Psalm Research since 1955:
I. The Psalms and the Cult
Published in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998, Volume 2 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 639-64The present article surveys the literature devoted to one major aspect of Psalm study in the period 19551965./2/ The choice of 1955 as a starting date does not imply any conception of it as a turning-point in Psalm study, but is simply determined by the fact that Psalm research in the period 19301954 has already been reviewed in an admirable survey by J.J. Stamm./3/
Although Mowinckel's introduction to the Psalms appeared before 1955,/4/ I have thought it right to refer to it here since it has become generally known and accessible only in its English translation in 1962./5/ Weiser's commentary on the Psalms also does not, strictly speaking, fall within our period,/6/ but it has seemed reasonable to notice his views on certain matters, since together with the works of Mowinckel and Kraus his commentary is undoubtedly one of the most important recent contributions to the understanding of the Psalms, and it too has received an English translation only in 1962./7/ The last few years have also seen the completed publication of a massive commentary on the Psalms by Kraus;/8/ his basic position, at least as it concerns the present question of the Psalms and the cult, was already known from his studies on the kingship of God in the Old Testament/9/ and on the festival of Tabernacles./10/
The views of these three scholars, Mowinckel, Weiser, and Kraus, have tended to dominate the Þeld of Psalm criticism in our period; it is not surprising therefore that discussion of the Psalms has largely revolved about the quite substantial differences between them, with the result that certain fundamental similarities of approach have been obscured, similarities that are most in evidence on the subjects of the role of the autumn festival in Israel's worship and of the cultic interpretation of the Psalms. Of Psalm study in general since 1955 it may fairly be said that the work of Gunkel/11/ and the early Mowinckel/12/ has to a very large extent provided its framework and presuppositions.
There have been some signs, however, of a questioning of some of the usual categories in which problems about the Psalms have for a long time been considered: for example, have discussions of the 'cultic' origin of the Psalms operated with too narrow a deÞnition of 'cult'?/13/ And is the phrase 'a non-cultic psalm' perhaps meaningless?/14/ Must the festival cult be the Sitz im Leben of the Psalms?/15/ Should we in fact look for only one Sitz im Leben of each psalm?/16/ Such questions are at present being asked on a very small scale; but in so many areas of Psalm study (e.g. the role of the king in the cult) such an impasse seems to have been reached that further progress may in some cases be made only through the re-examination of presuppositions.
1. The Cultic Origin of the Psalms
It has become a commonplace of Psalm criticism that not only the Psalm Gattungen, as Gunkel maintained, but also the individual psalms themselves are of cultic origin. The large majority of scholars in our period have, following Mowinckel's Psalmenstudien, looked for a cultic situation to which each psalm may be assigned, but the question has remained open whether there may not be some psalms that were not composed for a cultic purpose. Stamm remarked in his survey that it would be 'a task for future research to determine more exactly the scope and peculiarity of both groups [sc. cultic and non-cultic psalms] and to distinguish them from one another',/17/ yet comparatively little fundamental research has been forthcoming on this topic.
Mowinckel himself indeed, although in 1924 he recognized only two or three psalms as non-cultic,/18/ now allows for the existence of a dozen non-cultic psalms, which he calls 'learned psalmography', namely Pss. 1, 34, 37, 49, 78, 105, 106, 111, 112, 127;/19/ and he has reconstructed the circles of the 'wise' among whom he believes such learned psalmography arose./20/ Psalm 119, however, although it appears to share certain of the characteristics of learned psalmography (notably the alphabetic form), and although its Sitz im Leben is a scholarly community of the wise, is in intention not learned poetry, but a petition or lament in which traces of the traditional schema of that Gattung may be seen./21/ These admissions on Mowinckel's part of the existence of non-cultic psalms in no way imply a reversal of his fundamental position; they are exceptions that prove the rule, and it remains axiomatic for him that 'it is the non-cultic character of a psalm which has to be proved, the contrary being the more likely supposition'./22/
Mowinckel's acceptance of the existence of non-cultic psalms has been challenged by Holm-Nielsen;/23/ while he admits that the later psalms (by which he means principally the alphabetic psalms) are not cultic in origin in the same sense as the pre-exilic psalms, which belonged to ceremonial activities in the Temple and were perhaps used as elements in dramatic performances, he asks whether the term 'cult' should not be redeÞned in a broader sense to include the activities of the postexilic synagogues, where instruction in the law and divine worship cannot be strictly separated. The word 'psalm' likewise is only meaningful if it is connected with divine service, and thus cult; thus the question should not be asked whether there are any non-cultic psalms in the Psalter, but rather be put more radically, 'Are there in the canonical collection any poems which cannot be denoted as psalms?'/24/ The attempt of Holm-Nielsen to relate the wisdom psalms to the cult is approved by Murphy,/25/ who regards the sharp distinction that is frequently drawn between wisdom circles and the cult as fallacious, but he is compelled Þnally to admit that the precise Sitz im Leben of the wisdom psalms (Pss. 1, 32, 34, 37, 49, 112, 128, according to his reckoning) escapes us.
