The
Psalms and the King
Published inOn the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998, Volume 2(JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 687-700
The kings of Israel
were evidently, according to the Old Testament, a mixed blessing. That is shown by Nathan's oracle
affirming the divine right of the Davidic dynasty (2 Sam. 7) on the one hand,
and Samuel's denunciation of the kingship (1 Sam. 8.10-18) on the other.
It is attested also by the reforms of Josiah on the one hand, and the abuses of
a Manasseh on the other.
But in the Psalms things are different. Here, in the
hymn-book of the Jerusalem temple, the king appears only as an ideal figure. Does this
mean that the Psalms preserve a unique ideology of kingship, suppressed perhaps
in the historical books of the Old Testament, but crucial to our understanding
both of the role of the king and of the Psalms in which he figures? Many recent
works, of which Aubrey Johnson's Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel/1/ is a
well-known example, believe that they do, and that it is from the Psalms that
we gain our profoundest insight into the nature and function of Israelite
kingship. This paper sets out to examine this view.
1. The Evidence
about Kingship in the Psalms
It was certainly a
step forward in our understanding of the Psalms when Hermann Gunkel pointed to
the existence of a group of 'royal psalms' (Ps. 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 101, 132, 144.1-11),/2/
arguing that they must have been used on important occasions in the life of a pre-exilic Israelite king./3/
Among the occasions envisaged are: a king's enthronement or anniversary of his
enthronement (Pss. 2, 101, 110), a royal wedding (Ps. 45), a king's departure
for the battlefield (Ps. 20) and victorious return (Ps. 18). Although there is
very little evidence from the historical books that kings either sang psalms
themselves or had them recited on their behalf-Hezekiah's psalm (Isa. 38.10-20)
is a notable exception-psalms
in which the king speaks (Ps. 2.7) or is addressed (Ps. 45.2) can only have
been used in worship on occasions when the king was playing a leading part.
So what kind of king is it who figures in a liturgy? He is certainly not on an
equal footing with his fellow Israelites; we may say, provisionally, that he
has some special importance in worship.
We must, however, go one step further than Gunkel, and ask
whether the king's part in worship may be recognized only in the ten 'royal
psalms'.
First we should notice that although Gunkel called the royal
psalms a Gattung (type, genre), they really belong to several of the other
Gattungen of psalms (for example, individual lament, individual thanksgiving),
and do not form a Gattung of the same kind as the other Gattungen that he
distinguished. Normally, all the examples of a particular Gattung share the
same form, mood, language and life-setting (Sitz im Leben); but all that the
royal psalms have in common is their subject-matter, the king./4/ And all that
distinguishes them from other Gattungen of psalms is that they mention the king
explicitly.
So, secondly, we may ask whether there are other psalms, not
usually identified as 'royal psalms', that equally were written for the king,
and that also provide evidence for the Israelite conception of kingship. What
about Psalm 22? Nothing in the psalm (the title apart/5/) explicitly identiÞes
the psalmist as a king, and most classiÞcations of the psalms recognize the
form as that of an ordinary 'individual lament'. But is it just an ordinary
Israelite worshipper who envisages 'all the ends of the earth' remembering what
Yahweh has done for the psalmist and being converted to Yahweh (v. 27),
and who envisages his audience telling to a coming generation that Yahweh has
wrought deliverance for him (vv. 30-31)? It seems very reasonable to
believe that 'the status of the singer far transcends that of some nondescript
individual',/6/ and is in fact that of the Davidic king.
Psalm 89 similarly, though it is not generally recognized as
a 'royal psalm', and though it sometimes refers to the king in the third person
(vv. 18, 38), turns out to be spoken by the king:/7/ the 'I' of v. 50
who 'bears in [his] bosom the insults of the peoples' must be the same as 'your
servant' (vv. 39, 50) and 'your anointed' (vv. 38, 50), the king. It
is also worth noting that Hezekiah's prayer (Isa. 38.10-20) would be
categorized as a run-of-the-mill individual lament if it were found in the
Psalter, but it is in fact a royal psalm; so clearly an explicit reference to
the king is not a necessary feature of a royal psalm.
