An alliterative-typographical device in Psalm 37: Divine destruction of the wicked,enacted in real time

Abstract

Addressing the problem of the prospering of the wicked, Psalm 37 uses a poetic device to enact their destruction symbolically and concretely for the reader/listener in visible and audible correspondence and semantic affinity. A pivotal alliterative word series, chiastic in sound and sense, serves as an organizing pattern to subsume a system of literary devices and imagery.

Keywords

Alliteration literary Psalm 37 sound typographic wordplay

The struggle between good and evil, the righteous versus the wicked, and God’s watchfulness of their behaviors—with assurance of reward or punishment—is a central theme in Psalms from its very first chapter. The inevitability of the punishment or destruction of the wicked is articulated in various chapters of Psalms, and numerous prayers by the psalmist serve as the voice of the righteous for realization of these assurances.

Psalm 37 is entirely devoted to addressing the acknowledged problem that human experience is replete with examples of wicked people prospering, seeming to escape the promised punishment. It begins by urging the reader/listener not to be despondent over or envious of the achievements of the wicked and continues by contrasting assertions of doom that face them versus abundant rewards awaiting the righteous, and repeated contrasts between their fundamentally different mindsets and behaviors.

But Psalm 37 goes further by utilizing an innovative poetic device to make the destruction of the wicked symbolically and concretely visible and audible for the reader/listener, so that it in fact happens—right before the reader’s eyes and ears.

The extended 15-Resh-word series

While alliterative and sound devices had been dismissed as mere aesthetic ‘ornamentation’,¹ there is now great interest in the use of sound devices and patterns in biblical poetry as a vehicle for communicating and conveying conceptual ideas, connecting or contrasting their sound correspondence and semantic affinity.² Psalm 37 presents a prime example for this. And in fact, this acrostically constructed chapter has several alliterative devices and semantic-sonantic chiastic patterns that have been noted.³ As will be demonstrated, the Psalm’s major themes converge in a pivotal alliterative word series, itself chiastic both in sound and in sense.

Psalm 37’s verses are arranged acrostically, with (almost) all consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet appearing in ordered sequence, usually as the first letter of the first word of every fourth half-verse (with some variation), starting with ‘Aleph’ just after ‘LeDavid’, in v. 1. Amos Hacham (1979), discussing the psalm’s acrostic structure, also notes the variation in this pattern in regard to the letter Resh in the acrostic, a sequence of 15 consecutive words, all containing a Resh, beginning within the first half-verse of v. 34, extending into (and as noted, ending abruptly in) the beginning of v. 36:⁴

קַוֵּה אֶל ה’ וּשְׁמֹר דַּרְכּוֹ וִירוֹמִמְךָ לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רֶשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה‎

רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן‎

וַיַּעֲבֹר וְהִנֵּה אֵינֶנּוּ וָאֲבַקְשֵׁהוּ וְלֹא נִמְצָא‎

v. 34: Hope to God and guard His way and He will raise you to inherit the land, the destruction of the wicked you will see

v. 35: I saw a cruel wicked man prospering like a thriving perennial

v. 36: and he passed and he is not, I sought him and he was/is not found.

But Hacham offers no explanation for this extended Resh-word sequence, a pattern not commented on or even noted by other commentators and exegetes.⁵

However, the significance of this pattern cannot be overstated; it appears that the alliterative 15-Resh-word series is actually the crowning central literary organizing component of Psalm 37, riding over a stunning system of literary devices and imagery. Moreover, the number of constituent elements in the 15-Resh-word string will itself have great significance in the deep structure of the psalm’s internal oppositions.

The 15-Resh-word sequence ties together the Psalm’s densely complex network of constituent reversed alliterations, chiastic structures, metaphors, wordplay, Janus parallelisms, literary oppositions, and deep structure, which all combine to express its central defining metaphor and simile—the flowering and ultimate drying up of the wicked so that the righteous need not envy or be troubled by them. The alliterative 15-Resh-word string (itself chiastic) will underscore that subtext and imagery for the reader/listener by embodying and replicating the process of that withering, both visually (‘typographically’) and aurally on the level of sound. Significantly, the Resh-word string connects with sound patterns throughout the psalm, patterns which appear not only within but even across verses.⁶

The Resh-word string is central as the narrative heart of the psalm: it substantiates the psalmist’s advice based on his own personal experience (‘[Hope to God] and guard His way and He will raise you to inherit the land, the destruction of the wicked you will see. I saw a cruel wicked man prospering like a thriving perennial. And he passed …’). The psalmist proves, with his own testimony, the psalm’s core introductory argument and theme (vv. 1-3: ‘Do not compete with the wicked [במרעים‎]/do not be jealous of those who do inequity; For like herbage, they will quickly wither/and like grass of verdure will wilt; Trust in God and do good/dwell in the land and pasture faith [ורעה אמונה‎]’). The Resh-word string plays on that introduction thematically and also on its alliterated wordplay (‘אַל תִּתְחַר בַּמְּרֵעִים אַל תְּקַנֵּא בְּעֹשֵׂי עַוְלָה … בְּטַח בַּה’ וַעֲשֵׂה טוֹב שְׁכָן אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה‎’).

