Janus Parallelism in Psalm 75:2

Abstract

(ProQuest Information and Learning: Foreign text omitted.) Psalm 75 contains a number of exegetical puzzles, both typological and textual. Typologically, Ps 75 does not fit easily into any of the standard form-critical categories; suggestions for its classification range from a communal thanksgiving to a prophetic psalm, like Pss 50 and 82.1 Of the textual difficulties in w. 2b and 6-7,2 the first of these interpretive puzzles is the subject of this note. The difficulties of Ps 75:211 ... ... are usually dealt with by emendation, for instance, by redividing ... to infinitive absolute 117 ... and prepositional phrase ... is emended to infinitive absolute ... : We give you thanks, O God, we give you thanks; we invoke your name and recount your wonders.3 Others emend to a participal form ... as subject of the verb ... : Those who invoke your name tell of your wonder.4 Others, eschewing emendation, make ... subject of the verb ... : Your name is near: your wonders declare [it].5 I wish to propose an alternative reading that requires no emendation but rather recognizes here a form of deliberate ambiguity or double entendre, the poetic technique of parallelism. Apparently first noted by C. H. Gordon, Janus parallelism hinges on the use of a single word with two entirely different meanings: one meaning paralleling what precedes, and the other meaning, what follows.6 Song of Songs 2:12 provides Gordon with a good example of the technique: the have appeared in the land; the time of ... has arrived; the call of the turtledove is heard in our land. Hebrew ... can mean both pruning and song: in parallelism with blossoms in the preceding colon, its meaning is pruning; with what follows (the call of the turtledove), singing is the appropriate meaning.7 I propose that the noun iii is, like ... , an instance of Janus parallelism: with preceding ... , it is analyzed as ... , subject of a verbal sentence (Near is your name); it is analyzed as ... (your heavens), it is the subject of the following ... . This analysis provides a function for the final waw of ... , a plural verb with a plural subject: ... For near ... is your name; your heavens ... Recount your wonders. Some supporting evidence can be proposed for this thesis. First, ... with the second sing. suffix (your heavens) occurs in Deut 28:23; Pss 8:4; 144:5. Second, in Ps 19:2, ... , is the subject of ... (The heavens are recounting. . .). Third, ... (wonders) serves as the object of . …