Contexts for Hearing: Reevaluating the Superscription of Psalm 127 *

Abstract

This study's main impetus stems from an article by Brevard S. Childs published in 1971, ‘Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis’, which offered an erudite examination of Psalm titles and argued for their exegetical character. After a brief overview of some of the traditional approaches to Psalm 127's superscription (especially its ‘Solomonic’ portion) throughout its history of interpretation, this study concludes that Psalm 127's ‘Solomonic’ superscription invites a hearing of the psalm within the context of the Davidic dynasty. The concluding section also suggests some possible implications of this hearing in light of Psalm 127's inclusion among the Psalms of Ascent.

Keywords

Superscription Psalm 127 Solomon Davidic dynasty Psalms of Ascent

1. Introduction

There is much one could do with Psalm 127. A casual perusal of just the most recent history of its interpretation indicates that this relatively short text has attracted a wide range of hermeneutical inquiry, whether textual, compositional, form-critical, or historical-critical. Moreover, such studies are occasionally undertaken while concomitantly integrating Psalm 127 at various levels of literary association within the final form of the Psalter as a whole; its centrality among the Psalms of Ascent, location within book V, and overarching relationship with psalms outside of book V, for example, are matters of increasing attention.

What is not typically emphasized, however, beyond a few passing references out of due acknowledgment for the text's received form, is what kind of exegetical function, if any, the psalm's ‘Solomonic’ superscription (‭ﬣמלשל‬) might have.¹ Perhaps this is rightfully so. But the following study seeks to reevaluate the issue, particularly with regard to some of Psalm 127's recurring interpretive difficulties, by examining how its superscription may function hermeneutically in relation to its text without compromising its individual integrity or canonical location.

After briefly engaging various aspects of the history of interpreting Psalm 127's title, this study seeks to offer specific focus on any hermeneutical value of that rare (the only other superscripted mentioning of Solomon is in Ps. 72) heading and explore how it may facilitate a multilevel understanding of some otherwise ambiguous features of the text. Such endeavors aim toward a kind of theological cohesion at both the individual and associative levels of the text as received in its final form.

Accordingly, this study is structured in two main sections: a reevaluation of the nature of a superscription, and the offering of a ‘Solomonic’ interpretation of Psalm 127. Some concluding remarks will summarize the discussion and provide possible implications for future psalm exegesis. As will hopefully be demonstrated, the following study advances the thesis that the ‘Solomonic’ portion of the superscription provides a context for hearing Psalm 127 in light of the Davidic dynasty.

2. Reevaluating the Superscription

A translation of the mt of Psalm 127 follows:

A Song of Ascent, [to/for/by/of] Solomon.

If Yhwh does not build [the] house, its builders labor over it in vain. If Yhwh does not watch [the] city, the watchers watch in vain.

[It is] in vain for you who rise up early, who delay to rest, eating bread of toil; for he gives to his beloved in sleep (‭אנש‬ ‭ודידיל‬ ‭ךﬨי‬ ‭ךב‬).²

Behold, an inheritance of Yhwh are sons, [the] fruit of the womb a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, thus are the sons of one's youth.

Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He will not be ashamed when he speaks with enemies in/at the gate.

Before rushing headlong into psalm superscriptions, perhaps a few introductory remarks concerning the text of Psalm 127 are in order. As regards literary structure, that a clear break or sharp transition of some kind exists between vv. 1–2 and 3–5 is fairly certain and readily acknowledged.³ What to make of the relationship between the two parts of this so-called Wisdom Psalm, however, remains the dominant compositional question.⁴ If, as Briggs contended, these two textual units have ‘no manner of connection in thought’,⁵ why might vv. 1–2 and vv. 3–5 have been positioned as we now have them? Did vv. 3–5 offer a kind of response to vv. 1–2, as Estes contended?⁶ Or was there ‘a unity that transcends the apparently different subject matter’, as Miller posited?⁷ Such questions, as will be seen later, ought to reverberate in the mind preparatorily as one examines the history of interpreting Psalm 127's superscription.

It would be traveling far from the truth to claim that psalm titles have been overlooked by interpreters as such. From the hand of fourth-century Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nyssa, for example, we possess an absolutely fascinating treatise dealing with such inscriptions and their many related topics.⁸ Another work in the same ballpark comes from Athanasius (De titulis Psalmorum), and belief in their inspiration can be pinpointed all the way back to Hippolytus.⁹

But the Antiochenes, such as Theodore, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Diodore in particular, however, did not follow all this positivity so favorably. Because the Psalter as a whole was, in their judgment, lost during the Babylonian captivity and rediscovered in piecemeal fashion, psalm titles were merely meager editorial efforts to provide a historical setting for each psalm. Such attempts were, as a result, deemed by some to be more obscuring than clarifying. Theodoret, for example, thought that Psalm 127 received its heading ‘because it was a work of Solomon that was being restored’.¹⁰ Chrysostom offered no comment.¹¹ In the end, psalm titles were a multifaceted difficulty for the Antiochenes: they did not generally seem to fit the subject matter of the psalms, chronological agreement was incoherent, and an enormous amount of psalms lacked titles in the first place (to say nothing of the lxx divergences of adding references to David and names like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, and Zechariah).

