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