Weiser similarly has little sympathy with the notion of 'cult-free' psalms, and sees no reason why psalms in which a purely personal note is sounded, even including acrostic psalms and psalms that contain no direct reference to the cult, 'should not right from the beginning have been intended for recitation in the festival cult'./26/ Even psalms composed far from the Temple (e.g. Pss. 42, 43) or after the destruction of the Temple (e.g. Pss. 74, 79) are 'inwardly so closely related to the sanctuary and its cultic traditions that not many hymns [i.e. psalms] are left over in the Psalter of which it can be said that they are really "dissociated from the cult" and exclusively composed for private ediÞcation'./27/ Even the wisdom psalms exhibit cultic concepts, so that it may be presumed that wisdom literature and the cult of Yahweh have inþuenced each other./28/
In strong opposition to such attempts to see everything in the Psalter as composed for cultic purposes is the work of the Hungarian scholar Szörényi,/29/ who declares himself to be strongly critical of the mainstream of Psalm research from Gunkel and Mowinckel onward, and believes it is possible to discern criteria by which cultic and non-cultic psalms may be separated. External criteria that may serve to determine whether a particular psalm was composed for a liturgical purpose are these: historical proof from other books of the Old Testament that the psalm was actually used in worship; a change of speaker within a single psalm, when it is explicable only as a liturgical device; and the litany form, that is, sentence followed by response. Among the inner criteria are: descriptions in a psalm of the Temple, a festival, a sacriÞce, or other cultic act; but it is emphasized that it must not be a matter of a simple mention of a cultic happening, for the content of the psalm must witness to such an event as being really present. The following cannot serve as criteria, though they are often so used: the superscriptions and musical terms, the evidence of the Mishnah and Talmud, and similarity with cultic poetry of the ancient Near East. On the basis of his criteria Szörényi Þnds Þfty psalms for which a liturgical origin seems certain (Pss. 9, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 33, 40, 44, 46, 48, 57.8-12 [= 108.2-6], 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 75, 76, 81, 82, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 99, 100, 102.13-23, 106, 107, 108, 115, 116, 118, 121, 126, 132, 134, 135, 136, 144, 146, 149, 150), and nine others that probably had a liturgical origin (Pss. 7, 21, 23, 47, 80, 92, 125, 147, 148). The bulk of the Psalter is thus the creation of private individuals.
Another approach to the origin of the Psalms which is opposed to the usual cult-oriented view is taken by the followers of A. Robert, with their hypothesis of the 'anthological' character of many psalms./30/ Robert 'attempted to bring back to life the learned circles, the schools of sages, which would have conceived the composition of the psalms as a speciÞcally literary task. The learned poetry of the psalmists would have been based on a constant use of biblical materials, which is the touchstone of the "anthological" or "midrashic" style.'/31/ Although the positing of such wisdom circles as the originators of the Psalms does not preclude the possibility that psalms were adapted for and used in the cult, it greatly diminishes the importance of links between the Psalms and the cult. Deissler, a pupil of Robert, in a monograph on Psalm 119 subtitled 'A contribution to the investigation of the anthological type of style in the Old Testament',/32/ outlines the principles of this approach, and attempts to show in detail the dependence of this psalm upon other parts of the Old Testament, especially the prophets and wisdom literature. Special studies have also been devoted by Deissler to Psalm 33,/33/ which he Þnds to have originated in postexilic wisdom circles, and to Psalm 48,/34/ whose author, like that of Psalm 33, had a special predilection for the book of Deutero-Isaiah. In his treatment of the 'cosmic hymns', Pss. 8, 19, 29,/35/ he attempts to demonstrate the origin of Pss. 8 and 19 in the postexilic milieu of 'theological wisdom', and the authorship of Psalm 29 by a theologian inspired by the faith of the prophets.
