Psalms of Asaph

The Psalms of Asaph (לְאָסָף) are the twelve psalms numbered 50 and 73 – 83 of the Psalter. The origin and identity of the person of Asaph is ambiguous, and it is difficult to know whether or not there was an identifiable progenitor for this family name. The genealogical tables of Chronicles cite the original Asaph as the son of Berechiah (1Chr. 6.4). According to the Chroniclers, the sons of Asaph, Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asarelah, were assigned by David to prophesy “to the accompaniment of lyres, harps, and cymbals (1Chr. 25.1, 2). In the post-exilic period, the Ezra/Nehemiah writings cite 148 “…singers: the sons of Asaph …” among the returnees to Persian Yehud (Neh. 7.44), although Ezra (2.41) gives the number as 128. We also see one “Joah, son of Asaph” negotiating with Rabshakeh during the siege of Jerusalem (2K. 18.18 = Isa. 36.3, 22) . Independent then of the literal veracity of Chronicles, it would seem the tradition established the Asaphites as prophetic temple singers and musicians.

MacLaurin has speculated that Asaph is not the name of an individual, but rather that of an office within the Levitical class of priests. Goulder perhaps presents us with the most comprehensive accounting of Hebrew Bible mentions of Asaph, as is seen in the following table:

Reference Subject Matter2K.18.18, 37 The herald (or recorder) of King Hezekiah1Chr. 6.1-15, 24 Genealogical list related to Asaph1Chr. 6.18-33 Families of the musical guilds set up by David, including the forebears of Asaph1Chr. 9.14-17 Genealogical list related to Asaph1Chr. 15 The appointment of Asaph1Chr. 16 Asaph is set up as chief “to praise and extol” God2Chr. 20 Prophecy of the Asaphite Jahaziel2Chr. 29 Zechariah and Mattaniah, sons of Asaph, help carry out Hezekiah’s reformsNeh. 11 Mattaniah placed in Jerusalem at the time of the events describedNeh. 12.27-43 Celebration after building the Jerusalem wall includes Zechariah, a son of Asaph.

Goulder notes that the meticulous keeping of genealogical lists is either accurate, or a reflection of the importance of the guild, and that therefore the “Asaphites were a significant and proud part of Israelite life”. The earliest non-biblical evidence for this name is from an inscription on a seal from Megiddo, which appears to be of eighth or seventh century origin .

Taking all the data together, then, it seems highly likely that the Asaphites were prophetic temple singers and musicians of the second temple period, who traced their origins back to pre-exilic Israel. The last section of this paper will speak to the Asaphites as a group, that is, once we have a better understanding of them from the psalms that bear their name. And as we shall see later, the Psalms of Asaph will tell us even more about the Asaphites, their origins, and the history of their times.

In order to understand this, we will examine the Psalms of Asaph from the perspectives of commonality of three properties: theme and genre; time and tradition; use of language. We will also undertake an analysis to place the Asaphites and their work within the post-exilic period. Not all scholars ascribe to the notion that these psalms are related. C. H. Toy asserts that the assignment of Asaph in the titles is worthless, and that there is no reason discernible as to why a later editor might have grouped these psalms together. The rest of Toy’s analysis views each psalm as a separate entity, and consists of little more than an attempt to date each psalm, which he has as running over the course of half a millennia. Although not completely devoid of merit, Toy’s scholarship is seriously flawed as this paper will seek to demonstrate. Had Toy bothered to read Franz Delitzsch , who published on this topic almost 20 years before him, he could have saved himself the trouble of writing his own article. Of course, Delitzsch wrote in German (even more of a requirement for 19th century CE scholars than it is today), and the English language version of his opus did not appear until after Toy’s fatally flawed piece was put to print. Yet, Toy can find an ally in the person of G. R. Berry, who consigns the Psalms of Asaph to the early Greek period , while offering no evidence or even the gleanings of such to support his assertion.

Martin Buss informs us that most scholars do indeed recognize the Psalms of Asaph as constituting a nearly homogeneous group, which closes the Elohistic section of the Psalter. In addition, he notes that when “viewed together as a body, these psalms reveal a strong personal element, one which not infrequently points toward a connection of the author with the cult organization”. This is not to say that these psalms had the same author or even a single school of authors writing at the same time. However, as we analyze this body of work, we will see that they do indeed deserve to be grouped together, if for no other reason than that they demonstrate what Houston calls “concerned authorship” .