The chiastic structure of the alliterative 15-Resh-word sequence

The poetic effect of the Resh alliteration throughout the 15-word series is to connect its constituent words and their meanings.⁷ Yet additionally, the sense of the 15-Resh-word sequence functioning as a discrete phonologic unit is concretized and enhanced by the superimposed phonological chiastic structure seen below with ‘תראה‎’, ‘tir’eh’, the middle word, flanked by the homophonic pair, ‘אָרֶץ‎’, ‘eretz’, and ‘עָרִיץ‎’, ‘aritz’, in fifth word positions counting forwards and backward, from the first and last words of the sequence, ‘וּשְׁמֹר’, ‘u-shmor’, and ‘וַיַּעֲבֹר‎’, ‘va-ya`avor’, respectively, which rhyme and both begin with the letter vav:

וּשְׁמֹר דַּרְכּוֹ וִירוֹמִמְךָ לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן ויּעֲבֹר ‎

and guard His way and He will raise you to inherit the land, the destruction of the wicked you will see. I saw a cruel wicked man prospering like a thriving perennial. And he passed

While at their opposite ends ‘וּשְׁמֹר‎’ and ‘וַיַּעֲבֹר‎’ rhyme with each other, they also play against each other semantically: ‘וּשְׁמֹר‎’ (‘and guard’) denotes the actions of the righteous which will preserve them, while ‘וַיַּעֲבֹר‎’ (‘and he passed’) denotes the disappearance of the wicked. The words ‘אָרֶץ‎’, ‘eretz’, and ‘עָרִיץ‎’, ‘aritz’ in the chiasmus are additionally linked, not only alliteratively but by each being located at the end of a half-verse (vv. 34 and 35, respectively), conferring on them the same pausal cantillation etnach sign, so that they both create pauses in the unit’s compositional sound phrasing.

The flourishing and withering theme

The Resh-word sequence, and the metaphor at its narrative center, underscores the subtext and imagery of flourishing and withering at the heart of the entire psalm. Alter notes of the Psalm’s imagery: ‘This simile … concrete for … the climate of the Near East, where after the rainy season ends … there is great heat and no precipitation, so that everything green becomes parched and quickly withers’.⁸

This metaphoric imagery in the 15-Resh-word sequence and its theological implications were already introduced in the opening three verses of Psalm 37, in what seems to be an inverse form of Janus parallelism of sorts. Cyrus Gordon (1978) writes that a 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’.⁹ This one works the other way around, with two similar-sounding words with different meanings surrounding a line or idea connecting them both:

אַל תִּתְחַר בַּמְּרֵעִים אַל תְּקַנֵּא בְּעֹשֵׂי עַוְלָה‎

כִּי כֶחָצִיר מְהֵרָה יִמָּלוּ וּכְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא יִבּוֹלוּן‎

בְּטַח בַּה’ וַעֲשֵׂה טוֹב שְׁכָן אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה‎

v. 1. Do not compete with the wicked [במרעים‎]/do not be jealous of those who do inequity;

v. 2. For like herbage they will quickly wither/and like grass of verdure will wilt;

v. 3. Trust in God and do good/dwell in the land and pasture faith [ורעה אמונה‎].

Opposed in meaning and imagery, while the wicked (מְּרֵעִים‎) will wither as grass (כֶחָצִיר … כְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא‎), the righteous will instead graze (וּרְעֵה‎) on faith. The opening and closing elements operate as both a sound chiasmus and a sound-pair in the reversed and opposed sounds of Resh, Ayin, and Mem in ‘מְּרֵעִ\ים‎’ and ‘וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה‎’ ( merei / im // reie / ‘ em ). But then the bracketed grass/herbage motif in v. 2

כִּי כֶחָצִיר מְהֵרָה יִמָּלוּ וּכְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא יִבּוֹלוּן‎

For like herbage they will quickly wither/and like grass [כְיֶרֶק‎] of verdure will wilt

becomes further linked in its linguistic metathetic inversion in v. 20:

כִּי רְשָׁעִים יֹאבֵדוּ וְאֹיְבֵי ה’ כִּיקַר כָּרִים כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן כָּלוּ‎

For the wicked will be lost/and God’s enemies, as the finest [כִּיקַר‎] grasslands¹⁰ destroyed, destroyed in smoke

Both Alter (2009) and Hacham (1979) note how the simile here of the withering of the ‘כִּיקַר כָּרִים‎’ (the meadow’s grass greenery) alliteratively reverses ‘וּכְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא‎’ (‘grass of verdure’) in v. 2. (Alter also observes that ‘the entire verse [כִּי … כִּיקַר כָּרִים כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן כָּלוּ‎] is notable for its alliteration and assonance’). Alter then connects this imagery with v. 35, near the end of the 15-Resh-word sequence, (‘Like a flowering plant …’: ‘this line picks up the image from the beginning of the poem, of the ephemerality of the triumph of evil as the transience of green growing things’). But it would appear that it is in fact the entire extended 15-word series (vv. 34-36) that fully describes the withering of evil.

Hacham (1979) cites a meaning of ‘וּמִתְעָרֶה‎’ in the Resh-series (‘כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה‎ ’) as flourishing in the sense of connected to, rooted in, the earth, and thus ‘fresh’ as a thriving perennial, כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן‎, but what appears as a rooted freshness in the earth will not last.

Hacham (1979) also cites a reading of the ‘plotting of the wicked against the innocent and righteous’ throughout Psalm 37 as their attempts to bring false charges against the innocent before the judges and have them executed in order to inherit, literally, their land, their [fertile] earth. In this connection, the agricultural imagery of the fertile or withering plantings could be read as poignantly connected to the reality of that plotting. According to this metaphor and reality—and by means of an interlinear alliterative reversal—the upright (‘ישר‎’, vv. 14, 37), unlike the wicked (‘רָשָׁע‎’), will in fact inherit (‘ירש‎’, vv. 9, 11, 22, 29, 34) the earth.¹¹ They therefore should trust (‘בטח‎’, vv. 3, 4) God Who reverses the wicked intentions to slaughter them (‘לטבוח‎’, v. 14). So the alliterative and political attempts of the ‘רָשָׁע עָרִיץ‎’ in the Resh series could certainly be read against its chiastic counterpart ‘לָרָשֶׁת אָרֶץ‎’, culminating in the righteous ultimately ‘inheriting the land’, so that the righteous should not envy the wicked (אל תתחר במרעים‎, v. 1) who will wither like grass (v. 2), but should pasture faith (ורעה אמונה‎, v. 3).