Another pupil of Robert, Bonnard,/36/ believes that a large number of psalms were composed under the spiritual inþuence of Jeremiah. On twenty-one psalms Jeremiah had a 'real spiritual inþuence' (Pss. 6, 7, 16, 17, 22, 26, 31, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 51, 55, 69, 71, 73, 86, 109, 119, 139), while on twelve others there is 'a more simple literary inþuence' (Pss. 1, 44, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 99, 106, 135); and in a further thirty-one psalms a lesser dependence on Jeremiah may be traced. The authors of these psalms must be a postexilic group of Jeremiah's disciples. In spite of Bonnard's conclusions from a study of the history of motifs and ideas contained in these psalms that there is a real dependence on Jeremiah and not simply dependence of psalms and Jeremiah alike on common cultic traditions, Coppens has argued, on the basis of a study of two psalms adduced by Bonnard, Pss. 6 and 41, that none of the points of contact proves dependence, and that the similarities may be sufÞciently explained by the common use by the psalmists and Jeremiah of the features of the individual lament./37/
It becomes apparent that a closer deÞnition of 'a cultic origin of the Psalms' will be indispensable for further progress in the question of the relation of the Psalms to the cult. Such questions as the following must be answered: What is meant by 'cult'? Are private piety, wisdom circles, and the cult mutually exclusive sources for the Psalms? Is the common assumption valid, that to demonstrate a cultic origin for the Psalms necessitates an understanding of the Psalms as cultic formulae,/38/ from which the nature and details of the cult may be reconstructed?/39/ Do the Psalms only allude to cultic events, or are they themselves liturgies?/40/
2. The Cult Attested in the Psalmsa. An Enthronement Festival?
At the heart of the problem of the relation of the Psalms to the cult lies the question: To what kind of cult and to what cultic activities in particular are the Psalms to be related?
Mowinckel's hypothesis that a large number of psalms are to be connected with an enthronement festival of Yahweh celebrated at the New Year and attested principally in the 'Enthronement Psalms'/41/ has won wide acceptance. He has recently reiterated his position, issuing rejoinders to a number of critics;/42/ in particular, he points out that his hypothesis of the enthronement festival was not an attempt to establish the existence of a new Israelite festival, but merely to give content to the well-known autumn festival. Nevertheless, there have been a number of notable attempts in recent years to undermine Mowinckel's whole position.
Although Mowinckel includes the name of Weiser in a list of scholars who have supported the enthronement festival hypothesis,/43/ it is much more evident that Weiser, by his own theory of a covenant festival (even though it too is the autumn festival) as the key to the interpretation of the Psalms, has set himself in opposition to Mowinckel. Weiser makes only the slightest concessions to the enthronement festival theory; he is prepared to allow that the enthronement of Yahweh formed a portion of the liturgy of the covenant festival: 'it was, so to speak, a single scene within the whole drama of the cult'; but he explicitly rejects Mowinckel's thesis of 'a separate Enthronement Festival', as he calls it./44/
Kraus has joined issue with Mowinckel over the interpretation of Yahweh målåk,/45/ which is fundamental to Mowinckel's position. This phrase is, in Kraus's view, not to be understood as an 'enthronement shout', for that would be, on the analogy of 2 Sam. 15.10, etc., målak Yahweh; the word order Yahweh målåk, with the subject before the verb, indicates that a situation, not an act, is being described, and so Yahweh målåk in Pss. 93, 96, 97 and 99 can only be translated 'Yahweh is king'. It may further be objected to the idea of a cultic enthronement of Yahweh: (i) It is inconceivable how an enthronement of Yahweh could have been portrayed in Israel, since there was no image of Yahweh that could be lifted up on to a throne. (ii) The concept of an enthronement of the deity belongs theologically to a myth of an annual death and resurrection of the god; and such a myth is not to be found in the Old Testament. (iii) An 'enthronement' of Yahweh would imply a preceding loss of kingship; the psalms of Yahweh's kingship, however, stress the unalterable kingship of Yahweh, not least the very psalm (Ps. 93) that has often been pressed into service on behalf of the 'nature-myth' of the renewal of creation.