Theme and genre

Houston attacks the commonality of the work by focusing on themes and genre. In particular, Houston observes that “the themes of the narrative traditions … are relatively rare in the Psalter as a whole and extremely rare in those headed of David, but relatively common in the Psalms of Asaph. ” He provides us with a series of tables to set out the commonality of theme and genre. Before discussing his analysis and the statistical evidence presented, it must be noted that Houston counts 147 psalms in the Psalter and not 150, by grouping together as one Pss. 9 &10, 42 & 43, and 70 & 71 .

In discussing his first table, he notes that "community laments” occur four times in the Psalms of Asaph out of a total of 12 such laments in the entire Psalter, and that this 1/3 of all occurrences is significant . It is, but Houston misses an even more significant statistic, or at the very least a different way to express the same observation: The concentration of community laments within the Psalms of Asaph as a group. That is, on a random distribution, we would expect 8% of the Psalms of Asaph to have these laments. The fact that 33% of them do is an increase over a random distribution of a bit more than a factor of four.

The same is true for “narrative traditions”, where seven of the 12 Psalms of Asaph, or 58% of the total, have such traditions. This compares to other groups of psalms where the occurrence of narrative traditions is far less: Psalms ascribed to David, 1% (one out of 73); Korah, 18% (two out of 11); others 0%; Anonymous 19% (nine out of 47). In other words, narrative traditions occur in 19 psalms within the Psalter, or 13% of the 147 psalms under Houston’s investigation. Within the Psalms of Asaph this number is seven and, as noted, is 58% of the 12 psalms in this group.

References to the “people” is another grouping that congregates heavily around the Psalms of Asaph, where 11 of the 12 (92%) have them. There are a total of 66 psalms where the people are mentioned, which is almost half (45%) of all the psalms. Thus, of the 66, the 11 in the Psalms of Asaph constitute 17% of all such mentions for a group of 12 that are just 8% of our 147 total.

Houston is not alone in observing the commonality of theme and genre in the collection. Nasuti notes their “overwhelming communal nature” and he compares this with a general communal lack in the rest of the Psalter. Even where individuals speak with a first person singular (in the Psalms of Asaph) it is with concern for the nation as a whole .

Thus, it is certainly backed by statistics that the Psalms of Asaph can be especially noted for its focus upon the people, their community laments and narrative traditions. It is to these narrative traditions, and the time of their composition, that our analysis will now focus.

Time and historical tradition

Psalms 77, 80, and 81 have a special reference to Joseph, which is often used to express the northern territories of Manasseh and Ephraim . Psalm 80 is a communal lament that “can probably be placed with some assurance within the last decades before the fall of Samaria” based upon its similarity with certain sections of the book of Hosea . Psalm 77 is another lament that “gives less indication of date, but the same period and situation seem to fit well, especially if Aaron can be accepted as a North-Israelite hero ”. Psalm 78 again is Northern in orientation, but here used in a negative way. It could be that it helped northerners explain the loss of their kingdom and subsequent fleeing to Judah in the south. Buss dates this psalm to the time of Hezekiah or Josiah . The opening lines of this quite lengthy psalm (72 verses and the second longest in the Psalter) is, according to Buss, related the Song of Moses (Deut. 32), leading him to conclude the following: “Bearers of Asaph traditions must thus be placed among pre-exilic, largely North-Israelite, Levites ”. He dates Pss. 76 and 83 to the time of the Assyrian invasion . Buss further notes that Ps. 50 has traditions presupposed by Hosea , which would place it in the waning days of the northern kingdom or just after its fall . Buss’ further observations include that the communal laments of Pss. 74 and 79 “probably refer to the fall of Jerusalem” . Thus, he makes a convincing argument that not only do the Psalms of Asaph coalesce together as a group, they are also heavily oriented toward the Northern-Israelite experience.

Shortly before publishing his book on the Psalms of Asaph, Goulder published a short paper, the title of which immediately heralded its editorial . While not mentioning either Toy or Berry, Goulder notes that most scholars do not hold that the Psalms of Asaph are connected by any impulse greater than some fourth century editor putting together a florilegium . He then sets out to show four aspects of these psalms that hold them together as more than a random selection somewhat arbitrarily made into a collection:

The first of his rationales directly supports the northern origin thesis described above. He notes that there are numerous references to the Israelites as “Joseph” and he cites Pss. 77.15, 80.1, 80.2 (Ephraim and Manasseh are Joseph), and 81.5,6 . Moreover, the bulk of the historical references in these psalms are related to the story of the Exodus from Egypt, “and it is Joseph who is associated par excellence with Egypt. ”

With regard to the anti-Joseph/Ephraim sentiment in 78.9 and 78.67-68, he notes that after 722 northern psalms would need to be taken south in order to survive. It is quite likely that they would have been edited to conform better to southern sensibilities. For example, he posits that Shechem and Bethel would have been edited out in favor of Jerusalem, and Gerizim would have been changed to Zion .

