The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy's Kingship Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms.

• Author: Nogalski, James D.
• Position: Book review

The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy's Kingship Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms. By JAMIE A. GRANT. Academia Biblica, vol. 17. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, 2004. Pp. xviii + 335. $42.95 (paper).

This work represents the published version of a doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of J. Gordon McConville at the University of Gloucestershire. The first four chapters summarize Grant's methodology and analyze the significance of those places where royal psalms and Torah psalms appear adjacent to one another: Psalms 1-2, 18-21, and 118-19. The last three chapters investigate the relationship of these Psalm sequences to the kingship Law of Deuteronomy 17 (chapter 5), the editorial placement of these three Psalm groupings (chapter 6), and Grant's understanding of how the Torah and kingship combination reflects a democratization of attitudes toward kingship for the postexilic period (chapter 7).

Chapter one introduces recent canonical studies of Psalms, and Grant outlines his argument: the combination of Torah Psalms and royal Psalms appears at three significant junctures in Psalms (1/2, 18/19, 118/119-21), and the placement of these Torah and kingship psalms reflects an editorial decision designed to influence the reader's understanding of the Psalter as a whole. Recent work on canon has demonstrated the significance of the placement of individual Psalms. Grant extends these investigations into the Torah/royal groupings noted above, arguing that the location of these combinations is editorially significant. Psalms 1/2 open the Psalter; Psalms 18/19 function as part of a structural chiasm inherent to a central block of Psalms (15-24) in Book 1; and he treats Psalms 118/119 as the pivot point for Book 5. The introductory chapter also anticipates issues crucial to his thesis: namely, the extent to which these Psalms can be said to reflect Deuteronomic theology, and the degree to which royal Psalms elicit eschatological readings of the Psalter, by treating royal psalms as promises for a future king in the postexilic period when Judah had no king.

In chapters two through four, Grant analyzes each of the three Psalm combinations to highlight thematic connections between each Psalm and Deuteronomic literature by noting connections to royal and Torah themes, and connections to Psalms he has previously discussed in the book. The result is a lengthy array of topics purportedly shared by these Psalms. However...