References to the ascent of the Ark or its entry into the Temple do not imply an enthronement of Yahweh, for Yahweh does not ascend the Ark, but remains seated thereon. There was indeed a festival of the entry of the Ark into the Temple, on the Þrst day of the Festival of Tabernacles, but its character was that of a 'royal Zion festival' celebrating the election of the house of David and Jerusalem. Psalm 47 is the only psalm which shows clearly an act of Yahweh's enthronement, and here Kraus is inclined to accept the explanation of Eissfeldt, that the author of the psalm 'means that Yahweh is king, but he describes how he becomes king, since he can best portray the meaning of the present state of affairs by the splendour of an act'./46/ Alternatively, it is possible that Psalm 47 refers to the cultic situation in Jerusalem as it has been altered by the exile; the era in which the Davidic dynasty stood at the centre of the people of God has come to an end, and Yahweh alone has now become king of Israel (cf. Isa. 52.7, 'thy God reigneth'). In no case can one make the whole weight of an 'enthronement festival of Yahweh' with all its cultic and theological consequences depend upon this one psalm./47/
Mowinckel has offered some replies to Kraus's criticisms,/48/ which, it must be said, seem at times to be beside the point, especially when he fails to recognize that Mowinckel's view of the 'enthronement' of Yahweh does not imply any previous 'dethronement'./49/ In turning to Kraus's own hypothesis, Mowinckel claims that the 'royal Zion festival' is an invention, the result of singling out one aspect of the autumn festival and of interpreting an arbitrary number of texts according to this construction. The festival of tabernacles and new year was indeed a 'Zion festival' and a festival of the royal house, but it was 'Þrst of all something much more'./50/
Kraus's interpretation of the so-called 'enthronement cry' Yahweh målåk is largely dependent on the study of Michel,/51/ who concludes from an examination of the enthronement cry in Babylonia and Egypt that the enthronement cry proper was couched in the second person: 'Thou art king'; the third-person form, 'X is king', is rather a cry of acclamation and praise addressed to one who has already become king. The verb målak usually means 'to act, rule, as king', and the psalms of Yahweh's kingship accordingly show how he rules as king, not how he has become king. Since a direct second-person enthronement cry is not attested in the Old Testament, and since also it is impossible to conceive how Yahweh could have ascended a throne, Michel pronounces the theory of an enthronement festival of Yahweh very doubtful, if not impossible. De Vaux/52/ also Þnds Yahweh målåk to be an acclamation, not an enthronement cry, for who could have enthroned Yahweh? The 'enthronement psalms' describe Yahweh's kingship, not his accession to kingship.
Further support for the understanding of Yahweh målåk as a 'formula of acclamation' is given by Lipinski,/53/ who adduces Akkadian, Egyptian, and Ugaritic parallels; but he translates it as 'Yahweh has become king'. The exact nuance of the phrase is: 'Yahweh and no other has become king', as may be seen from the parallel in 1 Kgs 1.11 (Adonijah, and not Solomon as promised, has become king)./54/ While Lipinski would prefer his own designation of the kingship of Yahweh psalms as 'kerygmatic' or 'proclamation' psalms, he gives his assent to the Þxing of the Sitz im Leben both of these psalms and of the 'cry of acclamation' in an enthronement liturgy, very probably the liturgy of Tabernacles./55/
Yet even if one understands Yahweh målåk as an acclamation merely and translates it 'Yahweh is king', it does not follow that no enthronement of Yahweh can have taken place. This is shown by Kapelrud,/56/ who argues further that a celebration of Yahweh's enthronement by no means implies that at some time he has temporarily ceased to be king; but rather, 'Yahweh has already reigned in the past year, without the occurrence of great events. But now the new year begins the ceremonies and rites of the new year are performed and Yahweh (who has never left the throne) is newly enthroned, in the Þrm hope that now is coming the year of fortune and grace.'/57/ While the stress in målåk is on the 'living activity', the verb has an ingressive as well as a durative meaning./58/ Many opponents of Mowinckel's enthronement festival hypothesis/59/ have been content to offer only negative criticism. It is of interest therefore that there have been several attempts to provide positive alternatives to Mowinckel's view. The 'covenant festival' theory of Weiser,/60/ according to which the essential character of the autumn festival was that of a renewal of the Sinai covenant, and the 'royal Zion festival' of Kraus, who lays his emphasis on the themes of God's election of Zion as a dwelling-place and of the Davidic dynasty as his kings, are too well known to require treatment in this paper,/61/ but attention may be drawn to one or two different approaches to the same problems.
