Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Vol 34.4 (2010): 447-473

© The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and Permissions:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0309089210372847
http://JSOT.sagepub.com

The Metonic Cycle, Number Symbolism,

and the Placement of Psalms 19
and 119 in the MT Psalter*

ALAN LENZI
Department of Religious and Classical Studies, University of the Pacic,
3601 Pacic Avenue, Wendell Phillips Center 147, Stockton, CA 95211, USA

Abstract
This study explores the possibility that the scribe responsible for the nal redaction of the
MT Psalter knew about the Metonic Cycle, a 19-year calendrical system that synchronized
the lunar and solar years, attributed a symbolic signicance to the number 19 related to
this number’s role in creating cosmological harmony in that system, and then used 19 as
a symbolic number to inform the placement of Psalms 19 and 119 in the nal redaction of
the MT Psalter. A discussion of the contrastive content of Psalm 19 provides some
warrant for looking to a number symbolism derived from the Metonic Cycle. Both the
Metonic Cycle and Psalm 19 are thematically similar in that they harmonize two

* This study was rst delivered at the Psalms Session of the 2008 meeting of the
Western Commission for the Study of Religion in Pasadena, CA. I thank the attendees of
the session for their lively and helpful discussion, and also Jeffrey Stackert, Doug
Mangum, and Joel S. Burnett for reading and commenting on previous drafts of this
study. I wish to thank Eric R. Stancliff and his staff at Concordia Seminary (St Louis) for
their long-distance reference assistance, as well as the several others who responded to an
open question about the verb C9K on my blog in July 2008. Finally, I wish to extend my
gratitude to the anonymous JSOT reviewer for his/her very insightful and helpful
comments on an earlier version of this study.
448 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

apparently different but cosmologically signicant entities (sun and moon / creation and
Torah). The proposal outlined in this study provides a theologically signicant reason for
the precise position of Psalms 19 and 119 in the MT Psalter and offers a suggestion for
how this position may have subtly contributed to the Torah’s cosmological exaltation
within the Psalter as a whole.

Keywords: Psalms, Torah, redaction criticism, number symbolism, Metonic Cycle,

calendars.

Two simple observations form the foundation of this study. I begin with
the most obvious. Psalms 1, 19, and 119 are Torah psalms.1 This desig-
nation is not, of course, applied to these psalms simply because the word
9CHEoccurs in them, since this particular word is attested in a number of
other psalms that scholars do not typically include in the group.2 Rather,
the designation ‘Torah psalms’ is based on a shared thematic distinctive-
ness. As James Mays writes, these are ‘psalms in which the instruction of
the Lord is the central organizing topic and is viewed as the primary
reality in the relation of mortals’ to Israel’s god.3

1. I capitalize ‘Torah’ to indicate that by the time of the nal redaction of the MT
Psalter the word 9CHEin the Torah psalms could refer to an authoritative textual corpus
that included, at least, the Pentateuch. ‘Torah’ could, of course, also have had a broader
and less textual denition at both the time of the Psalter’s redaction (alongside the
narrower textual denition) as well as at the times of the original (and therefore earlier)
composition of Pss. 19 and 119. For a broad understanding of 9CHE in Ps. 119, see, e.g.,
Kent Aaron Reynolds, ‘Psalm 119: Promoting Torah, Portraying an Ideal Student of
Torah’ (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2007), especially pp. 121-
23 for his treatment of Ps. 119.89-91, 152. (I thank Doug Mangum for alerting me to
Reynolds’s recent and valuable work.) It should be noted that my thesis is not dependent
on a textual denition of ‘Torah’; rather, only on its denition as an authoritative divine
revelation.
2. 9CHEoccurs a total of 36 times in the book of Psalms: Pss. 1.2 (×2); 19.8; 37.31;
40.9; 78.1, 5, 10; 89.31; 94.12; 105.45; and 25 times in Ps. 119 (vv. 1, 18, 29, 34, 44, 51,
53, 55, 61, 70, 72, 77, 85, 92, 97, 109, 113, 126, 136, 142, 150, 153, 163, 165, and 174).
3. James Luther Mays, ‘The Place of the Torah-Psalms in the Psalter’, JBL 106
(1987), pp. 3-12 (3). It is important to maintain, however, that these thematically related
psalms do not comprise a special genre called ‘Torah psalms’. For the distinction, see
Reynolds, ‘Psalm 119’, pp. 34-35. One might argue that the three uses of 9CHEin Ps. 78
also mark this psalm as a Torah psalm. I would insist, however, that the psalm is not
primarily concerned with 9CHEitself as much as recounting Israel’s history of disobedi-
ence to its deity. The occurrences of 9CHEin the rst ten verses of this psalm help
establish a judicial standard against which to judge Israel’s history. It is not therefore
thematically similar to the three psalms we label here ‘Torah psalms’, even if this psalm
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 449

The second observation is equally obvious, but less appreciated: the

numbers that describe the placement of the last two Torah psalms in the
MT Psalter, 19 and 119, share a common element, the number 19.4 This
numerical commonality may be coincidental or seem trivial. Perhaps it
is. But the burden of this study is to suggest otherwise.
In what follows I explore the idea that the scribe5 responsible for the
nal redaction of the MT Psalter knew about the Metonic Cycle, a 19-
year calendrical system that synchronized the lunar and solar years via
regular intercalation, attributed a symbolic signicance to the number 19
related to this number’s role in creating cosmological harmony in that
system, and then used 19 as a symbolic number to inform the placement
of Psalms 19 and 119 in the nal redaction of the MT Psalter. This
redactional plan gave implicit (and redundant) support to the editor’s
theological claims about Torah.6
Before looking to Psalm 19 for textual clues of this number-symbolic
redactional suggestion and Psalm 119 for further support, I rst show the
reasonableness of entertaining the idea from three perspectives: by
reviewing some modern trends in Psalms scholarship, by describing the
Metonic Cycle and the likelihood of its knowledge in ancient Israel, and
by surveying the importance and ubiquity of number symbolism through-
out the ancient world. The discussion of Psalm 19 then demonstrates a
thematic point of contact between the psalm and the Metonic Cycle: they

(among others, e.g., Pss. 73 and perhaps 90) is important to the Psalter’s overall develop-
ment of ‘Torah’ as a theme. Signicantly, 9H9JECHEonly occurs in Pss. 1, 19, and 119.
4. For the common elements of 19 and 119 within the various representations of
numbers in ancient Hebrew, see the section titled ‘Number Symbolism and Redactional
Signicance’ below. Various schemes of enumerating the psalms will also be discussed
below.
5. For simplicity I use the singular form of the word ‘scribe’ and the masculine form
of pronouns throughout this study to refer to whomever was responsible for the nal
redaction of the MT Psalter. In fact, we have no certain evidence to identify the respon-
sible party or to rule out a collective effort.
6. My claims about the number 19 are historical in nature and completely bounded by
its use in the Metonic Cycle. For descriptions of uncontrolled, indeed, wild speculations
involving the number 19, see Martin Gardner, ‘Farrakhan, Cabala, Baha’i, and 19’,
Skeptical Inquirer 21.2 (1997), pp. 16-18, 57, as well as his ‘The Numerology of Dr.
Rashad Khalifa—Scientist’, Skeptical Inquirer 21.5 (1997), pp. 16-17, 58. The latter
article discusses Khalifa’s privately printed book Number 19: A Numerical Miracle in the
Koran (1972), which caused an outrage among some Muslims. Eighteen years after its
publication (1990), the author, deemed a heretic for years, was murdered in Tucson,
Arizona by an extremist group called al-Fuqra.
450 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

both harmonize two apparently different but cosmologically signicant

entities. This thematic point of contact, buttressed by several features in
Psalm 119, gives theological purpose to the suggested number-symbolic
redactional proposal.
Given the nature of its thesis, this study can only offer an exploration
into the plausibility of this redactional scenario. It is unlikely that evi-
dence that could constitute proof will ever come to light.

