Excerpt From: “Wrecked Narratives, Meaning, and the Songs of Ascent” By Benjamin Williams and Ian McLoud (April 2013)

Introduction

All of the psalms find themselves in a place between worlds. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “The Psalter occupies a unique place in the Holy Scriptures. It is God’s Word and…the prayer of men as well.”1 Just as the psalms form a bridge between the human and the divine, they also stretch across generations. In particular, the Songs of Ascent convey memory from one generation to the next and help to provide a way for oppressed communities to tell their way out of the wreckage that has become the narrative of the community. This paper will describe how the Songs of Ascent function as memory for the oppressed Exilic community and then show how this same function was co-opted by the African-American slave community as well.

Examination of Songs of Ascent

The Songs of Ascent are a collection within Book V, which itself is a collection within the larger collection of the Psalter. Each of these psalms begins with the title,

, “A Song of Ascents.”2 The collection, psalms 120-134, follows after the magnum opus dedicated to Torah contained within Psalm 119. After the last psalm of ascent, two more great psalms of praise ensue. Psalm 135 & 136 swell in the telling of

YHWH’s historically great works from Egypt on forward. This elevated chorus crescendos in the repetitive song of 136, and then crashes headlong into the despair of

Psalm 137. This psalm is an unspeakably deep lament that picks up the telling of

1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 44. 2 Ps 121 is inexplicably varied, but only slightly: . Leslie C. Allen, Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 101-150 (Waco: Word Books, 1983), 193.

Israel’s story from the previous song, but in a different emotional key. The psalm begins at the “rivers of Babylon” and ends with a prayer of blessing on those that take

Babylonian children and “dash them against the rock.”

To help make sense of this arrangement, Brueggemann builds on the work of

Ricoeur to divide all the psalms into classes of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation.3 The psalms of orientation, into which category Brueggemann places some of the Songs of Ascent (127, 128, 131, 133), reflect “domestic life that is in good order. They are the voice of genuine gratitude and piety for such rich blessings.”4 They are songs that set the stage for the devastating psalms of disorientation (such as the crisis-lament of 137) and then those of a reorientation that give thanks for a new reality.

The collection allows the fractured memory of the past to create a language of hope for the future.

As to the arrangement of the ascent psalms, several attempts have been made to provide some type of rule that explains this collection. From a literary perspective, it is possible that the “ascents” from which the title derives are the stair-stepping repetition of words from early in each psalm.5 In Psalm 120 for example, , “a deceitful tongue,” is mentioned in verse 2 and then repeated in verse 3. Verse 6 repeats , “I had my dwelling,” from , “I must live,” in verse 5, just as verse 7 repeats from verse 6. “However, the phenomenon is not restricted to this particular group of psalms, nor does it appear consistently in all its members.”6 Other possibilities include a tradition from the Mishnah that interprets the ascents as connected to the fifteen steps leading

3 Walter Brueggemann, The Psalms and the Life of Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 8- 15. 4 Brueggemann, 9-10. 5 This argument is made with the examples that follow by Mitchell Dahood, The Anchor Bible: Psalms 101-150 (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1968), 194. 6 Allen, 193.

up to the court of Israel in the temple or possibly connected to the benediction of

Numbers 6:24-25 that was pronounced on the steps of the porch.7

However, the most popular explanation of this collection is that these psalms

“constitute a series of pilgrimage songs that stress trust in God and regard the Temple as the locus of worship and blessing.”8 Some version of this view goes back at least as far as Ewald: “In his Introduction to Die poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes (1839), and elsewhere, he translated it ‘Songs of the Pilgrim caravans’ or ‘of the homeward marches,’ and explained these fifteen Psalms as old and new travelling songs of those returning from the Exile.”9 Allen states the case for this interpretation based on the verb

, “go up,” being used in reference to pilgrimage in Psalm 24:3 and Isaiah 2:3.10

If the Songs of Ascent are understood in this way, it helps greatly to understand the ambiguity found in trying to place them into an historical context. Israel’s history is rife with opportunities to sings such songs as these:

“For example, three times a year the nation was called to Jerusalem for three great pilgrimage feasts, Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Ingathering (Exod 23:14-17; Isa 30:29). These were some of the songs of the journey to these feasts. The title may also represent the processional ceremonial ‘ascents’ to the temple at the festivals, either by the pilgrims themselves, or the professional choirs (cf. 2 Sam 6:12; 1 Kgs 13:33; 2 Kgs 23:2; Neh 12:37; Ps 42:4; Isa 26:2; 30:29; Jer 31:6 Mic 4:2). Then, these songs are likely to have been among those sung by the returning exiles from Babylon as they ascended the mountains to Jerusalem and home (Ezra 2:1; 7:7).”11

The persistent pilgrimage narrative that lives within essentially all of Hebrew history allows the student of these psalms to appreciate them as timeless works. While the final

7 Allen, 193-4. 8 Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006), 677. 9 Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich Keil, Psalms (1866-91, Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996), 264. 10 Allen, 194. 11 David G. Barker, “Voices for the pilgrimage: a study in the Songs of Ascent,” Expository Times 116, no. 4 (January 1, 2005), 110.

collection makes perfect sense as a post-exilic product, the content of the psalms would reflect much earlier works, either merely in borrowed phrases or possibly in the form of complete psalms.

Psalm 120 is a fairly literal expression of the sojourner ethos. It cries to God for deliverance out of deceit and into peace, all while dwelling as an “alien.” Psalm 121 is a conveyed memory of a God who “is your keeper.” The sojourner would feel that sentiment personally, but would sing the song and long for memory of the Deliver to be made reality. Psalm 122 has the tones of a pre-exilic song magnifying a city “bound firmly together” where the tribes go up to give thanks. Jerusalem is a firm kingdom-era memory in Psalm 122 that is passed to a generation for whom Jerusalem stood on less solid footing. In turn, Psalm 123 returns to the cry of Psalm 120, looking upward for mercy “for we have had more than enough of contempt.”