The approach of MacRae lies in an analysis of the character of the autumn festival,/62/ which he Þnds to have been in Israel a fusion of a nomadic, pilgrim festival and an agricultural, harvest festival. Following the settlement it remained a mainly agricultural festival. The psalms of Yahweh's kingship cannot be shown to have been connected with it, and the psalms most likely to have had associations with this festival are Pss. 28, 42, 43, 76, 81, 118, 132. K.G. Rendtorff /63/ also Þnds no necessary connection between the psalms of Yahweh's kingship and an enthronement festival whose existence is in any case not clearly established. By comparison of these psalms with Exodus 15, Rendtorff concludes that they are variations on various themes connected with Yahweh's kingship, and do not form the accompaniment to any deÞnite ritual action. They could therefore have provided a framework into which any favourite narrative of Yahweh's deeds, whether in Israel's history or in the creation, could have been Þtted, and thus could have been employed at other festivals besides Tabernacles. Gross/64/ goes further than Rendtorff in assigning these psalms to one particular festival other than Tabernacles, namely Passover. The origin of the phrase Yahweh målåk, according to Gross, is the expression Yahweh yimløk at the end of the 'Passover cantata' or festival hymn for Passover, Exod. 15.1-18. Thus the question whether there was an enthronement festival of Yahweh may be answered in the afÞrmative, not in the sense usually intended (that there was a ritual of Yahweh's enthronement), but 'insofar as the fundamental sentence for Old Testament faith, that Yahweh is king, was a cultically celebrated part of the Israelite Passover festival'.
It has at least become clear in recent years that a cavalier rejection of Mowinckel's theory is not sufÞcient, especially in the light of the modiÞcations introduced by Mowinckel himself and others to the meaning of 'an enthronement festival'. There are, indeed, certain a priori objections to postulating a full-scale 'patternist' new year festival in Israel, but none at all, it seems to me, to a festival of Yahweh's enthronement, if all that is meant by that is a festival (the well-attested autumn festival) at which the accession of Yahweh to kingship at some point in the past is reactualized in the cult, perhaps with ritual accompaniment. The psalms of Yahweh's kingship and the phrase Yahweh målåk do not demand such a setting, but are plainly susceptible of it if on other grounds an enthronement festival can be shown to be likely./65/ What remains to be proved is, Þrst, whether the references to Yahweh's kingship point conclusively to an association with one festival (new year/ Tabernacles) rather than to other festivals or indeed to no festivals at all, but the daily or weekly cult;/66/ and secondly, whether any interpretation consonant with Old Testament theology can be given to the phrase 'the accession of Yahweh to the kingship'.
In what sense could Yahweh be said to have become or to become king? According to Mowinckel, Yahweh was believed to have Þrst gained his kingship by victory over the powers of chaos at the creation; this kingship, however, is renewed by successive acts of kingly power on behalf of Israel; thus his kingship means his activity as 'conqueror [of chaos], creator, king of the whole earth, reformer of the people and its fortunes, as the king of Israel who repeated the acts of deliverance from Egypt and the Reed Lake, and who, by his mere coming [at the enthronement festival], has set the world aright again and crushed every onslaught that the enemies might make on his city and people'./67/ Weiser also regards the kingship of Yahweh as 'based on the idea of creation',/68/ but he also links with this a series of historical expressions of Yahweh's kingship, especially the proclamation of his will, and his judgment. Gray/69/ Þnds the prototype of Yahweh's accession to kingship in Baal's assumption of kingship following his victory over the unruly waters; this, according to Gray, is a victory at creation. In the Israelite view of the kingship of Yahweh there was a combination of the theme of kingship through creation with speciÞcally Israelite concepts of the Heilsgeschichte, which originally had nothing to do with the kingship of Yahweh./70/ Yet it is more than doubtful, as has been recently pointed out,/71/ whether the battle and victory of Baal over sea and rivers has any connection with creation./72/
Another approach to the problem of Yahweh's becoming king when he is already king is suggested by Schmidt's thesis of the indebtedness of the Israelite view of Yahweh's kingship to Canaanite ideas both of El and Baal./73/ El's kingship is static, Baal's dynamic; Yahweh's kingship is a blend of the two, and thus contains two aspects: it is a timeless
and unalterable kingship, but also one that has to be won and defended against loss.