Torah Psalms and the Redaction of the MT Psalter in Recent

Scholarship
Psalms scholarship has pursued the question of the redactional plan of
the Psalter vigorously for the last several decades, especially since
Gerald Wilson’s landmark treatment.7 Within this broader current,
several studies have given special attention to the place of the individual
Torah psalms in the Psalter’s redactional program.8 For example, the
placement of Psalm 1 at the head of the Psalter gives the collection as a
whole a wisdom or meditative orientation, implicitly connecting the
reading of the Psalter with the virtues and wisdom-rewards of Torah
study.9 Concerning the other end of the Psalter, Claus Westermann, a

7. Gerald Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (SBLDS, 76; Chico, CA:
Scholars Press, 1985). See David M. Howard, ‘Editorial Activity in the Psalter: A State-
of-the-Field Survey’, in J. Clinton McCann (ed.), The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter
(JSOTSup, 159; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1993), pp. 52-70 for an overview of
scholarship up to mid-1991. For more overview and an evaluation of this trend, see Harry
S. Nasuti, ‘The Interpretive Signicance of Sequence and Selection in the Book of
Psalms’, in Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller (eds.), The Book of Psalms: Composition
and Reception (VTSup, 99; Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature, 4;
Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 311-39.
8. I restrict the discussion to a few explicit redactional treatments of the Torah psalms
themselves. Other scholars have discussed the general importance of the Torah as a
unifying theme in the Psalter. See, e.g., Mays, ‘Place of Torah-Psalms’, pp. 8-9, who
believes Torah presents a ‘unifying point of view…a perspective from which the rest of
the Psalter could be understood and read’ (p. 9); the summarizing comments of Matthias
Millard, Die Komposition des Psalters: Ein formgeschichtlicher Ansatz (FAT, 9;
Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994), pp. 237-39, who makes an especially interesting point
about the position of Ps. 90, the psalm attributed to Moses, at the opening of Book IV;
and Reynolds, ‘Psalm 119’, pp. 164-78, who considers the contribution of Ps. 119 to the
Torah theme of the Psalter as a whole.
9. The hermeneutically loaded signicance of the introductory psalm is widely
accepted. See, e.g., Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, pp. 204-207; Mays,
‘Place of Torah-Psalms’, pp. 4-5; and the insightful comments of Gerald T. Sheppard,
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 451

number of years ago, speculated that Psalm 119 may have actually
concluded the Psalter in an early redaction. Westermann believed its
presence at the putative conclusion mirrored in some respects Psalm 1 at
the beginning.10 As for Psalm 19, Pierre Auffret has noted the ring-
structure of Psalms 15–24 with Psalm 19 at its center.11 Patrick Miller
suggests this structure marks Psalm 19 as the conceptual heart—though
not quite the exact numeric center—of Book I.12 Wilson and more
recently Erich Zenger make a similar point about Psalm 119 in Book V.13
One need not agree with each and every one of these proposals to
identify a trend in Psalms scholarship: the placement of the individual
Torah psalms within the Psalter is redactionally signicant.
Other scholars have treated all three Torah psalms together in order to
understand the group’s role in the redactional program of the Psalter.
Two examples will sufce for our purpose here. Mays sees the three
psalms as intimately connected to adjacent psalms (1 with 2, 19 with 18,
and 119 with 118), the pairing of which produces a signicant union of
Torah piety and eschatological hope for divine vindication against the
wicked nations.14 Jamie Grant has taken a similar but more ambitious
approach, grouping Psalms 1 and 2, 18–21, and 118 and 119. Unlike
Mays, Grant emphasizes the royal aspect of the psalms adjacent to the
Torah psalms. This juxtaposition, Grant claims, intends to highlight the

Wisdom as Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament

(Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1980), pp. 136-42, where he treats the redactional signicance of
Pss. 1 and 2 together.
10. See Claus Westermann, ‘Zur Sammlung des Psalters’, in Forschung am Alten
Testament: Gesammelte Studien (TB, 24AT; Munich: C. Kaiser Verlag, 1964), pp. 338-
39. This unlikely idea is repeated in his Praise and Lament in the Psalms (trans. K.R.
Crim and and R.N. Soulen; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), p. 253.
11. Pss. 15 and 24 are entrance liturgies, 16 and 23 songs of trust, 17 and 22 laments,
and 18 and 20/21 royal psalms. See P. Auffret, La sagesse a bâti sa maison (OBO, 49;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), pp. 409-38, and the supportive, but critical,
comments in Millard, Die Komposition des Psalters, pp. 24-25.
12. Patrick Miller, ‘The Beginning of the Psalter’, in McCann (ed.), Shape and
Shaping, p. 88; likewise Millard, Die Komposition des Psalters, p. 140.
13. See Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, pp. 222-23; ‘Shaping the Psalter:
A Consideration of Editorial Linkage in the Book of Psalms’, in McCann (ed.), Shape
and Shaping, pp. 72-82 (79); and Erich Zenger, ‘The Composition and Theology of the
Fifth Book of Psalms, Psalms 107–145’, JSOT 80 (1996), pp. 77-102 (98, 101).
14. Mays, ‘Place of Torah-Psalms’, pp. 11-12. Leslie C. Allen adopted a similar
procedure for Pss. 18 and 19 in his ‘David as Exemplar of Spirituality: The Redactional
Function of Psalm 19’, Bib 67 (1986), pp. 544-46.
452 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

connection between Torah and kingship and indicates—much more

questionably, in my opinion—the redactional activity of Deuteronomic
editors who were guided by Deuteronomy’s kingship law (17.14-20).
The three complexes of Psalms, he believes, are located in signicant
positions within the Psalter—at the beginning, in the middle of Book I,
and in the middle of Book V—in order to signal the Torah–kingship
redactional emphasis.15
Several of the suggestions about the placement of both the individual
psalms and the group of Torah psalms in the Psalter are worthy of con-
sideration and in many cases do not exclude other proposed explanations.
The suggestion that I offer in the present study builds specically on the
idea that the last two Torah psalms, Psalms 19 and 119, were purpose-
fully placed at the conceptual heart of the rst and last books of the
Psalter (as noted by Auffret, Miller, Wilson, Zenger, and Grant).16 Unlike
the others that have recognized the centrality of these psalms in their
respective Books, my suggestion will offer a reason for the exact ordinal
position of these two psalms. This position, I argue, is directly related to
the signicance of the number 19 in the Metonic Cycle.

Calendars, the Metonic Cycle, and Ancient Israel

The Metonic Cycle is a practical (i.e. non-exact) calendrical system that
harmonizes the solar year, and thus the seasons, with a lunar reckoning
of months. Although named after Meton of Athens, who lived toward

15. Jamie Grant, The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy’s Kingship
Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms (Society of Biblical Literature Academia
Biblica, 19; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, 2004). He describes his
purpose as follows: ‘The main suggestion of this study is that one of the redactional
emphases of the Book of Psalms is the juxtaposition of kingship and torah psalms
alongside one another, in an attempt to reect the theology of the Kingship Law in the
Psalter’s nal form. This focus on the Pentateuch’s paradigm for kingship is meant not
only to shape the psalmic presentation of the eschatological king but also to direct the
reader to a piety that every believer should emulate—the king as exemplar for the people
of God’ (p. 9).
16. In the case of Ps. 19, it is also positioned very close to the numeric heart of Book
I. On the centrality of a Torah psalm in Books I and V, Grant says, ‘The focal point does
not, it appears, depend upon mathematical centrality, but rather is reective of some sort
of dominant or emphatic theme present in a roughly central position within a book’ (King
as Exemplar, p. 17). He also points out that the two respective Torah centers in Book I
and V have a bracketing function within the Psalter as a whole (pp. 244-45).
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 453

the end of the fth century BCE, the system was discovered by the
Babylonians.17
Calendars in the ancient Near East were generally lunisolar; that is,
they used both the sun and the moon to measure time. The sun dened
a day; the moon a month. A lunar month was reckoned as the time
between the appearances of the moon’s crescent in the western sky,
which is typically a period of 29 or 30 days. A lunar year, consisting of
twelve lunar months, is 354 days in length on average.18 Of course, the
earth takes a little more than 365 days to make a full revolution around
the sun, making a solar year therefore about eleven days longer than a
lunar year. Since the seasons are related to the sun, using twelve lunar
months to dene a year will cause some problems for one trying to
calibrate the seasons to a lunar calendar.19 For example, every third year
any given lunar month (e.g. the twelfth month) would arrive a full solar
month early. That is, after three years the twelfth lunar month would start
at the beginning of the eleventh solar month. In nine years, the lunar
calendar would be off by three solar months—a whole season. Over a
period of 32½ years any given lunar month would have journeyed
through all four seasons.20
In order to maintain a lunar month’s position with regard to the
seasons, Mesopotamian authorities intercalated an extra month into their
year whenever deemed necessary. The matter would be decided by the
king and his advisers on an ad hoc basis and announced as a royal
decree. We have attestations of this practice even as late as the early
Persian period. During the second half of the rst millennium BCE some

17. See Alan C. Bowen and Bernard R. Goldstein, ‘Meton of Athens and Astronomy
in the Late Fifth Century B.C.’, in Erle Leichty et al. (eds.), A Scientic Humanist:
Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs (Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah
Kramer Fund, 9; Philadelphia: University Museum, 1988), pp. 39-81(51).
18. The actual number of days in any given year could vary, however, between 352
and 356.
19. The motivation to calibrate seasons with the lunar calendar was bound up with
the institutional organization of agricultural efforts.
20. Compare, e.g., the cycling of Ramadan through the seasons in Islam. For the
relationship of the lunar and solar years and for ancient calendrical concerns in general,
see Francesca Rochberg-Halton, ‘Calendars, Ancient Near East’, in ABD, I, pp. 810-11,
and Francesca Rochberg, ‘Astronomy and Calendars in Ancient Mesopotamia’, in CANE
III, pp. 1925-40 (1931). For a recent evaluation of the Egyptian calendrical situation, see
Leo Depuydt, ‘From Twice Helix to Double Helix: A Comprehensive Model for
Egyptian Calendar History’, Journal of Egyptian History 2 (2009), pp. 115-47.
454 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

ancient scholar(s) realized that 19 solar years have about the same
number of days as 235 lunar months (a certain number of which were
hollow [29 days] and full [30 days]).21 Intercalation could be regularized
by inserting an extra month seven times in a nineteen year span, about
once every three years. Eventually years 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, and 15 in every
19-year cycle received an extra nal month, while year 18 inserted a
second sixth month.22 In this manner the Mesopotamians systematically
maintained the lunar-month/solar-season relationship. The system may
have been implemented in Babylonia by around 500 BCE but perhaps not
until 380—scholars disagree. We do know, however, that this system
continued to be used by both the Seleucids and Arsacids.23
There is good reason to believe that the Hebrew Bible generally
reects the use of a lunisolar calendar in ancient Israel, too, with