Even so, most interpreters throughout the history of interpretation honored an integrity of at least some kind for superscriptions as received in the final form of the Psalter. Authorship was by far the most common pre-critical understanding (Luther, Calvin, sixteenth-century Rabbi Moshe ben Chayim Alshech¹²), followed by conjectured authorship,¹³ followed by viewing the title as a dedicatory or admonitory notation (i.e. ‘to’ Solomon, written by David or otherwise, a view traceable to the Syriac Psalter). This last understanding was the thinking of Matthew Henry,¹⁴ for example, as well as eleventh-century Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki (‘Rashi’).¹⁵

It seems that Hengstenberg and Alexander (mid-nineteenth century) were some of the last Psalms scholars to contend any historical value to at least the ‘Solomonic’ portion of Psalm 127's superscription,¹⁶ before a much more critical view toward them engulfed a majority of late-nineteenth and early/mid-twentieth-century scholarship.¹⁷ The latter period, especially, generally viewed the superscription as guesswork based on the content of the psalm's text and as otherwise unimportant.¹⁸ Remnants of this attitude of irrelevancy can be traced to contemporary times, as many published prayerbooks and ‘pocket’ Psalters, such as that of the Gideons, omit the superscriptions.¹⁹ In this way, the Psalms tend to become ‘existentialized’, transcending a context of covenantal relationship between Yhwh and Israel. In any case, what a peppered examination of the history of interpreting Psalm 127's superscription shows is that it has been accorded little to no hermeneutical value for understanding the text of the psalm, especially in matters of composition.

In 1971 Brevard S. Childs brought remarkable clarity to the discussion by reexamining the form of psalm titles in light of other superscripted biblical texts throughout the Old Testament (e.g. Exod. 15.1; 2 Sam. 22.1; Josh. 10.12; and Isa. 38.9, which is strikingly similar to the form of a psalm title). These expressions, which are typically found introducing poetic texts into mainstream narrative, serve in Childs's view ‘to modify the impression of a necessary temporal sequence’.²⁰ In other words, one would be provided a distinct perspective from the plain narrative in which to understand the text being introduced, or a secondary setting for interpretation.

This would be highly significant for the study of psalm titles, Childs convincingly argued, because ‘Psalm titles do not appear to reflect independent historical tradition but are the result of an exegetical activity which derived its material from within the text itself’.²¹ In this way, the titles were not meant to provide concrete historical location or temporality but were more associative in nature, connecting the text of a particular psalm to an account found elsewhere in the canon and, one might speculate from this, perhaps resolving some issues which may arise while hearing a particular psalm. As opposed to a more historically oriented understanding, the superscriptions, according to Childs, belong to a general midrashic activity of making literary associations, further developed in the lxx and at Qumran. ‘History has retained its importance’, Childs concludes, ‘but in the transformed state of being canonical history’.²²

Crucial to mention at this point, because the Psalter exhibits a kind of pristine form in its finality, is that a midrashic attachment of a psalm to David, for example, while providing a context for hearing, neither detaches the psalm from its canonical location nor exhausts the psalm's potential meaning. Not granting any hermeneutical value to a superscription does not, of course, nullify a psalm's inherent potentiality to communicate truth, nor does the integrating of Psalm 127's superscription remove the psalm from its central positioning among the Psalms of Ascent (Pss. 120–134). Indeed, a multileveled reading, also advocated and discussed by Childs in another context,²³ can be facilitated by both the very nature of a psalm's superscription and its canonical context. In the case of Psalm 127, perhaps Zenger's remarks are most pertinent: ‘the ascription of Psalm 127 to Solomon gives the Psalm text itself an additional sensory dimension, one which impregnates not only all of Psalm 127 but the whole collection of Psalms 120–134’.²⁴ Thus, both superscription and canonical context can be hermeneutically relevant, as they each sound a distinct note across the final arrangement and presentation of a psalm's text.

