Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms: From Saadiah Gaon to Abraham Ibn Ezra

380 Pages·1991·38.87 MB·English

by  Uriel Simon

FOUR APPROACHES TO
THE BOOK OF PSALMS
SUNY Series in ludaica: Hermeneutics, Mysticism, and Religion
Michael Fishbane, Robert Goldenberg, and Arthur Green, Editors
FOUR APPROACHES TO
THE BOOK OF PSALMS
From Saadiah Gaon to Abraham Ibn Ezra
Uriel Simon
Translated from the Hebrew by Lenn 1. Schramm
State University of New York Press
Uriel Simon
Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms
From Saadiah Gaon to Abraham Ibn Ezra
© 1991 English Edition by State University of New York Press
© 1982 Hebrew original and other languages by Bar-Han University. Ramat-Gan, Israel
Published by
State University of New York Press. Albany
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
For information. address the State University of New York Press.
State University Plaza. Albany, NY 12246
Library of Congress CataIoging-in-PubIication Data
Simon. Uriel.
[Arba' gishot le-Sefer Tehilim. Englishl
Four approaches to the Book of Psalms: from Saadiah Gaon to
Abraham Ibn Ezra / Uriel Simon; translated from the Hebrew by Lenn
1. Schramm.
p. cm. - (SUNY ,eries in Judaica)
Translation of: Arba' gishot le-Sefer Tehilim.
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
ISBN 0-7914-0241-X. - ISBN 0-7914-0242-8 (pbk.)
J. Bible. O.T. Psalms--{:riticism. interpretation. etc .. Jewish.
2. Sa'adia ben Joseph. 882-942-Contributions in Biblical criticism.
3. Karaites-Controversial literature-History and criticism.
4. Ibn Ezra. Abraham ben Meir. 1089-1164. Contributions in Biblical
criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
BSI430.2.S4913 1991
223' .206'09021-dc20 89-11451
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Cover design adapted from the miniature "David playing
the harp". from the British Library Miscellany. Add. 11639.
France, Troyes. c. 1280.
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Chapter One: Saadiah Gaon: The Book of Psalms as a
Second Pentateuch
I. The Rhetorical Thesis: Commandment and admonition
phrased as prayer and petition
II. The Polemical Motive: An attack on the Karaite order
of prayer and support for the Rabbanite prayerbook 5
III. The Ritual Thesis: The five-fold condition II
IV. The Exegetical Application: Radical reinterpretation 27
V. Polemic and Truth: To what extent is Saadiah's
approach to Psalms anchored in his thought? 31
Notes to Chapter One 42
Chapter Two: The Karaite Approach: The Psalms as
Mandatory Prophetic Prayers 59
I. Salmon ben Yerul:Iam: The Psalms as prophetic prayer
for all ages: Monarchy, Exile, and Redemption 59
II. Yefet ben cAli: The Psalms as prophetic prayers, perfect
in form and content 71
Notes to Chapter Two 97
Chapter Three: Moses Ibn Giqatilah: The Psalms as
Non-prophetic Prayers and Poems 113
Notes to Chapter Three 137
Chapter Four: Abraham Ibn Ezra: The Psalms as
Prophetic and Sacred Poetry 145
VI CONTENTS
I. Abraham Ibn Ezra's two commentaries on Psalms 145
II. Echoes of Ibn Ezra's predecessors in his commentaries
on Psalms 156
III. The prologue to the First Introduction: The musical
and thematic supenority of the Psalms as divine songs 161
IV The First Inquiry: Who wrote the Psalms? 177
V The Second Inquiry: Who edited the Book of Psalms? 182
VI. The Third Inquiry: Are the Psalms prayers or prophecies? 187
The answer of the introduction: Prophetic prayers
The answer in the body of the commentary:
Prophetic prayers with abundant theological lore
VII. The Fourth Inquiry: Editorial matters-the order
of the Psalms and the terms used in their headings 216
The five books of psalms in comparison to Iberian anthologies
Two different explanations of the problematic term mizmor
Two explanation.1 of la-mena~~ealJ
The enigmatic expressions in the superscriptions as
melodic indications
Notes to Chapter Four 257
Bibliography 297
Appendix: 308
Ibn Ezra's introduction and commentary on Psalms 1-2:
The "First Recension" (Hebrew and English) 308
Ibn Ezra's introduction to the standard commentary:
The "Second Recension" (Hebrew and English) 330
Index of Citations 335
Index of Names and Topics 355
PREFACE
This book was spawned by a fortunate discovery. During the process of
cataloguing all the manuscripts of Abraham Ibn Ezra's extant commentaries
on the Five Scrolls, a photocopy of MS Verona Municipal Library 204
(82.4), which contains his commentary on Esther, was found to also contain
a fragmentary commentary on Psalms that is quite different from the famil
iar published ("standard") commentary. Although the fragment is short
(four 34-line pages), containing only the introduction-three times longer
than the introduction to the standard commentary-followed by the com