21. See Bowen and Goldstein, ‘Meton of Athens’, p. 51. There are about 6940 days
in 19 solar years (365.25 × 19 = 6939.75). 235 lunar months, if 125 of them are full (= 30
days) and 110 hollow (= 29 days), would total 6940 days exactly.
22. Rochberg-Halton, ‘Calendars’, p. 811. Other scholars’ lists differ slightly due to
the year from which they choose to start their count. David Brown, for example, gives 1,
3, 6, 9, 11, 14, and 17 in his Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology (Cuneiform
Monographs, 18; Groningen: Styx Publications, 2000), p. 175 n. 411, citing J.P. Britton,
‘Scientic Astronomy in Pre-Seleucid Babylon’, in Hannes D. Galter (ed.), Die Rolle der
Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens: Beiträge zum 3 Grazer Morgenländischen
Symposium (23-27 September 1991) (Grazer Morgenländische Studien, 3; Graz:
GrazKult, 1993), pp. 61-76 (66-68); Ben Zion Wacholder and David B. Weisberg,
‘Visibility of the New Moon in Cuneiform and Rabbinic Sources’, HUCA 42 (1971), pp.
227-42 (235-37), give years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19, which is also the intercalation
schedule of the traditional Jewish calendar (see ‘Calendar’, in EncJud, V, p. 43).
23. See Bowen and Goldstein, ‘Meton’, p. 42 n. 17, for various representatives of the
views, to which add Otto Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (New York:
Dover, 2nd edn, 1969), p. 102, and Britton, ‘Scientic Astronomy in Pre-Seleucid Baby-
lon’. See also Rochberg-Halton, ‘Calendars’, p. 811 and her ‘Astronomy and Calendars’,
p. 1938. Wacholder and Weisberg (‘Visibility of the New Moon’, pp. 235-39) suggest
that the system was developed in two stages starting as early as 747 BCE and implemented
in a standard manner around 481 BCE. Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein
present the evidence of textually attested intercalations in their Babylonian Chronology
626 B.C.–A.D. 75 (Providence: Brown University Press, 1956), p. 6. A more recent table
that includes more data can be found in Britton, ‘Scientic Astronomy in Pre-Seleucid
Babylon’, p. 67, and in his more recent ‘Calendars, Intercalations and Year-Lengths in
Mesopotamian Astronomy’, in John M. Steele (ed.), Calendars and Years: Astronomy
and Time in the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007), pp. 115-32, which
also gives an overview of the entire intercalation issue.
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 455

intercalation perhaps implied in a few places.24 Alongside the lunisolar

calendar, however, several scholars have also seen evidence in the latest
levels of biblical literature, namely, the Priestly source and other writings
with priestly interests (e.g. Ezra–Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, and
Chronicles), for a 364-day solar calendar much like the one advocated in
various documents of the Second Temple period.25 One might recall that
the ood in the Priestly account lasts a year and eleven days (compare
Gen. 7.11 and 8.14), which probably indicates a commitment to a solar
year.26 It seems likely therefore that both a lunisolar and a purely solar
calendar are attested in biblical materials.

24. See Simon J. De Vries, ‘Calendar’, in IDB, I, pp. 483-88 (484). Evidence for
intercalation within the Bible is quite slim and debatable. De Vries proposes Num. 9.11;
2 Chron. 30.2-3, and 1 Kgs 12.32-33 as possible attestations of the practice (p. 484; see
also n. 27 below); De Vries also believes the nal month (Adar) was eventually the
location of intercalation, citing m. Ned. 8.5 (‘Calendar’, p. 487). See Wacholder and
Weisberg, ‘Visibility of the New Moon in Cuneiform and Rabbinic Sources’, pp. 237-38
for the same idea, though citing b. Sanh. 11b and 12a.
25. The 364-day solar calendar is attested in the Astronomical Book of Enoch (1 En.
72–82, which compares it to the lunar calendar), the book of Jubilees (6.32-38), and the
conclusion of the Qumran Psalter (11QPsa in David’s Compositions [XXVII, 6]). For
more on calendars in this time period, one might begin with James C. VanderKam,
Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (The Literature of the Dead Sea
Scrolls; London: Routledge, 1998), and the various studies and citations of the secondary
literature collected in his From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and
Second Temple Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
26. The theory of a 364-day solar year in the Bible was developed by A. Jaubert (‘Le
calendrier des Jubilés et de le secte de Qumrân. Ses origines bibliques’, VT 3 [1953],
pp. 250-64, and ‘Le calendrier des Jubilés et les jours liturgiques de la semaine’, VT 7
[1957], pp. 35-61), which VanderKam has subjected to a largely positive re-analysis
(From Revelation to Canon, pp. 81-104). Concerning the use of a 364-day calendar in the
Bible specically, VanderKam says ‘I know of no convincing argument against Jaubert’s
thesis that the 364-day calendar which is known from Jubilees and other literature was
used by the priestly writers and editors of late books in the Hebrew Bible’. He goes on to
say that this does not mean Jaubert is correct, but her hypothesis does present ‘the best
explanation of the calendrical data in these books’ (p. 90). (For the calculation of one
year plus eleven days equaling 364 days, see VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon, pp.
88-89, who also appropriately notes the text-critical problem relating to the precise date
the ood ended.) Others have recently accepted this hypothesis and developed it in
different directions. See, e.g., Philippe Guillaume, ‘Tracing the Origin of the Sabbatical
Calendar in the Priestly Narrative (Genesis 1 to Joshua 5)’, JHS 5 (2004), S. Najm and
P. Guillaume, ‘Jubilee Calendar Rescued from the Flood Narrative’, JHS 5 (2004), and
at more length Bruce K. Gardner, The Genesis Calendar: The Synchronistic Tradition in
Genesis 1–11 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001).
456 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

Whatever the religious calendars in use in Judea during the Persian

and Hellenistic periods, the civil calendar would have been the same as
the one used by the empire. Because we know the Seleucids used the
Mesopotamian lunisolar calendar and the Metonic Cycle’s intercalation
scheme, it is reasonable to believe Jewish scribes and ofcials in Jeru-
salem during the late Persian and Hellenistic period would have been
familiar with the 19-year Metonic Cycle.27 Moreover, lunisolar and 364-
day solar calendars were a serious point of contention among various
Second Temple groups. That is, calendrical concerns were on the fore-
front of intellectual activity and therefore surface frequently in the lit-
erature of the age.28 Given this cultural and intellectual milieu, it is

27. Knowledge of the Metonic Cycle and its actual calendrical use in Jewish texts,
however, is entirely different. There is currently no direct, positive evidence for the use
of the Metonic Cycle’s method of intercalation among Jews of the Second Temple
period. Sacha Stern, for example, has sifted the evidence at Elephantine and concludes
that the Metonic system was probably not in use at the Jewish garrison there in the fth
century, attributing this to the outpost’s distance from the center of the empire and the
relatively new calendrical system (‘The Babylonian Calendar at Elephantine’, Zeitschrift
für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 130 [2000], pp. 159-71 [160, 169]). De Vries seems to
suggest that the Jews in the land of Israel would have known about and used the system;
but he offers no proof. He simply writes, ‘The exact methods of astronomical observation
developed by the Babylonians, together with their system of mathematical prognosti-
cation, enabled the Hebrews to dene more exactly a schedule of intercalation, although
this knowledge doubtless remained the professional secret of a select group of
authorities’ (‘Calendar’, p. 487). See, likewise, J.B. Segal, ‘Intercalation and the Hebrew
Calendar’, VT 7 (1957), pp. 250-307, who afrms intercalation but also asserts its secret
and guarded character (pp. 256-59). I know of no evidence to support the idea that
calendrical matters were considered secret.
One might consider looking to the contemporary rabbinic Jewish calendar for proof.
Although clearly utilizing a version of the Metonic system, this calendar only dates to the
early eleventh century CE—though its roots probably lie in a tradition rst explicitly
attested in the time of Hillel II (c. 358/9 CE). It therefore does not offer any direct, useful
evidence. See ‘Calendar’ in EncJud, V, pp. 48, 50, and James C. VanderKam, ‘Calendars,
Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish’, in ABD, I, p. 820.
28. See n. 25 above. VanderKam ties the religious disputes over calendar to the civil
unrest during the Seleucid era. He argues that Antiochus Ephiphanes forced the Meso-
potamian lunisolar calendar upon the priesthood in Jerusalem, who presumably used a
solar calendar at the time. This, VanderKam contends, would explain the reference to
changing times in Dan. 7.25. The insistence of the Seleucids resulted in a serious rift
between those who would not accept this calendar (e.g. the covenanters at the Dead Sea,
who used a solar calendar) and those who did (i.e. the central establishment, who
eventually passed it on to the rabbis). See his From Revelation to Canon, pp. 105-27. If
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 457

reasonable to believe the scribe responsible for the redaction of the MT

Psalter could have known about the Metonic Cycle and adapted a
calendrical concept from that system to his editorial purposes.