The vegetative imagery in the 15-Resh-word sequence—the wicked flourishing/prospering as prelude to their withering/destruction—is occasionally used briefly elsewhere in Psalms,¹² but Psalm 37’s poetic treatment of the theme is more elaborate and in fact unique.

The letter Resh symbolism

While alliterative Resh-word sequences of three or more consecutive words are found in other psalms—and multiple sequences in a single psalm are not entirely unusual—the number of Resh-words in such sequences is mostly three, less commonly four, and only rarely a maximum of five to seven.¹³ The striking series of 15 consecutive alliterative Resh-words in Psalm 37 suggests that this uniquely lengthy sequence serves a special poetic purpose beyond the imagery discussed earlier.

Paralleling the Resh-words of the 15-word sequence, 15 words containing Resh and referring to wicked person(s) are distributed throughout Psalm 37: ‘מְרֵעִים‎’ twice (vv. 1, 9) and ‘רְשָׁעִים‎’ or ‘רָשָׁע‎’ 13 times,¹⁴ with two residing in the sequence itself. And just as the 15-Resh-word sequence here represents, by far, the largest number of consecutive Resh-words in Psalms, the Resh-words for ‘wicked’ in this psalm are also over-represented: ‘מְרֵעִים‎’ occurs twice versus only once in seven other psalms;¹⁵ and ‘רְשָׁעִים’ or ‘רָשָׁע‎’ 13 times here versus a maximum of six appearances in 44 other psalms (mostly once per psalm; the peak of six occurs in Psalms 10 and 119).¹⁶

From this statistical perspective, these Resh letter/sound words for wicked can be considered keywords (or theme words) in Psalm 37. Furthermore, the importance this psalm attaches to these ‘Resh/wicked’ words is reflected by the prominent placement of ‘מְרֵעִים’ and ‘רְשָׁעִים‎’ as a framing inclusio, for the entire poem—appearing in both its first and final verses, vv. 1 and 40, respectively:

‘אַל תִּתְחַר בַּמְּרֵעִים אַל תְּקַנֵּא בְּעֹשֵׂי עַוְלָה’; ‘וַיַּעְזְרֵם ה’ וַיְפַלְּטֵם יְפַלְּטֵם מֵרְשָׁעִים וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם כִּי חָסוּ בוֹ‎’

The 15 aggregate mentions of the ‘Resh/wicked’ words in the psalm, therefore, set up a coded phonologic/linguistic equivalence whereby the 15 consecutive words of the Resh series can represent the wicked (and by extension, Evil itself). Not all multi-word Resh alliterations in Psalm 37 are connected to the wicked,¹⁷ but the psalm seems to make that correspondence with respect to the 15-Resh-word sequence.

The wicked-centered Resh-word ‘triplets’

The sequence’s Resh letter/sound connection to the wicked is reinforced in Psalm 37’s five occurrences of a ‘Resh/wicked’ word—‘רְשָׁעִים’ or ‘רָשָׁע‎’—flanked to its immediate right and left by other Resh-words (non-wicked related), comprising a triplet:

Resh -Word | ‘Resh’im’ or ‘Rasha’ | Resh -Word.

Each triplet is an independent stand-alone clause in its own right, describing the wicked or their destruction, echoing the 15-Resh-word sequence’s association of the Resh and the wicked and their eradication. It bears mentioning that alliterative Resh-word triplets of this type are extremely rare in Psalms.¹⁸

Two triplets appear (consecutively) within the 15-Resh-word sequence itself:

v. 34: בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה‎ the destruction of the wicked you will see

v. 35: רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ‎ I saw a cruel wicked man

Two appear before the series:

v. 17: זְרוֹעוֹת רְשָׁעִים תִּשָּׁבַרְנָה‎ ¹⁹ the arms of the wicked shall be broken

v. 28: וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת‎ ²⁰ the seed of the wicked will be cut off

And one appears after it:

v. 38: אַחֲרִית רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָתָה‎ the future of the wicked will be cut off

Like the Resh-word sequence itself, the five alliterative Resh-word triplets, centering on a Resh-word that means the ‘wicked’, add up to 15 words in total.²¹

The poetic function: disappearance of the wicked

While v. 36 can be viewed as simply a poetic anecdote about the wicked person described in v. 35 abruptly meeting his end, it can be shown that Psalm 37 may be aiming to symbolically illustrate this end-of-life sequence in real time for the reader/listener through the concurrent termination of the 15-Resh-word sequence, which serves as a typographical proxy for the evil person (singular or plural)—or his life—that is then actually ‘seen’ to abruptly disappear.

The foundation for this enacting has been prepared, at least subliminally, by the phonological chiastic structure of the Resh-series together with the psalm’s pervasive (and repeated 15-fold) Resh letter/sound associations with the wicked—via the ‘Resh/wicked’ words and the Wicked-Centered Resh-word triplets—collectively creating a 15-word entity that functions as a poetic stand-in for the wicked.

With respect to content, the 15 Resh-words in the sequence present three successive ideas which together serve to contrast the righteous and the wicked:

I. (Words 1-5): וּשְׁמֹר דַּרְכּוֹ וִירוֹמִמְךָ לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ‎

… guard His way and He will raise you up to inherit the land

II. (Words 6-8): בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה‎

the destruction of the wicked you will see

III. (Words 9-15): … רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן. וַיַּעֲבֹר‎

I saw a cruel wicked man prospering like a thriving perennial. And he passed …

Upon completing the description of the wicked man as a well-rooted thriving perennial plant, the next (and terminal) word of the 15-Resh-word sequence, ‘וַיַּעֲבֹר‎’, ‘vay’avor’ (‘he will pass’), which also begins v. 36, is immediately followed by the Resh-free, ‘וְהִנֵּה אֵינֶנּוּ וָאֲבַקְשֵׁהוּ וְלֹא נִמְצָא‎’, ‘and behold, he is not; I sought him but he was not to be found’. In effect, just as the wicked (will) cease to be, with the words ‘וַיַּעֲבֹר וְהִנֵּה אֵינֶנּוּ‎’ = ‘he will pass and behold he is not’, the visual and aural Resh pattern itself abruptly ends.²²

