Short Note to Psalm 150 and somewhat on
Psalm 151: When we come to this psalm, we are coming to the end of the Canon as
the Holy Spirit intended it to be. Not so, some scholars like Peter Flint and
others try to argue. Let us first spent time on 150 and then make some comments
on the apocrypha Psalm 151. If anyone had any intention to claim
that there is no Temple in Heaven, then you need to read Psalm 150:1 with care.
In synonymous parallelism the psalmist undoubtedly stated that “God in His
sanctuary [begadoshu] praise Him in the firmament [bireqiyu] of His power”. It
is that simple. The Heavenly Sanctuary is a concept that this psalmist knew
very well. It is not an invention by a post-exillic disillusionist since Moses
also made his copy of the tabernacle according to the pattern shown in heaven. F.
Delitzsch (1885) was quick to point out the heavenly sanctuary here. A host of
other commentators wish to see it as the church or earthly and heavenly praise.
Not so. Praise should be for His mighty acts
(150:2a). For His abundant greatness (150:2b). A list of orchestra and music
instruments followed: praise Him with timbrel, dance, stringed instruments,
pipe, loudsounding cymbals, clanging cymbals (150:3-5). Scholars came to this
verse and made comments about music instruments in church. Already in 1872 the
issue was in other churches that “It may be added that those who discourage the
use of all instrumental music in God’s worship do not adduce any Scripture
prohibiting it under the gospel” (Plumer 1872: 1210). Ellen White has a better message that
also speaks to my heart. I come from a family with a humorous father and joyful
mother and my own approach is full of laughter and sometimes jokes. But listen
to her words: “One was seated at the instrument of music, and such songs were
poured forth as made the watching angels weep. There was mirth, there was
coarse laughter, there was abundance of enthusiasm, and a kind of insipiration;
[what a mixture of everything!] but [here it comes now] the joy was such as
Satan only is able to create. This is an enthusiasm and infatuation of which
all who love God will be ashamed. It prepares the participants for unholy
thought and action” (Ellen White CT 339). She could not have said it better. Since the sanctuary of God is in heaven,
and since praise in this Psalm started in heaven, it is maybe better to use
Ellen White comments about music in heaven from Prophets and Kings 730 to
understand the long passage of praise with musical instruments in Psalm 150:3-5,
not as church music but as heavenly music, thus superimposing Ellen White’s
picture of heavenly music over this psalm using Psalm 150:1 as link. Is that
permissible? “The ransomed of the Lords shall return,
and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads and sorrow and
sighing shall flee away.” …”As well the singers as the players on instruments
shall be there”. One cannot use this psalm for prooftext
to use drums and electrical guitars in church with disco lights and equalizers
manipulating the feelings of the audience exhorting them during the rhythm and
harmony to let the feelings give free reign in the worship with hands raised
high as shouts of hallelujah sporadically are released. It is not on earth but
in heaven. Read 150:1 again. So what about dance in music and dance
in church? There are movements and networks trying to push for the art of
dancing to be introduced to worship and especially the children are
commandeered for this purpose since they like kinetics in worship. There is
nothing wrong with kinetics in worship but it is probably not worship to use
the popular or cultural narrative, add religious words to it and then dish it
up as corporate worship. It is entertainment alright? But worship no. This
dance is again in heaven (150:1) and not on earth. What that dance is going to
be we have to wait and see. Nowhere in the life of Christ is it mentioned that
Christ or His disciples danced or attended a dance. The cases of dance in the Old
and New Testaments can be counted on two hands only. It is only mentioned in
bypassing. This chapter is eschatological. When David was dancing in front of the
ark it was personal. The dance is at the seventh Hallelujah and Delitzsch
suggested that it will be a festive dance. He has his own reasons for saying so
but it seems to be an eschatological future dance with the saints in heaven. The point here is this, if I have to
guard against my humor in sermons then dancers must guard in dancing in church.
We transgress the same principle. Just when we thought the Book of Psalm
is closed, and indeed it is, some scholars jump up to argue for an extra Psalm
151 “left out of the Hebrew text”. They found remnants of this psalm in
cave 11 at Qumran dating to probably 130 BCE. It is called 11QPsa. The argument
goes that because the versions like the byzantine preserved manuscripts of the Septuagint,
later Syriac manuscripts have this psalm. So what do we do about this? Simple. It
was common in the days post-Antiochus Epiphanus at the Library of Alexandria to
create this kind of imitations by compilations of texts. Since the psalm served
as a hymn they would create compilations using 1 Samuel 16-17. They understood
the Old Testament well, and then construe phrases together from passages that
gives the impression it is a psalm that “dropped-out” of the Jewish Bible. Not
so. Comparing the Greek texts and this Qumran text, one can see that the Greek
text is an abbreviated form of this Qumran Hebrew text. There is evidence that
the versions like Syriac, Targum, Vulgate, and Greek consulted the degenerative
Hebrew texts from Qumran and reduplicated the errors contain therein, in their
translations. Many times Qumran, Targum, Greek, Syriac and Vulgate all line up
against the Masoretic Hebrew text with variants. In Column XXVIII line 13 for example of
this Qumran Psalm 151, there is a prefixed Hebrew preposition mesh- = “after”
that is only used in later Rabbinic Hebrew. Misnaic Hebrew is the Hebrew from
100 BCE until 350 BCE and it is called Rabbinic Hebrew. The Qumran Psalm
reveals that it is artificial, forced in its style. The Gottingen Edition of
the LXX (300 CE and later) is a smoother text (so M Haran 1988). We must
remember that Empires were library thieves and for the Rome library many books
were copied and taken there from Alexandria. Cross-contamination and export of
those variants happen. Josephus could have consulted the Alexandrian library
that moved to Tarsus and then to Rome. Connections between Qumran and Josephus
can be shown as well. When Harry van Rooy studied Psalm 151:14 and compared it
to the Syriac versions of this psalm, he found that a Syriac manuscript 12t4
from the twelfth century A.D., approximating the date of the Lucianic
manuscript n (1125 A.D.) compares the closest to 11QPsa or Psalm 151. He
pointed out that what Psalm 151 in Hebrew and the Syriac manuscript 12t4 had in
common, is that both were found in caves. The Syriac manuscript was discovered
in 786/7 A.D. but the Hebrew one was discovered after 1948. Archaeologists found oil lamps from the time
of Origen (250 A.D.) at the entrances of cave 1, 4 and 11. Someone in time of
Origen entered the caves, saw the library and then left the library undisturbed
with the lamps at the entrance! Did he bring manuscripts, took some out or just
left everything untouched?
Qumran research is much more complex
than we anticipated and we must guard as scholars over the world to run away
with our own mediocre observations. The manuscripts from Qumran are in a
degenerative conditions with many errors, slips of all kinds, omissions,
elaborations, compilations, abbreviated texts. Some texts were close to our
Bibles like Daniel from cave four. Others were expansive with additions from
other passages elsewhere in the Old Testament. Then there were paraphrases,
commentaries, and also para-biblical texts. Psalm 151 is rather a para-biblical
text in that it is a hymn just like our hymnal is a para-biblical text.