Psalm 124 is difficult to place in an historical context. It mentions success in the face of enemies (124:1-5) which does not sound like the sentiment of the survivors of

586 BC. However, the end of the psalm expresses a strongly post-exilic sentiment: “We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped” (124:7). One can then imagine this as an integrated song that combines a song of past victory with a new stanza expressing the post-exilic reorientation. Psalm

125 expresses a memory of a safe and secure Jerusalem, while Psalm 126 is tells of crisis and restoration: “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream” (126:1). Returning to the theme of heritage and memory, Psalm 127 divides neatly into two halves. The first half declares that a house can only stand if the

YHWH is its builder (127:1-2), a sentiment that by itself would neatly describe any

phase of building or rebuilding in Israel’s history. The second half turns that same wisdom toward the great work of building up a family as heritage (127:3-5).

Psalm 128 carries a pre-exilic flavor like that of Psalm 1 and conveys the memory of God’s promised blessings from a prior age: “May you see the prosperity of

Jerusalem all the days of your life” (128:5). The children of the exile had seen no such thing, but they carried the memory of that promised blessing with them in song. Psalm

129 is another ambiguous text. It could be either the memory of prior victory – “they have not prevailed against me” (129:2) – or an original work celebrating sojourning and restoration – “he has cut the cords of the wicked” (129:4). Standing between those two eras, Psalms 130 and 131 carry the strains of exile, praying for forgiveness and declaring hope to come: “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope”

(130:5). Psalm 132 is another disoriented cry for God to remember his desperate people, this time through the lens of YHWH’s relation to David, while Psalm 133 is an orientation psalm, depicting an ideal world of unity and harmony “like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron” (133:2). Finally, the collection culminates in the simple benediction of Psalm 134. Thus, the Songs of

Ascent – alternating between orientation, disorientation, and reorientation – can be seen to combine these varied strands of memory to allow the community to sing and pray its way out of oppression.

Conveyors of Memory

Memory in Spirituality

Memory plays a critical role in spiritual life. Augustine devotes an entire section of

Confessions to plumbing the depths of his memory to learn more of God.12 He declares,

“I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, still rising by degrees toward him who made me. And I enter the fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures the countless images that have been brought into them from all manner of things by the senses.”13 Hastings writes, “In the cavernous recesses of memory, as well as in the vast universe outside, dwells the Divine Spirit, and if we cannot find Him in that inner chamber, it will do us little good to find Him elsewhere.”14

Memory can also be obtained beyond the senses of an individual. This type of cultural memory plays a critical role in the process of recording history and compiling historically reflective texts. Especially in a time of crisis, communities reach beyond individual memory to cultural memory, the preserved psychological heritage of a people.

Assmann explains this process as “mnemohistory”: “The past is not simply ‘received’ by the present. The present is ‘haunted’ by the past and the past is modeled, invented, reinvented, and reconstructed by the present.”15 The memories of others have the capacity to live on beyond the person that experienced them, and as they do, the receivers shape those memories into a history that creates meaning. “The reason for this ‘living on’ lies in the continuous relevance of these events. This relevance comes not from their historical past, but from an ever-changing present in which these events

12 Augustine, Confessions X.viii-xli. 13 Augustine, Confessions X.viii.12. 14 James Hastings, The Great Texts of the Bible: Deuteronomy to Esther (New York: Scribner, 1910), 5. 15 Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 9.

are remembered as facts of importance.”16 These constructed memories, shaped in the image of their bearers, then in turn shape those that receive them as they become the formative narrative of the community. As Assmann concludes, “If ‘We Are What We

Remember,’ the truth of memory lies in the identity that it shapes. … It lies in the story, not as it happened but as it lives on and unfolds in collective memory.”17

In Light of Psalm 137

The effect of trauma on memory has been explored a great deal lately in the context of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Caruth explains that trauma “registers the force of an experience that is not yet fully owned. … The phenomenon of trauma … both urgently demands historical awareness and yet denies our usual modes of access to it.”18 Speaking of Lanzmann’s film, Shoah, and similar endeavors to tell the story of the Holocaust, Caruth explains the power of the refusal to even attempt a strictly historical retelling of a traumatic event: “In its active resistance to the platitudes of knowledge, this refusal opens up the space for a testimony that can speak beyond what is already understood.”19 This space that Caruth describes is precisely the space created by the crisis of Psalm 137. The middle of this psalm contains a statement that expresses precisely this issue of memory: “How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy” (Ps 137:4-6). Here, the inability to sing is paired with concern for memory.

The inability itself seems to stem from the tears and derision present in verses 1-3. The

16 Assmann, 10. 17Assmann, 14. 18 Cathy Caruth and Georges Bataille, Trauma (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995), 151. 19 Caruth and Bataille, 155.

consequence of this inability manifests itself in a fear that the great things now lost might also be forgotten, lost to the mind as well as the material world.

This psalm explains one function of all psalms. They are conveyors of memory, and this is never more true or necessary than in the face of great crisis and trauma. As

Barker explains with a reference to the popularity of the prison poems of Dietrich

Bonhoeffer: “In these poems we hear the voice of the (recent) past which gives a living voice to life and faith in the present. We do the same with the Songs of Ascents. Songs of faith and pilgrimage from the past become expressions of living, present, and vital faith and pilgrimage in the present.”20 Thus, one may easily imagine the Songs of

Ascents being compiled as a response to the pressing need expressed in Psalm 137.

They are vessels into which memory is poured and then redistributed both to self and to future generations.

20 Barker, 112.