61

PSALM 42-43
A RESPONSE TO RIDDERBOS AND

KESSLER

JSOT 1 (

(1976), 12-21)

Alonso Schökel Pontifical Biblical Institute Via della Pilotta, 25 00187 Rome
L.

1.

Points of agreement
The

or climactic arrangement dominates the psalm: its dynamic is based on and manifested in the concretely, prominence of past, present and future in each of the strophes (or, sections). Ridderbos strengthens this perspective with 3ome valuable elements: the crescendo of the appeal and the This convergence of crescendo of the presence of the enemies. as in relevant factors is stylistic analysis. pointers important

dynamic

Given this

arrangement

or

climactic

in tone, to quote the expression of A. Cohen mentioned In the light of that, the formulation that &dquo;the Ridderbos.

changes

composition, the refrain by

The

refrain here has the function of a decrescendo&dquo; seems less correct. refrain, identically formulated on each occasion, sustains and unifies the poem as three equal columns might function to support and unify a decorative frieze which portrays a developing story; at the same time the refrain, in view of its form as a dialogue, which is itself dramatic, remains open and affected by the spirit of the strophe preceding each of its appearances. In other words, it performs a formal and constructional function and an expressive function which operates by concentrating the lyric movement in three strongly worked finales. (In a good recital of the poem, a pause would be made before the refrain). 2.

Complementary

details

The dynamic unity of the composition predominates in the psalm Thus the remarks of without overwhelming the various sections. Professor Kessler prove very interesting when he nuances in the outline of the whole. Clearly, the dramatic tension of the piece makes itself felt repeatedly by expressively disturbing the pure line of development. When one reduces the analysis to a manageable scheme, the impression of schematization can be given,

62

as

if the poem were &dquo;hieratic&dquo;; in fact, the psalm on which we are commenting has about it an intense lyricism, with undercurrents of

If we persist with the image of a line that emotional tension. from the past to the future, as we come nearer to it we progresses observe that the line progresses with waverings and dislocations. A similar irregularity is formed by the actual texture of the poem, With this as detailed stylistic analysis of the poem makes clear. in mind, I regard the study of details as very desirable; it is

possible to draw up an exhaustive catalogue, but one can In general, I am inclined select what one regards as relevant. to follow the advice of S.E. Hyman (in his The Armed Vision) that one should know how to stop oneself in time, well before the limit rather than beyond it: thus I prefer, in exposition of a text, to sacrifice details that I have noted in my study of it. Nevertheless, Kesslers observations are to the point and enrich
not
our

comprehension Divergences

of the poem

being analysed.

3.

By &dquo;divergences&dquo; positions. The first

I do not mean contrary or contradictory has to do with the problem of the &dquo;lyric I&dquo;. In the psalm the stage is occupied by a man who speaks in the first person, who addresses himself to God and to himself: there is one &dquo;speaking voice&dquo; maintained by the individual. Does that allow us, without further ado, to draw consequences about the historical figure who composed the poem? To simply make such an inference appears to me illegitimate, since it operates on an unproven and uncritical supposition: that the author has been making a personal confession. In other words, it is a matter of identifying the &dquo;I&dquo; of the author with the &dquo;I&dquo; of the poem. Now to reconstruct from the details of the poem the figure of the author and then to use this reconstructed figure to explain the poem is a process dangerously close to being a vicious circle. It is quite another, and more sober, procedure to reconstruct the figure by means of certain clear details, and then to use that figure to interpret other less clear details, and to carry on with this alternating method; it is based on the principle of coherence, which can give direction to a legitimate heuristic task.

prefer tao confine myself to the &dquo;I&dquo; of the poem. heuristic process that alternates between the data of the poem and an explanation of them in terms of the author, we are limited by the presupposition that the &dquo;I&dquo; of the poem and the
Yet I
a

With

&dquo;I&dquo; of the author

are

identical.

But in fact the author

63

could either have expressed his own feelings and created from them a poem; or, on the other hand, he could have envisaged a person who telt and spoke in a particular way. The latter case exemplifies the well-known genre of &dquo;poetry of situation&dquo;, called in German Rollengedicht (lit. &dquo;role-poem&dquo;) because of its relationship with certain aspects of drama. The poem &dquo;Gretchen at the Spinning-Wheel&dquo; (Gretchen am Spinnrad)was written not by a lovesick maiden named Margarita, but by Goethe (and the marvellous setting of the text was composed by a man, Schubert). Can we assume that such a thing does not happen in the Bible? Is the author of Psalm 88 an invalid? Were all the psalms of

persecution really composed by men suffering persecution? Was the hymn of Judith 16 composed by a heroine named Judith? I believe
that it is improper to assume either a positive or a negative answer; the &dquo;I&dquo; of the author and the &dquo;I&dquo; of the poem can be identical or they can be quite different.
So then, poetic analysis will be on its guard against making assertions about the author, and will speak in such cases of the &dquo;I&dquo; of the poem; at a secondary stage it may become possible to make the jump from the poem to the author. A propos of this question, I would refer to the book by George T. Wright, The Poet in the Poem (University of California Press, 1962).