To summarize: understood as Scripture, a psalm's superscription has been honored in various ways throughout its history of interpretation. While some contend a more historically oriented function (authorial, dedicatory, or otherwise), Brevard Childs demonstrated how a superscription may provide an associative, secondary context in which a psalm may be heard. In the case of Psalm 127, I am labeling that context ‘Solomonic’, of which an elucidation follows.

3. Toward a ‘Solomonic’ Interpretation

What remains for our purposes is determining exactly how Psalm 127's superscription (‭ﬣמלשל‬ ‭ﬨולﬠמﬣ‬ ‭ריש‬) may function hermeneutically in relation to the text of the psalm itself.²⁵ While several thoroughgoing studies have been done on the first half of Psalm 127's superscription (‭ﬨולﬠמﬣ‬ ‭ריש‬),²⁶ a phrase found atop every other psalm title among the Psalms of Ascent (Pss. 120–134), how might one understand the role of the ‘Solomonic’ portion?

As seen from a brief sweeping survey of the history of interpretation, Psalm 127 has certainly been understood at different levels and explicated for distinct historical circumstances. On a plain sense level, the text first speaks about divine sovereignty. Unless the Lord wills something to happen, no amount of ‘anxious toil’ on the part of humankind will accomplish it. Sleep is a gift for the beloved, as are children (or ‘sons’; see below), and whoever has a quiver full of the latter is described as ‘blessed’ and will not be ashamed. In the words of Crow, on one level, ‘The entire Psalm seems to be concerned only with local, individual and family prosperity’.²⁷ So far, so good. But when one turns to scriptural texts describing the words and actions of Solomon (chiefly 1 Kgs 2–11), the text of Psalm 127 receives new light.

As is well known, Davidic kingship is grounded in the fact that ‘the Lord will make [David] a house' (2 Sam. 7.11; esv), ‘and with [the Lord's] blessing shall the house of [David] be blessed forever' (v. 29). Psalmsists address this foundational promise quite explicitly (Pss. 18.50; 132.11), even, at times, despairingly (Ps. 89.3–4, 20–37). While it is understandably natural, in light of the superscription, to associate immediately the ‘house’ of v. 1 with Solomon's earthly temple, a closer examination of the Solomon narrative texts of 1 Kings 2–11 reveals levels of correspondence with Psalm 127 that might suggest an additional understanding.

The reader of 1 Kings 2 is informed no fewer than three times that the accession of Solomon to kingship was the very establishment of the throne of David (1 Kgs 2.12, 24, 45). Already in 1 Kgs 2.12, the narrator concludes the death of David with the statement that ‘Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established’, which is also repeated in inclusio fashion at the conclusion of the chapter (1 Kgs 2.46). Achish, king of Gath, spoke in a similar way (‘King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever' [1 Kgs 2.45]), and, intriguingly, Solomon himself spoke of his own enthronement in relation to the ‘house’ sworn to David before the temple was recorded as having been built. In 1 Kgs 2.24, Solomon swears to the Lord, ‘who has established me and placed me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me a house, as he promised’. Thus, at least canonically, the texts of 1 Kings 2 make it quite clear that the ‘house’ is established precisely at the accession of Solomon to the throne, before we learn of Solomon building an actual temple. This is further confirmed in Solomon's extremely pivotal prayer to the Lord for wisdom in 1 Kings 3: ‘You have kept for [David] this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day’ (v. 6; cf. 2 Chron. 6.16).

To be sure, Solomon also understood the building of the physical temple to be fulfillment of the ‘house’ promised to David (1 Kgs 5.5; 8.20), which later generations would also attribute to him (2 Chron. 35.3; cf. Acts 7.47). Even so, as much as the ‘house’ could be understood as the temple, the narrativity of 1 Kings 2–3 does not seem to separate the two. Also, after the temple was constructed, the prophet Ahijah spoke similarly to Jeroboam: ‘[The Lord] will be with you and will build you a sure house, as [he] built for David, and [he] will give Israel to you' (1 Kgs 11.38). In light of this, one may understand the ‘house’ of Ps. 127.1, in light of the superscription, as either the temple or the Davidic lineage.²⁸ And, certainly, these two understandings are not mutually exclusive either: ‘Solomon's ascent to the throne and the building of the Temple are viewed in this prayer as God's reward to David’.²⁹

But the story does not end there. One must still account for the second half of Psalm 127. As Miller rightfully notes concerning the psalm's final form, ‘placing the picture one has from vv. 3–5 after vv. 1–2 leads to a hearing and understanding of the second part of the Psalm in the light of the first’.³⁰ But, in light of the superscription and their seeming disparateness, how do the messages of each half correspond?

