Libraries, University of Oxford).
Plate 9 Psalm 100 Reversed: The Ku Klux Klan deny Mercy and Justice. Philip Evergood, 1938–9, Jewish Museum New York No. 27477 (© Photo SCALA, Florence, with permission of Scala Group S.p.a.).
Plate 10 Psalm 102:6: The Pelican Feeds her Young as Christ feeds his Church. From The Theodore Psalter, British Library MS 19352, fol. 134r (with permission from the British Library Board).
Plate 11 Psalm 107: Psalms Book V Frontispiece. Donald Jackson, Scribe with Sally Mae Joseph. © 2004, The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Plate 12 Psalm 107: YHWH the Provider according to Moshe Tzvi HaLevi Berger, all rights reserved (www.museumofpsalms.com, reproduced with permission).
Plate 13 Psalm 107: God’s Deliverance from Storms at Sea. Thomas Denny: a stained glass window at the church of St. Mary, Whitburn, Durham Diocese (with permission of the Vicar and PCC of St. Mary’s Church, Whitburn).
Plate 14 Psalm 109: Illustrated Initial ‘D’. Judas, betrayer of Christ, hangs himself. From Le Psautier de Bertin, BMB MS 20 fol. 122v. (with permission of Bibliothèque municipal de Boulogne-sur-Mer).
Plate 15 Psalm 110: Christ at the Right Hand of the Father, in Conversation. From The History Bible, KB69B 10 fol. 31r. (with permission of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague).
Plate 16 Psalm 110:1 Illustrated Initial ‘D’. Christ in Judgement Summons the Dead from their Graves. From The Omer Psalter MS 39810 fol. 120r (with permission from the British Library Board).
Plate 17 Psalm 113: A Synagogue Scene illustrating the Celebration of Passover. From The Barcelona Haggadah, Catalonia, Add 14761 fol. 65v (with permission from the British Library Board).
Plates 18 and 19 Psalm 114: The Parting of the Waters, with English and19 and Hebrew text: God’s Creative Care. © Psalm 114, Hebrew and English illuminations, from I Will Wake the Dawn: Illuminated Psalms, by Debra Band. Jewish Publication Society, 2007 (with permission of the author).
Plate 20 Psalm 117: A Vespers Psalm: The Presentation of Mary in the Temple, holding the Hebrew text of Psalm 117. Alessandro Allori (1598). Altarpiece in the Duomo in Lucca. (© simonemphotography123.com).
Plate 21 Psalm 118:19–20: Christ Rides through the Gates of Jerusalem. From The Theodore Psalter, British Library MS 19352, fol. 157v (with permission from the British Library Board).
Plate 22 Psalm 118: An invitation to Enter God’s Gates with Thanksgiving. From The Oppenheimer Siddur (Bodleian Ms. Opp. 776 Fol. 79b it).
Plate 23 Psalm 124:7: Our Soul is Escaped like a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowlers. © Benn, Les Psaumes. Lyon: Musee des Beaux-Arts, 1970 (no page numbers).
Plates 24 and 25 Psalm 126, with English and Hebrew text: © Psalm 126, Hebrew and English illuminations, from I Will Wake the Dawn: Illuminated Psalms, by Debra Band. Jewish Publication Society, 2007 (with permission of the author).
Plate 26 ‘By the Waters of Babylon’. From The Eadwine Psalter, Trinity College M.17.1, fol. 243v (with permission from the Master and Fellows of Trinity College).
Plate 27 Psalm 137:5 ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem…’. Mosaic of Psalm 137 in the Chagall State Hall, Knesset (© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2020 ).
Plate 28 Psalm 148 fol. 41v: ‘Christus Rex’. From Les Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry, Musée Condé Chantilly (© with permission from the Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux).
Plate 29 Psalm 149:1: ‘Sing to the Lord a New Song’. From The Parma Psalter, Biblioteca Paletina, Parma, MS Parm 1870 (Cod. De Rossi 510), fol. 213b (with permission from the owners of the facsimile of The Parma Psalter, at www.facsimile-editions.com).
Plate 30 Psalm 150: ‘Praise the Lord!’. Marc Chagall’s stained glass window at Chichester Cathedral (© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, 2020).
Preface
It was almost twenty-five years ago when my initial conversations with Christopher Rowland and John Sawyer resulted in a contract to produce a volume on the Psalms in the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series. It took two years of research to recognise the size of a project which was to examine the Jewish and Christian reception history of the Book of Psalms over two and a half millennia. The first step required setting up a data base, both digitally and in hard copy, which would organise the vast amount of material into time periods and types of reception. Even with the support of several short-term research assistants, and two sabbaticals, I was not able to start writing what would become Volume One until 2004. Very soon I realised that this publication could not be an actual commentary: it was a distinctive cultural history of the Psalter, referring to selected psalms as examples of different types of reception.
Before submitting that manuscript I had to seek permission to extend this work to a second volume which would then become the commentary. Hence the title Psalms through the Centuries: Volume One for the 2008 publication. It then became clear that I could not write any commentary until I had created another data base, psalm by psalm, adapting the earlier prototype. There was no other Psalms Commentary like it to use as a model, so the preparation time, even given two more sabbaticals and several effective research assistants, took far longer than anticipated. The contract for the entire commentary (Volume Two), was mainly achieved through the mediation of the then Old Testament editors of the Wiley Blackwell Bible Commentary Series, John Sawyer (Newcastle) and David Gunn (Fort Worth), but it was ultimately dependent upon the extraordinary support of the then Publisher for Religion, Rebecca Harkin.
Using the general chronological and geographical framework established in Volume One, the commentary required a particular format for each psalm. I start by assessing each psalm as part of the process of compilation of the Psalter as a whole, for this represents the earliest stage of its reception in Hebrew; I then look at corresponding evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls; this leads on to examining reception through translation, especially the Greek and Latin versions, which witness to both Jewish and Christian reception; I then turn to the Christian commentary tradition in the New Testament, Church Fathers, and Medieval and Reformation Commentators, and similarly the Jewish commentary tradition in the Midrash Tehillim, the Mishnah, the Targums, and Medieval Commentators. After this I assess non-verbal reception, especially the vast number of illustrated Psalters from the ninth-century onwards, both in the West and the East, at this point mainly Christian. This is followed by an evaluation of musical reception history, particularly from the fifteenth-century onwards, and thence to an assessment of poetic imitations of the psalms and their use in literature and film. At the final stage I explore the different sorts of discourse which develops from the seventeenth-century onwards—political, ethical, historical, and social.
Although I began writing up this commentary in 2011, I decided at the same time to undertake a more experimental work on just two psalms, looking at their reception history as comprehensively
