Psalm 39

Franciscan Psalter, 16th century: Psalm 38 (Vulgate count), initial “D” - Dixi: Custodiam vias meas - with David and Goliath scene. Royal Library of the Netherlands

The 39th psalm (according to Greco-Latin counting the 38th) is a psalm of David in the Bible . It belongs to the genre of the individual lamentations .

structure

In his standard work “The Psalms”, the Old Testament scholar Hermann Gunkel first rearranges the verses for structuring: the twelfth verse moves between the seventh and the eighth, while the thirteenth verse - twisted to 13cd and then 13ab - between the eighth and the ninth moves. He then structures the psalm in the following way:

1. Verses 2-4: Introduction to the lamentation poem: Origin of the poem
2. Verse 5ff: The actual lamentation poem
   1. Verses 5-7 and 12: general considerations
   2. Verses 8 and 13c.d: return to yourself
   3. Verses 13a.b, 9-11 and 14: Finally, the actual dirge

Design tradition

The tradition of interpretation is based on a Christological understanding of the Psalm.

Such goes z. B. the late antique theologian Cassiodorus . It should be noted that the tradition considers Jesus Christ to be completely sinless and therefore, when he speaks of his sins as in Psalm 39 , he does so on behalf of the “members of his body” (the Christians).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann Gunkel, Die Psalmen ( ⁶ 1986), 163f.
2. ↑ Reinhard Schlieben, Christian theology and philology in late antiquity: The schulwiss. Methods d. Exegesis of the Psalms of Cassiodor (1974), 26

Web links

Commons : Psalm 39  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Psalm 39 in the standard translation , the Luther Bible and other translations from bibleserver.com
• Psalm 39 in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) on bibelwissenschaft.de
• Sheet music in the public domain of settings for Psalm 39 in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)