It is wise, then, to allow that in other psalms beyond the
group of indisputably 'royal psalms' the king may be the speaker, though it is
hard to decide in which psalms this is the case. Some clues to the identity of
the speaker as the king have been suggested by S. Mowinckel:/8/ (i) when the narratory 'I'
occurs in communal thanksgiving or laments (for example, Ps. 44.6, 15;
66.13-19); (ii) when the psalmist portrays himself as personally beset by a
hostile army (Ps. 27.3) or personally waging war (Ps. 55.18); (iii) when the
psalmist speaks of himself as involved in conþict with 'the peoples', 'peoples
and kings', 'all the nations' (for example, Ps. 18.49; 56.7; 57.9); (iv) when
the psalm is titled ledåwîd, that is, 'for David', to be used by a king of the
Davidic line. Not all of these clues are of equal evidential value, and
none of them (except perhaps for the Þrst) points infallibly to the king as the
speaker.
Some scholars have gone much further than admitting that some
non-'royal' psalms may have the king as speaker. J.H. Eaton's Torch commentary,
for example, 'tends to the view that the majority of the psalms of "the
Individual" concern the community's leader, often the Davidic king, in
various situations',/9/ and Mowinckel concludes that the Psalms as a whole
'were originally intended, not for all and sundry, but for the king and the
great',/10/ though elsewhere he claims this only for 'many of the "I-psalms" './11/
It is impossible to disprove this view, but it seems strange that so few of the
Psalms make speciÞc reference to the king if most of them were originally
composed for use by him.
To sum up: it would be too simple-minded to suppose that only
those psalms that refer speciÞcally to the king reþect the role and function of
the Israelite kingship; but on the other hand, any psalm that is not explicitly
a 'royal psalm' can be used as evidence about the kingship only with the
greatest caution, and general claims about the original function of the
majority of the psalms can hardly be justiÞed.
2. The Ideology of
Kingship in the Psalms
Several different
views of the ideology of kingship reþected in the psalms have been taken by
scholars in recent years. Not all these views are mutually exclusive, but they
do need critical examination.
a. Divine Kingship
This view is principally associated with adherents of the 'Myth and Ritual'
school, notably I. Engnell,/12/ G. Widengren/13/ and S.H. Hooke./14/ According to these scholars, the
Israelite king was regarded, like the kings of other ancient Near Eastern
cultures, as the incarnation of the god. He was 'son of God' (Ps. 2.7; 2
Sam. 7.14), born from the goddess Dawn (Ps. 110.3, translated 'From the womb of
Dawn I have begotten you', as in lxx), and actually addressed as 'god' (Ps.
45.6). On the basis of a common cultic 'pattern', which this school believes it
can identify throughout the ancient Near East, it is claimed that the king
played the role of a dying and rising god in the cult, particularly in the cult
of the new year festival, when he engaged in a ritual battle with the forces of chaos, was temporarily
defeated by them, but Þnally emerged triumphant, celebrated a 'sacred marriage'
with his consort, and was re-enthroned on the holy mountain of Zion.
Many psalms that speak of humiliation or deliverance, of conþict, enemies,
death and life, can of course be related to such a dramatic ritual./15/
The chief objections to this view are these:
(i) Dying and rising gods were not so common in the ancient
Near East as the Myth and Ritual school thought,/16/ and therefore there is
little ground for supposing that Yahweh also was conceived of as such a deity.
In fact, it can be reasonably argued that the only genuine dying and rising god
in the ancient Near East was Baal in his various
manifestations./17/ (ii) The 'patternist' view that the
various states in the ancient Near East held virtually identical ideologies of
kingship is belied by clear differences, especially between Egypt and
Mesopotamia. H. Frankfort and others have shown that while in Egypt it is true
that the king was the god incarnate, in Mesopotamia the king was usually
regarded rather as the servant of the gods./18/
(iii) The historical circumstances of the introduction of the
monarchy into Israel, and the short duration of the kingship in Israel, were
not favourable to the acceptance of ancient Near Eastern king ideology./19/ 'Israel resisted the
establishment of a monarchy. And it is altogether possible that her
reservations were due precisely to the fact that in Syro-Palestinian
civilization the political institution of kingship was coupled with the
cultic-ritual function of the divine king, a notion which would not have been
acceptable to Israel.'/20/ Moreover, there was clearly preserved in Israel 'the
knowledge that the institution of kingship was not an original part of Israel's
existence but developed at a late and advanced stage of Israel's
history . . . This knowledge scarcely can be said to permit a
conception which regards kingship as an element of a timeless, divine
world-order, as is necessarily presupposed by the God-King ideology.'/21/
(iv) Not only does the Old Testament fail to attest such an
ideology in the historical books, it positively attests views that are
incompatible with divine kingship. Some proof-texts that are often quoted are 2
