Forbes - Structures - and artifice

 Forbes appears to study the psalms in groups of 7 - heptade or septenary he calls them. It's not a bad idea. Such groups do certainly exist. I noted that Psalms 110-117 (an octave actually) hung together so well that I used them as a backbone for my oratorio. He too identifies 111-117 as a group of 7

This heptade is most distinctly marked, and arranged according to the more usual division of the 7 (3-1-3), since it consists of 3 Psalms beginning with hallelujah (cxi.— cxiii,), and 3 ending with hallelujah (cxv.-cxvii.), grouped around a central Psalm (cxiv.), which is distinguished from the rest by having no hallelujah either at the beginning or end.

This has promise for understanding - but I will hold my peace till I verify to what extent he pursues this idea. Not just that the 150 psalms are 3 * 7**2 + 3. If the simple arithmetic is a design structure, then it ought to be evident in a number of places.

Given his suggestion, I think he could have highlighted it more clearly in his book and not bothered to use two differing names for them. This is the overall breakdown that I have been able to find using the search capacity of the archive software.

Book 1: Psalms 2-8, 9-15, 16-22, 20-26, 27-33, 34-40. (Note the overlap)

Book 2: Psalms 42-48 Both for this group of seven and for psalms 9-15 he must insist that 9 and 10 be separated as also 42 and 43. 

Book 5: Psalms 120-126, 128-134 For this grouping he decides that the counting of Yahweh and Yah is sufficient to identify the structures 7 each surrounding Psalms 127 and each of the sevens containing one 'Yah' in the third psalm (122:4, and 130:3) and 48 invocations of the name altogether, 24 on each side). These are confirmed by a query to my database:

120 2, 121 5, 122 3, 123 2, 124 4, 125 4, 126 4  = 24

127 3

128 3, 129 3, 130 4, 131 2, 132 6, 133 1, 134 5 = 24

I am slightly disappointed that his thesis is incomplete. The artifice as he has analyzed it may be insufficient to consider it to have been deliberate or more readily observable throughout the psalter. One could search for repeated words that formed other groups of 7. And he is justified at looking for concentric structures and examining the centres. 

Still much more work to do, and a risk of coming up with either things that no one would design, or things that no one would see.