Professional Documents
Culture Documents
J. W. Bowker
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0042-4935%28196701%2917%3A1%3C31%3APC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained
prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in
the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/journals/bap.html.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic
journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,
and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take
advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
http://www.jstor.org
Mon Aug 6 23:21:53 2007
PSALM CX
J. W. BOWKER
Cambridge, U.K.
c.f., Gen. xiv 18). These close associations are then taken to imply that Ps. cx and
at least the basic Test. Levi were produced at about the same time and for the
same purpose, to support (and to provide a liturgy for) the Hasmonaeans. But
here again nothing more has been proved than that Ps. cx influenced the Test.
Levi; it has certainly not been proved that Ps. cx must have been written at the
same time as Test. Levi. The fact that Test. Levi draws on so many other O.T.,
images alongside those of Ps. cx (see WIDENGREN, op. tit., for details) makes it
likely that the Psalm was simply one of its sources. ~ ' I D E N G R E Nreaches the same
conclusion: "VC7hen Levi in our text is mentioned as the priest of the Most High,
Elyon, as His son, and as receiving the holy garb and the emblems of a royal
ruler, we obviously come across a royal tradition, taken over from the Davidic
rulers by the Hasmonaean priest-kings". (p. 209).
I) p. 86.
2, p. 86.
3, p. 86.
4, pp. 87f.
points out, "That Aquila and Symmachus as well as" Jerome read
nrxl 'valleys' supports the insertion of x and its loss is easily
explained as due to its quiescence; and the same defective spelling
is seen in 37; for 37x3 (Jb. xxii 29; xxxiii 17)" 5 ) . Thirdly, even if
the parallels had been better established it would still be essential to
argue which way round the influence was : an early Psalm of funda-
mental importance in the cult might well have had a very consi-
derable influence on later language.
It remains to consider the first of TREVES'arguments, that only
the Hasmonaeans could have been called 'warrior-priests' with any
accuracy. David is eliminated as a possible subject of the Psalm by
implication. But is the argument correct? David could certainly have
been called a warrior, and although TREVESis right in pointing out
that the Psalm does not necessaril3, refer to a king, it does not follow
that it codd not have done so 6). The case must remain open. On the
l) p. 87.
2, p. 87.
4) R.-J. TOURNAY, (in the index R. P. R. TOURNAY), 'Notes sur les Psaumes',
other hand there are much stronger grounds for saying that David
could not have been called a priest. At this point TREVES might have
called on H. H. ROWLEY for support: ". . .While we elsewhere find
the promise of an enduring throne for David and his house, we do
not find the thought of an enduring Davidic priesthood. SKINNER
observes that 'the existence of such priest-kings in Canaan in very
early times is perfectly credible, though not historically attested' I).
What is required is not evidence that the king played a priestly part
in certain festival rites, but that he ordinarily exercised the functions
of the priest, and was as truly the priest defacto as he was the king" 2).
But it is not at all clear that this is what is required; it is possible that
ROWLEY is asking for too much. Ps. cx specifically says that the person
addressed is a priest of a strange and different sort, "a priest after
the order of Melchizedek". Is it not possible to understand the Psalm
as an attempt to justify the way in which David (and his successors)
performed priestly acts in the cult? There is no doubt that they
performed such acts, as can be seen in 1 Sam. xiii 9-10; 2 Sam. vi 13,
17f; xxiv 25; 1 Kings iii 4, 15; viii 5, 62-4; ix 25. As DE VAUXpoints
out (and he himself is very cautious on questions of sacral hngship) :
"Some of these texts can, of course, be taken in a factitive sense,
that the king 'had sacrifice offered', but not all are capable of this
meaning. And other texts in fact exclude it: in 2 Kings xvi 12-15,
Achaz goes up to the new altar he has made, offers the first sacrifice,
and then commands the priest to continue the liturgy there; in
1 Kings xii 33 it is said that Jeroboam 'went up to the altar to offer
sacrifice' (cf., xiii If). Again, David and Solomon bless the people in
the sanctuary (2 Sam. vi 18, 1 Kings viii 14), which is a rite reserved to
the priests by Num. vi 22-7 and 1 Chron. xxiii 13. Solomon consecrates
the middle of the court (1 Kings viii 64). David wears the loincloth
which is the vestment of officiating priests (2 Sam. vi 14), Neither the
prophets nor the historical books before the exile make any protest
against these intrusions by the king into liturgical worship. It is only
after the end of the monarchy that they become a stumbling block, and
l) Cf. Genesis (I.C.C.), 1910, p. 268. (Rowley's footnote). It seems very strange
t o quote Skinner as evidence of Canaan in early times, since he was writing before
the discovery of the Ras-Shamra texts.
2, 'Melchizedek and Zadok', Festschrift f i r A. Bertholet, (Tiibingen, 1950),
p. 471. But ROWLEY did not conclude from this that the Psalm must in consequence
be late. H e concluded that at least vs. 4 of the Psalm must have been addressed to
someone else, someone, that is, other than David. That person, he suggests, was
Zadok. For a summary and brief consideration of this view see below.