Kgs 5.7 where the Israelite king says, 'Am I God, to kill and to make alive,
that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?', and 2 Kgs 6.26
where the king answers the cry of a starving woman: 'If Yahweh will not help
you, whence shall I help you?' But perhaps more impressive are the more general
considerations of how prophets address kings (for example, 1 Sam. 15.20, 22-23;
1 Kgs 18.18) and how the king is regarded in the Proverbs (for example, 14.28;
20.28 alongside 16.10)./22/ Noth is surely correct in observing: 'If one
intends to make statements concerning kingship in Israel, he cannot start from
detached, ambiguous allusions, as found primarily in the Psalms, and then pass
by the whole body of historical traditions of the Old Testament about the
kingship and its various manifestations'./23/
(v) The evidence from the Psalms advanced to support divine
kingship can be reasonably interpreted differently. The title 'son of God'
implies adoption or legitimation, not physical descent or divinity; highly
Þgurative language like that of Ps. 110.3 (if it is to be translated as
suggested above) must not be understood literally; and Ps. 45.6 can be
understood in so many ways that it would be risky to base any theory at all on
its interpretation./24/ (vi) The existence of an autumn new
year festival in Israel, which provides the occasion for the functions of the
divine king, is itself open to question. There is little evidence that the new
year was celebrated cultically in pre-exilic Israel, or, if it was, that the
celebration took place in the autumn rather than the spring./25/
b. Sacral Kingship
This view, represented notably by S. Mowinckel/26/ and A.R. Johnson,/27/ should
be distinguished carefully from the foregoing./28/ Mowinckel and Johnson deny that the king was regarded as
divine;/29/ such a view would be abhorrent to Israelite faith. Rather, the king is seen as the
mediator of divine blessing to the people, as he is depicted in Psalm 72. As
well as being representative of the deity to the people,/30/ he is the
embodiment or 'corporate representative'/31/ of the people before the deity.
In the cult the king exercises these functions as the principal actor in the
new year festival. The ritual drama of that festival depicts, not the god, but
the king suffering humiliation and death and being restored to salvation.
Johnson reconstructs from a number of psalms a liturgical cycle such as would
have been employed at the festival. To mention only some examples, in Ps.
78.38-45 we see the ritual defeat of the king; in 101 his protestation of
loyalty and righteousness, in 18 his thanksgiving after deliverance from the
forces of Death, and in 2 and 110 his re-enthronement as the climax of the
ritual drama./32/
This view is open to the following objections:
(i) While it is clear that the Israelite king was regarded as
a channel (though not the only one) of divine blessing, and as a representative
of his people, there is nothing peculiarly Israelite about that. It is doubtful
whether the concept of 'corporate personality', which again is not speciÞcally
Israelite if deÞned in any intelligible sense, has any value in understanding
Hebrew institutions./33/ And Johnson's theory of 'extension of the
personality', according to which a servant, messenger or representative of an
authoritative person is often regarded as 'being and not merely as
representing'/34/ that person is exegetically unsound, being based upon an
over-literal understanding of some conventional speech forms./35/
(ii) There is a large element of speculation involved in
reconstructing the course of a liturgical drama from scattered psalms. Johnson
pleads for a legitimate use of 'imagination',/36/ but it is hard to see what
controls his reconstruction can have placed upon it; the impossibility of
falsifying his hypothesis is a serious weakness.
(iii) There is no real evidence that the king underwent a
ritual humiliation and/or death in the course of the cult, as Mowinckel points
out,/37/ even though he is in general sympathy with Johnson's position and
agrees that there was in the cult a ritual drama portraying the conþict of the
forces of good and evil.
(iv) The king is never actually called 'holy' in the Old
Testament; what else does 'sacral' (Lat. sacer, 'holy') mean?/38/ John Bright
sees Israelite kingship as a 'sacral' institution in that it was 'provided with
theological and cultic undergirding'./39/ Do we also have sacral kingship in
Britain, then, and in which country is there non-sacral kingship?
c. Charismatic
Kingship
Though the evidence for this view is not drawn from the Psalms,/40/ it may be
worthwhile to consider it here as an understanding of Israelite kingship. Albrecht
Alt,/41/ followed both by M. Noth/42/ and J. Bright,/43/ claimed that the
essential Israelite concept of kingship was that the king ruled in virtue of a
divine gift (charisma), often conveyed through a prophet, rather than through
any principle of dynastic succession (so Saul and David). The charismatic view
was naturally kept alive in Israel rather than in Judah, where the dynastic
system supplanted it. In the North, Jeroboam I and Baasha were declared
'prince' (någîd) by a word from God (1 Kgs 14.7; 16.2), and Jehu was anointed
king by a prophet (2 Kgs 9.1-6).