apply the foregoing to our poem, the &dquo;I&dquo; of the poem relation to the cult, probably close relations; it The speaker finds himself exiled may even have a cultic setting. in a heathen country, probably suffering persecution for his devotion to God, and for no guilt of his own.
When will have
we
a

us turn to the problem of the landscape in the notes that the relation of the &dquo;great floods&dquo; Ridderbos psalm. and the realm of the dead is frequent in the Bible, and therefore there is no need of recourse to a particular landscape as a poetic inspiration. But though the motif &dquo;death=ocean&dquo; may be a stylised one, it is not that which comes to expression in the offers us a single overwhelming verse, with The poem. poem which not even Hab. 3 can compare (even if we are uncertain of the meaning of ~innor). We need to listen well to the marvellous sonority of the verse, in a rhythmic counterpoint with its regular metre of 3+2:

Now let

64

To be noted

possessives

in

repetition of tehem, the three assymetrical positions, the alliteration

are

the

.9.E2. -qwl-kl and ~ly―~brw.

Furthermore, the motif &dquo;death=ocean&dquo; It arises and asserts itself by virtue of a shared experience. The &dquo;I&dquo; of the is not an innocuous theme; it is a weighty symbol. poem speaks as if listening to that antiphonal calling (note the participle as in Is. 40:6). For the rest, that exile could be felt as death, as Ridderbos says, can be confirmed by citing the comment of Ezek. 37: 11-14 on the vision of the bones.
Before

concluding this point, I take the opportunity to make In discussing the &dquo;I&dquo; of the Psalms: observation. collective, individual, real ..., we ought not to evade the literary problem that has been mentioned, namely the particular On the contrary, we take a risk character of the &dquo;I&dquo; in a poem. in jumping from the text either to a typical situation (Sitz im Leben) or to a unique situation (as indicated in certain of the It can easily be a leap titles) without the requisite caution. On the other made over an abyss without a safety net to catch us. hand, in starting from the &dquo;I&dquo; of the psalm it is possible to The reader establish a series of legitimate readings and uses. can distance himself from the &dquo;I&dquo; of the psalm and see revealed A user can make the psalm his own in it a human type or model. himself identifying prayer, partly with the &dquo;I&dquo; of the psalm, transferring the symbols to his own situation by converting them into a valid expression of his own experience. There lies behind this a certain transposition of horizons, a play of analogies, a symbolic vision.
a more

general

This subject is, however, treated systematically here.

of far too great

importance

to be

As for the second point of divergence, I refer this time to Kessler, although it takes me into general reflections. He says that the image of water at the beginning of the poem &dquo;is dropped with equal abruptness&dquo;. The psalm begins with an image that has symbolic value. Although its form is a rather explicit one, that of a simile, we can apply to the image the set of relationships appropriate to metaphor. The conception of metaphor lies within the field of linguistic paradigm: the metaphor (and, by analogy, image) is a substitution involving two elements of a paradigm. This is the treatment according to classical rhetoric. Another conception insists that metaphor is not a simple phenomenon of paradigmatic substitution, but that it exists in a syntagm. It

65

arises from the presence in the sentence of an element which is, literally speaking, incoherent or irrelevant. If classical rhetoric operated with the category of the tertium comparationis, the new theory uses the category of interaction. The presence of the image or metaphor in its context engenders a kind of mutual contagion, a kind of fusion of planes.
On

this above

point,

Paul Ricoeur in his work La

the most authoritative voice is that of vive (Paris, 1975). (Some

Metaphore

time ago I wrote an article on the fusion of images in Is. 9:8ff. in Estudios Biblicos 15 (1956), 63-84; it was an essay in a difficult area, and was promoted by my reading of Herbert Seidler.)
In Psalm 42-43 the image of water as life and that of deep-seated thirst intrudes almost instinctively. Thero is no value in isolating the object of the sentence, &dquo;God&dquo; as if it stood outside the image, let alone opposed to it. Although v. 3a uses the verb bqš to express the longing for God, nevertheless the

interaction would function anyway, since &dquo;God&dquo; is an expression But the author uses the verb which maintains the whole syntagm. sm~, &dquo;to thirst&dquo; - an explicit correlative of water. He does not abandon his image.

II

Although in v.8 water is turned into a threatening, engulfing, subject, the real subject is once again God, indicated by the symbol of ocean; the insistent triple possessive reinforces this. God appears in the poem in two symbols, from one semantic field, It is the polnrity within the but mutually antithetical. of God as a experience mysterium fascinans et tremendum.
Here also the moment has arrived

for
two

reflection of

general

scope,

which goes

beyond the

matter of

divergent
has of has

interpretations. I believe that the study of the OT desiccated many images and symbols through an excess A language of abstract intellectual transposition. a language of symbols. It is a matter of urgency to magnificent symbolic language so that interpretation its object to death in the laboratory.

replaced
this

recover

does not do

I close by thanking Professors Ridderbos and Kessler for the pleasure of this dialogue, despite the distance (qeographical, not spiritual) which separates us.

(Translated from the authors Spanish by P.R. Davies and D.J.A. Clines)