Women
The degree to which the Book of Psalms is a male-gendered text will appear also if we consider the role of women in it. Women in ancient Israel were presumably just as Godfearing and pious as men, and as inclined as men to address God in psalms. Yet the interests of women are practically never represented in the psalms.
The women in the Psalms are almost always mothers. There is the bride of Psalm 45 and her expensive attendants, to be sure, but mostly a woman in the Psalms exists for the sake of procreation. Men fight, and women produce babies. That is a man's point of view; a real woman's life is much more complex.
Actually, women are not really depicted in the Psalms; they are only alluded to. Mothers and wives often come into the text only by way of parallellistic ballast, and that in the B line of the parallelism. Thus,

You are the one who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe upon my mother's breasts (22.9).

Upon you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God (22.10).

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me (51.5).

Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother's womb (71.6).

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb (139.13).

Fear took hold upon them there,
and pain, as of a woman in travail (48.6).

Let them be like a snail that dissolves into slime,
like the untimely birth of a woman that never sees the sun (58.8).

May his sons be orphans,
and his wife a widow! (109.9).

In one place, a wife makes it into line A of the parallelism, but only in virtue of her procreative abilities:

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in your house;
your children like olive shoots around your table (128.3)

In other places, mothers are there only because fathers (or brothers) are there, first. So,

May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before Yahweh,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out! (109.14).

For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but Yhwh will take me up (27.10).

You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother's son (50.20).

I have become a stranger to my brethren,
an alien to my mother's sons (69.8).

As though I grieved for my friend or my brother,
I went about as one who for laments his mother (35.14).

By the same principle, female servants and their mistresses also on one occasion find a place in the Psalms:

Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to thehand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress (123.2).

Elsewhere, women are kept in their place, as those who stay in the house; greed for the captured booty is ascribed to the wives and mothers of soldiers.

She that stays at home is dividing the spoil (68.12), or

The fair ones are dividing the spoil.

Daughters are there occasionally, as a pendant to sons:

They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to the demons;
they poured out innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters (106.37-38).

May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace (144.12).

In just one text, a woman is focalized in her own right, and this is something out of the ordinary. As an example of the blessing of Yhwh, the poet says,

[Yhwh] gives the barren woman a household,
making her the joyous mother of sons (113.9).

Although the woman here is (yet again) a mother, her subjectivity comes to expression, unusually, with the recognition of her feelings as she moves from the state of 'barrenness' to that of the materfamilias.
Taking a sweep across all these references, we could say that though women are not invisible in the Psalms, they are much less visible than enemies. This is a man's point of view. He lives in the public sphere outside the home. There he feels himself and his honour perpetually under threat from enemies real or imagined. Whether reactive or proactive, he has to be constantly on the qui vive. By contrast, his women live in the relative seclusion and security of the house; they are preoccupied with producing children, and have no enemies. Perhaps he does not have as many real enemies as he imagines, but his world is peopled with them.

5. Solitariness
I am impressed by how lonely the psalmists are, how little evidence there is of any support network for them, how unimportant family bonds seem to them, how much they are cast on their own resources, and how much they need to identify with Yahweh, their role model for masculinity. I think these are signs of the male gendering of the text, and I suspect that in ancient Israel there was a much stronger a familial and social network for women.

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity! (133.1).

This might be a negative leitmotif of the Psalms. From the perspective of the book as a whole, there is a certain wistfulness about the sentence, for it is a particular emphasis of the psalmists that they have been forsaken or are being persecuted by family, friends, companions and neighbours:

My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my kinsmen stand afar off (38.11).

I am the scorn of all my adversaries,
a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me (31.11).

Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread,
has lifted his heel against me (41.9).

It is not an enemy who taunts me-
then I could bear it;
it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me-
then I could hide from him.
But it is you, my equal,
my companion, my familiar friend.
We used to hold sweet converse together;
within God's house we walked in fellowship (55.12-14).

You have caused my companions to shun me;
thou hast made me a thing of horror to them (88.8).

Thou hast caused lover and friend to shun me;
my companions are in darkness (88.18).

This is what wickedness is: the abandonment of familial responsibilities:

To the wicked God says
You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother's son (50.16, 20).

My companion stretched out his hand against his friends,
he violated his covenant (55.20).

Him who slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy (101.5).