The Resh-word ‘experience’

The reader/listener has been prepared for a ‘real-time’ experience by earlier anticipatory verses speaking of the destruction of the wicked as an event soon to occur (v. 2: ‘כִּי כֶחָצִיר מְהֵרָה יִמָּלוּ וּכְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא יִבּוֹלוּן‎’, ‘for like grass they will quickly wither; like verdure they will fade away’) and as something the reader/listener will soon witness (v. 10: ‘ְעוֹד מְעַט וְאֵין רָשָׁע וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ עַל מְקוֹמוֹ וְאֵינֶנּוּ‎’, ‘A little longer and the wicked man is not here and you will look at his place, and he is not’). The central leitwort word of the 15-Resh-word sequence ‘תִּרְאֶה‎’(‘you will see’), immediately prior to vv. 35-36, then informs the reader/listener of what is to come, in the sequence’s last word, ‘וַיַּעֲבֹר‎’ in v. 36, representing the final ‘portion’ of the wicked person’s life that is then terminated—as promised.

Psalm 37 focuses even more squarely on divine reward and justice by inviting the reader/listener to share, so to speak, in the personal experience of the psalmist in the final half of the 15-Resh-word device and its follow-up verse (vv. 35-36, including verification of the disappearance of the wicked: ‘I sought him but he was not to be found’). In the series, after the prediction of seeing the destruction of the wicked in the triumphal idiom of ‘בהכרת רשעים תראה’ (‘… ב ראה‎’)²³, the psalmist then reverses the tense of the very next word in the following line from future to past, confirming his own experience:

[… וַיַּעֲבֹר]? וִירוֹמִמְךָ לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה\\רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן‎

v. 34: … He will raise you to inherit the land [לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ‎]//the destruction of the wicked you will see//

v. 35: I saw a cruel wicked man [רָשָׁע עָרִיץ‎] prosper like a thriving perennial [v. 36: and he passed … ]

This reversal in tense is framed by two-word sound pairs that exhibit semantic opposition/reversal (righteous vs wicked) anticipating a reversal of destiny:

לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תראה\\ראיתי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ‎

The psalmist’s personal testimony, and reversal from future to past, now leads the reader/listener to witness the destruction of the wicked in symbolic fashion—in the present. In this, the reader/listener now sees and experiences that which God already (fore)saw in v. 13: ‘ה’ יִשְׂחַק לוֹ כִּי רָאָה כִּי יָבֹא יוֹמו‎’.

Further disappearance of the wicked

Within the 15-Resh-word series, the reversal of ‘evil’, ר-ע, is conveyed in a string of reversed alliteration that describes and replicates the reversal of fortunes of the wicked, graphically and in sound. The word רע, three times forward and three times reversed, is distributed within the series:²⁴

לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה\רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן\וַיַּעֲבֹר

ר-ע ר-ע ע-ר ע-ר ר-ע ע-ר‎

The alliterations evoke the alliterative Resh and Ayin wordplay in the psalm’s introductory verses (‘בַּמְּרֵעִים\וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה‎’).²⁵

But it isn’t only the ‘Resh’ of the evil (‘רע‎’) in the series that disappears abruptly, or subtly, from view. Significantly, another ‘disappearance’ has been connected in a sense with the 15-word series. Benun (2009) notes that Psalm 37’s alphabetical acrostic that has no verse for the letter Ayin = ע, and that it is that letter, the other component of ‘רע‎’, that is missing.²⁶ Yet, just as Psalm 37’s 15-Resh-word sequence is the longest such series in Psalms, the letter Ayin appears in this psalm in almost every verse, ‘more frequently … than is statistically expected when compared to the rest of Psalms or the entire Tanakh’.²⁷ He connects its omission to the Resh/Ayin pattern in v. 35, as ‘an intentional deviation intended to represent the elimination of the wicked’, as ‘רע‎’, backwards or forwards, is embedded in almost every word of v. 35: ‘רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן‎’, to poetically echo its meaning. Similarly, the letter Ayin’s ‘disappearance’ where it would be expected in the psalm’s acrostic in v. 29 expresses the psalm’s theme. Benun paraphrases vv. 35-36, extending forward from the Resh-word series center: ‘I found ע everywhere deeply entrenched in every word and in the very structure of the psalm. Then I passed by the ע verse and it was no more. —I sought it and it was not to be found’.

In place of the Ayin omitted from its expected acrostic location at the beginning of v. 29—the verse that, he feels, ‘encapsulates the … repeated message of the psalm’: ‘צַדִּיקִים יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ וְיִשְׁכְּנוּ לָעַד עָלֶיהָ‎’ (‘The righteous shall inherit the earth and will dwell forever in it’²⁸)—there is found the word ‘צַדִּיקִים‎’, ‘the righteous’, who have inherited its space. In addition, Benun notes how the verse which should have begun with ע instead concludes with a word beginning with it: עָלֶיהָ‎. It is possible to add to his observation: having inherited the space of the wicked, the righteous will ‘dwell in it forever’, in an eternity that contains the letter Ayin twice consecutively: ‘וְיִשְׁכְּנוּ לָעַד עָלֶיהָ‎’.²⁹

The other personal anecdotal experience

The 15-Resh-word narrative, what the psalmist saw (‘רָאִיתִי‎’) about the wicked, plays against the psalm’s other, complementary, personal anecdotal experience, v. 25, citing what he didn’t see (‘וְֽלֹא רָאִיתִי‎’) happen to the righteous:³⁰

נַעַר הָיִיתִי גַּם זָקַנְתִּי וְֽלֹא רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק נֶעֱזָב וְזַרְעוֹ מְבַקֶּשׁ לָֽחֶם‎

‘A youth I was, also I aged and I did not see a righteous person abandoned and his seed asking for bread’.

