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About this book

Psalms of Solomon

About this book

The Righteous and the Sinner

Psalm 3

1 Why are you sleeping, my soul, and not blessing the Lord? Sing a new song to God who is worthy to be praised.⁠ 2 Sing and stay awake to watch for His awakening, for a psalm (sung) to God from a joyful heart is good.

3 The righteous remember the Lord at all times, with thanksgiving and by declaring that the Lord’s judgments are righteous. 4 The righteous person does not despise the Lord’s discipline; His desire is always in the Lord’s presence.

5 The righteous person stumbles and acknowledges that the Lord is righteous: He falls and watches for what God will do to him; He searches for where his rescue will come from. 6 The firm resolve of the righteous is from God their deliverer; Sin does not pile up in the righteous person’s house. 7 The righteous person continually searches his house, to remove completely (all) wrongdoing (done) by him unintentionally.⁠ 8 He makes atonement for (sins of) ignorance by fasting and humbling himself, and the Lord counts every faithful man and his household as free from guilt.⁠

9 The sinner stumbles and curses his life, the day he was born, and his mother's labor pains. 10 He adds sin to sin while he lives (?); He falls, his fall is truly terrible, and he never rises again. 11 The destruction of the sinner is forever, and he will not be remembered when God attends to the righteous person.

12 This is the fate of sinners forever. But those who fear the Lord shall rise to eternal life,⁠ And their life (shall be) in the light of the Lord, and will never end.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 12:15 and Psalms of Solomon 3:7

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry

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Summary

The Psalms of Solomon builds on Exodus 12, where leaven is removed from the house for Passover. In later Jewish tradition, this becomes a self-examination metaphor, as the righteous search their lives like a house, removing hidden and unintended sin.

Passages

Exodus 12:15

Hebrew Bible
13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see the blood I will pass over you, and this plague will not fall on you to destroy you when I attack the land of Egypt. 14 “‘This day will become a memorial for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Surely on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel. 16 “‘On the first day there will be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind on them, only what every person will eat—that alone may be prepared for you.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Psalms of Solomon 3:7

Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
5 The righteous person stumbles and acknowledges that the Lord is righteous: He falls and watches for what God will do to him; He searches for where his rescue will come from. 6 The firm resolve of the righteous is from God their deliverer; Sin does not pile up in the righteous person’s house. 7 The righteous person continually searches his house, to remove completely (all) wrongdoing (done) by him unintentionally. 8 He makes atonement for (sins of) ignorance by fasting and humbling himself, and the Lord counts every faithful man and his household as free from guilt. 9 The sinner stumbles and curses his life, the day he was born, and his mother's labor pains.
65–30 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Psalms of Solomon

References

"... The idea of moral progress also starts to make more of an appearance in other works from the late Second Temple period ... There is sometimes also an emphasis on ascetic practices that will purify one’s character. Thus in Psalms of Solomon 3 we read, ‘The righteous constantly searches his house to remove his unintentional sin’ (a possible allusion to seeking out leaven before Passover) ... Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving hone the person and make him or her better ..."
John Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 163.

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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Exodus 12:15 and Psalms of Solomon 3:7

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