The acrostic pair: Psalms 111-112

I'm on the home stretch now with my daily psalm blast,* but was fascinated by this diptych, two short alphabetic acrostic poems which play off each other in fascinating ways. There are a few other acrostic psalms, 9-10 (when read as one psalm); 25; 34; 37; 119; 145, and outside the psalter there are also the poem of the noble wife in Proverbs 31 and the first four chapters of Lamentations.

There are three reasons you might write an acrostic psalm:

1. you ran out of ideas (which kid hasn't written an acrostic and passed it off as an actual poem)
2. you want people to remember it (I almost memorised Prov 31 and found the acrostics helpful)
3. you want to get across the totality of something - the whole picture. In Lamentations it's the completeness of the destruction - an a-z of suffering.

Moving past the first two options, what is the whole story being told in these two psalms? Put simply, Psalm 111 tells the whole story of God's goodness and faithfulness, while Psalm 112 tells the whole story of the person who has learned from and lives out God's goodness and faithfulness.

Hallelujah!

There are multiple allusions and more specific links between the two, beginning with the heading, Hallelujah! or, Praise Yah! Of course, this is not unique to these two, and seems to be part of a Hallelujah collection, which goes from 111 perhaps until 118, because they all have Hallelujah at the beginning, or sometimes the end, depending on the psalm and which manuscript you're looking at. The Septuagint seems to read it in different spots, and if you look at the Leningrad Codex, you can see that it has its own line, so it's up to the copyist/translator/interpreter to assign it to the one above or below. 

I should also add that 113-118 are called the Hallel Psalms, or the Egyptian Hallel psalms, and are associated with the Passover meal. Why they begin at 113 and not 111 is a question I don't know the answer to and am not really that interested in, except to say that it does seem a little odd to not include these two, especially considering the exodus allusions in Ps 111.

Yhwh and the Man

After the heading we are introduced to the characters which will be the focus of each psalm. Unsurprisingly Ps 111 has Yhwh as the focus: "I will extol Yhwh with all my heart." Ps 112 however begins in a way which immediately brings us back to the opening words of Ps 2: "Blessed is the one who fears Yhwh." The first two words, as with Ps 2, are literally "blessed person," to which English translations necessarily add the verb and the article, "Blessed is the person," (אשׁרי־איש, ashrei 'ish). This person is then further defined as one who fears Yhwh, which gives definition to and explains the course of their whole life. "Yhwh" occurs 4x in Ps 111 (111:1,2,4,10); but only 2x in 112 (112:1,7); nonetheless the location of this psalm alongside, and the parallels with the description of Yhwh in the preceding psalm, make it clear that this person has learned how to live from their Lord.

Parallelomania
What then are these parallels? We can describe these in a few categories:
1. Exact parallels

• 1a (א) has Yhwh as the object; in 111 of praise, in 112 of fear.
• 3b (ה) we find the exact same clause, וְצִדְקָתוֹ עֹמֶדֶת לָעַד, "and his righteousness endures forever."
• 4b (ח) begins with the same phrase, חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם, "gracious and compassionate," in 111 describing Yhwh, in 112 adding "and righteous", although I almost misread it as "are the righteous." Interestingly many versions add "is Yhwh," which seems to be either copying across from 111 and/or trying to avoid associating such terms with a mere mortal. 

2. Related but not exact

• The word חפץ (to delight) occurs in 112:1b (the verb) and 111:2b (an adjective as a substantive), in both cases describing the people who delight in Yhwh. 
• Another word, ישׁר (to be upright) also occurs in two forms; in 112:4a acting as a subjunctive (the upright ones) and in 111:8a to describe the character of Yhwh (enacted in uprightness).
• Everlasting/eternity occurs a few times in the middle of the psalms (111:5a; 112:6a, 6b), but the closest parallel actually occurs in both 9b's, albeit with different lexemes (עולם elsewhere in these two psalms except for עד in 111:10c; 112:9b). The similarities between the psalms at 9b is telling: the God who ordains his covenant forever (111) is lived out in the person whose righteousness endures forever (112).
• A similar parallel is found in the words covenant words: covenant, justice/judgement, precepts, which, apart from in 111:9b and 111:10b, also occurs in both 5b's: the God who remembers his covenant forever (111) is reflected in the person who conducts their affairs with justice (112). 
• זכר (to remember) occurs thrice (111:4a, 5b; 112:6b), with the parallel being that just as Yhwh - his wonders and his covenant - will be remembered forever (in 111), so too will be the memory of the righteous (112).
• Perhaps a final comment on rough parallels is the verb ירא (to fear), which comes in 111:5, 9; 112:1, 7, 8. The final two (112:7a, 8a) are both negated, showing that the one fears Yhwh (111:5, 9; 112:1) has nothing to fear from this world (112:7, 8).

3. The endings

The final verse of the psalms (the verse 10s), each containing the final three letters of the alphabets, act as a conclusion. Ps 111 reuses the familiar proverb, that the fear of Yhwh is the beginning of wisdom, and concludes with "to him belongs eternal praise." 

In one sense then, Ps 112 could slot in between the second-last and last verses of Ps 111. Ps 112 describes the person who fears Yhwh, who follows his precepts, and whose life is a reflection of the character of Yhwh, living out what they've learned. Their life is then an example of returning to Yhwh eternal praise (111:10c). 

The conclusion of Ps 112 is different, in that it describes the opposite group to the upright. Nothing is said about them, what they believe, where they are from, nor what they have done to others. The other point to mention is that those who fear Yhwh in the book of Proverbs are so often contrasted with the wicked, those who reject the teaching of Yhwh, and whose way is frustrated by the righteous. In this way the final verse of each psalm describes people in the traditional proverbial black and white way: one either trusts in Yhwh and follows in his paths, reflecting his glory, OR one rejects him, and what they long for will come to naught.

* My hope was 150 days of a psalm a day would take us to the end of Covid, but it looks like I may have to move on to some other books before that hope is realised!