Fleming sought to answer this with a linguistic study of v. 1's pairing of ‘house’ with ‘city’, concluding that ‘the meaning of the entire Psalm turns to a great degree upon the definition of these terms in this context’.³¹ Several other studies, in order to understand any coherence in Psalm 127, leaned toward procreation as one's best source of future security (whether militaristic or judicial).³² While there are certainly elements of truthfulness in these interpretations (especially if Ps. 127 is read together with Ps. 128, as Viviers and others rightfully urge³³), the superscription, in light of directing the reader to the associative texts from 1 Kings examined above, can serve supplementally to link together the Davidic ‘house’ with its very ‘sons’.³⁴ In other words, the ‘sons’ of v. 3 are precisely what constitute the very ‘house’ of v. 1, and both are elements of which Solomon is an immediate fulfillment. Not by the toiling of Absalom or Adonijah or anyone else would someone other than whom the Lord wills usurp the throne, but it would be Solomon who embodied the continuation of the Davidic house. In the words of David via the Chronicler, ‘of all my sons (for the Lord has given me many sons) he has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel' (1 Chron. 28.5). The other sons, as it would turn out, would one day acknowledge this too (1 Chron. 29.24). In this sense it is feasible, in fact, with guidance from the superscription, that the ‘blessed man’ (‭רבגﬣ‬ ‭ירשא‬) in Psalm 127 who has a quiver full of sons (v. 5) would bring to mind David himself, the recipient of the divine promise of kingship in the first place.³⁵ The Davidic dynasty would be in the hands of the God of Israel, and because of it, no Israelite should be ashamed to ‘speak with his enemies at the gate’ (127.5).

4. Conclusion

In light of the preceding observations from the ‘Solomonic’ narrative texts, it seems most reasonable to conclude that the ‘Solomonic’ superscription provides a context for hearing Psalm 127 in light of the Davidic dynasty. While placing a Davidic superscription over the text of Psalm 127 may likewise connect the reader to such promised divine realities, a ‘Solomonic’ superscription serves the purpose while emphasizing the very continuation of the Davidic lineage. Far from the conclusion of Allen, that ‘The modern reader of Psalm 127 finds himself detached from its cultural setting and so perchance from its message’,³⁶ the superscription itself provides a biblical context in which to hear the psalm's text, and a very foundational and permeative one at that. A direct corollary of this effect, seen especially in a psalm supposed to consist of two contrasting halves, is that the superscription also plays a crucial role in understanding Psalm 127's cohesiveness: both portions resonate with the same royal promise.

So far as I can tell, only Mays has urged the likelihood of this sort of reading for Psalm 127, yet he argued for such perspective (quite rightfully so) in light of Psalm 127's wider context among the Psalms of Ascent instead of, as argued here, strictly on the basis of the superscription.³⁷ In my judgment, Mays's conclusions coincide quite nicely with those reached here. Both superscription and canonical context are not, as noted above, mutually exclusive interpretive contexts. And while it is beyond the scope of this study to delve too deeply into the discussion of the overall structure and coherence of the Psalms of Ascent as a group,³⁸ adding the ‘Solomonic’ portion to Psalm 127's superscription for the purpose of recalling the Davidic dynasty would be especially pertinent in a collection of psalms many scholars have understood to be formulated in a postexilic context, potentially in the midst of despair over both the temple and the apparent discontinuity within the Davidic dynasty (cf. Ps. 89).³⁹

Following the lead of Childs, the study of individual psalms with superscripted contents may benefit by the facilitating of inner-biblical, associative readings. Interestingly enough, a recent study on Psalm 72 (containing the only other ‘Solomonic’ superscription in the Psalter) sought to explain its existence on the basis of what the author labeled as ‘theological’ reasons. To quote a brief section of the study:

By placing Solomon's Psalm after a series of Psalms of David, the canonical final editor wanted to signify with this last subscript in 72,20 that the Psalms about David's conflict had reached their end objective… Solomon is the end of the drama of David as a person that began in 3,1. Absalom was the wrong son, who rebelled against his father (3,1). That represented the greatest crisis of David's Messianic kingship… Ps. 72 announces the victory in the crisis through the fact that Solomon, as the alternative son of David (and Bathsheba), sits instead of Absalom on the royal throne.⁴⁰

Could it be that the superscription to Psalm 127 was added in light of understanding the function of Psalm 72's ‘Solomonic’ superscription in the way suggested by Koorevaar? Following this line of thought, Solomon reemerges, dead center among the Psalms of Ascent, to redirect the group to the dynasty promised long ago. Wrestling with an apparently neglected Davidic kingship, unsurprising while sitting captive ‘alongside the waters of Babylon’, meant wrestling with much deeper issues of divine providence. Adding ‘Solomon’ to Psalm 127 would, in this sense, be a reassertion of God's own kingship, reemphasizing the very loyalty and justice once seriously called into question (so Ps. 89) by indicating that Solomon has not been forgotten precisely as representative of fulfilled royal promises. In the context of the Psalms of Ascent, finally, this would suggest that postexilic ‘ascent’ would be grounded in monarchial ‘ascent’, standing firmly on the old promises of God yet hearing the same in new and unexpected ways while pilgrimaging not to the (destroyed) temple but to fulfillments of God's steadfast love and faithfulness as recorded elsewhere in the canon. In sum, honoring the hermeneutical value of a psalm's superscription enables one to hear more voices of Scripture's wide-ranging choir.