The verse’s internal series of first-person words that rhyme with ‘רָאִיתִי’, what he saw (‘נַעַר הָיִיתִי גַּם זָקַנְתִּי וְלֹא רָאִיתִי‎’), describe autobiographically in a chiastic/semantic series what he didn’t see over a lifetime: ‘A youth [younger] I was, also I aged [older]//and I did not see a righteous person [older] abandoned and his seed [younger] asking for bread’.

The first pair (younger/older) describes the experience of one person, the observer, over an extended time; and the second, the observed, over extended generations at one time (older/younger: the righteous and his seed) attesting to the stability of God’s sustaining the righteous. In the semantic opposition and double meaning, there is, as in life, first young and then old, as in food there is first seed (וְזַרְעוֹ‎) and then bread (לָֽחֶם‎); in reciprocal equation, the righteous person and his seed (זַרְעוֹ‎) never lacked for bread (לָֽחֶם‎).³¹ On two levels, the psalmist’s observed experience brings together the psalm’s argument and its vegetation imagery, and what’s more: it uses its flourishing/prospering metaphor to describe a reality of sustenance and plenty for the righteous.

What is striking in the relationship of what the psalmist saw (‘רָאִיתִי‎’) and didn’t see (‘וְֽלֹא רָאִיתִי‎’) is that the word רָאִיתִי‎ appears in only four other psalms,³² and Psalm 37 is the only psalm with a רָאִיתִי\לֹא רָאִיתִי‎ anecdotal pair, the only one conveying semantic opposition.³³

God’s role in the disappearance of the wicked

As mentioned, beginning with the first verse, 15 Resh-containing words describing the wicked (‘merei`im’ twice, and ‘resha`im’ or ‘rasha’ 13 times) appear throughout Psalm 37. Yet at the same time, Psalm 37 also contains 15 mentions of God’s Name (i.e. the Tetragrammaton³⁴), all appearing one way or another in relation to humanity, so that the opposition of God and the wicked is embedded in the Psalm’s structure. God is involved (not directly perceived, but in the text’s structure) in pitched battle with His enemies, the wicked.³⁵ God, and not the wicked, will ultimately triumph. God’s role thus plays against the ‘pattern of fifteens’ contained in the psalm’s complex artistry:

The 15 consecutive Resh-words (vv. 34-36) describe and enact the demise of the wicked.

Fifteen words containing Resh used for ‘the wicked’ (‘מְרֵעִים’ and ‘רְשָׁעִים’ or ‘רָשָׁע‎’) are distributed throughout the Psalm from the first verse, with two in the 15-Resh-word sequence itself, to the very last verse, in fact, completing an inclusio for the entire psalm.

The total number of words of the five alliterative Resh-word triplets, centering on (Resh) words for ‘the wicked’, is 15.³⁶

Viewed as an organic whole, the entire Psalm can be seen as incorporating a kind of word-mosaic of alliterative sound sequences and visual configurations referring to the wicked, using devices and patterns of 15. Against all this, it juxtaposes 15 appearances of the name of God, Who controls humankind’s fate. God’s ‘signature’ is thus embedded in the Psalm itself, in and against its patterns of fifteens. In this way, the 15 Resh appearances in the series, alluding to the wicked, anticipate their disappearance: God’s Providence brings it (and them) to pass, as the series itself passes. The righteous, therefore, need not be despondent or jealous of the apparent success of the wicked which will be fleeting, but rather should rejoice in their faith in Him.

As such, the 15-word Resh sequence in Psalm 37 functions in a dual symbolic capacity, depicting the abrupt punishment/destruction of the wicked while simultaneously revealing to the reader/listener (through the corresponding 15 mentions of the Tetragrammaton) the divine origin of that justice—both fundamental underlying ideas in the Book of Psalms.³⁷

The symbolic enactment provided by the 15-Resh-word device—and its associations with the Tetragrammaton—in effect ‘validates’ the advice and promise offered in the psalm’s opening three verses, thereby enabling explicit attribution of this just outcome to God’s agency in the two concluding verses:

וּתְשׁוּעַת צַדִּיקִים מֵה’ מָעוּזָּם בְּעֵת צָרָה‎

וַיַּעְזְרֵם ה’ וַיְפַלְּטֵם יְפַלְּטֵם מֵרְשָׁעִים וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם כִּי חָסוּ בו‎

v. 39 The deliverance of the righteous comes from God, their stronghold in time of trouble.

v. 40 God helps them and rescues them, rescues them from the wicked and delivers them, for they seek refuge in Him.

By the time the reader has reached the psalm’s final verse, which echoes the first verse in a simultaneous conceptual and linguistic inclusio, the reader/listener will have been convinced that, indeed, God—expressed here in an opposed alliteration—saves (‘יוֹשִׁיעֵם‎’) from the wicked (‘מֵרְשָׁעִים‎’) the righteous who trust in Him:

‘וַיַּעְזְרֵם ה‎’ וַיְפַלְּטֵם יְפַלְּטֵם מֵרְשָׁעִים וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם כִּי חָסוּ בוֹ’‎.

Conclusion

Psalm 37’s alliterative-typographic device integrates in an elegant yet economic fashion fundamental themes of the Book of Psalms while connecting with local imagery and ‘events’ unfolding in the text. Alliteration is pressed into service beyond a phonologic function to convey rich conceptual information and symbolically tell a story in a way that is remarkable. The Biblical poet’s astounding creativity pushes the artistic potential of the sound, meaning, and sequence of words to their limits. The sheer aesthetic delight in discovery of additional examples should motivate further investigations.³⁸

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Nachman Levine

1.

M. O’Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, Eisenbrauns, 1980, p. 143.

2.