For most scholars, the kingship of Yahweh is primarily connected with the events of primaeval time, even though it is reactualized in history. Caquot,/74/ however, has suggested a concrete historical setting for the Israelite concept of the kingship of Yahweh: the removal of the Ark to Zion, an event that climaxes and epitomizes Yahweh's conquest of Canaan. In the ascent of the Ark to Zion in the time of David, Yahweh became king of Zion and so of Canaan. Two factors contributed toward the understanding of this event as 'enthronement' of Yahweh: the general Semitic concept of the god as king, and the speciÞcally Jebusite traditions of El Elyon as king of the gods./75/ Schmidt also relates the origin of the name 'king' for Yahweh to the time of the conquest of Jerusalem, but unlike Caquot sees it entirely as a borrowing from the traditional language of the cult of El Elyon, the god of the city./76/ The exodus has been suggested as an alternative point of origin for the idea of Yahweh's kingship./77/
Certain occasions in history on which Yahweh could have been enthroned or become king are therefore conceivable, and it is by no means unlikely that such occasions would have been commemorated in worship. The course of recent research has shown that in spite of some serious weaknesses in Mowinckel's theory summary rejections of it have not penetrated to the heart of the matter, and the time is ripe for thoroughgoing re-examination of the fundamental presuppositions, especially as concern the nature of the Israelite cult.b. The Role of the King
The relation of the king to the cult remains a vexed question; two foci of attention in recent research may be discerned, one the problem whether the Israelite king exercised cultic functions at all, the other whether the Scandinavian 'king-ideology', which sees the king as the central Þgure in the performance of the cult, can be substantiated.
Most scholars accept that the king played some signiÞcant part in the cult. To take three representative examples: Widengren/78/ sees the king as the builder of the Temple and its lord, and as high-priest he is the owner of the breast-plate with the 'tables of destiny' (Urim and Thummim), as well as of the tables of law given him at his coronation; another sacral function of the king is his role as mediator of the covenant./79/ Johnson has his own distinctive position on sacral kingship which he maintains over against the Scandinavian view, yet he also assigns to the king a vital part in the cult,/80/ especially as the chief performer in the ritual of the autumn festival. Kraus, to name a scholar who stands in most respects at the other end of the spectrum from all that smacks of 'patternism', is in his own way concerned to emphasize the strong connection between the king and the shrine, since for him the 'royal Zion festival' has precisely these two centres of interest, the Davidic house and the Jerusalem Temple./81/
But others have minimized the extent of the king's cultic functions. While admitting that the king exercised some control over the cultus, de Fraine denies that the king ever had a priestly quality; allusions to kings bringing sacriÞces personally are few, and in any case such sacriÞces were probably schismatic, the reference to the king as a priest in Ps. 110.4 is not to the Israelite king but to the Messianic king, and the reference to the priesthood of the sons of David in 2 Sam. 8.18 is not conÞrmed by 1 Chron. 18.17./82/ De Vaux also argues that while the king occasionally performs religious functions and is undoubtedly a sacred person, he is not a priest, and has only the religious privileges that a head of state may be expected to possess over the state religion./83/ It is signiÞcant that 'the instances where the king's personal action [in cultic matters] is beyond question are all very special or exceptional: the transference of the Ark, the dedication of an altar or sanctuary, the great annual festivals'./84/
Even the term 'sacral' as applied to the king has been questioned by McCullough,/85/ who claims that the actual character of the Israelite kings empties the term 'sacral' of its content; the king is only seldom described in a religious role, and references to the cultic activity of the king are conspicuous by their absence from the Pentateuchal law codes./86/ McCullough further complains that data about the king's functions are usually collected indiscriminately from various parts of the Old Testament, without recognition of the possibility that the king's religious functions may have changed from generation to generation. Whybray too has claimed that the historical books of the Old Testament do not support the emphasis often placed on the sacral nature of the king. Since the monarchy in Israel was of comparatively short duration, left little impression on the Torah, and was vigorously criticized by the prophets, it is unlikely that it played so central a part in the religious life of Israel as is often suggested. David's kingship was predominantly secular, rather than 'sacral', and the cult that did grow up around the monarchy should not be overestimated, for while some aspects had real meaning, much was idealistic, ephemeral or hyperbolic./87/ Turning now to the 'king-ideology' school and the literature to which it has given rise, whether in agreement with it or reaction against it, we may note that although the basic treatments of the subject appeared before our period,/88/ a large volume of work continues to be devoted to this subject, evidence of which is the appearance since 1955 of four important books (those of Widengren, Ahlström, Johnson, and Bernhardt, to be mentioned below), as well as many articles.