6. Metaphors of Strength and Height
Just as the Psalms can from one perspective be described as preoccupied with enemies, so, from another perspective, they can be said to be fixated on strength and height. It is of the utmost importance to the psalmists that Yahweh is strong, and he is strong above all other qualities. He has strength (54.3 [1]; 59.10 [9]; 65.7 [6]; 68.35 [34]; 74.13, 14; 86.4), he is strong and mighty (24.8), a mighty God (50.1; 132.2, 5), a strong rock (31.3 [2]), a strong tower (61.4 [3]), a strong refuge (71.7); he is clothed with strength (93.1), he is like a mighty manwho shouts in his drunkenness (78.65). He has a strong arm (89.11 [10], 14 [13]; 136.12), a strong right hand (20.7 [6]), a mighty voice (68.34 [33]), mighty power (106.8), and he does mighty acts (106.2; 145.4, 12; 150.2).. Psalmists exhort their hearers to ascribe strength to Yahweh (68.35 [34]; 96.7), asking, 'Who is a strong Yahweh like you?' (89.9 [8]).
The psalmists need their God to be strong, for that is the quality they most desire for themselves. He functions as the source of their strength: he is the psalmist's strength (18.2 [1], 3 [2]; 19.15 [14]; 22.20 [19]; 27.1; 28.7; 31.5 [4]; 34.5 [4]; 37.39; 46.2 [1]; 59.18 [17]; 71.16; 81.2 [1]; 84.6 [5]; 118.14; 144.1), he girds him with strength (18.40 [39]), he gives strength to the psalmist (86.16) and to the people (68.36 [35), he is the God of the psalmist's strength (43.2), the rock of his strength (62.8 [7]), the strength of his heart (73.26), the strength of his salvation (140.8 [7]), the glory of the people's strength (89.18 [17]). The enemies are strong (18.18 [17]; 35.10; 38.20 [19]; 59.4 [3]; 69.5 [4]; 89.51 [50];)
cf. 22.13 [12]), and the psalmist wants above all to be stronger than them.

7. Binary Thinking
Binary thinking is a hallmark of the Western intellectual tradition. As such binary pairs have become the objects of Derridean deconstruction. Here is an exenplary list of classical binary pairs:
But the Western intellectual tradition is also a male construct, and what we encounter in its binary thinking is traditional masculinity.
Helene Cixous is one, but not the only one, to have seen that the binary is a straitjacket of maleness; and here we are observing how deeply the binary is inscibed in the Psalms, from Ps 1 onward.

8. Conclusion
Just becasue the Psalms are male, indefeasibly and unmistakabaly male, does not mean that there is something wrong with them. There are those of us in the world who are male, even if not entirely indefeasibly and unmistakably, and we do not intend to be wrongfooted on that account alone. So I would not like you to think I have said that because the Psalms are male they are bad. What is bad is if people think they are human rather than male, that they speak in the name of humanity and not in the name of masculinity.
But I need to say also, in my own voice, that for my part just becasue something is male I do not necessarily approve of it. My response to the maleness of the psalms ranges right across a spectrum: killing I abhor, binary thinking is my default mode. I refuse to be contrained by the masculinity of the Psalms, and I am only upset when
Everything on its own merits.
Being able to fight and and to kill lots of other men is an ideal in ancient Israelite society; it is characteristic of what men do, and it is a sign of their masculinity. It is not surprising that in the Psalms it is taken for granted that killing people is a perfectly proper thing to do, and that God also is in favour of it, and helps the psalmists do it. You could say that this is an element in the piety of the Psalms: God helps you kill people. Strangely enough, no one says it. Hans-Joachim Kraus, for example, actually begins his volume on the theology of the Psalms with a discussion of the name of God, Yahweh Sebaoth, Yahweh of Armies-a solemn divine epithet, he says. He asks whether the 'hosts' are heavenly beings or stars or all creation, and he says some obscure things about 'traditions' of the holy war; but he never for a moment connects the term with actual fighting or real killing of men by men. Artur Weiser, to take another example, hears in the opening words of Psalm 144, with which this paper began, 'an invocation inspired by the theme of trust in God', in words that express both pride and humility: by the grace of God I am what I am'. It is by God's grace that I am a killer; and my ability to deprive others of their life is an expression of my trust in God.
I wiat for the day when a theology of the Book of Psalms acknowlegdes this as an element in the piety of the psalter. It deserves an inscription all of its own:

Theology of the Book of Psalms

God helps you kill people.
or
If you want to kill people,
God will help you.

and another:

Theology of the Book of Psalms


God will make a man of you.

