Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Pastor Mark Eddy" <markeddy AT adams.net>]

Dear Liz,
My answers are interspersed below.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" >
> Dear Mark,
> Why do you assume David or even a davidic king wrote this psalm?

That's what the text of the Hebrew Bible says in the Psalm title: LeDaWiD. We 
have no evidence to
contradict this statement by the comiler(s) of the Psalms.

> It is in the third person, and written by a temple or court scribe or
> poet.

It is well known that pious Israelites often referred to themselves in the 
third person. It might be seen
as boasting to write about oneself in the first person. It is also common in 
the Psalms and the Prophets
to switch between persons, sometimes speaking to God in the second person, 
other times speaking about Him
in the third person in the same context. (I just ran across this again in 
Psalm 41. There the author
refers to himself in both first and third person, and he refers to YHWH in 
both third and second person.)
So writing in the third person would prove nothing about the authorship of a 
passage. But Psalm 110 isn't
written in the third person. "The LORD said to my Lord ..." has the author 
writing in the first person:
"my."

> He says that YHWH spoke to his Adon, i.e., YHWH spoke to his lord, his
> boss.

See my post to Yigel concerning who this "boss" could be.

> An anonymous poet is speaking, not the king, and certainly not David.

How can you be "certain" that David was not speaking? The Hebrew Bible says 
that David composed this. Your
assertion contradicts the text. What evidence do you have to disprove the 
text? Many other psalms are
anonymous. Not this one.

> As for no one ever addressing a priest by the title "lord," we have
> it all over the place at Elephantine.
> TAD A4.3 begins "To my lords Jedaniah, Uriah and [the other] priests
> of YHW the god...."

But does a king ever address a priest as "lord"? The text ascribes this Psalm 
to David. What other David
does the Hebrew Bible know as "the sweet psalmist of Israel" (2 Sam. 23:1) 
besides king David? By the time
of the Elphantine papyri (400s BC) there was no king in Israel to call 
"lord." Judah was back to trying a
theocracy. Since there were no active prophets, that left the priests as the 
only legitimate human lords
for Israel.

By the way, I accept supporting evidence from post-biblical Aramaic papyri. 
Can we also accept evidence
from post-Hebrew-Bible Greek writings from the ANE?

Sincerely,
Mark Eddy