Copyright
© 1982 by Westminster Theological Seminary, cited with permission;
MYTHOPOETIC LANGUAGE IN
THE PSALMS
ELMER B. SMICK
In appreciating the mythopoetic language of the OT one need
not view the authors as so culturally primitive
that they appro-
priated mythical categories
because that was the only way they
knew how to articulate their understanding of divine
reality. To
show this one must distinguish between myth and
mythology.
The
contexts prove the authors were not committed to myth but
were keenly aware of contemporaneous mythology from
which
they drew colorful figures to enrich their
theological expression.
The
greatest extra biblical mythological corpus comes from Ras
Shamra and dates from the mid-second millennium.1
The many
linguistic and cultural continuities between Ugaritic and the Bible
make it reasonable to assume the god-language of the
Canaanites
and
the Canaanite religion of
ritic or that Hebrew religion
grew out of Canaanite but to ex-
amine exactly how the religious terminology was
related. W. F.
Albright
at the time of his death saw this relationship as purely
linguistic. It was on that note that I closed an
earlier article on
"The Mythological Elements in the Book of
Job."2
I will now attempt to deal
realistically with this question as it
relates to the Psalms. In Job we saw something
that does not
appear in the Psalms: direct reference to the pagan
myths as in
3:8,
". . . the cursers . . . who are ready to arouse Leviathan,"
and 7:12, "Am I Yam or Tanin
that you set a guard over me?"
1 Similar alphabetic cuneiform texts have been found in
from the close of the late Bronze Age. Although they
are not mythological
they show how widespread the culture of
to the conclusion that the mythology of
Cross,
"The Canaanite Cuneiform Tablet from Taanach,"
BASOR 190
(April
1968) 41-46. Also see "A Phoenician Inscription in Ugaritic
Script
Discovered
at Sarepta," JANESCU 8 (1976) 49-57.
2 WTJ 40 (1977-78) 213-228.
88
MYTHOPOETIC LANGUAGE 89
What
does appear in the Psalms are idiomatic metaphors (cf.
Job
5:7 where "Resheph's sons soar aloft"--a
reference to "ar-
rows" or "sparks" or
"lightning") and conscious demythologizing
as in Job 9 and 26 where the mythic terms served
to show how
the God of Job is both a unique and a supreme
cosmic being.
With
regard to Job chapters 40 and 41 we suggested that mythic
language was also used as a convenient vehicle to
describe
Yahweh's power over the forces of evil. We noted how Job's firm
monotheism is clearly expressed (cf. chapter 31)
and the same
is true of the Psalms. The keynote of this theme
is Ps 96:5: "For
all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD
made the
heavens." The psalmists also tend to be
polemical about their
monotheism (cf. Ps 121) but they never hesitate to
use mytho-
logical terminology for graphic vividness (cf.
Ps 18:10, 68:4,
etc.). This mythopoetic
language is most evident in the three
great poetic masterpieces of the Bible, Job, Psalms,
and Isaiah.
The developmental hypothesis, a major theme of Wellhausen-
ism, saw all mythic language as one more proof of
the evolution
of Yahwism. Polytheism
and henotheism were stages in the de-
velopment of
prophets and especially Second Isaiah with his
lofty monotheism.
In
its early stages
like its neighbors'--although many recent redaction
critics claim
that it is virtually impossible to tell what
pre-exilic Israelite
religion really was.3
G. E. Wright's The Old Testament Against Its Environment
questioned this evolution of the Old Testament
concept of God.
By
showing how Canaanite religion had high cosmic gods in the
mid-2nd millennium, Wright made a good case for
a unique
theology in early
he called the Israelite "mutation" or a
radical revolution as op-
posed to a gradual evolution. It was not entirely
explainable by
the empirical data. To quote Prof. Wright:
Israelite knowledge of God was not
founded in the first in-
stance on
the numinous awareness of nature--it was based
3 H. H. Rowley (The Re-Discovery of the Old Testament [
Westminster
Press, 1946] 74) claimed polytheism was originally part of
Yahwism but that gradually "the more
ignoble ideas" were discredited
and other ideas "were assimilated, and either
divested of meaning, or
related to the higher religion."