Footnotes

1.

This is not to say that seeking for spiritual meaning inherent in the superscription has been overlooked, but it is to inquire into what way(s) the superscription might function hermeneutically for understanding the psalm's text. See the discussion below.

2.

The number of published pages on this one phrase could feasibly comprise a multivolume work. At issue is, primarily, the apparent Aramaism (and hapax legomenon) of instead of the expected for ‘sleep’. In addition, how one should render the (‘so’/‘thus’/‘for’) has also led to wide divergence. The BHS offers textual variants for both issues: two medieval manuscripts have (which the lxx followed) instead of , and several medieval manuscripts ‘corrected’ the apparent Aramaism noted above with the Hebrew . A thoroughgoing article of the debate was published in 1974 by J.A. Emerton, who noted several options for the first word of the phrase and insisted that the initial could reasonably be without significant difficulty. For the last word of the phrase, Emerton leaned on the basis of Ugaritic discoveries and posited the root šānāh meaning ‘high estate’ or ‘honour’ to conclude that the entire phrase should be translated, ‘Surely [or, if ki is read, For] he [i.e. God] gives high estate, or honour, to him whom he loves’ (’The Meaning of šēnāʾ in Psalm CXXVII 2’, VT 24 [1974], pp. 15–31 [30]). Mitchell Dahood, whose translation of this quandary in his Anchor Bible Psalms commentary (‘But the Reliable gives prosperity to his beloved’) was critiqued heavily by Emerton's proposal, quickly responded the following year with strong disagreement to Emerton's ‘overlong article’ by noting that Emerton's attraction to the Ugaritic šānāh is ‘precarious’ and faults him for offering ‘not a word to explain how the final aleph got into šēnāʾ’ (‘The aleph in Psalm CXXVII 2 šēnāʾ’, Or 44 [1975], pp. 103–105 [105]). While the intricacies of the debate cannot be assessed here, I find Thijs Booij to be the most convincing at several levels. As he sees it, Dahood's insistence on ‘prosperity’, for example, or Emerton's argumentation for ‘high estate’ miss the real crux because ‘it is not the pursuit of prosperity, high estate or honour that the text is about, but human effort in general’ (‘Psalm 127,2b: A Return to Martin Luther’, Bib 81 [2000], pp. 262–68 [264]). The key difficulty, for Booij, is really an interpretive one that has everything to do with how God gives in relation to human toiling: ‘the content of v. 2b could also be worded as follows: “The things you hope to acquire by your toiling, those same things God gives () his beloved in sleep”’ (p. 267). At the end of the day, it seems best to conclude that is indeed an Aramaism.

3.

Though consult Oswald Loretz, who identifies three stanzas: ‘Nach der vorgetragenen philologischen und kolometrischen Interpretation setzt sich Ps. 127 aus den drei Strophen V1, 3–4 und 5 zusammen’ (‘Syllabische und alphabetische Keilschrifttexte zu Psalm 127’, in Ana šadî Labnāni lū allik [Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1997], pp. 229–51 [242]).

4.

Around the mid-twentieth century the prevailing opinion among Psalms scholars regarding such an abrupt shift in content was that Ps. 127 was composed of two originally separate psalms to be interpreted as individual compositions in isolation from one another. Examples of this view are legion: Charles A. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, II (New York: Scribner, 1907), p. 458; Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (trans. Herbert Hartwell; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), p. 764; Cuthbert C. Keet, A Study of the Psalms of Ascents: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary upon Psalms CXX to CXXXIV (London: Mitre Press, 1969), p. 55; Hermann Gunkel, Introduction to Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel (completed by Joachim Begrich; trans. James D. Nogalski; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998 [first publication by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1933]), p. 347; W.O.E. Oesterley, The Psalms: Translated with Text-Critical and Exegetical Notes, II (London: SPCK, 1939), p. 517.

5.

Briggs, Book of Psalms, p. 458. Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship (trans. D.R. Ap-Thomas; 2 vols.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), II, listed Ps. 127 as consisting ‘of two ‘words of wisdom”’ (p. 103).

