The Vocabulary of the Book of Psalms

Abstract

The paper examines the vocabulary of the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Book of Psalms. The Book of Psalms is a collection of cultic-liturgical prayers from the Second Temple period, which continues to have a significant influence on the language of worship. In addition, it is striking that the poems in the Book of Psalms, which were presumably written by different authors at different times, are in many cases bound by a conventional language, thus, supplication and lament, as well as thanksgiving and praise, each have their own special vocabulary and style. In this study, I approach the topic from two different perspectives. On the one hand, I examine the vocabulary of the Book of Psalms from a statistical point of view, providing an overview of the most frequently occurring expressions in the book. and on the other hand, I examine several text corpora, such as the Ugaritic narrative poetry, the Torah, and ancient Israeli wisdom literature, which influenced the language and vocabulary of the Psalms. In these cases, in addition to linguistic influences, we can of course also take into account literary and theological influences.