Flood and fountain : water, sovereignty, and the shape of the Book of Psalms

This study explores the significance of water as a metaphorical and literary motif throughout the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. I examine water motifs in four different categorical uses: (1) water imagery that speaks of life, sustenance, renewal, and blessing, (2) water imagery that references creation, (3) water imagery where the water is understood as an overwhelming flood, and (4) water imagery that establishes the waters as Yhwh’s adversary. Throughout this thesis, close readings of psalms with references in these groupings elucidate that water frequently functions as a literary device that underscores and highlights Yhwh’s supremacy. Water can bring blessing and renewal in the form of much-needed rain or flowing streams, but can also bring death and destruction in the form of flooding or drought. It is in the balance — balance maintained by Yhwh — that life and flourishing exists. This thesis further argues that the expressions of water as Yhwh’s adversary in the form of the ancient Near Eastern Combat Myth help to define the structure and shape of the Psalter itself. That shape is one that navigates the complex ideological shift from a focus on human kingship to divine sovereignty in the wake of the collapse of exile and the dissolution of the Israelite and Judahite monarchies. Thus, this thesis offers a new lens for discussion of the editorial shape and cohesion of the Psalter, one that evinces a high level of sophistication and shows how the final arrangement of the Psalter can be understood in parallel to the narrative structure of the Combat Myth, while still allowing for the plurality and complexity of voices within the Hebrew Bible Psalter.