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The Coherence of Psalm 24
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Psalm 24 is often seen to be a ‘baffling’ psalm due to the juxtaposition
of what seems to be thematically and structurally disparate material (creation,
vv. 1-2; torah and sanctuary vv. 3-6; divine warrior and sanctuary, vv. 7-10).
Most unusual, however, is the juxtaposition of the final two stanzas, for they
seem to cancel each other out. In vv. 3-6, human beings desire access to God
within the sanctuary, whereas in vv. 7-10 God himself is about to access the
same location. Various poetic clues indicate that these two entrance scenes
have been intentionally brought into parallelism with each other, yet no
satisfactory answer has been presented as to the meaning of this manoeuvre. In
this article, a poetic analysis is proposed that goes beyond those proffered
thus far by looking at the way in which the ‘poetic function’ creates a degree
of ‘narrative’ self-referentiality within the psalm, in particular through its
representation of time and space. The conclusion is that the Psalm is a
recalibration of liturgical material in terms of a grasp of the structure of
the divine economy.
Key words: Psalm 24; Hebrew poetics; tradition history;
theological interpretation; divine economy; synchronic/diachronic; creation;
torah; eschatology