In his study of sacral kingship, Widengren attempts to demonstrate that the king played the role of the dying and rising God on new year's day. In the ritual drama of the new year festival, the king combats the forces of chaos and after ritual humiliation involving his death and resurrection Þnally defeats them; he then celebrates a hieros gamos, and is enthroned on the divine mountain./89/ Ahlström has applied the patternist view of the cultic function of the king to the exegesis of Psalm 89,/90/ which he interprets as a liturgy from the ritual for the king suffering ritual humiliation; he envisages the king at the festival of the renewal of the year (such is the meaning of makªl in the superscription) in the role of the suffering servant in the cult drama of the Canaanite vegetation god Dwd, son of Yahweh. Morgenstern, in keeping with his theory of the signiÞcance of sun-worship in Israel, offers his own distinctive reconstruction of the royal ritual: the king, in the role of the sun-god Yahweh, ascends to the top of the Mount of Olives on the Þrst day of the new year festival, whence he returns to the Temple at the end of the eight-day ritual, there to ascend the throne./91/
The reconstruction by Johnson of the autumn festival,/92/ though not devoid of 'imagination',/93/ is far removed from the extreme Scandinavian position. He identiÞes four major moments in the ritual: 1. The celebration of Yahweh's original triumph, as leader of the forces of light, over darkness (represented by the chaos waters); the subjection of the cosmic sea, and his enthronement as king in the assembly of the gods; the demonstration of his power in creation and history. 2. The dramatic representation of the eschatological Day of Yahweh, when he will triumph over rebellious gods and nations, and so afÞrm his kingship over the moral realm as well as over that of nature. 3. The dramatic representation of the descent of the true Messiah to the underworld and his ultimate deliverance from the forces of darkness and death. 4. The triumphal procession in which the Ark, as the symbol of Yahweh's presence, and the king, who in the drama has proved to be true Messiah and 'Son' of Yahweh, move to the Temple for the Þnal act of enthronement which is to mark the beginning of this new era. Elements of this ritual drama are found by Johnson throughout the Psalter: Ps. 89.39-46 is the ritual humiliation of the king; Psalm 101 is his 'negative confession' or protestation of innocence; Psalm 18 is his thanksgiving for deliverance from the ritual hazards; Pss. 2 and 110 depict the Þnal stage of the drama, the fulÞlment in reassuring oracles of Yahweh's promise to the dynasty./94/
A similar approach by BiO(c,)/95/ Þnds the Þrst book of the Psalms (Pss. 141) to be a liturgy for a king's enthronement festival. The king, who is in the foreground of these psalms, is the chief Þgure in the festival; he is Son of God, substitute for the people's sins, God's warrior upon whose faithfulness salvation depends, opponent of God's enemies. He is delivered from great distress by God and given the task of judging the enemies. Through his steadfastness in suffering he bears witness to God's saving acts as the new year, the time of salvation, opens.
Mowinckel has indicated his approval of the increasing emphasis being given to the Þgure of the king;/96/ there are more royal psalms than is usually recognized, he suggests, and he claims that the superscription ledåwid indicates that the psalm was composed for the king./97/ But he will not agree that the king was ever regarded as identical with Yahweh or played Yahweh's part in the cult,/98/ and in so saying aligns himself rather with Johnson than with the Uppsala school. He Þnds in the Israelite conception of kingship both general oriental elements and speciÞcally Israelite elements./99/ Among the former are the conceptions of the king as a superhuman being, as representative of God to humanity and of humans to God, and among the latter, the idea of the source of the king's authority residing in his 'corporate identity with the tribe' and not his special relationship to God, the absence of any 'metaphysical' unity of Yahweh and the king or of a really 'mythological' understanding of the king's relation to Yahweh, and the concept of the activity of God in history through the covenant with David and his heirs.