Perhaps we could think about it as chapters for a textbook on the piety of the Psalter? Not comprehensive, but they need including:

The Piety of the Book of Psalms

It is by the grace of God that I am a killer.
I am afraid of losing my honour, and depend on Yhwh to preserve it.
Everyone is against me.
I feel very lonely.
I would like to be big and strong, like God.
Thank God everything is Either-Or.


Notes

This paper was presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, November 1995.
. The paper on David was given in the Hebrew Bible: Gender Studies Section, Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting, Leuven, August, 1994, and at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, November, 1994. It is published as 'David the Man: Constructions of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible', in my Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 212-41.
. In some other psalms where the speaker is preoccupied with 'enemies' it may be military enemies who are in view, as for example, in 59 and 118.
. The enemies of the psalmists are similarly kitted out (even if sometimes metaphorically): with bows (11.2; 37.14, 15; 46.10 [9]; 58.8 [7]; 64.4 [3]; 76.4 [3]), arrows (11.2; 57.5 [4]; 58.8 [7]; 64.4 [3]; 76.4 [3]; 91.5), sword (22.21 [20]; 37.14, 15; 42.11 [10]; 55.22 [21]; 57.5 [4]; 59.8 [7]; 64.4 [3]; 76.4 [3]; 78.62, 64; 144.10), and, just once, shield (76.4 [3]) (obviously, it is the enemies who are the aggressive ones, so their shields will not often be in view).
. See J.D. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965); Moses Finley, The World of Odysseus (London: Penguin Books, 1962); A.W. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960); Douglas L. Cairns, Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
. Among the few, but valuable, studies of honour and shame in reference to biblical texts we may note: Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981); Gregory M. Corrigan, 'Paul's Shame for the Gospel', BTB 16 (1986), pp. 23-27; Lyn M. Bechtel, 'Shame as a Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel: Judicial, Political, and Social Shaming', JSOT 49 (1991), pp. 47-76; Anthony Phillips, 'The Book of Ruth-Deception and Shame', JJS 37 (1986), pp. 1-17; D. Daube, 'Shame Culture in Luke', in Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of C.K. Barrett (ed. Morna D. Hooker and Stephen G. Wilson; London: SPCK, 1982), pp. ???; David M. May, 'Mark 3:20-35 from the Perspective of Shame/Honor', BTB 17 (1987), pp. 83-87; Halvor Moxnes, 'Honor, Shame, and the Outside World in Paul's Letter to the Romans', in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee (ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, Peder Borgen and Richard Horsley; Philadelphis: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 207-18; David A. deSilva, Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews', JBL 113 (1994), pp. 439-61; G. Eddy, Transformed Values of Honor and Shame in Luke 18:114, in Proceedings, Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 12 (1992); G Stansell 'Honor and Shame in the David Narratives', in Was ist der Mensch ...? Beiträge zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments: Hans Walter Wolff zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. Frank Crüsemann, Christof Hardmeier and Rainer Kessler; Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1992); Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, 'Honor and Shame in Luke­p;Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World', in The Social World of LukeActs: Models for Interpretation (ed. Jerome H. Neyrey; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 25-66; M. Odell, 'An Exploratory Study of Shame and Dependence in the Bible and Selected Near Eastern Parallels', in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspectives: Scripture in Context IV (ed. K. Lawson Younger, Jr, William W. Hallo, Bernard F. Batto; Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies, 11; Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991); Halvor Moxnes, 'Honor and Shame', BTB 23 (1993), pp. 167-76).
. The Anchor Bible Dictionary (ed. David Noel Freedman; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5 vols. In The Interpreters' Dictionary of the Bible (ed. George Arthur Buttrick; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962, 4 vols.), there are only perfunctory articles on 'Honor' and 'Shame', by W. Harrelson and S.J. De Vries respectively (II, pp. 639-40; IV, pp. 305-306), noting the relevant terms in Hebrew and Greek and synthesizing the textual evidence. The former article contains the interesting sentences: 'By far the majority of occurrrences of the term "honor" in the OT refer to the honor of man. This is true largely because the same words may be rendered "glory," "splendour," "majesty," etc.' (p. 639). Is it not important that, whatever may be the English rendering of the terms (principally dwbk), they the same terms that are used of human 'honour' and divine 'glory'? The article on vwb and its congeners by Horst Seebass in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, II (ed. G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren [trans. John T. Willis; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 50-60, is likewise innocent of any anthropological insight. In none of these standard works is any bibliography to the standard anthropological studies mentioned.
