Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Psalms compared in sequence

I did some rather random work 5 years ago in the stretch to learn letters. How do psalms relate to each other. One possibly interesting question concerning the thesis that the psalms are a Book intended for sequential reading, would be to examine the shared vocabulary between consecutive psalms.

So for instance, (apart from the very common roots: על יהוה  אל סלה כי אלוה את)

Psalm 2 with 92 words uses 9 words from psalm 1.
Psalm 3 with 70 words uses 9 words from psalm 2.
Psalm 4 with 77 words uses 17 words from psalm 3.

Clearly psalms 3 and 4 are much more tightly tied to each other than psalms 3 and 2.

Psalm 5 and 4 are related in a clear pattern - curious.  These 3 are all psalms of David so I wonder if we might see expect some patterning.

16 of 111 words in psalm 5 in the order of word usage in psalm 4
Word and gloss * first usage12345678910123456VsStem
למנצח For the leader
░
1נצח
מזמור a psalm
░
1זמר
לדוד of David
░
1דוד
אמרי my promise
░
2אמר
אתפלל I pray
░
3פלל
תשׁמע you will hear
░
4שׁמע
* אתה you are
░
5אתה
כזב a lie
░
7כזב
אישׁ a person of
░
7אישׁ
דמים blood
░
7דמם
ברב in the greatness of
░
8רב
חסדך your loving kindness
░
8חסד
בצדקתך in your righteousness
░
9צדק
לפני in my face be
░
9פנה
ברב in many
░
11רב
וישׂמחו and they will be glad
░
12שׂמח
אהבי loving
░
12אהב
* אתה you yourself
░
13אתה
Psalm 6 we know is different, being penitential, and the pattern also changes though 16 of 84 of its words occur in psalm 5.

In psalm 7 (15/142) we are back down from the 20% range to the 10% range.



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