36 J. W. BOWKER
2 Chron. xxvi 16-20 says that Ozias was struck with leprosy because he
had dared to burn incense at the altar, thus usurping a privilege of the
sons of Aaron (2 Chron. xxvi 18, cf., Num. xvii 5,1 Chron. xxiii 13)" 1).
Admittedly the king seems to have acted as priest on great occasions
only or in exceptional circumstances, but that is perhaps exactly
what Ps. cx envisages. . For this reason DE VAUXquestioned ROWLEY'S
solution (that vs. 4 in the second half of the Psalm refers to Zadok) :
"The text can be explained otherwise: it could mean that the king
was a priest, but in the only way in which an Israelite king could
b e . . . . He was a priest in the same way as Melchizedek, who, it
was thought, had been king and priest in that same Jerusalem where
the new king was being enthroned" 2). ROWLEYeliminated David
from vs. 4 of Ps. cx on the grounds that David was not a priest
in the 'Old Testament' sense; yet that is exactly what the Psalm
itself says of the person it addresses. On general grounds, therefore,
there is no reason why the Psalm cannot be understood as an attempt
to justify the special sense in which David might be called 'priest' 3).
And if that is so, the fourth of TREVES'arguments turns out to be
inconclusive. Whether that understanding of the Psalm is correct
depends to a great extent on the place and meaning of Gen. xiv 18-20,
the only other passage in the O.T., where Melchizedek is mentioned.
Gen. xiv is a notoriously difficult chapter. TREVESdismisses it as
"late interpolation" 4), but it contains features which pose what L.-H.
VINCENThas called, ,,. .. le dilemme fameux: rkcit inspirk d'histoire
archaique, ou vulgaire midrai tendancieux et tardif composk a la gloire
du grand ancktre national du peuple hkbreu?" 5, Perhaps the best
solution to the dilemma is the simplest one, that both elements are
present: an old tradition survived independently (because of its
connection with the cult?) and was incorporated in the Pentateuch
at a late stage =). The invention of the whole story at a late date is
unlikely: indeed, the later the date the less likely it is that a story
would have been invented in which Abraham pays tithe to a foreign
king. That it might have been invented to help support the Has-
monaeans is even less probable; it is hard in fact to see how it would
do so. It therefore seems more hopeful to explore the same hypothesis
as ROWLEY, when he says: "Like other stories in the book of Genesis
it was probably intended to serve an aetiological purpose" I). But if
that is so then what was the purpose?
The most usual solution is that it was intended to legitimise the
Davidic-type kingship which borrowed so much from the native
ideology of Jerusalem. Thus WIDENGREN summarises : "This narrative
in a way serves to legitimate the Davidic ruler as installed by El Elyon,
for Melchizedek represents his God Elyon, and Abraham stands as a
symbol for the Davidic rulers" 2). ROWLEY dissented from that view
and made his own suggestion, which started from previous arguments
about Zadok: "In the age of the Israelite Conquest the king of
Jerusalem was Adoni-zedek (Josh. x 1-3), and at the time of David's
capture of Jerusalem a priest Zadok suddenly emerges. I have
elsewhere offered reason to suppose that Zadok was the pre-Israelite
priest of the Jebusite shrine of Jerusalem, and this view has been
presented independently by others" 3). He then argued that the only
possible aetiological connection between Gen. xiv and Ps. cx is
through Zadok, not through David: "On this view the reference to
the order of Melchizedek, whose successor in the Jebusite priesthood
Zadok was, would be fully in place, and if taken in conjunction with
the story in Gen. xiv would be of real significance. As Abram had
recognised the priesthood of Melchizedek, so David recognises the
priesthood of Zadok, and takes a solemn oath in the name of Yahweh
that Zadok is irrevocably confirmed in the priesthood" 4). So he
concluded that the Psalm falls into three parts: vss. 1-3 addressed to
David, vs. 4 addressed to Zadok, vss. 5-7 the priestly blessing on
David. ROWLEY'S case is attractive, and it gains some additional
support from the change of metre in vss. 4-7; it is also supported to
ham. . .and of Sodom. . . , but also on P with which it has all manner of linguistic
pecularities in common. . . ." But this does not rule out the possibility that the
narrative includes very old elements, as EISSFELDT goes on to point out. (The
Old Testament: an Introduction, Eng. tr., 1965, pp. 211ff.)
l) ROWLEY, op. cit., p. 462.
2, WIDENGREN, op. cit., p. 208.
38 J. W. BOWKER
one foreign king but refused them from another. The purpose of the
story might then have been to emphasise exactly that contrast. It is
legitimate to accept 'gifts' from Jerusalem (which is what David had
done in tahng over ideas of hngship from there and in establishing
Jerusalem as h s capital) 1); but it is not legitimate to accept them
from other nations. In other words, David's action is not to be extend-
ed into a general principle of syncretism, nor is h s action to be
criticised on that ground 2).
