Bulletin for Biblical Research

Vol. 7

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Craig A. Evans

Institute for Biblical Research

Eisenbrauns

Winona Lake, IN

1997

Bulletin for Biblical Research

EDITORIAL BOARD

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Stanley E. Porter

Editorial correspondence should be directed to Prof. Craig A. Evans, Trinity Western University, 7600 Glover Road, Langley, British Columbia V2Y 1Y1, Canada. evans@twu.ca

Books for review should be sent to Prof. H. Alan Brehm, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 22000, Fort Worth, TX 76122.

Bulletin for Biblical Research (ISSN 1065-223X) is published and distributed by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN 46590.

Copyright © 1997 by The Institute for Biblical Research. All rights reserved.

Psalm 73: Pilgrimage from Doubt to Faith

LESLIE C. ALLEN

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

A fresh translation of Psalm 73 with textual notes is provided. In form the psalm has elements of a thanksgiving song composed from a wisdom perspective. It celebrates the end of physical suffering and accompanying religious doubt. The poem is dominated by wordplays which describe first the psalmist’s earlier view of himself as a loser over against the wicked and then his conviction that eventually they would fail, as surely as the wicked generation in the wilderness. God’s moral providence would prevail.

Key Words: thanksgiving song, wisdom thinking, stylistic structuring, wordplay, intertextuality, theological contemporaization, divine providence

This article fulfills the intention of a paper presented on Psalm 73 as the 1981 Tyndale Old Testament Lecture, delivered at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England.1 The original intent was to give a comprehensive analysis that moved from genre and structure to an exegetical overview of the psalm. Unfortunately the first two topics turned out to be so complex that it proved impossible to reach the satisfying conclusion of the third. Here at long last is the missing exegetical portion, written a decade and a half later.

TRANSLATION

1 In spite of everything, God is good to Israel,

to the pure in heart and mind.

2 For my part, I came near to losing my footing,

my legs almost collapsed beneath me.

3 The reason was, I envied the braggarts,

seeing the shalom they enjoy, wicked though they are.

4 No worries do they have,

their bodies are sound and far from scrawny.

5 They lack the troubles of other mortals

and are free of human misfortunes.

6 So they can vaunt arrogance like a lei

and deck themselves with violence.

7 The wrongdoing they commit springs from within,2

their minds and hearts are full of evil fantasies.

8 They mock and talk maliciously,

from their position of power they talk menacingly.

9 They speak as if the ...