See Adele Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Revised and Expanded), Eerdmans, 2008, Chapter V, ‘The Phonological Aspect: Sound Pairs’, pp. 103-126. Also, Wilfred G.E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, (Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1986), Traditional Techniques in Classical Hebrew Verse (Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1994), Anthony R. Ceresko, ‘The Chiastic Word Pattern in Hebrew’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976) 303-11, Luis Alonso Schökel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics (Loyola Press, 1998); John Kselman ‘Semantic-Sonant Chiasmus in Biblical Poetry’, Biblica 58 1977, pp. 213-224. Benjamin Harshav, ‘Do Sounds Have Meaning?’, in Three Thousand Years of Hebrew Verse: Encounters of Sound and Meaning, Yale University Press, New Haven: 2014, etc. See also Scott Noegel (ed.) Puns and Pundits: Wordplay in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature (Bethesda: 2000), Scott Noegel and Gary Rendsburg, Solomon’s Vineyard: Literary and Linguistic Studies in the Song of Songs (), Gary Rendsburg, ‘Word Play in Biblical Hebrew: An Eclectic Collection’, in Scott Noegel, ed., Puns and Pundits, pp. 137-162.

3.

Kselman’s term in ‘Semantic-Sonant Chiasmus in Biblical Poetry’. He notes sound correspondence and semantic affinity in this psalm, in 37.6: ‘והוציא כאור צדקך\\ומשפטך כצהרים’‎, as Berlin, (p. 120) cites 37.19 (‘לא יבשו בעת רעה\\ובימי רעבון ישבעון’‎) as similar sound/sense reversal.

4.

Daat Mikra, Commentary on Tehilim, Mossad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem, 1979, Introduction, Vol. I. p. 35.

5.

Including: R. David Qimhi and Ibn Ezra, as well as, Mitchell Dahood, Psalms I: 1-50, The Anchor Bible, Doubleday, New York, 1965; Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, W. W. Norton & Company, 2009; Ernst R Wendland, Analyzing the Psalms (Second Edition), SIL International/Eisenbruauns, Inc, Winona Lake, IN, 2002; Susan E Gillingham, The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, Oxford University Press, Inc, New York, 1994; Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, Kidner Classic Commentaries, InterVarsity Press, London, , refers briefly (pp. 170-171) to consonants of a phrase in v. 35 as reflected in certain translations, with no mention of the encompassing 15 Resh-word sequence.

6.

Nachman Levine, ‘Vertical Poetics: Interlinear Phonological Parallelism in Psalms’ Journal of Northwestern Semitic Languages, 29:2 (), pp 65-82.

7.

Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques, JSOT Supplement Series 26, Bloomsbury, , p. 227: ‘The principle function of alliteration is cohesive in nature, binding together the components of line, strophe, stanza or poem’.

8.

Alter, The Book of Psalms, pp. 129-133.

9.

Or ‘polysemous parallelism’. Cyrus Gordon, ‘New Directions’, The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 15 (): 59–66.

10.

Hacham suggests this possibility, based on ‘כר‎’, grassland, in Is. 30:22. Similarly, Alter.

11.

The psalm’s reversed alliterated central premise and promise that the wicked (‘רָשָׁע‎’) will disappear while the upright (‘יִשְׁרֵי‎’), will inherit (‘יִירְשׁוּ‎’) the earth appears in a six-verse series of alternating wordplay (vv. 9-14):

(vv. 9-10) כִּי מְרֵעִים יִכָּרֵתוּן וְקֹוֵי ה’ הֵמָּה יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ. וְעוֹד מְעַט וְאֵין רָשָׁע וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ עַל מְקוֹמוֹ וְאֵינֶנּוּ‎

(v.v. 11-12) … וַעֲנָוִים יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ וְהִתְעַנְּגוּ עַל רֹב שָׁלוֹם. זֹמֵם רָשָׁע לַצַּדִּיק וְחֹרֵק עָלָיו שִׁנָּיו‎

(v. 14) חֶרֶב פָּתְחוּ רְשָׁעִים וְדָרְכוּ קַשְׁתָּם לִטְבוֹחַ יִשְׁרֵי דָרֶךְ לְהַפִּיל עָנִי וְאֶבְיוֹן‎

For evildoers will be cut off, and those who hope to God, they will inherit the land. A little longer and the wicked man is not here, and you will look at his place, and he is not (vv. 9-10). But the humble shall inherit the land, and delight in abundant well-being. The wicked man schemes against the righteous, and gnashes his teeth at him … (v.v. 11-12). The wicked draw their swords, bend their bows, to bring down the poor and needy, to slaughter upright men (v. 14).

It appears again later in mirrored reversal:

(vv. 20-22) … לֹוֶה רָשָׁע וְלֹא יְשַׁלֵּם … כִּי מְבֹרָכָיו יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ‎ …

(vv. 28-29) וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת\\צַדִּיקִים יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ‎

(vv. 37-38) וּרְאֵה יָשָׁר כִּי אַחֲרִית לְאִישׁ שָׁלוֹם … אַחֲרִית רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָתָה‎

12.

Such as in 92.8: ‘בִּפְרֹחַ רְשָׁעִים כְּמוֹ עֵשֶׂב וַיָּצִיצוּ כָּל פֹּעֲלֵי אָוֶן לְהִשָּׁמְדָם עֲדֵי עַד‎’: ‘The wicked bloom like grass; though all evildoers blossom, it is that they may be destroyed forever’. A different vegetative metaphorical pair contrasts there in vv. 13-14: ‘צַדִּיק‎ כַּתָּמָר יִפְרָח כְּאֶרֶז בַּלְּבָנוֹן יִשְׂגֶּה\שְׁתוּלִים בְּבֵית ה’ בְּחַצְרוֹת אֱלֹהֵינוּ יַפְרִיחוּ‎’: ‘The righteous bloom like a date-palm; they thrive like a cedar in Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God’, plays against the evanescent short-lived blooming of the wicked (‘בִּפְרֹחַ‎’) in v. 8. Similarly, in Ps. 1.3-4 the enduring tree-like flourishing of the righteous contrasts with the chaff-like ephemerality of the wicked.