The contrast in Abraham's dealings with the different hngs
provides a coherent and consistent context for Gen. xiv and Ps. cx.
Gen. xiv gives theoretical support to what Ps. cx implies, namely
that David borrowed alien ideas and applied them to himself. The
connections of Ps. cx with sacral hngship have long been recognised
and will certainly be familiar to readers of this Journal 3). What
perhaps needs to be emphasised is the experimental nature of David's
kingship. The loosely related Hebrew tribes seem to have had one
of their rare moments of concerted effort in the Philistine crisis 4,
and in the subsequent capture of Jerusalem 5 ) . David undoubtedly
tried to consolidate this unity and make the alliance de crise more
permanent. His actions were repeatedly conciliatory, so far as that
was possible 6)' even to foreign nations 7). At one point he was
apparently prepared to join the Philistines in order to achieve his
Melchizedek's city with an army and encamps threateningly. T o avoid siege and
possible destruction of his city, Melchizedek capitulates to Abram, coming out
with bread and wine as tokens of hospitality for Abram and his men, making a
speech of conditional surrender, and offering Abram a fixed tribute from the city
if he will depart". (p. 137). Very little of this actually survives in the narrative.
l) It is important to realise that Sodom is used symbolically in the O.T., as well.
Although the original dealings of the Hebrew tribes with Sodom were potentially
friendly, Sodom soon became a symbol of extreme wickedness and of everything
to be avoided. See, for example, Is. iii 9; xiii 19; Jer. xxiii 14, xlix 18, 1.40; Lam.
iv 6 ; Zeph. ii 9; cf., also Ezek. xvi 44-63, esply. vss. 56-8.
2, It became an argument against the monarchy later o n : v. I Sam. viii.
3, For a convenient, though short, bibliography, v. 0. EISSFELDT, op. lit.,
pp. 103, 210, 737.
*) Cf., also Saul's action in rallying the tribes against Nahash, 1 Sam. xi 7.
5, V. esply. 2 Sam. v 1-10.
0, SO, for example, in his dealings with the house of Saul, with Abner and with
Absalom; cf., also the almost bloodless way in which the revolt of Sheba b. Bichri
(specifically an attempt of the N. tribes to break away, 2 Sam. xix 41-xx 2) was
dissolved. The same concern can be seen in David's last charge to Solomon,
1 Kings ii 5-9.
') In 2 Sam. x David is anxious to maintain the alliance with the Ammonites:
it is they who break it. In 2 Sam. xxi Iff David recognises the claims of the Gibeon-
ites against the house of Saul.
40 J. W. BOWKER
I) 1 Sam. xxix.
2, The Rechabites show how strong conservative feelings were.
3, 2 Sam. vii. N o doubt much of this chapter is an attempt to explain why David
failed to build a temple and why it was left to Solomon to do so, but there is
probably a basic element of truth in the story-that there was opposition to the
building of a Jerusalem-type temple, since it conflicted with the ancient nomadic
traditions (2 Sam. vii 2). For a recent attempt to argue that this chapter is not a
deuteronomic composition see A. WEISER,'Die Tempelbaukrise unter David',
Z.A.W., lxxvii, 2, (1965), pp. 153-68. See also D. J. MCCARTHY, '2 Sam. vii and
the structure of the Deuteronomic History', J.B.L., LXXXIV, Pt. 2, (1965),
pp. 131-8.
*) The later Southern interpretation of the break emphasised the element of
religious apostasy (1 Kings xii). But in fact it seems to have been much more
comparable to the withdrawal of many of the Arab tribes after the death of Mu-
hammad: they had been prepared to act in alliance under his able and rewarding
leadership, but when he died the alliance naturally dissolved in the time-honoured
way. The dissolution was only checked by a vigorous campaign to keep the tribes
in line. Here also, the element of religious apostasy was stressed-not least in
calling the campaigns 'The Wars of the Riddah (Apostasy)'. Thus ibn Hisham
records: "ibn 'Ishiiq said: Siilih b. Kaysan told m e . . .from (K'isha, who said:
The last thing which the Apostle of God commanded was when he said, Let there
.
not be two religions left in the Arabian peninsula. . . When the Apostle of God
was dead the Muslims were much stricken. (A)isha used to say (according,to what
I have heard): When the Apostle of God died the Arabs apostasised (>sJl)and
Christianity and Judaism became prominent, and disbelief (jld:Jl this word also
contains the element of abandoning a belief once held; v., esply., Qur)an iv 13617-
139140, ix 65/4-6918; 74/3-7817, xxxiii 12ff.) emerged. The Muslims became like
sheep exposed to the rain o n a winter's night through the loss of their Prophet
until God brought them together under abu Bakr". (SIRAT,edn. 1955, Vol. 11,
p. 665).
PSALM cx 41