The difÞculties with this view are:
(i) T.C.G. Thornton has argued that all kings in the ancient
Near East were regarded as chosen by the deity, whether they succeeded to the
throne by dynastic succession or by usurpation. The claim to divine appointment
made in Psalms 2 and 110 on behalf of the Davidic kings of Judah is no
different from that of northern rulers. It would be better to abandon the term
'charismatic', since it cannot be shown to mean more than 'claiming divine
appointment and authority'./44/
(ii) The role of the popular assembly, perhaps of a group of
'young men' as well as of 'elders', in the appointment of the king/45/ suggests
that a charismatic view would have been thought unrealistic by the Israelites
themselves.
(iii) The kings themselves do not claim a charisma, nor does
the Deuteronomic historian on their behalf, nor do the prophets recognize such
a charisma. It is even doubtful whether 'charisma' and not perhaps 'mana' (an
extraordinary power conceived in impersonal terms) is the right concept to
apply to the authority of the kings and judges of Israel./46/
d. Sacerdotal
Kingship
This understanding of the nature of kingship makes no claim to offering a total
view of the ofÞce, but it is obviously signiÞcant whether or not the king
performed priestly functions. According to G. Widengren, the king as builder of
the temple is evidently also its lord and chief cultic functionary./47/ As high
priest he is the possessor of the breastplate with the 'tables of destiny'
(Urim and Thummim); he is teacher of the torah with which he is entrusted, and
mediator of the covenant./48/ A less pervasive priestly role is assigned to the
Davidic king by the many scholars who see him as inheriting the functions of
the Jebusite priest kings of Jerusalem ('a priest after the order of
Melchizedek', Ps. 110.4). There are also a number of allusions in the
historical books to apparently priestly activities on the part of kings: David
builds an altar (2 Sam. 24.25), brings the ark to the site of the temple
(6.12), is clothed in a linen ephod, a priestly garment (6.14), and offers
sacriÞces (6.18). Solomon offers prayer at the dedication of the temple (1 Kgs
8) and offers sacriÞces and incense three times a year (9.25). Ahaz gives
instructions for the design of an altar (2 Kgs 16.10-11), mounts the altar and
performs sacriÞces (16.12-13). Manasseh builds altars, and offers child
sacriÞce (21.3-6). Hezekiah and Josiah introduce reforms into Israelite worship
(18.4; 22.323.23).
The following comments may be made on this view.
(i) It is obviously simplistic to regard the Jerusalem temple
as exclusively or essentially a royal chapel (cf. the Bethel temple, 'the
king's shrine and a national temple', Amos 7.13), and even if it was the
'king's temple', his proprietorship does not imply that he was the chief cultic
functionary.
(ii) That the king was also high priest is entirely
speculative, as are the functions Widengren supposes derived from that
ofÞce./49/
(iii) Psalm 110 is unique in describing the king as a priest,
and if his Melchizedekan priesthood was in fact more than a titular ofÞce, we
are hardly in a position to say how such a priesthood could have been exercised
within the Israelite cultus. It is moreover open to doubt what, if anything,
was inherited from the pre-Israelite cult at Jerusalem,/50/ in spite of many
suggestions about the content of that cult./51/ (iv) Not all
the references mentioned above clearly depict priestly activities. That a king
'sacriÞced' may, of course, only mean that the 'had sacriÞce offered', though 2
Kgs 16.12-13 does show Ahaz personally offering sacriÞce. Most of the items
belong to the overlap between church and state, and do 'not exceed the prerogatives
which the head of State may have over the State religion'./52/ Similar
functions (for example, building altars, regulating worship) were exercised by
the patriarchs and by the governor Nehemiah, who were certainly not priests.