As his second rationale, he notes the overwhelming preference for אלהים when referring to the deity. We will consider this more closely when examining the language of the Psalms of Asaph. For now, it is important only to note that this name comes up 56 times in the Psalms of Asaph, as opposed to only 15 mentions for יהוה, which is not good enough even for a close second. Moreover, אל (which is closely aligned with אלהים) occurs 19 times in this collection .

Third is the use of the word covenant in the Asaph collection, appearing in Pss. 50.5, 50.16, 74.20, and 78.37. There is also the use of the sheep/flock image as in 74.1, 77.20, 78.52, 78.70-71, 79.13, 80.1, 83.12 (six in total out of 12 psalms, or 50%). Finally, “virtually the whole collection is marked by a sense of dire crisis”, as noted in Pss. 74, 79, 77 (v. 7), 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 70, and 50 .

Goulder too notes this by remarking that “the political situation presupposed by the texts is …strikingly univocal. There is disaster, imminent or recently occurred; there is the threat of it but also the hope; there is a prophetic challenge to return to observing the covenant and the resultant defeat –by God- of the enemy. ”

These four aspects of affinity help to reinforce the notion of a specific northern heritage and at a specific point in time, as will now be further discussed.

According to Goulder, the limitation of the concerned community to Joseph or Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, alludes to a brief period between 732 and 722 when Israel and Judah were separated, but was bereft of its northern and eastern tribes, having lost them to Assyria. In this period Amos was giving forth his oracles and sometimes referred to Israel as Joseph .

To his second point on the use of the name of the deity, it is also noted that אל was “especially used in the northern sanctuaries of Shechem (Salem—although some call this Jerusalem) and Bethel. ”

The sense of crisis also helps to set the Psalms of Asaph in the period of the 720s. In this we take special note of Ps. 83.9, “Assyria too joins forces with them…”

Goulder notes that the collection taken as a whole can be read (if not in order) as a northern historical tradition . This is best illustrated by the table below:

Psalm reference: historical tradition subject matter

* 74 Creation
* 77 Exodus
* 78 Desert wanderings, plagues of Egypt, settlement under David
* 80 A vine out of Egypt and planted in the land
* 81 Slavery and oppression in Egypt; rebellion at Meribah
* 83 Crisis with Assyria
* 78 The loss of the Ark at Shiloh
* 80 The expansion of the Davidic empire

Goulder closes his work by observing that the Psalms of Asaph know nothing of Sinai . He also presents more detailed evidence for the linking of the Asaph psalms to the Elohist tradition found within Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers. This Elohist tradition is thought to come out of the northern shrines and the correlation of the Psalms of Asaph with Salem/Shechem and Bethel give it credence.

Goulder’s analysis of not just a northern tradition for the Psalms of Asaph, but for a very narrow range of dates cannot be without criticism. Schniedewind, in particular, has an issue with this narrowcast thesis. In reviewing his larger work he notes: “It is difficult, for example, to imagine that Psalm 79 is purely an eighth-century northern psalm, given its references to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (vv. 1, 3) ” . I think Schniedewind is missing a more logical explanation for this. That is, no northern psalm would have made it into the Psalter if it were not ultimately acceptable to the southern sensibilities of the Jerusalem cult. It is easy to imagine a Jerusalem editor working this into Ps. 79 to fit his own purposes. Goulder may still be stretching himself too far, although his thesis is compelling. And as we will see later, he is not entirely alone in some of his conclusions. But the reference to Jerusalem is not enough of a battering ram to breach the defenses of his major conclusions.

Thus, it would seem that from the perspective of time and historical tradition, we can comfortably place the Psalms of Asaph with a northern set of authors, and with the Assyrian army either on the near horizon, or fresh in Israel’s painful memory. This ties well to the notion of narrative tradition, communal lament, and a focus on the people in their misery, as developed in the first section on theme and genre. We will now seek to further knit these psalms together by looking at its language.