6.

Daniel Estes, ‘Like Arrows in the Hand of a Warrior (Psalm CXXVII)’, VT 41 (1991), pp. 304–11.

7.

Patrick Miller, Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), p. 131.

8.

Robert E. Heine, Gregory of Nyssa's Treatise on the Inscriptions of the Psalms (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Gregory's impetus seems primarily rooted in the pursuit of Scripture's inherent virtue, whether narrative, poetic, titular, or otherwise: ‘For [the superscriptions] too make a significant contribution to us in respect to the way of virtue’ (p. 124). When discussing any kind of function or purpose to the psalm titles, he writes that ‘[a Psalm] has been superscripted either to indicate what lies below it, so that we learn the meaning in the words more quickly because we have been taught the aim of the Psalm in advance, or, as is often the case, the inscription in and of itself points to something which is achieved in relation to virtue in the meaning in its own words, and instructs our hearing’ (p. 126). Although only a relatively small portion of this treatise directly addresses psalm titles (Part II, Chapters I-IX), Gregory engages a quiver full of such topics as the aim (‭σκoπό⸉‬), division (‭διíαίρεσι⸉‬), and order (‬τάξι⸉‭) of the Psalter as a whole which are, one may undoubtedly argue on the face of it, quite canonical-sounding endeavors.

9.

A point made by Heine (Gregory of Nyssa's Treatise), p. 3. Quite characteristically, Saint Augustine allegorized the superscription: ‘Solomon was the figure of this Peace maker [Christ], when he built the temple’ (Augustine: Expositions on the Book of Psalms [ed. A.C. Coxe; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, VIII; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004; first publication by Christian Literature, 1888], p. 606). Cassiodorus, writing a century later, remarked that the superscription was ‘clearly inscribed to make the separation between the Testaments, so that you may realise that both Old and New are in harmony with each other’ (Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms, III [trans. P.G. Walsh; Ancient Christian Writers, 53; New York: Paulist Press, 1991], p. 296). Interestingly, the Venerable Bede was strikingly similar to Cassiodorus on this: ‘Whence, most fitly, because of the distinction between the two Testaments, Solomon's name is placed here after seven steps, and at the head of the eight remaining’ (quoted in J.M. Neale and R.F. Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms: From Primitive and Medieval Writers, IV (London: Joseph Masters, 1874], pp. 209–10).

10.

Theodoret of Cyrus: Commentary on the Psalm (trans. with intro. and commentary by Robert Charles Hill; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2001), II, p. 294.

11.

St. John Chrysostom Commentary on the Psalms, II (trans. with intro. by Robert Charles Hill; Massachusetts: Holy Cross Press, 1998), pp. 172–76.

12.

Moshe ben Chayim Alsech, Book of Psalms: With Translation in English (Romemot El commentary; trans. by Eliyahu Munk; Jerusalem: published by the author, 5759 [1990]), p. 957.

13.

Mitchell Dahood would be a modern example of this, writing that ‘the sapiential contents of the poem might sufficiently explain this superscription’ (Psalms III: 101–150 [AB, 17A; New York: Doubleday, 1970], p. 223). Michael Goulder encapsulates this position quite well: ‘The ascription to Solomon…is a late guess’ (The Psalms of the Return [Book V, Psalms 107–150]: Studies in the Psalter, IV [JSOTSup, 258; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], p. 66).

14.

Matthew Henry, ‘Commentary on Psalms 127’ [cited 14 July 2011]. Online: http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=1250&commInfo=5&topic=Psalms.

15.

Mayer I. Gruber, Rashi's Commentary on Psalms (BRLJ, 18; Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 710.

16.

See, for example, Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Psalms, III (trans. Rev. John Thomson and Rev. Patrick Fairbairn; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1864), p. 447, and Joseph A. Alexander, The Psalms: Translated and Explained (Edinburgh: A. Elliot & J. Thin, 1864), p. 517. See also, however, Samuel Cox, who seems to assume literal authorship in his 1929 commentary (The Pilgrim Psalms: An Exposition of the Songs of Degrees [New York: Randolph, 1929], p. 124).

17.

