Psalm 73

Initial for the Gallican version of psalm 72, Quam bonus Israhel Deus his qui recto sunt corde, from the Golden Psalter of St. Gall (c. 890).

Psalm 73 (Masoretic numbering, psalm 72 in Greek numbering) of the Book of Psalms is one of the "Psalms of Asaph"; it has been categorized as one of the Wisdom Psalms".^[1] In the opinion of Walter Brueggemann (1984), "in the canonical structuring of the Psalter, Psalm 73 stands at its center in a crucial role. Even if the Psalm is not literarily in the center, I propose that it is centrao theologically as well as canonically"^[2] It was the favourite psalm of Martin Buber, who said about it: "What is it that so draws me to this poem that is pieced together out of description, report and confession, and draws me ever more strongly the older I become? I think it is this, that here a person reports how he attained to the true sense of his life experience and that this sense touches directly on the eternal."^[3]

References

1. The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, Robert Alter. New York & London; W.W. Norton & Company, 2007, pp 252–256
2. W. Brueggemann, Message of the Psalms (1984).
3. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms: The Psalms as Torah, Abingdon Press, 2011, 144.