90
on
historical event. . . . The problem of life was seen by
not as an
integration with forces of nature, but as an adjust-
ment to the will of the God who had chosen them.4
In our interpretation of the OT a
distinction must be made
between what was considered normative (official)
and actual
practices. Religious syncretism was a continuing
process which
the biblical account attests to. Figurines of the
fertility goddess
were often in the hands of the Israelites. A
recently discovered
7th
century inscription reads, "Yahweh and his Asherah."5 But
this only shows the extent of the syncretism.
Officially according
to the Old Testament, God is sexless. There was no
mythology
--no word for goddess. The writers of
Scripture consistently
call female deities by their proper names. Even the
above-men-
tioned 7th-century inscription
does the same. Israelite religion
then at its worst had no nature myths but at its
best it did not
hesitate to use the language of the Canaanite
myths. For example,
in Ps 74:12-14 the mythopoetic
language about the many-headed
Leviathan
is historicized and used metaphorically to describe
Yahweh's great victory in history, at the
here is
But you, 0 God, are my king from of
old;
you bring salvation upon the earth.
It was you who split open the sea by
your
power;
you broke the heads of the monster in the
waters.
It was you who crushed the heads of
Leviathan
and gave
him as food to the creatures of
the desert.
The same is true of Isa 27:1 where again the mythic chaos
figure Leviathan is historicized to represent the
final evil power
in the Endtime. It is
important to stress that this terminology in
Mesopotamian
and Canaanite myth is always tied to natural
phenomena, never to historical events. This
probably explains
4
The Old Testament Against Its Environment
(SBT 2 ;
5 Kuntillet Ajrud: A Religions Centre from the Time of
the Judean
Monarchy on the Border
of Sinai by Zeev Meshel (
MYTHOPOETIC LANGUAGE 91
why the biblical creation account is so
emphatically anti-mythical
in its language--to stress it as historical event.
Von Rad has
noted how the proper names for the sun and moon are
avoided
because they were so important in the myths.6
The same resis-
tance to mythic terminology
does not apply to known events in
history nor to the climax of history--the Endtime. So Isaiah
26:26-27:1
says:
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their
sins,
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her
She
will conceal her slain no longer.
In that day,
The Lord will punish with his sword,
his fierce, great and powerful sword,
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
Leviathan the coiling serpent
;
He will slay the monster of the sea.
Gen 1 and Isa 27:1
present the OT view of the beginning and
the end of linear history. They mark a major
ideological differ-
ence between the OT and the
nature cycles of Canaanite myth.
On
the other hand the serpent imagery is a continuity
between
the two which cannot be ignored. The same imagery
is found in
Rev
12:9 where
The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient
serpent
called the devil or Satan, who
leads the whole world astray.
He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with
him.
Certainly
this passage is telling of an historical event which will
take place in space and time but few would feel it
must be ful-
filled by means of a literal dragon.
In my article "The Mythological Elements in
the Book of
Job"
I tried to show how a feel for the mythopoetic
language
actually enhances one's understanding of the true
nature of God
in the OT. Sheol, for
example, where Mot (Death) is supreme
6
Genesis: A Commentary (OT Library;
Press, 1961) 53. Attempts to read Tiamat into Gen 1:2 were strained
and proven to be unwarranted by Alexander Heidel in The
Babylonian
Genesis (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1940). If there is any
allusion to mythology in Gen 1 it derives from
the Hebrew polemic against
pagan creation myths (cf. von Rad).
92
and Baal is powerless, is open before God so that
its denizens
tremble (26:6). In Ugaritic
Mot has a never satisfied appetite.
He
says to Baal:
I shall pound you, consume and eat you
Lo, you are to go down
into the throat of the god
Mot,
into the gullet of the Hero,
beloved of El.7
How appropriate it is then for Isaiah to say of
Yahweh "He
will swallow up death in victory" (Isa 25:8; cf. 1 Cor 15:24).
Mot is also a hunter who uses snares, nooses and
nets. We
are not surprised to find Ps 18:4,5 (cf. Job
18:9-13) employing
the same figure for death. But we may be surprised
to find Job
using the figure for God in 19:6.8 This is
only because Job's God
holds the power of death in his own hands and is not
helpless in
the clutches of Death like Baal. If Job had
believed the myths, his
God
would have been limited and he would have had no basis for
his accusation in 9:24, "If it is not he, then
who is it?" That is:
Who
is responsible for the apparent injustice in the world? This
is a problem to Job only because his God is
sovereign. The
mythology allots to the gods their separate
domains. With Baal
dead Ashtar, the little
Rebel god, is permitted by El to attempt
7 Mot as the Swallower gulps down even the mighty hero Baal; cf. UT
178 (text 67. 2. 2-5). The text may
be translated:
With one lip on the earth and the other in
the heavens
his tongue (reaches) to the
stars.