13.

Examples: five: 69.32-33; six: 34.10-11; seven: 119.38-39.

14.

Vv. 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 28, 32, 34, 35, 38, and 40. Unlike the thirteen nouns for the wicked, a fourteenth רשע-root word (‘וְלֹא יַרְשִׁיעֶנּוּ בְּהִשָּׁפְטוֹ‎’ in v. 33, which precedes the 15 Resh word series) is a verb describing God not allowing the innocent to be wrongfully convicted by the wicked and executed: ‘He will not let him be convicted (‘וְלֹא יַרְשִׁיעֶנּוּ‎’) in judgment’ (as in Deut. 25.1: ‘and the judges will … convict the guilty (‘וְהִרְשִׁיעוּ אֶת הָרָשָׁע‎’); Ps. 94.21: ‘They band together on the soul of the innocent and convict guiltless blood (‘וְדָם נָקִי יַרְשִׁיעוּ‎’)’.)

15.

22.17, 26.5, 27.2, 64.3, 92.12, 94.16, 119.115.

16.

Even if Psalms 9-10 are considered as a unit, the maximum number of appearances of ‘resha’im’ or ‘rasha’ outside of Psalm 37 would increase to only nine.

17.

The psalm contains a three-word and a four-word Resh word series unrelated to the wicked. V. 22: The triplet ‘מְבֹרָכָיו יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ‎’ (‘Those blessed by Him will inherit the land’) is one of four ‘יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ ___‎’ formulaic repetitions (vv. 9, 11, 22, 29), the blank filled each time by a term for the righteous. A concatenation of two Resh-words ending v. 26 and two beginning v. 27 yields a quadruplet series: ‘[וְזַרְעוֹ לִבְרָכָה\\סוּר מֵרָע [וַעֲשֵׂה טוֹב‎’ (‘and his children are blessed. Shun evil [and do good]’).

18.

A similar triplet appears in only one other place, Ps. 58.4: ‘זֹרוּ רְשָׁעִים מֵרָחֶם‎’ (‘The wicked go astray from the womb’).

19.

Preceded by the anacrusis, כִּי‎.

20.

There is a play here between the destruction of ‘זֶרַע רְשָׁעִים‎’ (the ‘seed’ of the wicked) and ‘זְרוֹעוֹת רְשָׁעִים‎’ (the ‘arms’ of the wicked) of the previous triplet.

21.

Further Resh-word alliteration connects to the triplet in v. 28, by way of an additional preceding Resh-word: נִשְׁמָרוּ] וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת‎] from an independent unrelated phrase.

22.

The Resh words in the sequence perform ‘double duty’: each communicating their individual semantic content, while, at the same time, working in concert as a phonologic (alliterative, chiastically reinforced) entity that takes on a symbolic role via the psalm’s phonologic ‘Resh/wicked’ associations. In the terminal portion of the sequence these poetic layers merge in real-time: the joint phonologic/symbolic layers enacting the semantic layer’s description of the disappearance of the wicked.

23.

Ps 22.18: ‘יביטו יראו בי’‎; 54.9: ‘ובאיבי ראתה עיני’‎; 92.12: ‘ותבט עיני בשורי’‎; 118.7: ‘אראה בשנאי‎’.

24.

Noted by Levine, ‘Vertical Poetics’, p. 79; and Ronald Benun, ‘Evil and the Disruption of Order: A Structural Analysis of The Acrostics in the First Book of Psalms’, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 6:5 (), p. 21.

25.

Moreover, the ר, ע, and צ clustering in vv. 34-35, ‘לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים … רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָ רֶה‎’, also plays off of the alliterations introduced in vv. 1 and 3: אַל תִּתְחַר בַּמְּרֵעִים … \\שְׁכָן אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה‘‎ ’אֱמוּנָה‎.

26.

Ibid, p. 21.

27.

Benun notes that Ayin appears in Psalm 37 a total of seventy times (which is also the numerical equivalent of Ayin=70). His note 55 provides the statistics for the letter Ayin’s frequency here vs. elsewhere.

28.

It is paraphrased in vv. 9, 11, 22, and 34.

29.

Moreover: in v. 28, the non-acrostic four-line verse immediately preceding v. 29, ‘כִּי ה’ אֹהֵב מִשְׁפָּט\\וְלֹא יַעֲזֹב אֶת חֲסִידָיו\\לְעוֹלָם נִשְׁמָרוּ\\וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת‎’ (‘For God loves justice; and will not abandon His faithful ones; they are preserved forever; while the seed of the wicked will be cut off’), the same primary message appears in its first three lines which include two Ayin words (‘כִּי ה’ אֹהֵב מִשְׁפָּט\\וְלֹא יַעֲזֹב אֶת חֲסִידָיו\\לְעוֹלָם נִשְׁמָרוּ‎’), and is semantically opposed in its final line, a Resh-word triplet (‘וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת‎’) also containing an embedded Ayin-word doublet (‘וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים‎’). The verse’s total of four Ayin-words appear in its last three lines, which also contain four successive Resh-words: ‘וְלֹא יַעֲזֹב אֶת חֲסִידָיו\\לְעוֹלָם נִשְׁמָרוּ\\וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת‎’. Thus, after this opposed fourfold-clustering of Resh and Ayin= ‘רַע’, evil, in v. 28 (which includes the ר-ע – doublet ‘וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים‎’), the Ayin stylistically ‘disappears’ from its expected locus in v. 29, foreshadowing the Resh’s disappearance after the 15-Resh-word series in vv. 34-36, which enacts the destruction of evil.

30.

Also noted by Hacham, Daat Mikra, Vol. I, p. 213.

31.

Levine (ibid).

