Biblical Hebrew Forum

[barre AT nethere.com]

Psalms 53 and 14 are doublets with the interesting variant of divine names.  
Ps 53:4-6 reads

Are they so ignorant, these evil men
who swallow my people
as though they were eating bread,
and never invoke ELOHIM.

They will be struck with fear, 
fear without reason,
since Elohim scatters the bones of the apostate,
they are disgraced, for Elohim rejects them.

Who will bring Israel salvation from Zion?
When ELOHIM brings his people home,
what joy for Jacob, what happiness for Israel.


Ps 14:4-6 reads:

Are they so ignorant, all these evil men
who swallow my people
as though they were eating bread,
and never invoke YAHWEH?

They will be struck with fear, 
fear without reason,
since Elohim takes the side of the virtuous;
deride as you may the poor man's hopes,
Yahweh is his shelter.

Who will bring Israel salvation from Zion?
When YAHWEH brings his people home,
what joy for Jacob, what happiness for Israel.

Psalm 53 occurs within a collection of Psalms (42-83*) known as the 
"Elohistic Psalter" where there is an usually high preference for the divine 
name Elohim over Yahweh.  My question is this: Has the divine name Yahweh 
been inserted into the Elohistic Psalter just we we apparently see in the 
case of Psalm 14?  Or is Psalm 14 the older version?  We might also consider 
here the Oracles of Balaam where we find a similar phenomenon.  In short, how 
do we explain the phenomenon?

LMB

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L.M. Barre, Ph.D.

Angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael

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