Tuesday 25 October 2011

Psalms 115 and 28 - connections

As I work through the psalms yet again, this time with some real research capacity (though I haven't used it much for a week), I am working out how much each psalm is related to each other. Yesterday I improved an ancient graph in the original 150 diagrams to show me the real root relationships to all psalms from the point of view of any one of them. Individual examples need teasing out but I am getting clues from the shape of the tables of recurring words that help to see if a particular case should be more closely examined.

For instance, the graph shows a 40% relationship between Psalm 115 and 28. You can see the peak on the graph of all psalms against Psalm 28. Are these really very strongly related in their word usage? As usual I am excluding the divine names and some ultra-common particles,  על יהוה את אלוה כי אל, to keep the tables a little more compact. I can prove the result with an independent query on these two psalms alone.

Psalms 28 and 115

Count of Shared Selected RootsVerse CountWord Count (Excludes some common words)
7827194
The percentage of words with these selected shared roots is indeed 78/194 or about 40%. Closer inspection indicates that this may be a consequence of one or two frequently recurring words (bless, no) but there are also words used in sequence (what their hands have made) and some conceptual similarity in the two poems (their hands are contrasted with his hands in Psalm 28 and verse 7 of Psalm 28 clearly resonates with the trio of verses 9, 10, and 11 in Psalm 115).

Selected words occurring in each of psalms -28,115

Word and gloss * first usage12345678910123456VsStem
עם with
-28.1עם
יורדי those going down into
-28.1ירד
שׁמע hear
-28.2שׁמע
ידי my hands
-28.2יד
דביר the matter of
-28.2דבר
עם with
-28.3עם
ועם or with
-28.3עם
דברי speaking
-28.3דבר
עם with
-28.3עם
תן give
-28.4נתן
* להם them
-28.4להם
כמעשׂה what have made
-28.4עשׂה
ידיהם their hands
-28.4יד
תן give
-28.4נתן
* להם them
-28.4להם
* להם to them
-28.4להם
לא not
-28.5לא
מעשׂה to what has made
-28.5עשׂה
ידיו his hands
-28.5יד
ולא and not
-28.5לא
ברוך bless
-28.6ברך
שׁמע he has heard
-28.6שׁמע
ומגני and my shield
-28.7מגן
בטח trusts
-28.7בטח
ונעזרתי and I am helped
-28.7עזר
הוא is he
-28.8הוא
עמך your people
-28.9עם
וברך and bless
-28.9ברך
עד to
-28.9עד
העולם the everlasting
-28.9עלם
לא not
115.1לא
לא not
115.1לא
תן give
115.1נתן
עשׂה he did
115.3עשׂה
מעשׂה a deed of
115.4עשׂה
ידי the hands of
115.4יד
להם they have
115.5להם
ולא and not
115.5לא
ידברו speak
115.5דבר
להם they have
115.5להם
ולא and not
115.5לא
להם they have
115.6להם
ולא and not
115.6לא
ישׁמעו hear
115.6שׁמע
להם they have
115.6להם
ולא and not
115.6לא
ידיהם their hands
115.7יד
ולא and not
115.7לא
ולא and not
115.7לא
לא nor
115.7לא
עשׂיהם their makers
115.8עשׂה
בטח are trusting
115.8בטח
בטח trust
115.9בטח
עזרם their help
115.9עזר
ומגנם and their shield
115.9מגן
הוא is he
115.9הוא
בטחו trust
115.10בטח
עזרם their help
115.10עזר
ומגנם and their shield
115.10מגן
הוא is he
115.10הוא
בטחו trust
115.11בטח
עזרם their help
115.11עזר
ומגנם and their shield
115.11מגן
הוא is he
115.11הוא
יברך he will bless
115.12ברך
יברך he will bless
115.12ברך
יברך he will bless
115.12ברך
יברך he will bless
115.13ברך
עם with
115.13עם
ברוכים the blessed of
115.15ברך
עשׂה who makes
115.15עשׂה
נתן he has given
115.16נתן
לא not
115.17לא
ולא nor
115.17לא
ירדי descending to
115.17ירד
נברך we will bless
115.18ברך
ועד and unto
115.18עד
עולם everlasting
115.18עלם
Status:

  • Re collected notes, I am working on psalms 1-41 (in a private blog - email me at bobmacdonald at gx.ca if you want to read this draft of the full Psalter). 
  • In this potential draft of full text, I am working on psalms 1-8 with critique from my wife and another serious scholar of the ancient world. 
  • At Poetry of Christ, I am working on Psalms 93-100. You are welcome to comment on the posts at PoC which are all drafted and are scheduled to March 31, 2012. I have limited PoC to 10 posts per month. I do not post any random posts there. It contains only the posts on my draft notes on each psalm in sequence, and one summary per Book.


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