32.

55.10: ‘בַּלַּע ה’ פַּלַּג לְשׁוֹנָם כִּי רָאִיתִי חָמָס וְרִיב בָּעִיר’‎; 66.18: ‘אָוֶן אִם רָאִיתִי בְלִבִּי לֹא יִשְׁמַע ה’‎; and twice only in Ps. 119 (v. 96: ‘לְכָל תִּכְלָה רָאִיתִי קֵץ רְחָבָה מִצְוָתְךָ מְאֹד’‎ and v. 158: ‘רָאִיתִי בֹגְדִים וָאֶתְקוֹטָטָה אֲשֶׁר אִמְרָתְךָ לֹא שָׁמָרוּ’‎).

33.

This uniquely paired (first-person) seeing, together with the twofold (second-person) ‘you will see’—‘וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ’ (v. 10), and ‘תִּרְאֶה‎’ in the 15 Resh-word sequence—give expression to the important sensory dimension of Psalm 37: both the psalmist and the reader/listener (enabled by the psalmist) observe and bear witness to the outcome in the struggle between the righteous and the wicked.

34.

vv. 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 28, 33, 34, 39, and 40.

35.

As implied in v. 20 (‘For the wicked will be lost and God’s enemies, as the finest grasslands, destroyed …’). Moreover, v. 20, foreshadowing the enactment of God’s ‘personal’ targeting of the wicked for destruction, is the proposed textual center of the psalm when viewed as a ‘geometrically’ symmetric structure (See: Jacob Bazak, ‘Structural Geometric Patterns in Biblical Poetry’, Poetics Today, Vol. 6:3 (), pp. 475-502, Appendix D.)

36.

Given the strong design aspect inherent to acrostic psalms, such as this one, the prominence granted to the number 15—and particularly in connection with the statistically anomalous length of the extended Resh-word string—plausibly reflects poetic intent. Yet, if so, the symbolic significance of this numerical choice is not readily apparent from the psalm itself. Conceivably, the number 15 here might reinforce the idea that the enacted destruction of the wicked in the termination of the Resh-word sequence is God’s doing. Fifteen is the sum of the numerical values of the letters Yod (10) and Heh (5), in י”ה‎, a Name of God connected to the Tetragrammaton as its first two letters. (Similarly, the twenty-six verses of Psalm 136—each with a refrain praising God’s kindness—correspond to the numerical value of י-ה-ו-ה‎, the Tetragrammaton). In the 15 Resh-word chiasmus itself, each of its homophonic demarcations (‘אָרֶץ‎’ and ‘עָרִיץ‎’) at the fifth word from either end of the series, forward or backward, divides the sequence into 5 words and 10 words, corresponding to the numerical letters in Yod-Heh=15. While the name of God, י-ה‎, does not appear in Psalm 37, it is very prevalent in the Book of Psalms overall, more so in fact than elsewhere in the Tanakh. And, in accord with Watson (ibid, p. 63), invoking from other psalms a divine name so lexically connected to the frequently appearing י-ה-ו-ה‎ in Psalm 37 would not be unreasonable as an interpretational approach to inform the understanding of Psalm 37. (Watson’s actual words: ‘No poem is totally self-contained and autonomous in absolute terms; if it were, it would be completely unintelligible … Often a poem can only be understood with reference to other poems by the same author or in the same tradition’.)

37.

Abruptness of punishment, e.g.: 73.19; God’s authorship of punishment revealed to humanity, e.g. 9.17, 64.10.

38.

The partial acrostic Psalm 10 uses a similar, albeit abbreviated, device. After describing the oppression of the righteous by the wicked, the psalmist implores God, in a seven-word Resh string (v.14 [last word] through v.15 [first 6 words]), to destroy the rasha—the word at its center:

[רָאִתָה כִּי אַתָּה עָמָל וָכַעַס תַּבִּיט לָתֵת בְּיָדֶךָ עָלֶיךָ יַעֲזֹב חֵלֶכָה יָתוֹם אַתָּה הָיִיתָ‎]

עוֹזֵר: שְׁבֹר זְרוֹעַ רָשָׁע וָרָע תִּדְרוֹשׁ רִשְׁעוֹ‎

[… ה’ מֶלֶךְ] .בַל תִּמְצָא‎

‘[… You have ever been the orphan’s] help. Break the arm of the wicked, and the evil one—You will seek his wickedness, and not find it. ’ [God is king … ]

Here too (beyond the internal sound play of עוֹזֵר‎ and זְרוֹעַ‎, and תִּדְרוֹשׁ רִשְׁעוֹ‎), is a subtle phonologic chiastic structure: the sequence’s first and last flanking words contain an Ayin-Vav letter-pair with identical vowelization ( עוֹ זֵר\רִשְׁ עוֹ ‎), which fosters a symbolic equivalence between the full sequence and the ‘Rasha’ (‘רָשָׁע‎’) at its center. Reinforcing this equivalence, the string includes a forward and reversed Resh and Ayin series (רָע‎=evil): עוֹזֵר שְׁבֹר זְרוֹעַ רָשָׁע וָרָע תִּדְרוֹשׁ רִשְׁעוֹ‎ —with a ר-ע triplet in the middle, centered on ‘רָשָׁע’, and a chiastically opposed ר-ע‎ / ע-ר‎ outer word pair. As the series ends, in the seven Resh-word sequence’s final half, the three-word alliteration: ‘וָרָע תִּדְרוֹשׁ רִשְׁעוֹ‎’ (‘and the evil one—You will seek his wickedness’), is followed immediately by, ‘בַל תִּמְצָא‎’ (‘and not find it’), signifying the disappearance of both the Resh words—and the Rasha. (Any doubt about the authorship of this disappearance is dispelled by the very next word [beginning of v. 16]: the Tetragrammaton [—coming after a Resh-word sequence of twenty-six letters, this divine name’s numerical equivalent]).

References

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12.

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