From Zion to Death: Structure and Theology of the First Korahite Collection (Ps 42-49)

By means of their common ascription to the sons of Korah, Ps 42-49 have been grouped together into a coherent collection (the first Korahite collection; see also Ps 84f.87f.). These psalms are not only unified by their ascription to the Korahites, they are also unified by their common structureand theology as well as their interdependence. The individual lament in Ps 42/43 about the distance of God and the distance of the praying person from his temple is intensified in the communal lament in Ps 44 about Israel’s defeat and exile. A response is then given to this crisis in the following psalms using various pre-exilic theological topoi: Ps 45-48 praise the king of Israel, Zion and God, leading to a wisdom discourse about life and death in Ps 49. The paper will follow the line of thought generated by the concatenation and the overall structure, which leads from the individual lament to the wisdom discourse by reflecting upon Israel’s history, its kingship ideology and its theology of Zion; it will be shown that the plea of Ps 44,27 (“Arise, be a help for us, and redeem us because of your hesed”) and the trust pronounced in Ps 46,1 (“God is to us a shelter and a refuge, a helper against distress, found to be strong”) stand at the theological core of this collection of Psalms.