There is thus no generally accepted meaning attached to the phrase 'sacral kingship'; failure to give due recognition to this fact is a þaw in the work of Bernhadt, the most substantial critique of the king-ideology to have appeared since 1955./100/ In opposing the pervasive inþuence of patternism, he emphasizes that there was in Israel a deep-rooted objection to kingship, which continued throughout the period of the monarchy. In the Psalms, as in the historical books, three of the basic elements of king-ideology are lacking: the identiÞcation of the king with God, the offering of worship to the king, and the idea of the king's power over the forces of nature. What is to be found in the Old Testament is not just a few historical traditions attached to a thorough-going royal ritual, but rather a number of motifs borrowed from Near Eastern king-ideology and attached to the Israelite history of election and covenant./101/ McCullough Þnds no clear vestige of a cultic drama such as that described by Johnson, and argues that, in view of the importance such a drama must have had in Israelite life, it is strange that so few psalms depicting it have been preserved; it is difÞcult also to believe that there could have been portrayed an annual victory over death that seemed to have no real effect in staying the power of death./102/
Others take a more moderate position, accepting the term 'sacral kingship' but not all the implications it is sometimes made to carry. Coppens, for example, Þnds that Psalm 110 clearly indicates the sacral character of the Israelite king and his participation in the exercise of divine power; yet his sacrosanctity is not viewed on the mythological plane, for he is not only 'son of God', but also 'priest', therefore a servant of Yahweh and on no account his equal./103/ For de Vaux also the essential function of the king is that of God's servant, or more speciÞcally, God's vassal, as deÞned by the covenant with the king./104/ Rosenthal puts his emphasis on the idea of the king as the 'vicegerent' of God, and regards Widengren's extension of the sacral functions of the king to include that of owner and teacher of the book of the Torah as unjustiÞed./105/ A great importance is attributed by Hallevy/106/ to the monarchy in the sphere of religious institutions: it created a new cultic centre, a new sanctuary with a national priesthood which encouraged by propaganda the idea of the monarchy and loyalty to it, and a new religious functionary, the king, in his roles of judge, cultic ofÞcial, and commander-in-chief. But this is not to be thought of as kingship ideology on the ancient Near Eastern pattern, for a special relationship between God and the king existed only in the cases of Saul and David, charismatic Þgures like the judges; with Solomon there was a transition from individual election to dynastic succession, and the king became an organizer and administrator./107/ Certainly, whatever light is shed on the Israelite monarchy by the king-ideology of Babylonia, Egypt, Hatti and Ugarit, regard must be had for the unique character of the Israelite kingship, and indeed for the differences among the ideologies of these various states./108/
Some colour is lent, at Þrst sight, to the extreme exponents of sacral kingship by the language used of the king in the Psalms, especially the title 'Son of God'. Yet in spite of the insistence of Ahlström/109/ that such expressions as Ps. 2.7 must be understood literally, that is, as depicting a cultic actuality, most scholars now agree that 'Son of God' as applied to the king means only 'adopted by God'. From an examination of the term in Pss. 2, 19, 110, Cooke/110/ concludes that in none of these contexts is anything more than 'a metaphorical or adoptional interpretation' required. This is conÞrmed by more general considerations of the nature of Yahwism which would not have allowed a mortal to be raised to any higher status, and also by the fact that no prophet attacked Israelite kings or the monarchy in general because of any claims for the divinity of the king. De Fraine/111/ also rejects any suggestion that the title implies a divinization of the king, even if all that meant were that the king played the role of the god in the cult; he argues that the Yahwistic circles to which we owe, if not the original composition of Psalm 2, at least the 'relecture' of the psalm, were utterly opposed to such divinization.
The title 'Son of God' has been recognized by a number of scholars as 'oriental court-style',/112/ which ought not to be taken too seriously as an expression of Hebrew belief about the nature of the king./113/ Mowinckel, while agreeing that the phrase 'oriental court-style' will account for some of the language used of the king, nevertheless remarks that such aspects of the kingship as 'the king's close relation to Yahweh, his endowment with divine strength, the experience and assurance of this in the festival cult, [and] the king's appearance there as the visible pledge of the existence and permanence of the covenant' were more than mere formal court-style, and 'expressed a reality in Israel's belief and cult'./114/
We must Þnally register our disappointment that once again a key phrase, 'sacral kingship', has not been used with any generally accepted connotation, with the result that much discussion of the subject has missed the mark. No one who has followed the literature on the Israelite kingship over the past decade can have failed to proÞt greatly from it; but one may be pardoned for remarking that concentration on the sacral or religious functions of the king can easily lead to an exaggeration of their importance, and one may be justiÞed in thinking that the growth point for future study of Israelite kingship may be the more secular aspects of the monarchy/115/ rather than the religious aspects. Increasing understanding of the nature and duties of the Israelite kingship in the secular sphere, in the light of ancient Near Eastern studies generally, will, one hopes, help to control the necessarily 'imaginative' reconstructions of Israelite cult by setting historical limits to the speculative possibilities./116//