Ridicule #Messiah texts #Psalter Psalm 2:4

42. Recitative (Tenor) – He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Psalm 2:4

יוֹשֵׁ֣ב בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם יִשְׂחָ֑ק אֲ֝דֹנָ֗י יִלְעַג־לָֽמוֹ		4 The one sitting in the heavens, he laughs. My Lord derides them.
d iowb bwmiim iwkq adonii ilyg-lmo	7 7	iv/wb b/wmim i/wkq adn\i i/lyg l\mv

There are 79 other verses in the Poetry books that share this musical shape. 48 verses in the Psalms, 14 in Proverbs and 19 in Job. E.g. psalm 2:11 - such repeated musical lines may assist in defining the structure of a poem. Interesting that in this case, the B (Munah is the name of this accent) is always repeated. The musical phrase is always e B B ^A ger-rev,e and never e B ^A ger-rev,e. e B B ^A sounds similar to e B ^A, but this beginning to a verse only occurs twice. The accents play two roles. They define the reciting note or the ornament, and they show accentuation in the text. So sometimes the same accent defining the same reciting note will repeat. This particular phrase cannot occur anywhere in the prose books. It contains an accent pair (revia-mugrash - abbreviated in my data as ger-rev) that occurs only in the three poetry sections: Psalms, Proverbs, and the speeches of Job excluding the opening and closing sections, and the narrator's individual verses which are all written with the prose accents.

I wonder if these provide clues to structure or authorship? They are all similar with respect to rhythm, and relative poetic shortness of line, but they are not of equal syllable counts. The counts I see in the Psalms are between 14 and 17.