Neale and Littledale, writing in 1874, found it very problematic to ascribe authorship to Solomon or David because ‘the poem here in the Pilgrim-ritual would argue a much later date’ (Commentary on the Psalms, p. 211). J.J. Stewart Perowne, writing in 1885, noted the attribution as doubtful, mainly because ‘in form, in rhythm, in general tone and character, [Ps. 127] resembles all the others in this collection [of the Psalms of Ascent]’ (The Book of Psalms: A New Translation, with Introductions and Notes, Explanatory and Critical, II [Boston: Bradley & Woodruff, 1885], p. 393). G. Heinrich and A.V. Ewald (Commentary on the Psalms, II [trans. Rev. E. Johnson; London: Williams, 1881], pp. 164–66), T.K. Cheyne (The Book of Psalms: or, The Praises of Israel: A New Translation, with Commentary [London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1888], pp. 334–35), and Briggs (Book of Psalms, pp. 457–58) all eliminated the superscription from the text of their exegesis.

18.

See Oesterley, The Psalms, p. 517; Kirkpatrick (The Book of Psalms [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910], p. 751); Gunkel, Introduction to Psalms, p. 347; Monsignor E. Kissane, The Book of Psalms: Translated from a Critically Revised Hebrew Text with a Commentary (Dublin: Browne & Nolan, 1954), I, p. xxii; Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel's Worship, II, p. 103; Weiser, The Psalms, p. 764; Keet, Psalms of Ascents, pp. 56–57.

19.

There are, of course, exceptions to this. See, for example, the English Chant Psalter (Indiana: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 2002). Liturgically speaking, William L. Holladay helpfully points out that the Jews ‘always recited any superscription along with the psalm proper; the superscription is considered part of the text. (This is never true in Christian practice)’ (The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], p. 140).

20.

Brevard S. Childs, ‘Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis’, JSS 16 (1971), pp. 137–50 (140).

21.

Childs, ‘Psalm Titles’, p. 143. Childs notes that the Chronicler does not employ the form at all, while the Psalm scroll at Qumran shows the technique to be completely developed. Thus, ‘the titles are an extremely late post-exilic phenomenon’ (p. 148).

22.

Childs, ‘Psalm Titles’, p. 150. It would be going too far, then, as Jason Byassee does, to admonish one to ‘be alert for mystery’ and claim that the superscription should evoke in the mind of the reader an elevated sense which transcends the literal (Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007], p. 95).

23.

Brevard S. Childs, ‘Toward Recovering Theological Exegesis’, Pro Ecclesia 6 (1997), pp. 16–26. He explains, ‘When proposing a multi-level approach to Scripture I am suggesting a single method of interpretation which takes seriously both the different dimensions constituting the biblical text and the distinct contexts in which the text operates’ (p. 22). And the significance of such a reading, in light of the profound nature of the subject matter itself, should not be underestimated: ‘a multi-level reading is required even to begin to grapple with the full range of Scripture's role as the intentional medium of continuing divine revelation’ (p. 24).

24.

Erich Zenger, ‘Die Komposition der Wallfahrtspsalmen Ps 120–134: Zum Programm der Psalterexegese’, in M. Ebner and B. Heininger (eds.), Paradigmen auf dem Prüfstand: Exegese wider den Strich: Festschrift für Karlheinz Müller zu seiner Emeritierung (Münster: Aschendorff, 2004), pp. 173–90 (186).

25.

Though absent in some lxx manuscripts, Ps. 127's superscription in its entirety is present in 11QPs^a. See the brief discussion of this in Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (SBLDS, 76; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 136–37.

26.

For a helpful survey of the history of the interpretation of this phrase, see Keet, Psalms of Ascents, pp. 1–17, and especially Loren D. Crow, The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134): Their Place in Israelite History and Religion (SBLDS, 148; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), pp. 1–27.

27.

Crow, Songs of Ascents, p. 71.

28.

Scholars who insist against understanding the ‘house’ as Solomon's temple tend to operate with an unhelpful either/or framework: either temple or unspecified house. As noted above, the text sounds more notes than just one. Among those who reject the temple reference, see J. Day, Psalms (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), pp. 120–21; Briggs, Book of Psalms, p. 458; Kirkpatrick, Book of Psalms, p. 751; Benjamin A. Ntreh, ‘Towards an African Biblical Hermeneutical’, African Theological Journal 19 (1990), pp. 247–54 (251). A.A. Anderson deems it ‘unlikely’ (The Book of Psalms [London: Oliphants, 1972], p. 867), and Weiser rejects the idea altogether because Ps. 127 ‘belongs to the timeless world of the proverb’ (The Psalms, p. 764). In light of this, Patrick Miller rightfully notes that the phrase ‘“build a house” is capable…of having varying meanings and connotations’ (‘Psalm 127—The House that Yahweh Builds’, JSOT 22 [1982], pp. 119–32 [124]).

29.

Elieser Slomovic, ‘Toward an Understanding of the Formation of Historical Titles in the Book of Psalms’, ZAW 91 (1979), pp. 350–80 (377). In the words of Solomon via the Chronicler, ‘Now the Lord has fulfilled his promise that he made. For I have risen in the place of David my father and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and I have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel' (2 Chron. 6.10).