mentary to almost all of Psalm I, its importance cannot be overstated.
This discovery led to another. Several months after the publication of
the Hebrew edition of this book, Mr. Benjamin Richler, assistant director
of the Institute of Microfilms of Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish Na
tional and University Library in Jerusalem, stumbled across the continua
tion of the first fragment in a photocopy of MS Leipzig, the University
Library 40 (B.H. 2°14). This second fragment comprises a mere twelve
lines: the last few words of the commentary on Psalm I and the commen
tary on Psalm 2: 1-5. A critical edition of the Hebrew text of both frag
ments, accompanied by an English translation, will be found at the end of
the present volume; the book itself is a reaction to the challenge posed by
these two discoveries.
Ibn Ezra, more than any other Hebrew classical Bible exegete, was in
the habit of writing two commentaries on the same scriptural book. Of
these parallel commentaries to the "standard" ones, only five were known
to be extant: the fragmentary commentary on Genesis; the short commen
tary on Exodus; the "second recensions" on Song of Songs and Esther; and
the short commentary on Daniel. To these we can now add the fragmentary
commentary on Psalms and a commentary on the Minor Prophets, which I
have recently published alongside a critical and annotated edition of the
standard commentary. The author's colophon at the end of the standard
commentary on Psalms attests that it was written in Normandy in the year
1156. The fragmentary commentary seems to have been composed some
fifteen years earlier, in Rome or Lucca, shortly after Ibn Ezra's arrival in
Italy from Spain (1140).
VII
VlIl FOUR APPROACHES TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS
A comparison of Ibn Ezra's parallel commentaries on a single scrip
tural book not only helps us understand some of his more obscure state
ments; it also allows us a glimpse into his workroom. In his two
introductions to the Pentateuch, Ibn Ezra defines and describes his exeget
ical method via his rejection of the "four paths" followed by his predeces
sors. In a similar vein, his two Psalms introductions present his own ideas
about the literary nature and prophetic status of the Psalms via a critical
discussion of two basic conceptions offered by his predecessors. In the in
troduction to the standard commentary Ibn Ezra made only anonymous ref
erences to the disputants who had championed the two positions.
Nevertheless, we can easily identify the advocate of the position that "the
entire book is by David, who was a prophet," since this is the position
expounded by Saadiah Gaon in his long introduction to his Arabic transla
tion cum commentary on Psalms. On the other hand, it was impossible to
be certain who had held "that this book contains no future-oriented proph
ecies" and therefore "'by the rivers of Babylon' was written by a poet
[who lived] in Babylonia." The fragmentary commentary provides the iden
tification, since it explicitly attributes this opinion to R. Moses ha-Kohen
Ibn Giqatilah. This Spanish scholar-who lived a century before Ibn Ezra
and was referred to by the latter, in his Hebrew grammer Sefer Moznayyim.
as "one of the great commentators" and "the greatest grammarian"
wrote, inter alia, a comprehensive Arabic commentary on Psalms. Most
of this commentary has survived in the Firkovich collection in Leningrad,
but we have been unable to examine the manuscript or a photocopy there
of. Consequently we are forced to rely chiefly on Ibn Ezra's citations
from it, whose number has been significantly increased by the newly dis
covered introduction.
Just as Ibn Ezra's two introductions shed light on the methods of his
predecessors, so too their commentaries enable us to arrive at a better un
derstanding of his own commentaries. In fact, it is impossible to properly
grasp Ibn Ezra's exegetical method and correctly evaluate the literary na
ture of his introductions to Psalms without some familiarity with his precur
sors' approaches (as they themselves phrased them, if possible) and without
inquiring into the form and structure of their own introductions to Psalms.
The principal sources for this attempt to write the history of the evolution
of the fundamental approach towards the Book of Psalms during the more
than two centuries from Saadiah to Ibn Ezra are Saadiah's two introduc
tions, the introductions by the Karaite exegetes Salmon ben Yerul)am and
Yefet ben <Ali, and Ibn Ezra's two introductions.
Saadiah totally ignores the Talmudic assertion that the psalms were com
posed by David along with "ten elders," and firmly holds that the individ
uals mentioned in the headings of the various psalms were not poet-authors