Number Symbolism and Redactional Signicance

Although calendrical exigencies may have informed the redactor of the
MT Psalter about the Metonic Cycle, I suggest that it was the cosmic
harmonizing signicance of the number 19 within that system that
inspired the redactor’s placement of Psalms 19 and 119. The number 119
participates in this symbolism by virtue of the fact that its various
representations also contain the number 19.29
It is obvious to us when we look at the numbers 19 and 119 that the
two share common elements in their representations: graphically, both
show a 1 in the tens-place and a 9 in the ones-place in our base-10,
Arabic numeral system; and aurally, one can hear the English word
‘nineteen’ in the phonetic representation of each number. These same
similarities appear just as obviously in ancient Hebrew. Aurally, the
Masoretes would have vocalized the number 19 as C@7797+E!: and 119 as
C@7797+E:H97>
(in the masculine grammatical gender). The vocaliza-
tions, even if representing a Common Era pronunciation of Hebrew,
highlight the fact that their phonetic representations had a common
element: the terms that combined to form ‘nineteen’. Furthermore,
although we know precious little about the Hebrew traditions of graphic
number representation during the Second Temple period, what we do
know conrms that both 19 and 119 shared common graphic elements.30
According to the system of numeric representation that appears in, for
example, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Elephantine papyri, 19 and 119
would have been graphically identical except for the ‘100’ symbol,
which looks like a modied bet, at the head of 119.31 (For the sake of

this idea is accepted, then the Jerusalemite priests would denitely have known about the
Metonic Cycle.
29. To be clear, the cycle aspect of the Metonic Cycle is not in view here. Multiples
of 19 (i.e. 19, 38, 57, 76, 95, 114, and 133) did not play a role in the redaction of the MT
Psalter as far as I know.
30. See Jöran Friberg, ‘Numbers and Counting’, ABD, IV, p. 1143, and Georges Ifrah,
The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer
(trans. David Bellos; New York: J. Wiley, 2000), pp. 215-18, for a general discussion.
31. Shemaryahu Talmon, Jonathan Ben-Dov, and Uwe Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4
XVI: Calendrical Texts (DJD, 21; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), p. 42 and passim, for
458 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

interest, I note that even in the later Hebrew numeric system that utilized
letters to represent numbers, 19 and 119 also share common elements: J
= 19 and JB = 119, where coincidentally B, ‘100’, is also the nineteenth
letter.) From these observations, it is clear that the same associations that
we make intuitively between 19 and 119 could have been made in
ancient Hebrew, too. It is this prima facie sort of association between the
two numbers rather than a mathematical one (e.g. multiples of 19) that I
suggest a scribe exploited in his redactional scheme.
Attributing signicance to numbers and numerical patterns within a
text was commonplace throughout the entire ancient world.32 We can see
number manipulation for symbolic effect already in Mesopotamian
scholarly and literary texts of the late second and early rst millennia.33

examples of symbolic number representation at the Dead Sea. These symbols are very
similar to those used in the Elephantine Papyri.
32. Some call this practice ‘number symbolism’, others deem it ‘literary numerology’.
On the term ‘number symbolism’, Joel Kalvesmaki writes: ‘I use the term numerology to
connote number symbolism used either to conceal or to reveal occult knowledge. Think
of it as a correlate to astrology, which today has similar connotations. All ancient numer-
ology is number symbolism, but only some ancient number symbolism is numerology… I
generally prefer the neutral term number symbolism unless prognostication is at work’
(Joel Kalvesmaki, ‘Formation of the Early Christian Theology of Arithmetic Number
Symbolism in the Late Second and Early Third Century’ [Ph.D. Dissertation, Catholic
University of America, 2006], p. 6). John Macqueen prefers the term ‘literary numero-
logy’, which he denes as ‘the theory of verse and prose composition in terms of which
an author deliberately incorporates in the text of his work numerical patterns which he
regards as conveying precise signicances’ (Numerology: Theory and Outline History of
a Literary Mode [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985], p. 4; the masculine
pronouns here should not obscure, of course, the fact that females could also have used
literary numerology). I have adopted the term ‘number symbolism’ in order to avoid the
negative subjective connotations of the word ‘numerology’.
33. See Alasdair Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of
Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986; reprinted, Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), pp. 17-70. Note also the interesting study by Jens Høyrup,
‘ “Remarkable Numbers” in Old Babylonian Mathematical Texts: A Note on the
Psychology of Numbers’, JNES 52 (1993), pp. 281-86. For a few literary examples of
Akkadian number symbolism, see Friberg, ‘Numbers and Counting’, p. 1144. In the
Hellenistic era Berossos provides an interesting example in his discussion of Tiamat:
‘Over all these [monsters] a woman had control, named Omorka, who in Chaldean is
named Thalatth (Tiamat), but in Greek her name is translated Thalassa (i.e., Sea) or, with
the same value of the letters in the name Selene (i.e., Moon)’. See Gerald Verbrugghe
and John Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native
Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1996), p. 45, for the translation and n. 6 for the numerical play.
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 459

Similar scribal activity can be identied in a host of examples ranging

from the Hebrew Bible (e.g. the 70 nations in Gen. 10),34 the New
Testament (e.g. the twelve disciples), non-canonical Jewish Wisdom
literature,35 Early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature,36 Philo of
Alexandria,37 the early church fathers,38 and so on.
This kind of literary-intellectual scribal play is also found at a level
above the specic textual instance; symbolic numbers were often worked
into the editorial fabric of a text. For example, in the Hebrew Bible the
Priestly source has an aesthetic inclination for heptads in its narrative;39
the book of Judges has six minor and six major judges, totaling twelve
leaders of Israel, and includes an articial chronology of 400 years; the
book of Genesis is structured around ten EH5=HE-formulae; and—more
controversially—some scholars have seen a gematria in Prov. 1.1, in
which the sum of the letters comprising the proper nouns in the verse
equals the number of lines in the book (minus a few deemed secon-
dary).40 Examples need not be multiplied: the Hebrew Bible clearly
attests the use of number symbolism at the redactional level.

34. For numerous examples, see, e.g., Friberg, ‘Numbers and Counting’, pp. 1144-
45; ‘Numbers, Typical and Important’, in EncJud, XII, pp. 1254-62; and Marvin Pope,
‘Number, Numbering, Numbers’, in IDB, III, pp. 561-67. For examples of the use of
numbers 7 and 10 in the Psalms, see Ronald Youngblood, ‘Divine Names in the Book of
Psalms: Literary Structures and Number Patterns’, JANES 19 (1989), pp. 177-81.
35. For example, the triple perfection of Wisdom in Wisdom of Solomon (7.22-23):
seven times three is twenty-one attributes (see Roland Murphy, The Tree of Life: An
Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 3rd edn, 2002], p.
143, and David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction
and Commentary [AB, 43; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979], pp. 178-79).
36. Adela Yarbro Collins, Numerical Symbolism in Jewish and Early Christian
Apocalyptic Literature, Nachtrag zu Band II.19 in Aufstieg und Niedergang der
Römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der Neueren Forschung (ed.
Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 1221-87.
37. Karl Staehle, Die Zahlenmystik bei Philon von Alexandreia (Leipzig: Teubner,
1931), who compiles a catalog of a great many passages about number symbolism in
Philo.
38. Kalvesmaki, ‘Formation’ (see n. 32 above).
39. See William H.C. Propp, Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary (AB, 2A; New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 315.
40. For details, which extend to other names and parts of the book, see Murphy, Tree
of Life, p. 28, which is working from and sifting through the more detailed and speculative
ideas of P. Skehan, Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom (CBQMS, 1; Washington:
Catholic Biblical Association, 1971), pp. 27-45.
460 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

In fact, many scholars have already suggested examples of redaction-

level number symbolism within the Psalter itself. If one believes, for
example, the ve books of the Psalter create a parallel to the ve books
of the Torah, one is engaging in number symbolism. This interpretation
appears already in Midrash Tehillim 1.241 and, as Wilson has per-
suasively argued, is implied in the redaction of the biblical book itself.42
Laura Joffe has suggested an intriguing (and more speculative)
number symbolism in the redaction of the Elohistic Psalter (Pss. 42–83),
which Joel S. Burnett has subsequently rened and eshed out in terms
of the ancient Near Eastern context.43 The operative number in this case
is 42, a number symbolizing divine judgment/cursing as well as the

