Texts in Conversation
The Psalms of Solomon echo Deuteronomy and the image of unburied corpses left for animals, a curse tied to covenant disobedience. Deuteronomy presents this as a national punishment and these Psalms reshapes it to apply it to condemn criminals.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 28:26
Hebrew Bible
24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Psalms of Solomon 4:19
Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
17 Let him come home empty-handed to his house, and may his house lack everything he could use to satisfy his appetite. 18 (Let) his old age (be spent) in childless loneliness until he is taken away (by death). 19 Let the flesh of those who seek human approval be torn apart by wild beasts, and (let) the bones of the lawless (lie) dishonored in the sight of the sun. 20 Let ravens peck out the eyes of the hypocrites. For they have shamefully destroyed many people’s houses and scattered (them) in (their) lust; 21 And they have not remembered God, or feared God in all these things; But they have provoked God's anger and upset Him.
Date: 65–30 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... A first argument for a Greek origin can be taken from the literary allusions contained in the Psalms of Solomon. The Psalms of Solomon are full of references to books that today form part of the biblical canon: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Isaiah, the minor Prophets, Daniel, the Pentateuch, the historical books, and others. In this respect, the Psalms of Solomon conform to expectation. other works from the same general period, such as the Qumran hodayot, are similarly anthological. What is striking in regard to the Psalms of Solomon is that such allusions are generally clothed in the wording of the Septuagint ..."
Eberhard Bons, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 31–47.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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