Linguistic analysis: Israeli Hebrew

Rendsburg has done extensive work on the language used in the Psalter . He notes the division of Biblical Hebrew (BH) into Early, Standard, and Late Biblical Hebrew (EBH, SBH, and LBH). To these distinctions he makes the following set of observations : Most of the HB was written in Judah or Jerusalem or by exiles from that area and its Hebrew can be more accurately described as Judahite Hebrew (JH). However, “stories which emanate from the north, such as those concerning the northern judges or northern kings, often reflect different grammatical usages” . Rendsburg calls this dialect, Israeli Hebrew (IH), and assigns a territory of its domain as everything from Bethel northward in Cisjordan and all of Transjordan. He further asserts that if a given biblical text is not JH it is IH. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the differences between JH and IH, and especially of the linguistic influence on IH from its geographic neighbors. However, Rendsburg does make a convincing argument that is not without modern analogues . We will briefly explore two examples:

: 1. In Ps. 73, he notes the relationship of v. 4 to Ugaritic and its use being confined mostly to the north. Of the vocable for strength and body he comments that it "must have been at home with northern dialects, and apparently did not penetrate southward to Judah.": 2. He offers a similar argument relative to Ps. 73.21, as having a "northern Canaanite vocable attested to in Ugaritic and IH."

Rendsburg provides us with 22 more such linguistic examples, and the interested reader is referred to his book.

In addition to his linguistic analysis, Rendsburg also notes the frequent use of northern tribal names and cities. However, this topic has been adequately covered in this paper.

Linguistic analysis: words, terms, and phrases

The use of specific words has been briefly noted in the section, Time and Historical Tradition. We will now look at this aspect of the Psalms of Asaph more closely, starting with the words used for the deity:

In his book on the Psalms of Asaph (Footnote 5), Goulder discusses the mid-19th century CE work of Franz Delitzsch (Footnote 9). Goulder notes in this book that Delitzsch used five criteria to link the 12 Psalms of Asaph together. The first of these is the use of the word for the deity. The table below summarizes the result.

The deity is referred to 110 times in these psalms. Overwhelmingly the choice is for אלהים, occurring 51% of the time God is mentioned. Normalizing the data to this number we see that יהוה gets only a 0.27 relative weight. The closest mention to אלהים is אל and it has a weighting factor of 0.34. However, both אלהים and אל are names with a northern origin, such that when combined provide for 85 of the total 110 mentions, or 77%. This is too much to be coincidental, especially when one considers that it had to get past the Jerusalem priests in order to be included in the Psalter. Delitzsch also notes some other commonalities of language in terms of the Psalms of Asaph’s usage of sheep, shepherd, flock, pasture, as well as the arrogant and the wicked, and finally actions such as forgives, and drives out the nations. All of these are concentrated in the Psalms of Asaph.

There is also a striking commonality of language between the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 and certain phrases in the Psalms of Asaph. The table below, taken from Goulder , will best illustrate:

Exodus Content Psalm Content15.1 The horse & his rider 76.7 Chariot & horse15.8 The floods stood upright as an heap 78.13 He made the waters to stand as an heap15.10 The sea covered them 78.53 The sea covered their enemies15.11 Who is like unto thee, O Lord among the gods? 77.14 Who is a great god like unto God?15.13 Thou hast led thy people which thou has redeemed 77.16 Thou has with thine arm redeemed thy people15.16 By the greatness of thine arm … the people which thou hast purchased 74.2 Thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old … redeemed15.17 Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thy inheritance … the sanctuary 78.54 He brought them to the border of his sanctuary To the mountain

The commonality of the language between the Song of the Sea and the Psalms of Asaph are apparent from even a cursory glance at the table. Some scholars have gone as far to suggest that this Pentateuch text was written by the Asaphites at some later date . Getting involved in such a debate is beyond the scope of this paper. However, there can be very little debate, Toy and Berry notwithstanding, that the tight correlation of the Psalms of Asaph (or at least of Pss. 74, 76, 77, and 78) with these verses from Exodus, strengthen the argument that they do indeed stand together.

Nasuti has looked at these psalms from a number of different perspectives and also has some comments as to language: His observations show that of the 12 Asaphite psalms there are eight, Pss. 50, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, and 81, that have dominant language that are often exclusive to the Psalms of Asaph. Nine of them have language where the dominant and sometimes exclusive reference is to what has been referred to as an Ephraimite tradition stream. These are Pss. 50, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, and 83 . He also finds little language in the entire 12 psalms that are out of place with the Ephraimite tradition. He also notes other usages of language that hold to the Ephraimite tradition: The accusations of Ps. 50 that parallel the Decalogue has parallels in Ephraimite prophetic literature. Also, the language, “’I am the Lord, your God” was seen to have Ephraimite links in its Psalms 50 and 81 usage…. ” Coupled with the superscriptions, he too holds to a common origin, and a northern or Ephraimite one at that for the collection .