41. See Salomon Buber, Midrasch Tehillim (Schocher Tob), Sammlung agadischer
Abhandlungen u‫ޠ‬ber die 150 Psalmen (Wilna: Wittwe & Gebrüder Romm., 1891), p. 3
(§§<–I<), for the text, and W.G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms (2 Vols.; Yale Judaica
Series, 13; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 5, for a translation. The context
notes parallels between Moses and David more broadly. After mentioning the fact that
both men gave ve books to Israel, the midrash species the ve-fold division of the
Psalter. The text cannot be dated with certainty since the material probably underwent a
long development. Some scholars suggest it represents material from as early as the third
century CE, though it may also contain material as late as the thirteenth century CE (see
Braude, Midrash on Psalms, p. xxxi, and H.L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Intro-
duction to the Talmud and Midrash [trans. and ed. Markus Bockmuehl; Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1992], p. 323).
42. The editorial purposefulness of the ve-fold division of the Psalter, indicated
partly by the doxologies at the ends of Books I–IV (Pss. 41.14; 72.19; 89.53; 106.48), is
discussed in Wilson, Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, pp. 182-86. He concludes that
although the doxologies themselves are each part of the psalm that precedes them, their
position matches the breaks in the Psalter that he earlier establishes via an analysis of
‘author designations and genre categories’ in the superscriptions (p. 186). This cannot be
a coincidence, in his opinion. Therefore, the four psalms ending with a doxology were
purposefully placed by an editor to help mark out the ve-fold division of the Psalter.
43. See Laura Joffe, ‘The Answer to the Meaning of Life, the Universe and the
Elohistic Psalter’, JSOT 27 (2002), pp. 223-35, who lays out the basic idea and gives
evidence for the association of 42 with the divine name and judgment/cursing. Joel S.
Burnett adds further ancient Near Eastern support and nuance to the discussion; see his
‘Forty-Two Songs for Elohim: An Ancient Near Eastern Organizing Principle in the
Shaping of the Elohistic Psalter’, JSOT 31 (2006), pp. 81-101, and ‘A Plea for David and
Zion: The Elohistic Psalter as Psalm Collection for the Temple’s Restoration’, in Joel S.
Burnett, W.H. Bellinger Jr, and W. Dennis Tucker Jr (eds.), Diachronic and Synchronic:
Reading the Psalms in Real Time: Proceedings of the Baylor Symposium on the Book of
Psalms (LHBOTS, 488; New York: T&T Clark International, 2007), pp. 95-113.
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 461

number of the divine name (9H9J).44 According to this theory, the

Elohistic Psalter contains 42 psalms, the collection starts at the forty-
second ordinal position, and its text originally only contained 42
instances of the Tetragrammaton.45 The purpose for using the number
symbolism of 42 in the redactional process is not entirely clear, though
Joffe is inclined to assign it an apotropaic function.46 These examples
illustrate the fact that there are scholars working with the idea of number
symbolism at the redactional level, even within the Psalter.47
Given the fact that ancient scribes used number symbolism in isolated
examples, that number symbolism was a factor at times in various
biblical editorial projects, and that some scholars have noticed possible
number symbolism within the redactional program of the MT Psalter,
exploring this possibility with regard to the exact placement of the Torah
psalms in the MT Psalter is reasonable. Furthermore, since knowledge of

44. Why 42 is associated with divine judgment and cursing in Mesopotamia is

puzzling. Burnett suggests the number is the product of two other culturally signicant
numbers: 6 and 7 (‘Forty-Two Songs for Elohim’, p. 100). In light of Høyrup’s ndings
on remarkable numbers (‘ “Remarkable Numbers” in Old Babylonian Mathematical
Texts’, cited in n. 33 above), and building on the work of number play adduced by
Francesca Rochberg (‘Stellar Distances in Early Babylonian Astronomy: A New
Perspective on the Hilprecht Text [HS 229]’, JNES 42 [1983], pp. 209-17) and Dwight D.
Young (‘A Mathematical Approach to Certain Dynastic Spans in the Sumerian King
List’, JNES 47 [1988], pp. 123-29), one might also suggest that 42 is the sum of the rst
seven integers divisible by 1 and itself (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13). (I refrain from calling
these ‘the rst seven prime numbers’, since the number 1 is not considered a prime
number in contemporary number theory.)
45. There are probably 45 actual attestations of the divine name plus two shortened
forms, though doubts remain of the exact count due to textual uncertainties (see Burnett,
‘Forty-Two Songs for Elohim’, p. 90, and ‘A Plea for David and Zion’, p. 101).
46. She writes, ‘I would like to suggest that the Elohistic Psalter was commissioned
in order to ward off the curse of 42, to turn it into a blessing. The work involved in its
creation was a tribute to God, intended to bestow protection and good fortune on the
redactor, the benefactor who paid him, or possibly on the whole community’ (Joffe,
‘Answer to the Meaning of Life’, p. 231). Her abstract says it slightly differently: ‘It is
suggested that the Elohistic Psalter was constructed in order to invoke a “magic triangle”
(comprising God’s name, the number 42, and a blessing) for some apotropaic purpose’
(p. 223).
47. For an early example, see Ernst Hengstenberg’s ideas (Commentary on the
Psalms [3 vols.; trans. P. Fairbairn and J. Thomson; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1845–48),
III, p. 410, which offer a number-symbolic argument for the structure of the Psalms of
Ascent (Pss. 120–134). This view is summarized by Joffe, ‘Answer to the Meaning of
Life’, p. 227.
462 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

the Metonic Cycle was available, a scribe could have given the
calendrically signicant number 19 a more general symbolic signicance
as a number of cosmological harmony, a number capable of reconciling
apparently opposing systems just as it did the calendrical units dened by
the movements of the sun and the moon.48 Indeed, there is precedent for
calendrical concerns and even a calendrically signicant number
inuencing the shape of a psalter. Peter W. Flint has persuasively argued
that 11QPsa was a 52-psalm composition intended to function liturgically
for groups—perhaps the one at Qumran—who used a solar calendar.49

48. Unlike, e.g., the numbers 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40, the number 19 is conspicuous in
that it has no attested signicance in the ancient world outside of its use in the Metonic
Cycle. One might speculate that a scribe prone to apophenia could have attributed a
certain naturalness in the harmonizing quality of the number 19 within this system since
19 is the sum of the number of months (12), a unit traditionally dened by the moon, and
the number of days in the week (7), a unit always dened by the sun. Nineteen is also the
sum of the number of signs in the zodiac (12) and the traditional number of celestial
bodies (7) in the sky (ve planets, the moon, and the sun). Finally, 19 is the sum of the
number of years in each Metonic Cycle that had thirteen months (7) and the number that
had twelve (12). Any or all of these 7 +12 combinations could be construed to support the
cosmic symbolic value of the number 19. Such conrmation bias is ubiquitous in dis-
cussions and examples of number symbolism. However, to my knowledge there is no
evidence that any ancient scribe attached signicance to any of these.
49. Peter W. Flint, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (Studies on the
Texts of the Desert of Judah, 17; Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 172-201. Besides the 52
psalms, Flint recognizes ‘4 pieces that assert Davidic authorship’ within the Psalter (p.
193): David’s Last Words, David’s Compositions, Ps. 151A, and Ps. 151B. Thus the
11QPsa Psalter actually contains a total of 56 compositions.
I should also mention that Michael Chyutin, The Role of the Solar and Lunar
Calendars in the Redaction of the Psalms (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, 54;
Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), offers a much more detailed, speculative, and
problematic argument for the inuence of the solar and lunar calendars on a ‘Qumran
Psalter’ and the MT Psalter, respectively. His thesis is that ‘the chronological develop-
ment of the redaction of the calendrical Book of Psalms was an expression of the war of
the calendars among the sects and the political forces existing within Judaism during the
First and Second Temple periods’ (p. 288). In Part I Chyutin reviews the various
calendars in the ancient world broadly speaking, treating Egypt, Mesopotamia, and
Greece in rather broad strokes, as well as in Second Temple Judaism. In the literature of
the latter, he nds a great many different versions of the solar and lunar calendars in
operation and, when able, identies these with particular groups. This rst part of the
book summarizes a rather well-known aspect of Second Temple Jewish history—namely,
there were many different calendars used by various groups of the time, and these
calendars were often points of contention among the groups. In Part II Chyutin develops
an argument for seeing the different redactions of the Psalter, including one from
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 463

Knowledge of the Metonic Cycle by Jewish scribes does not, of

course, necessarily impute this or any other signicance to the number
19. But it is not unreasonable to allow for the possibility. Possibility,
however, is not the same as plausibility. So the question remains, is there
any textual clue for looking to the number 19 to explain the position of
the Torah psalms as Psalms 19 and 119 besides what could be their
purely coincidental ordinal positions? I think there is in the thematic
juxtaposition of creation and Torah in Psalm 19.

