Dec 09 2005
Disorder of Hebrew Acrostics
Comment/Question by our friend Talmida concerning the Origin and Order of the Hebrew Alphabet:
Do you think that the acrostics were intentionally imperfect in the psalms missing a letter or two? I wondered if the psalms hadn’t been revised or edited in some way.
I would be surprised if the deletions (i.e. the exclusion of one or more entire cola/lines) were a product of intentional editorial abbreviation. The acrostic pattern of the psalm would have been recognized by the editor/redactor/scribe and much more readily completed rather than deleted. Additionally, both of the major textual “rules” support the shorter and more difficult reading of the acrostics witnessed by MT . Textual critics refer to these phenomena as lectio bevior potior (“the shorter reading is to be preferred”) and lectio difficilior praeferenda (“the more difficult reading is to be preferred”). It should be noted, however, that these “rules” are not absolute and could be otherwise. Unintentional deletion also seems unlikely on account of the similarity of the phenomena in separate psalms (for further reading on Hebrew text criticism see: Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 1992] and R.W. Klein, Textual Criticism of the OT—The Septuagint after Qumran [Guides to Biblical Scholarship, OT Series 4: Philadelphia, 1974]).
The following observations should be made about the order of the Hebrew alphabet as witnessed by acrostics in the MT.
- Irregularity of deletion. The letter deleted varies between psalms. Psalm 145 omits nun, Psalm 34 skips waw, Psalm 25 leaves out kaf (waw is dubious), and Psalm 9-10 exclude daleth, mem, nun, samek and sade. This irregularity may point to random omission; however based upon the normal understanding of text criticism mentioned above, random deletion seems unlikely.
- Fluidness of the alphabetical order. As with the Tel-Zayit abecedary, several of the acrostics demonstrate letter reversal (cf. Psalm 10 [pe/ayin]; Lamentation 2-4 [pe/ayin], but Lamentation 1 [ayin/pe]). This could be the product of regional differences or variation in memorization traditions, but either way it seems unlikely to be purely editorial in nature.
The original question still remains. If these readings are original, what is the purpose of skipping certain letters? Two suggestions are as follows:
First, form is not always the determiner of content. The psalmist was not bound to the acrostic pattern at all costs; therefore he may have excluded a letter for functional reasons unknown to the contemporary reader.
Second, assuming that part of the purpose of an acrostic is to aid in memorization, the deletion of an element could help differentiate between similar texts.