With the integrity of the Psalms of Asaph in hand, our attention will now turn to the Asaphite group.

The Asaphites

It has been discussed that the Asaphites were prophetic temple singers and musicians of the second temple period, who traced their origins back to pre-exilic Israel. Armed with a more detailed understanding of the psalms attributed to this group, we can delve more deeply into their inner workings.

Noting the very strong personal elements in these psalms Buss has speculated that it “points to the linkage of the author [s] with the cult organization. ” This would indicate the Israelite clergy as the tradition behind these psalms. He notes a form of higher poetry in the Psalms of Asaph which to him implies a higher participation in public life. He posits a northern set of Levitical priests who moved to Judah with the fall of Samaria.

Psalm 73 comes to us as a wisdom song with a strong personal note, “wherein the author overcomes his skepticism when in the temple and concludes ‘I am continually with thee ….’ ”. These words would seem to indicate the narrator to be some sort of member of the temple personnel. From here we can proceed to the combination of psalms of communal lament (Pss. 74, 77, 79, 80, and 83) and historical tradition mixed in some cases with judgment themes (Pss. 50, 75, 76, 78, 81, and 82). Buss notes that “judgment songs and historical recapitulation …, are the work of religious leadership. The judgment psalms, in fact –especially Pss 50 and 81- have been used repeatedly as an indication of what went on in the Israelite cultus. ” Clearly, the community is in some kind of crisis situation and appealing to the deity for deliverance from His (just) punishment. And it is the Asaphite priests who need to serve as the people’s interlocutor with God.

Houston observes of the Psalms of Asaph that they are almost all concerned with conflict of one kid or another, and with divine judgment. This conflict can be with the enemies of Israel (Pss. 74, 76, 77, 79, 80, and 83), the wicked (Pss. 50, 73, and 75), within Israel itself (Pss. 50, 78, and 81), or the gods of other nations (Ps. 82). Moreover, these are national conflicts and not individual in nature. This leads Houston to suspect they were used for gatherings in a crisis situation, including proclaimed fasts (despite festal material in 81.4) .

From the material presented thus far, it can be successfully argued that the Asaphites had a priestly role in the north prior to 732-722. There can be little doubt that they moved south and took their liturgy with them. As noted, it could not have survived otherwise, and that survival also entailed some level of compromise (i.e. rewriting) to conform to southern sensibilities. Moreover, since the Nehemiah/Ezra tradition noted that they were part of the return from exile, their pre-exilic existence in the south is assumed so that they could be exiled to begin with.

We have a somewhat clearer picture of the Asaphites in the post-exilic period, notwithstanding the overall veracity of the Chroniclers. And in this period, it would appear that the Asaphites’ role had changed dramatically from its more priestly/prophetic functions of pre-exilic (and northern) days.

Nasuti has us look at 1Chr. 16. Here, the Asaphite singers, led by “Asaph the Chief” are singing hymns of praise, “a medley of parts of Pss. 96, 105, and 106 ”. This is in stark contrast to the dominant genres of the Psalms of Asaph, especially communal laments and prophecies. This issue is “at the heart of the Asaphite activity”. Obviously, the Chronicler was familiar enough with the Asaphites to include them in the text. It should further be assumed that there was familiarity with the Psalms of Asaph, given their pre-exilic dating. Why then would the Chronicler portray the Asaphites almost exclusively in hymns of praise?

Nasuti’s answer is as obvious as it is informative. He notes that the Chroniclers were simply observing and recording what the Asaphites were doing at the time of the writing of the Chronicles text. This would suggest that the role of the Asaphites evolved from that of communal laments and cultic prophecy to the offering of songs of thanksgiving and praise.

Nasuti notes conflicting data as to when this change may have occurred. Nevertheless, the changing role of the Asaphite guild seems to have become a "fait accompli" at some point during or immediately after the exile. He posits that among other reasons, it could be related to “the general disappearance of prophecy in Israelite society.” But even as their post-exilic role changed, they were able to keep their traditional Asaphite name among Second Temple personnel.

Conclusions

The Psalms of Asaph have been shown to be a separate and distinct group within the Psalter, the composition of which goes back to the northern territories and timeframe. They underwent some redaction after 722, but appear to have been intact by the post-exilic period. The same cannot be said of the Asaphite priests, whose pre to post exilic role changed from musically-based or induced prophecy, to that of singing praise to God.