The Bipartite Structure of Psalm 19 and the Cosmological Elevation

of the Torah
Psalm 19 falls into two strikingly different halves with regard to its
content, divine name, and poetic style. Even a quick glance through the
text reveals that the rst half of the psalm (vv. 2-7) deals with creation at
the cosmological level while the second half treats the Torah (vv. 8-11)
and its personal application to the supplicant (vv. 12-15), the psalm’s
religious telos. Despite the contrast in the content of the two halves, the
manuscript tradition afrms the unity of this psalm and the psalm itself
has verbal linkages that bind its two parts together. For example, the
ends of both halves of the psalm use the participle CED? (‘hidden’, vv. 7
and 13), and the rst half opens with reference to C> (‘speech’), while
the second ends with a cognate of that lexeme, JC> (‘words’). Whatever
the origin of the two halves, the psalm as it now stands is best interpreted
as a literary unity.50

Qumran, seven versions of the MT Psalter, and the LXX Psalter, as the products of this war
of the calendars. The second part of the book is quite problematic. His complex
redactional schemes are presented—actually, asserted—very quickly; they involve a host
of numerological speculations that seem arbitrary—almost every number has signi-
cance; and he is overly condent given the very difcult internal evidence at our disposal.
As interesting as his ideas are, the evidence is not adequate to support them. For criticism
of Chyutin’s more limited claims about the solar Psalter from Qumran (11QPsa), see
Flint, Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Psalms, pp. 182-89.
50. On the unity of the psalm, see, e.g., Jonathan T. Glass, ‘Some Observations on
Psalm 19’, in Kenneth G. Hoglund et al. (eds.), The Listening Heart: Essays in Wisdom
and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. (JSOTSup, 58; Shefeld:
Shefeld Academic Press, 1987), pp. 147-59; Hartmut Gese, ‘Die Einheit von Psalm 19’,
in his Alttestamentliche Studien (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1991), pp. 139-
48 (reprinted from E. Jüngel et al. [eds.], Verikationen: Festschrift für Gerhard Ebeling
zum 70. Geburtstag [Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982], pp. 1-10); Christoph
Dohmen, ‘Ps 19 und sein altorientalischer Hintergrund’, Bib 64 (1983), pp. 501-17 (512-
464 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

The juxtaposition of the two contrastive parts of this psalm explicates

the relationship between Yahweh’s creation and his Torah. Namely,
creation and Torah both reveal Yahweh’s sovereignty, but Torah is the
superior of the two because of its clarity and power to affect divine–
human relations. The psalmist afrms the fact that creation perpetually
and manifestly proclaims Yahweh’s glory and creative power (vv. 2-3),
but this praise is completely inaudible (‘their voice is not heard’,
)=HB>?J=3, v. 4). Although evident to humans—as the psalmist’s
words obviously demonstrate—this proclamation remains somewhat
mysterious or perhaps something only tacitly apprehended by humans.
The Torah, in contrast, is identied by the psalmist in vv. 8-10 with
words that denote communication, authority, and obligation: ‘instruction’
(9CHE), ‘testimony’ (EH5), ‘precept’ (5HBA), ‘commandment’ (9H4>),
‘fear’ (9CJ),51 and ‘judgment’ (A>). The psalmist praises the Torah,
the divine instruction, for its effectiveness in transforming humans in a
variety of ways (vv. 8-9) and maintaining right relationship with the
deity (v. 12). The psalm moves, therefore, from a general sense of
Yahweh’s majesty and power in creation to his specic revelatory
provision for his people. As Anthony Ceresko has stated in his treatment
of the sage in the Psalter, ‘Psalm 19…celebrates the power for order
inherent in the divine will and reected in the stability of nature (vv. 2-
7). But the psalmist goes on to praise the torah through which that divine
will is revealed so that it might become the basis in turn for the order and
life of the community’.52
Although not the primary concern of the psalm, the thematic move-
ment that arises from the juxtaposition of creation and Torah here

17), and also Auffret, La Sagesse, pp. 429-35, who notes the use of the 3 preposition with
a third masculine plural pronominal sufx ()93) in vv. 5 and 12—thus, in both halves of
the psalm (pp. 433-34).
51. I follow the MT in reading ECJ in 19.10, though the conjectured reading EC">,:
‘saying’, is tempting in light of the semantic domain of the other words (see BHS, p. 1102
n. 10a). For a defense of the semantic appropriateness of ECJ in this context, see David
J.A. Clines, ‘The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm XIX)’, VT 24
(1974), pp. 8-14 (12).
52. Anthony R. Ceresko, ‘The Sage in the Psalms’, in John G. Gammie and Leo G.
Perdue (eds.), The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
1990), pp. 217-30 (224). Note also Craigie’s statement: ‘The glories of nature indicate
God (=, v. 2) in general terms, whereas the glories of the Torah reveal the Lord (9H9J,
vv. 8-10), that is, the God who has revealed himself to his people by name in redemption
and covenant’ (Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50 [WBC, 19; Waco: Word, 1983], p. 182).
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 465

implicitly attributes a cosmological signicance to Torah. The rst half

of the psalm clearly has a cosmological orientation. Witness the celestial
framework of creation (JBC9 and )J>9, v. 2), the alternation between
night and day (v. 3), the extremities (94B) of the heavens (v. 7) and the
earth (v. 5), and the focus on the sun and its celestial course (vv. 5b-7)—
a topic of much cosmological speculation elsewhere (see, e.g., 1 En. 72).
In its second half the psalm ties Torah into this cosmological context by
creating several progressively more explicit textual connections between
Torah and the sun in vv. 11-13.53 First, the psalm compares Torah to gold
and honey in v. 11. Although by no means exhausting the signicance of
the comparisons, it is no accident that both of these substances, like the
sun, are yellowish in color.54 Second, the grapheme C9K? in v. 12 allows
for an interesting semantic ambiguity. Although typically understood as
derived from C9K (II, according to HALOT), ‘to be warned’, one could
also take it from C9K (I), ‘be bright, shine’,55 a word that is clearly within
the semantic domain of the sun’s activity and used with the sun as
subject in Sir. 42.16.56 Finally, the psalmist makes an explicit lexical

53. This rhetorical move probably reects the general cultural association of the sun
with legal concerns and justice in the broader ancient Near East (e.g. Shamash, the sun
god in Mesopotamia, was the god of justice), but we cannot linger over this well-known
and variously interpreted cultural parallel here. See, e.g., S.G. Sager, ‘ “Sun” and “Light”
Imagery in Psalm 19’, in R.A. Brauner (ed.), Jewish Civilization: Essays and Studies
(Philadelphia: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, 1979), pp. 33-40, and Nahum Sarna,
‘Psalm XIX and the Near Eastern Sun-God Literature’, in Papers of the Fourth World
Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies: 1967), I, pp.
171-75.
54. I owe this thought to Glass, ‘Some Observations on Psalm 19’, p. 154.
55. There is a caveat, however: if one reads the verb as C9K (I), then it would have to
be read as an otherwise unattested Niphal form. See Craigie, Psalms 1–50, p. 179, who
believes C9K (I) in the Niphal is the more appropriate meaning of the verb in context and
translates accordingly. This may be what Mowinckel had in mind when he wrote ‘As the
sun illuminates the world from one end to the other, so the law illuminates man both
religiously and morally’ (Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship [2 vols.;
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962], I, p. 91).
56. The topic of 42.16 (MS M) is thematically similar to Ps. 19: =<=EC9K>
HJ>=>J?55H3[<H][9]E=8?, ‘(Just as) the shining sun is visible over all things, (so) the
glory of the Lord lls his works’ (see Pancratius C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in
Hebrew: A Text Edition of All Extant Hebrew Manuscripts and a Synopsis of All Parallel
Hebrew Ben Sira Texts [VTSup, 68; Leiden: Brill, 1997], pp. 118 and 168; restorations
are based on MS B). The verb appears in the Hiphil stem with other celestial bodies in
Dan. 12.3 ()J3<H<<…JBC9C9K<HC9KJ, ‘they will shine like the shining of the rma-
ment…like stars’) and Sirach 43.9 (MS B: =J>HC>3CJ9K>HCHH / 3<H<C59H)J>CHE,
466 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

parallel between the sun in the rst half of the psalm and the Torah in the
second: both can reach even that which may be hidden, whether a place
or a sin ([EH]CED?, vv. 7 and 13). Although there may be other reasons
for this manner of presentation,57 one of the interpretive ramications of
likening the Torah to the sun is to draw the Torah up into the cosmo-
logical framework with which the psalm opens and in this manner
reconcile Torah and creation.58
To support this subtle cosmological interpretation of Torah further,
one might also note how this psalm employs similar concepts as the
creation accounts in Genesis 1–3. With regard to the rst half of the
psalm, its topic and lexicon generally resonate with the text of Genesis 1,
especially 1.14-19 and its calendrical concern (i.e. the establishment of
the alternation between night and day).59 Vocabulary in the second half
of the psalm most obviously intersects with Psalm 119 (e.g. 9CHE, EH5,
)J5HBA, 9H4>, )JA>, )J>E, etc.)60 and the wisdom tradition (compare,
e.g., 9H9JECJ in v. 10 with Prov. 1.8 and JEA in v. 8a with Prov. 1.4).61
More subtly, David Clines has suggested several points of contact
between the second half of the psalm, specically the ve brief phrases
used to describe the Torah in vv. 8-10a, and the account of the fall of
humanity in Genesis 2–3.62 He believes this linkage intends to show the

