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Psalms of Solomon

About this book

The Righteous and Sinners at Judgment

Psalm 15

1 When I was in distress I called upon the name of the Lord, I hoped for the help of the God of Jacob and was saved; For You are the hope and refuge of the poor, God. 2 For who, God, is strong except to give thanks to You sincerely? And how is a man powerful except by giving thanks to Your name? 3 A new psalm with song in gladness of heart, The fruit of the lips with the well-tuned instrument of the tongue, The firstfruits of the lips from a faithful and righteous heart: 4 The person who offers these things shall never be shaken by evil; The flame of fire and the anger against the unrighteous shall not touch him,⁠ 5 when it goes out from the face of the Lord against sinners, to destroy all the possessions of sinners, 6 For the mark of God is upon the righteous so that they may be saved. 7 Famine and sword and disease (shall be) far from the righteous, For they shall flee away from the faithful as men pursued in war; 8 But they shall pursue sinners and overtake (them), And those who commit lawless acts shall not escape the judgment of God; 9 They shall be overtaken as if by enemies experienced (in war), For the mark of destruction is upon their forehead.

10 And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness, And their sins shall pursue them to Sheol beneath. 11 Their children shall not find their inheritance, For sins shall destroy the houses of sinners.⁠ 12 And sinners shall perish forever in the day of the Lord's judgment, When God visits the earth with His judgment. 13 But those who fear the Lord shall find mercy there, And shall live by the compassion of their God; But sinners shall perish forever.

Texts in conversation

Compare Leviticus 26:31 and Psalms of Solomon 15:11

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry

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Summary

Psalms of Solomon 15 echoes Leviticus 26 in its depiction of national devastation as divine punishment. In Leviticus this is a covenant curse for collective disobedience, and the Psalms of Solomon reshape it to describe the fate of individual sinners.

Passages

Leviticus 26:31

Hebrew Bible
29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you. 31 I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. 32 I myself will make the land desolate, and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Leviticus

Psalms of Solomon 15:11

Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
9 They shall be overtaken as if by enemies experienced (in war), For the mark of destruction is upon their forehead. 10 And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness, And their sins shall pursue them to Sheol beneath. 11 Their children shall not find their inheritance, For sins shall destroy the houses of sinners. 12 And sinners shall perish forever in the day of the Lord's judgment, When God visits the earth with His judgment. 13 But those who fear the Lord shall find mercy there, And shall live by the compassion of their God; But sinners shall perish forever.
65–30 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Psalms of Solomon

References

"... In Judaism, however, with the firmly established belief in individual providence and individual reward and punishment, both resurrection and immortality are considered as acts of individual providence, coming to each individual as a reward or a punishment for his actions. With regard to resurrection, it is definitely stated that certain types of wicked persons will not be resurrected. With regard to immortality, those in Judaism who have adopted this belief similarly speak of it as a reward reserved only for the righteous but denied to the wicked. Thus in the Wisdom of Solomon, in contrast to the righteous, of whom the author says that their 'hope is full of immortality,' he says of the wicked that 'void is their hope,' and in contrast to virtue the 'memory' of which, he says, 'is immortality,' he says again of the wicked that 'their memory shall perish,' though he figuratively speaks also of their being 'in grief.' So also the Palestinian author of the Psalms of Solomon, quite evidently speaking only of immortality, says that 'the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness,' (Psalms of Solomon 15:11) 'the sinner shall perish forever,', and 'when I was far from God, my soul had been wellnigh poured out into death.' ..."
Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 408–409.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Leviticus 26:31 and Psalms of Solomon 15:11

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