When Baal enters his stomach he will go down
into his mouth like an olive ;
like the produce of the land
and the fruit
of the tree Baal the Victor will be swallowed.
8 N. J. Tromp in Primitive Conceptions of Death and the
Netherworld
in the OJld Testament (BibOr
21;
1969) 172f. has shown how
all the deities used hunting nets and snares.
Tammuz
is "the Lord of the snares." The Psalmist uses the motif to
describe his enemies but in every case it is
symbolic of their attempts to
kill him, not merely cause him to stumble. Psalm 124
presents an impres-
sive array of figures based
on the behavior of the gods. Although the
Psalmist
is talking about his human enemies, they cannot
literally "swallow
him alive" or "sweep him away with raging
waters" or "tear him with
their teeth." The New Testament understandably
transfers this type of
behavior to the Devil (2 Tim 2:26, 1 Pet 5:8).
MYTHOPOETIC LANGUAGE 93
to sit on Baal's throne, but not having the
stature he does not
succeed and must be content to be less than a
cosmic deity.9
But
even El, the head of the pantheon, is sometimes portrayed
as a weak and frightened character who cannot
control the deities
he sires.10
Similar to this conscious demythologizing is
what we called
anti-myth, which appears to be present in Ps 121
(cf. Jer 3:23).
The
Psalm is a polemic against both the cosmic mountain motif
as expressed in hill-shrines and the deities
themselves as patrons.
I lift up my eyes to the hills--
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the maker of heaven and earth.
(Ps 121:1, 2)
The stress on Yahweh as Creator is necessary,
for the deities
were identified with the natural forces of heaven
and earth.11 In
a world full of patron deities the Psalmist shows
that Yahweh is
the only and true patron deity.
He will not let your foot slip--
he who watches over you will not slumber
Indeed, he who watches over
will neither slumber nor sleep . . .
The LORD will keep you from all harm. (Ps 121:3,
4, 7)
It
may seem strange to us that the Bible should even imply
9 See H. L. Ginsberg's
translation in ANET 140:
Straightway Ashtar the
Tyrant;
Goes
up to the Fastness of Zaphon
(and) sits on Baal Puissant's
throne.
(But)
his feet reach not down to the footstool,
Nor
his head reaches up to the top.
So Ashtar the Tyrant
declares:
"I'll
not reign in Zaphon's Fastness!"
Down goes Ashtar the
Tyrant,
Down
from the throne of Baal Puissant,
And reigns in El's Earth, all of it.
10 Ibid.,
139. Upon hearing of Baal's demise El is helpless and goes into
mourning pouring dust on his head and gashing
himself with a stone.
11 We noted ("Mythological
Elements," 218) that El (Eloah) to Job
was the Lord of all nature and the cosmos. In
chapter 9 he speaks and
the sun doesn't rise-the eclipse. He seals up the
stars from sight; he
stretched out the heavens all by himself.
94
that God might sleep but in terms of the
god-language of the OT
world where even patron gods might fall asleep or die
such a
concept was full of assurance and comfort to the
faithful.
Comparative religionists have attempted to tie
the patron deity
language of Ps 91 to the magical incantations
from 7th-century
Arslan Tash.12 But there is a significant
difference between the
two. In Ps 91 God protects those who love him and
acknowledge
his name (verse 14) and he sends his angels to
guard them
(verse 11). The Arslan Tash material involves no response, no
relationship with the deity except
perhaps to wear the amulet.
It
is true that the pestilence is personified (in verse 6 it stalks).
In
Ps 91 spiritual forces may be behind the pestilence and plague
as was the Satan in Job.13 That Satan
should quote Ps 91:11,12
at Jesus' temptation shows how he considered the
Psalm a special
threat.
Psalm 82 has been used as a prime example of
something less
than pure monotheism in the OT. Such a view is
theologically
damaging because of the way Jesus used Psalm 82
in John 10 as
an example of the truthfulness of Scripture. Jesus
used it against
the Pharisees who had accused him of blasphemy
because it was
considered very difficult in rabbinic circles.