‘the beauty of the heavens and splendor of the stars, its [i.e. the new moon’s, 5I] light
shines in the heights of God’; see Beentjes, Ben Sira in Hebrew, pp. 75 and 171).
57. For example, it may have been used to foster textual cohesion within the psalm
(see, e.g., Glass, ‘Some Observations on Psalm 19’, p. 154).
58. Ps. 19, therefore, implicitly reverberates with the exaltation of Torah in Ps. 119,
as well as Torah’s cosmologically loaded identication with Wisdom in Sir. 24.
59. It may also be worth noting that the paradox of the creation’s inaudible words/
speech in vv. 4-5a links the psalm conceptually to the divine at in Gen. 1.
60. D.N. Freedman notices that Ps. 19, ‘widely regarded as a model for’ Ps. 119,
contains ve of the eight keywords in Ps. 119 (Psalm 119: The Exaltation of Torah
[Biblical and Judaic Studies, 6; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999], p. 90): 9CHE, EH5,
9H4>, )J5HBA, and)JA>. For the eight keywords, see below. (It is also interesting—
though not clearly anything more than a coincidence—that the root CED, which occurs in
both halves of Ps. 19 [vv. 7 and 13], appears in v. 19 of Ps. 119.)
61. Although not sharing vocabulary, the comparison involving gold in Ps. 19.11
recalls the comparisons of wisdom to precious metals and jewels in, e.g., Prov. 3.14 and
8.10-11.
62. See his article ‘Tree of Knowledge’, cited in n. 51 above. Some examples of his
ideas are as follows: Clines thinks A?E3J>, ‘reviving the soul’ (19.8a), is a notion
related to food and nourishment (see, e.g., Lam. 1.11), which is one of the characteristics
of the tree of knowledge in Gen. 2.17 and more explicitly in 3.6 (=<>=#93H, ‘the
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 467

superiority of Torah for the attainment of wisdom over the primordial

tree of knowledge. The two halves of Psalm 19, therefore, share a
common conceptual connection to the opening chapters of Genesis. This
provides yet another reason to believe this psalm has a cosmological
orientation.63
I think it is curious that the theological-cosmological nexus of creation
and Torah discussed above is developed in the Psalter’s middle Torah
psalm, the one that occupies the nineteenth ordinal position in the
Psalter. Now we have established that the Metonic Cycle is about nding
a harmonization between the measurements of time related to the solar
and lunar celestial bodies. Further, Ps. 19.2-7, treating the heavens, the
sun, and the alternation of day and night, clearly deals in the same con-
ceptual area as the Metonic Cycle. But the Metonic Cycle itself is
obviously not literally present in the psalm. Rather, the ‘harmonization’
in Psalm 19, if one will permit that language, is conceptual, linking
creation and Torah, and not at all calendrical or chronological. Yet the
celestial/calendrical harmonization that the Metonic Cycle produces may
well have suggested to the scribes responsible for the MT redaction of the
Psalter an extended use of 19 as a number of general cosmological
harmony, a number, as I have said already, capable of reconciling
apparently opposing systems. Thus it may be that the redactor of the MT
Psalter placed Psalm 19 in its exact ordinal position to invoke a number
symbolism that would support the psalm’s theological harmonization of
creation and Torah and undergird the cosmological elevation of the
Torah implicitly presented in the psalm. If it were not for the content of

tree was good for food’); he believes the Torah’s ability to make the simple wise
(JEA E>J<I> in 19.8b) is the exact function of the tree of knowledge in Gen. 3.6
(5>I?H =<9= #9, ‘the tree was desirable for becoming wise’); and Clines compares the
phrase )J?J ECJ> (‘enlightening the eyes’) in 19.9b with the effects of eating from the
tree of knowledge in Gen. 3.7 ()9J? J?J 9?IBAEH, ‘their eyes were opened’), explaining
that both phrases concern the acquisition of new awareness or knowledge. I think Clines
makes an interesting argument for a conceptual connection between Gen. 1–3 and Ps. 19,
but it is going beyond the evidence to say that the language of Ps. 19 alludes to Gen. 1–3
since ‘allusion’ and even ‘echo’ are technical terms in intertextual studies (see Benjamin
D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 [Contraversions: Jews
and Other Differences; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998], pp. 6-31).
63. Clines also notes that just as the second half of Ps. 19 connects to Gen. 2–3, so
the rst half does to Gen. 1, providing ‘a point of contact between the two halves of the
psalm’. Clines, however, does not develop this idea further (‘Tree of Knowledge’, p. 13).
See likewise Craigie, Psalms 1–50, pp. 181-82.
468 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

Psalm 19, we would have very little warrant to consider the number
symbolism I am proposing. Due to its content, however, Psalm 19 gives
my number-symbolic suggestion a theological importance and a measure
of plausibility.

Psalm 119 within the Proposal

In light of my treatment of Psalm 19, I now turn to Psalm 119 to see how
it might t into the redactional proposal being explored. I should say in
advance of the discussion that Psalm 119 does not provide strong
conrming evidence for the proposal outlined above, though it does
show itself to be consistent with it. One might suggest that this situation
is parallel to the associative relationship between the numbers 19 and
119. That is, one might expect to nd the strongest arguments for the
proposal in the psalm that is positioned as number 19 and weaker
connections in the psalm placed in position 119, the number that is a
kind of folk-derivative of the number 19. Be that as it may, in this
section I rst look at some specic content of Psalm 119 and the sym-
bolic signicance of the psalm’s structure for possible connections to the
proposal outlined above and then turn to discuss how understanding
Psalm 119’s symbolic placement in the 119th ordinal position helps us
understand its conceptual though not numeric centrality in Book V of the
Psalter.
The content of Ps. 119.89-91 demonstrates an explicit cosmic dimen-
sion to Torah and clearly subordinates creation to it, which recalls
themes in Psalm 19:
Forever, O Yahweh,
your word (C35)64 is rmly xed in65 the heavens.
Your command (9C>)66 is from generation to generation,
you established the earth and it stood.
By your decrees they (i.e. the heavens and earth) stand today,
for all are your servants.

64. C35 is one of the words consistently used as a synonym for 9CHE throughout the
psalm. See Will Soll, Psalm 119: Matrix, Form, and Setting (CBQMS, 23; Washington,
DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1991), pp. 38-39, and below.
65. The 3-preposition is clearly locative; see Ps. 82.1 (contra Soll, Psalm 119, p.
166).
66. I am following here a common emendation of (E6?%H>G to (E6C%>,: which is another
synonym of 9CHE; see Soll, Psalm 119, p. 166, for a brief justication and below for more
on the seven synonyms of 9CHE.
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 469

With Kent Reynolds, I think these verses show that ‘All of creation has
been following God’s rules since he spoke the world into existence, and
part of the psalmist’s conception of Torah is that it gives order to the
universe’.67 The practical implication of these cosmological characteris-
tics of Yahweh’s Torah appears in the very next verse (v. 92), which
states, ‘if your Torah had not been my delight, I would have perished in
my afiction’ (JJ?3JE53KJ(ECHEJ=H=). Just as Torah sustains
the universe, so too does it sustain the student of Torah. These few verses
show clear conceptual afnities with Psalm 19.68 Although the cosmic
dimension of Yahweh’s Torah and its relationship to creation is a very
minor motif in Psalm 119, these verses could have provided a close
conceptual point of contact (that is, something more than a common
interest in Torah) between Psalms 19 and 119 for the redactor respon-
sible for the placement of Psalms 19 and 119.
The structure and design of Psalm 119 was almost certainly intended
to convey a Torah-enhancing symbolic meaning. The poem contains 22
stanzas, corresponding to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Each stanza consists of 8 lines, and each of these eight lines begins with
the same Hebrew letter. The letter that begins each line in a stanza
corresponds to the stanza’s ordinal position within the poem. Thus the
rst stanza’s lines all begin with alef, the second’s with bet, and the last’s
with tav (compare the three-line stanzas of the acrostic poem in Lam. 3).
Moreover, there are eight keywords used throughout the poem: 9CHE and
its seven synonyms, EH5, )J5HBA, )JBI, 9H4>, )JA>, 9C>, and
C35.69 The 22-letter acrostic symbolically communicates the idea of
completeness or the comprehensive character of Yahweh’s Torah; the
Torah is everything from A to Z, so to speak.70 Yet Psalm 119 takes this
idea even further by making each of its 22 stanzas eight lines long

67. For Reynolds’s treatment of Ps. 119.89-91, see his ‘Psalm 119’, pp. 121-23. The
quote is from p. 123.
68. It is signicant to note, however, that creation is not discussed as a form of
Yahweh’s revelation in its own right, as it is in the rst half of Ps. 19. Rather, creation is
introduced only to subordinate it explicitly to Torah. There are then very clear differences
between Pss. 19 and 119. My point here is simply to identify some afnities.
69. See the discussions in, e.g., Soll, Psalm 119, pp. 35-56, and Reynolds, ‘Psalm
119’, pp. 22, 124-37.
70. See, e.g., Soll, who says, ‘Symbolically, by taking the prayer [scil. Ps. 119]
through the alphabet, a sense of completeness is evoked without having to be compre-
hensive’ (Psalm 119, p. 27). See also Reynolds, ‘Psalm 119’, p. 23, who cites 3 En. 44.9
to illustrate the relative antiquity of this understanding of the acrostic form.
470 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

permeated throughout by eight keywords (9CHE and its seven synonyms).