30.

Miller, Interpreting the Psalms, p. 135.

31.

David Fleming, “House”/“City”: An Unrecognized Parallel Word Pair’, JBL 105 (1986), pp. 689–97 (692).

32.

See Rickie D. Moore, who wrote that ‘having children is ultimately our best protection against the life threats that we so fear' (‘Futile Labor vs. Fertile Labor: Observing the Sabbath in Psalm 127’, Living Pulpit 7 [1998], pp. 24–25 [24], emphasis original). Others in this same camp include Keet, who wrote that ‘children would grow up and be able to defend their father’ (Psalms of Ascents, p. 61), Goulder, who contended that ‘The future strength of Jerusalem will indeed be its people’ (Psalms of the Return, p. 67), and Assis, who noted that ‘children will constitute the nation's future power base’ (‘Family and Community as Substitutes for the Temple after its Destruction: New Readings in Psalms 127 and 133’, ETL 85 [2009], pp. 55–62 [61]), among others. Assis goes too far, though, in another context when claiming that ‘children are a substitute for the Temple’ (‘Psalm 127 and the Polemic of the Rebuilding of the Temple in the Post Exilic Period’, ZAW 121 [2009], pp. 256–72 [266]).

33.

Hendrik Viviers, ‘The Coherence of the maʿ^alôt Psalms (Pss 120–134)’, ZAW 106 (1994), pp. 275–89. He writes, ‘Psalm 127 and 128 form a chiasmus in connection' (p. 281). Miller is in agreement (Interpreting the Psalms, p. 137), as is James L. Mays: ‘[Pss. 127 and 128] should be read together as a mutually interpretive context’ (Psalms [Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994], p. 401).

34.

The common English translation of ‭םינב‬ as ‘children’ makes this connection more difficult to ascertain. Miller (‘Psalm 127’) correctly remarks that ‘The Psalm has in view primarily sons and the father rather than children and the parents’ (p. 131 n. 15).

35.

Dahood also helpfully points out that ‘In II Sam xxiii 1, King David is called haggeber, ‘the man”’ (Psalms III, p. 128). Both Hans-Joachim Kraus (Psalms 60–150: A Commentary [trans. Hilton C. Oswald; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989], p. 455) and Richard J. Clifford (Psalms 73–150 [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003], p. 239) maintain ‘sons’ as depicting lineage continuity, though neither make a connection to the superscription.

36.

Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101–150 (WBC, 21; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), p. 181.

37.

Mays writes, ‘the continuity of the Davidic kingship looms as a setting in which to read [Ps. 127]’ (Psalms, p. 402). This is not to claim, however, that Mays was the first to suggest hearing Ps. 127 within a context of the Davidic dynasty. Terrien, for example, also suggested it as a possibility but offered no elaboration (The Psalms, 830). In fact, such an understanding can be found as early as twelfth/thirteenth-century Rabbi David Kimhi, who argued such in isolation of both superscription and canonical context (The Commentary of Rabbi David Kimhi on Psalms CXX–CL: Edited and Translated by Joshua Baker and Ernest W. Nicholson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973], pp. 24–31). Interestingly, the latter interpreted v. 2's ‘bread of anxious toil’ as a reference to Absalom and anyone else desiring to ‘usurp the royal office’ of Solomon, who assumed the throne ‘without any effort whatsoever’ (p. 27).

38.

Several examples could be listed here, though consulting the following works would be a helpful entry into the conversation: Viviers, ‘Coherence of the maʿ^alôt Psalms’, and David G. Barker, ‘Voices for the Pilgrimage: A Study in the Psalms of Ascent’, ExpTim 116 (2005), pp. 109–16.

39.

Crow concluded his study with the following: ‘As I see it, the redactor wished to provide a collection of songs for use by pilgrims to the Jerusalem temple during the Persian period’ (Songs of Ascents, p. 182). Keet was in a similar camp (Psalms of Ascents, p. 17), as was Loretz (‘Psalm 127’, p. 242) and Assis (‘Family and Community’, p. 56). Perhaps most applicable is Allen, who contended that ‘The incorporation of [Ps. 127] into the present collection was clearly a post-exilic phenomenon, while the re-interpretation in terms of the Solomonic era probably occurred later still’ (Psalms 101–150, p. 179).

40.

Hendrik Koorevaar, ‘The Psalter as a Structured Theological Story with the Aid of Subscripts and Superscripts’, in Erich Zenger (ed.), The Composition of the Book of Psalms (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2010), pp. 579–92 (581).