. Unni Wikan, 'Shame and Honour: A Contestable Pair', Man 19 (1984), pp. 635-52.
. Moxnes, 'Honor and Shame', p. 168.
. Joseph Plevnik, 'Honor/Shame', in Biblical Social Values and their Meaning: A Handbook (ed. John J. Pilch and Bruce J. Malina; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993), pp. 95-104 (96).
. Corrigan, 'Paul's Shame for the Gospel', p. 23.
. F. Stolz wants to claim that the meaning of vwb, for example, is sometimes objective, sometimes subjective, and that 'only in a few accses can the subjective or the objective aspect be isolated' (vw[b] bOAR(o,-)OAR(,s) zuschanden werden', in Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament, I [ed. Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann; Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, and Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1971), cols. 269-72 [270]. I would dispute that, and be more inclined to argue that words in the semantic field of vwb always have a so-called 'objective' sense, even though the experience of being shamed or honoured is no doubt accompanied by 'subjective' emotions.
. Kraus, Theology of the Psalms, p. 164.
. The occurrences in 15.3 and 74.22 have to be differently analysed.
. The occurrence in 113.16 has to be differently analysed.
. As in 2 Sam. 12.30; 1 Kgs 10.2, 10, 11; 1 Chr. 20.2; 29.2; 2 Chr. 3.6; 9.1, 9, 10; Job 28.16; Ezek. 27.22; 28.13; Dan 11.38; of expensive stones as building material in 1 Kgs 5.31 (17); 7.9, 10, 11
  So, for example, Charles Augustus Briggs and Emilie Grace Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, I (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906), p. 392. Hermann Gunkel read bh;z:   t/xB]vum]   µynIynIp]   ÚWdB]k'y" 'they will honour you with corals set in gold'-which of course does attribute honour to the woman, but only in outward ornament (Die Psalmen übersetzt und erklärt [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 5th edn, 1968 [original, 1892], p. 196; followed by Hans Schmidt, Die Psalmen [HAT, I/15; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1934], p. 85).
. See commentaries.
. If that is her honour, what will happen to it when her breasts have been sucked dry and drained out, we wonder.
. Shame is the opposite of honour; but just because you don't have honour doesn't mean you can't be shamed. Starting from a neutral position, women can be shamed, of course (Num. 12.14, a woman whose father spits in her face; Isa. 3.24, women of Jerusalem; ? Isa. 23.4; 47.3, Babylon as a young woman who has been stripped naked; 54.4, Jerusalem as a widow; Jer. 2.36, Israel as a prostitute; 13.26, Jerusalem as a woman whose skirts have been lifted up over her face; 15.9, Jerusalem as a mother who has been bereaved of her seven sons (?); 46.12, 24, Egypt as a young woman; 50.12 the mother of enemies; Ezek. 16.52, 54, 61, 63, Jerusalem as a prostitute; Hos. 2.7 [5], Israel as a prostitute; Mic. 7.10, national enemy as a woman; Nah, 3.5, Nineveh as a woman whose skirts have been lifted over her face; Prov. 29.15, a mother of an undisciplined son; cf. also Gen. 2.25, Eve not ashamed of her nakedness); but it is worse for men in the ideology of honour and shame, especially those men who start from a positive position of honour. Interestingly, it is possible to reject the social censure of shaming, if one has the courage (or the necessity); a prostitute is said to refuse to be ashamed (µlkh   tnam, Jer. 3.3), signifying her freedom to construct her own values.
. Plevnik, 'Honor/Shame', p. 96.
. I leave out of account references to 'daughters of Judah' (48.11; 97.8), which are towns, not real women; the 'daughter of Babylon' (137.8) is presumably the Babylonian people, irrespective of gender.
. If tw"n" is from hw<n: 'dwelling' (as BDB, p. 627b); so jb,
. If we take tw"n" from a hw:n: 'beautiful' (= hw:aN:), as in Jer. 6.2. niv 'Even while you sleep among the campfires [mg saddlebags]' (?????) eliminates the women altogether.
. Not, surely, 'gives the barren woman a home' (rsv); she is already married and has a home that she is unlikely to lose by divorce. Her dissatisfied husband will probably just take another wife.
. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Theology of the Psalms (trans. Keith Crim; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986 [original edition, 1979], p. 18.
  Kraus, Theology of the Psalms, pp. 19-20.
. Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (trans. Herbert Hartwell; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962 [5th edn of the original, 1959]), p. 824. It is interesting also that in his commentary on Psalm 149 he never once refers to swords or war or killing, but only to 'judgment' on Gentiles.