Jesus, by logic which
moved from the lesser to the greater, proves he is
not blasphem-
ing, even from their
limited point of view--that is, if those
whom God is rebuking are called "gods" why
should he not be
called "'the Son of God," he who has devoted
his life to serving
and obeying his Father who sent him into the world.
Ps 82:1 is a classic example of the way the OT
can use the
word 'elohim as a singular for God and then as a plural for
"the
gods." The NIV has wisely used quotation marks
with the word
"gods" to show humans (judges) not deities are in view.
But as
you examine the Psalm this is not so easy to
determine. Curi-
ously the Psalm seems to move
in both directions.
The ‘adat 'el is an idiom used in Ugaritic
('dt ilm) for "the
divine assembly"14 ("the great
assembly," 82:1, NIV) . The idea
that heavenly beings assemble before Yahweh is not
foreign to
12 See BASOR 197 (Feb 1970) and 209 (Feb 1973).
13 In Ps 104:3, 4 Yahweh who
uses the clouds as his chariot has his
angels in control of the winds and flames of fire.
14 For 'dt ilm see UT
453 (glossary no. 1816).
MYTHOPOETIC LANGUAGE 95
the OT, as we know from Job 1, 2 and Ps 89:5.
Furthermore
Psalm
82 says in verse 7:
Therefore you shall die like men
you shall fall like one of the princes.
If
then they are going to die like mortals, they are not mortals.15
This language has led a number (most recently
Cyrus Gordon)
to see the Psalm as a polemic against the pagan
gods--even as
a prediction of the demise of polytheism because
it was corrupt
especially in terms of social justice.16
The OT reveals no theological inhibition about
imputing per-
sonality to false gods. Isa 41:21-24 labels the idols as no-gods
but finds no difficulty in referring to them
personally. The term
"the God of gods" (Dent 10:17, Ps 136:2) is just a
Hebrew
superlative. Ps 95:3 and 96:4, 5 describe Yahweh as
a great king
above all gods. The latter implies these gods were
beings in some
sense. And Jesus in John 10 implies that the
"gods" of the
psalmist had some kind of created reality. Ps
82:6 is crucial for
the interpretation of the Psalm. According to the
NT it is not
the psalmist who says: "I had thought, You are
gods . . ."17 but
God
who says: "I said, You are 'gods' . . . but you
shall die
like men."
From internal evidence a good case can be made
for viewing
the "gods" as human. Verses
1 and 8 form an inclusio. The
'elohim of verse 1 rule the nations of verse 8. Because
all these
"gods" fail to exercise justice and show mercy, the very
founda-
tions of society crumble so
God must destroy them and take over
his rightful possession. God's triumph is on earth
not in heaven.
All
rulers in Ancient Near Eastern literature claim that they pro-
vide for the poor and deliver the weak whether they
do so or not.
The
use of 'elohim
for such rulers in the Old Testament is gen-
15 The verse contains a merism similar to what is found
in Phoenician
funerary texts where "ordinary men and
royalty" means all mortals. See
the 'Esmun’azar
Inscription KAI 1.3, line 4.
16 C. H. Gordon, "History
of Religion in Psalm 82," in Biblical
and
Near Eastern Studies (ed. G. A. Tuttle;
129-131.
Gordon looks on verse 6 as a continuation of God's words. Here
God
is demoting the deities to mere mortals, marking the demise of
polytheism. This view ignores John 10.
17 See fit. Dahood
(Psalms II [AB 17;
268) for this translation.
96
erally acknowledged. The three
cases in Exod 21:6 and 22:8,28
could be rendered "God." The NIV renders
21:6 and 22:8 as
"judges" and only 22:28 as "God." Ps 58:2
(Heb) is a problem.
The
NIV renders '-l-m as
"rulers" reading 'elim rejecting the
Massoretic pointing 'elem "congregation" (KJV).18 In Ps
58:12
NIV
follows KJV rendering yes 'elohim sopetim "there is
a God
who judges."19 But it could be
rendered "there are ‘gods’ who
provide justice in the earth." Although the
evidence is slim, there
seems to be enough to conclude that 'elohim is a
word used of
that hierarchy of intelligent beings, human and
super-human,
over whom Yahweh is Creator and Lord.