(v) It would be wise to allow that kings did on occasion
perform priestly functions, but to deny that they were priests in the strict
sense, and to doubt that their sacerdotal function was a very signiÞcant
element in their role.
e. Divinely
Appointed Kingship
If we take note only of those terms in which the king is spoken of in the
Psalms, and do not attempt to reconstruct a role for him on the analogy of
those prevailing in other Near Eastern countries, two kinds of statement
appear:
(i) The king has been appointed by Yahweh, and so enjoys
Yahweh's blessing and protection. He is seen as Yahweh's king (Ps. 89.18), set
by him on Zion (2.6), crowned (21.3; 89.19) and anointed by him (2.2; 18.50;
20.6; 89.20, 38, 51; 132.17). He is the 'servant' of Yahweh (78.70; 89.3, 20),
a title of a vassal king,/53/ enthroned by Yahweh's right hand (110.1), and
adopted, or rather, legitimated/54/ as 'son' of God (2.6; 89.26) on the
occasion of his enthronement (cf. 'this day', 2.7), a title that establishes
the king's right to rule on Yahweh's behalf and his right to Yahweh's property
(cf. 2.8). Yahweh's legitimation of the king's rule extends to that of his
descendants, who are promised the kingship in perpetuity (18.50; 45.16; 89.3-4,
27-39; 132.11-17). The king is also assured of divine blessings and protection
(21.3, 6; 89.21-24). He is once called a priest of Melchizedek's line (110.4).
(ii) The king is described and praised in extreme terms. He
is the most handsome man on earth (45.2), the happiest of mortals (45.8); he is
immortal (21.4). He is most blessed forever by God (21.6), and universally
blessed by humans (72.17). His throne is eternal (45.6), he is the head of the
nations (2.8; 18.43), highest of the kings of the earth (89.27). Universal
dominion is wished (or predicted) for him (72.8), his fame will be eternally
remembered (45.17; 72.17).
Many of the statements in paragraph (i) are to be understood
as a religious interpretation of secular realities. The Psalms say that the
king was crowned and anointed by Yahweh, but of course in actuality the king
was crowned and anointed by humans-the crowning by a priest in the one case
where we Þnd a description of a coronation (2 Kgs 11.12), and the anointing by
the people (2 Sam. 2.4; 5.3; 19.10; 2 Kgs 22.30) as well as by a prophet at
Yahweh's command (1 Sam. 9.16; 10.1; 16.13; 1 Kgs 1.34; 2 Kgs 9.3, 6) or a
priest (2 Kgs 11.12; 1 Kgs 1.39). We cannot say in all these cases that the
ceremonies were 'really' performed by Yahweh, being done at his behest,/55/
since at least the anointing by the people is clearly on their own initiative.
The expression 'Yahweh's anointed', therefore, as G. Fohrer puts it well,
refers 'not to the act but to the effect of anointing. It refers to the
relationship between Yahweh and the king that follows upon the anointing, and
is a theological concept expressing Yahweh's delegation of sovereign authority
to the king.'/56/ The same can be said of the king's establishment on Zion, of
his 'sonship', and of the dynastic promise, which is probably to be seen as the
theological statement of the actual acceptance of the principle of dynastic
succession. That the king is the anointed of Yahweh is none the less true
because in actuality he is anointed by the people; for we are dealing with the
concept of 'double causality'./57/ But to reconstruct 'the Hebrew conception of
kingship' from exclusively theological understandings of kingship is as
one-sided as to neglect the theological dimension altogether.
The statements above in paragraph (ii) are, on the other
hand, not essentially theological statements, but fairly clearly borrowed from
the hyperbolic court style of the ancient Near East,/58/ which is not without
its parallels in more recent times. 'You are the fairest of the sons of men'
(45.2) is a statement neither of theological reality nor of royal ideology. It
shows only that kings of Israel, like most kings anywhere, have had around them
obsequious courtiers. Nor can we infer from 21.4 ('He asked life of you; you
gave it to him, length of days for ever and ever') that immortality was an
element in the Hebrew ideology of kingship, any more than we can claim that
22.6 ('I am a worm and not a man') proves that Israelite kings were sub-human.
There are indeed some statements of this type where we Þnd a blend of oriental
court style and of theological afÞrmation, for example, 2.8, where the
ascription of universal dominion to the king depends partly on the theological
truth of Yahweh's universal lordship, and partly on the conventions of courtly
language.
On the whole, however, what we have in the Psalms is a
religious understanding and appreciation of the essentially secular institution
of kingship./59/ Perhaps there is a danger in using the categories sacred and
secular in reference to Israelite society and thought, but it seems to me less
than that of understanding the king essentially or primarily in religious terms
(divine, sacral, charismatic, sacerdotal). To answer our original question, it
is true that the Psalms do preserve a distinctive ideology of kingship (though
it is not so picturesque as some scholars have thought), but it is only one
perspective on the kingship, which is amply attested in the historical books as
a secular institution impinging on the realm of the sacred at many points, but
moving in a sphere of bureaucracy, diplomacy and justice that was not
speciÞcally religious.
/