We may analyze the number 8 as 7, the number of perfection, plus 1 (7 +
1), but the symbolic signicance of this 7 + 1 idea is difcult to
ascertain.71 It may have symbolized the idea that the Torah was ‘beyond
perfection’ but we cannot know for certain. It is clear, however, that the
symbolic signicance of the structure of Psalm 119 has nothing to do
with the symbolism we have suggested for the number 19. However, it
need not have done so. The structural symbolism in Psalm 119 could
have been suggestive to our redactor precisely because it provided a
precedent for imbuing the Torah with signicance via complex
numerically oriented symbolism.
We come now to the issue of the placement of Psalm 119. Like Psalm
19 in Book I, Wilson and Zenger argue for the conceptual centrality of
Psalm 119 in Book V of the Psalter.72 Unlike Psalm 19, however, Psalm
119 is nowhere near the numeric middle of its Book. If, however, one
accepts that Psalm 119 was placed in its exact ordinal position based on
the symbolism of the number 19, then the redactional use of the number
symbolism I am proposing explains a known issue: the disconnection
between the numeric center of Book V and the conceptual center that
others have identied.73
By placing Psalm 119, that is, the next as well as last Torah psalm of
the Psalter, in the only other ordinal position whose number contains the
elements of the number 19, the redactor underlines the number-symbolic
point made in Psalm 19 and reinforces the Torah’s exaltation—redun-
dantly, of course, since the symbolic structure and thematic content of
Psalm 119 establishes this in other ways.74 If the content of Psalm 19
supports the symbolic role of the number 19 in the positioning of that
psalm within the MT Psalter, then the placement of Psalm 119 supports
the number-symbolic point by repeating it.75

71. See Reynolds, ‘Psalm 119’, pp. 23-26, for an overview of various attempts at
understanding the signicance of the number eight or the 7 + 1 pattern.
72. See n. 13 above.
73. This in no way excludes or diminishes the psalm’s importance as a divider
between two large blocks of material, Pss. 113–118 and Pss. 120–135.
74. Indeed, Freedman speaks of the apotheosis of the Torah in Ps. 119 (Psalm 119,
pp. 88-92). Even though apotheosis or hypostasis is going too far (see Reynolds, ‘Psalm
119’, pp. 142-48), Ps. 119 is clearly on the trajectory that leads to the hypostatization of
the Torah (see C.L. Seow, ‘Torah’, in DDD, pp. 875-76).
75. I wish to avoid the charge of circularity, so I want to make this clear: although the
proposed number symbolism explains a recognized issue, viz. the disjunction between the
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 471

Anticipated Objections
One might well ask why a scribe would use symbolism to support
something that the content of these psalms already essentially presents.
The answer is quite simple: scribes throughout the ancient Near East
were given to this kind of literary-intellectual play. See, for example, the
wisdom psalm in Psalm 34 where the rst letter of the rst, middle, and
last lines of the psalm spell the root ,=, meaning ‘to learn’.76 By includ-
ing this little scribal play the author commends to the reader, very subtly
of course, the pedagogical value of the psalm. There is no secret mes-
sage; there is no new content that the acronym provides. The purpose of
this scribal gesture was probably as much aesthetic as thematic. Perhaps
it was included simply for the scribe’s own pleasure of having inserted
it. The same may be the case for the proposed number symbolism involv-
ing 19.
Another likely objection arises from the observation that the division
and implicit numbering of individual psalms in the MT and LXX differ.
How can this proposal, which relies upon precise positions and number-
ing of psalms in the Psalter, deal with this variety?77 The variations in the
numbering/divisions of the psalms are important data, but each version/
recension of the Psalter should be considered on its own terms. Since this
proposal deals explicitly and exclusively with the majority manuscript
tradition of the MT Psalter, other variant numbering systems such as the
LXX (MT 19 and 119 = LXX 18 and 118), though indirectly relevant (see
below), do not negate the possibility of nding signicance in the MT’s
particular numbering system.78

conceptual and numeric centers of Book V, this does not provide strong independent
evidence to conrm the ideas about Ps. 19 and the numeric symbolism of the number 19.
Since, however, Ps. 119 can t within the framework of the proposal, it does add to its
plausibility.
76. See Ceresko, ‘Sage in the Psalms’, pp. 225-26.
77. Burnett deals with the same issue thoughtfully in his treatment of the number 42
and the Elohistic Psalter (see ‘Forty-Two Songs for Elohim’, pp. 90-92, and ‘Plea for
David and Zion’, pp. 102-105).
78. There are differences in the division of psalms even among individual MT manu-
scripts—all of which, of course, are medieval. Yet most of these differences can be
explained as secondary alterations. See the very thorough discussion of the issue in
Millard, Die Komposition des Psalters, pp. 6-19. The most common generator of vari-
ation in the Hebrew manuscripts of the MT is the joining of material that is separated in
the received MT tradition (e.g. 9/10, 42/43, and 114/115). For example, some authorities
472 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34.4 (2010)

One might also wonder about the historical processes that could have
led to the inclusion of the proposed number-symbolic arrangement. Of
course, the exact conditions and processes behind any ancient redaction
are irretrievable.79 But there are a couple of points about this process for
the MT Psalter that scholars have discerned recently. These shed some
light on my proposal and may strengthen its plausibility. First, broadly
speaking, we know that the redactional process of the Psalter was an
essentially two-stage undertaking; the basic order of the material in
Books I, II, and III came together by mid-second century BCE while
Books IV and V remained open to change until possibly the rst century
CE.80 Since our two psalms straddle this divide, the number symbolism

considered Pss. 1 and 2 to be one psalm (as probably implied by the reading in some
Western manuscripts of Acts 13.33), perhaps due to a desire to associate Pss. 1–19 with
the 18 Benedictions (as noted, e.g., in b. Ber. 9b; see Millard, Die Komposition des
Psalters, pp. 10, 137, 245-46).
Different divisions of individual psalms, of course, lead to differences in the total
number of psalms. So, for example, rabbinic sources preserve a tradition for 147 psalms,
which they explain by an appeal to the 147 years Jacob lived (see Gen. 47.28; y. Šab.
16.1; Sop. 16.11, and Midr. Pss. 22.19, cited in Joffe, ‘The Answer to the Meaning of
Life’, p. 225 n. 8). This tradition is actually attested in Ginsburg’s MS No. 60 [= Vienna,
Imperial and Royal Library, No. 4] (see Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the
Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (Prolegomena by Harry M. Orlinsky;
New York: Ktav, 1966], p. 777). Another manuscript of the MT, Ginsberg’s No. 50 [=
Oriental 4227], actually attests 170 psalms because each stanza of Ps. 119 is numbered
separately (see Ginsburg, Introduction, p. 725). Finally, it is a well-known fact that Ps. 1
was left unnumbered in some manuscripts; this resulted in a total of 149 numbered
psalms. (Leningradensis does not number Ps. 1, but it does recognize Ps. 2 as the second
Psalm. It still arrives at 149 total psalms because it conates 114 and 115. See David
Noel Freedman et al., The Leningrad Codex: A Fascimile Edition [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1998], pp. 743 and 791.) The antiquity of the idea of a 150-
psalm Psalter is attested by the LXX, which essentially apologizes for its inclusion of Ps.
151 and excludes it from its numbering (LBJ=FDXRFOUPVBSJRNPV). This is an especially
interesting bit of information in light of the MT/LXX disagreements on numbering
individual psalms.
79. Still, scholars have speculated about the historical impetus for the nal redaction
of the Hebrew Psalter. See, e.g., Gerald H. Wilson, ‘A First Century C.E. Date for the
Closing of the Hebrew Psalter?’, in Joshua J. Adler (ed.), Haim M.I. Gevaryahu
Memorial Volume (Jerusalem: World Jewish Center, 1990), pp. 136-43.
80. Working on the basis of the psalms material from Qumran, Flint has produced the
most thorough and sophisticated investigation that establishes this point (Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Book of Psalms, pp. 135-49 [146]). This does not necessarily mean that
Books IV and V were added at the same (late) time. As Zenger has shown, it is likely that
Book V was added even later than Book IV (see his ‘Composition and Theology of the
 LENZI The Metonic Cycle 473

proposed here probably would have been worked into the text in the
latest levels of the redaction. This idea is further supported by the fact
that our two psalms are thematically related to Psalm 1, which most
scholars believe is a late redactional addition to the Book. Second, the
ux in the division of individual psalms (e.g. Pss. 114/115) in the LXX as
compared to the MT, including differences in Books I–III (e.g. Pss. 9/10),
could be interpreted as a clue to potential number-related redactional
manipulation. In other words, changing the numbering of psalms by
creating articial divisions (and, theoretically speaking, by omitting
psalms)—even in material whose order had been set by earlier tradents—
could allow very late redactors to fudge the numbers into line with their
number-symbolic purpose.

Conclusion
The content of Psalms 19 and 119 exalts the Torah to a privileged posi-
tion in ancient Judaism; a number symbolism was not needed to accom-
plish this. The number-symbolic redactional proposal explored in this
study, however, provides a plausible and theologically signicant reason
for the precise position of Psalms 19 and 119 in the MT Psalter and offers
a suggestion for how this position may have subtly contributed to the
Torah’s cosmological exaltation.

Fifth Book of Psalms’, cited in n. 13 above). Nor should one think that Flint’s broad,
two-stage conclusion automatically rules out ‘light’ redactional or editorial activity on
Books I, II, and III (for this language, indicating editorial tweaking or adjustment, see
Burnett, ‘Forty-Two Songs for Elohim’, p. 91).