Psalm 82 then is a theodicy vindicating the
righteousness of
God
and these "gods" are "heavenly beings" who like Satan in
Job
are commissioned by God to rule the earth. They are
also
like the mal'akim (angels) whom God orders to protect the
righteous in Ps 91:11. But Psalm 91 does not deal
with social
justice as does Psalm 82. So the 'elohim in
Psalm 82 are those
commissioned to watch over the
nations, not over an individual
as in Psalm 91. But instead of performing this
duty they turn
into "the powers of darkness" (82:5,
"They walk about in dark-
ness").
The king of
Ezekiel
28 ought to be approached from this perspective. The
king of
You said in your heart,
‘I will
ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit unthroned
on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will
make myself like the Most High.'
But you are brought down to the grave,
to the depths of the pit.
18 The KJV "0
congregation" for 'elem cannot be supported by usage.
19 Normally the grammar
accompanying 'elohim
should be singular
when it means "God," as in 82:1. But there
are a few cases in the OT
where this is not so. The so-called plural of majesty
sometimes takes the
plural adjective (cf. 2 Sam 17:26 and Josh 24:19). The
Joshua verse is
interesting because the singular pronoun is used
despite the plural adjec-
tive.
MYTI-IOPOETIC LANGUAGE 97
And
of the king of Tyre Ezekiel says:
You were the model of perfection
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in
You were anointed as a guardian cherub,
for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God
You were filled with violence,
and you sinned.
So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of
God,
and I expelled you, 0 guardian cherub.
Was
the king of
Psalm 82. Such "gods" rule on earth by
proxy through kings
whose wills they dominate. This view does not
contradict John
10
as long as a distinction is made between the Creator and the
created. Whether spirit beings or men, they are
created and, as
Jesus
said, "the word of God came to them." Such
evil spirit be-
ings were identified in
Hebrew thinking with pagan gods. The
sedim. of Ps 106:37 and Deut
32:17 are demons to whom erring
controlled by them that they emulate the activity
of their deities.
In
Ugaritic mythology Anat who
wishes to confiscate the bow
of Aqhat hires an
assassin to kill Aqhat who won't sell it.21
So
Jezebel
orders the hiring of men to bring about the assassination
of Naboth who won't sell
his field (I Kgs 21 ). This is typical
of the social injustice rebuked. in Ps 82.22
20 In I Cor
10:20 Paul looked on the heathen gods as demons.
21 UT 248 (2 Aqht
6.15ff.).
J.
A. Emerton ("Some New Testament Notes," JTS 11 [1960] 329-
336)
interpreted John 10:34ff along these lines. Although I have attempted
to posit both superhuman and human aspects to
these 'elohim,
Emerton
says: "Jesus, however, does not find an Old
Testament text to prove di-
rectly that men can be called
god. He goes back to fundamental principles
and argues, more generally, that the word ‘god’
can, in certain circum-
stances, be applied to beings other than God
himself, to whom he has
committed authority. The angels can be called gods
because of the divine
word of commission to rule the nations. This word
may be 'Ye are gods'
in verse 6 of the psalm. In any case, the
existence of such a word of
commission seems to be implied by the Jewish belief
that the authority
of the angels was derived from divine decree
(Deut. iv.19, xxxii.8f
Ecclus. xvii.17
; Jubilees xv.31 ; I Enoch xx.5). Jesus, however, whose
98
We
have seen that the mythopoetic language of the Old Testa-
ment conforms remarkably
well with the god-language from
pagan sources, but we have also seen that this does
not mean
the Old Testament writers were committed to any low
view of
Yahweh--whether
as storm-god, war-god or whatever. H. W.
Wolff
makes this plain in his chapter on "The Hermeneutics of
the Old Testament":
Following the signposts of the OT itself, we
must seek to
understand it on the basis of the
peculiar nature of Yahweh,
the God of
mythology in the sense that one
could speak of him in the
manner of the myths of the
neighboring lands, which chatter
so much of the
"private life" of their gods and of their life
together in the pantheon. Yahweh
is the one beside whom no
other is god, and before whom
all others are shown to be no
gods.23
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
commission is more exalted than theirs, and who is
the Word himself,
has a far better claim to the title" (p. 332).
23 Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics (ed. C. Westerman;
John
Knox Press,
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