The Participants of Psalm 32: A Synthesis

Commentators and modern translations have struggled to track the speakers and addressees in the second half of Psalm 32. Although individual solutions have been offered for some verses, up to this point no synthesis of the participants of the entire psalm has been offered. Psalm 32 contains an instance of unmarked quoted speech, which has gone unnoticed, but solves a crux concerning the verbal semantics of v. 5. Similarly, the participants throughout vv. 7-9 tacitly shift to create a dynamic, yet synthetic, account of the discourse throughout the psalm’s second half: Verse 6 introduces the faithful praying person, v. 7 recounts the content of their prayer, v. 8 gives the answer of YHWH to the praying person, and vv. 9-11 give David’s counsel to the community of the righteous.