{"id":83235,"date":"2020-11-11T09:12:29","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T07:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=83235"},"modified":"2020-11-11T10:19:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T08:19:33","slug":"the-math-of-psalms-42-43-and-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-math-of-psalms-42-43-and-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Math of Psalms 42-43…and of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[349],"acf":{"old_id":"83235","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":80223,"related_cahpter":"610","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"by: Irvin Scott ","content":"

I am an English teacher, but I have spent the last 30 years married to a math teacher. Perhaps it is this combination of sensibilities that led me to read, analyze, and interpret these complementary psalms from both a literary and computational perspective. What I discovered has led me to a deeper appreciation of the ancient poet\u2019s ability to give eloquent voice to the mixture of sorrow, anger, wonder, and joy that are all a part of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

There appears to be at least three different \u201cstates of mind\u201d that the writer experiences throughout Psalms 42-43. I will refer to the first as anticipation or hopefulness, the second as opposition or conflict, and the third as wondering or questioning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Using a metaphor of a spirited deer looking to quench its thirst, Psalms 42 opens with a deep sense of anticipation and hopefulness. This thirst can only be satisfied by a supernatural river of water that never runs dry. So begins the imagery of the human quest for a transcendent relational existence beyond our mundane individual existence and satisfaction. I have counted 41 lines in which the poet is in this state of anticipation or hopefulness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, there are times when the writer is in a much darker, confrontational state of mind. Sometimes the confrontation appears to come from external forces. Therefore, I refer to this state as oppositional and conflictual. There are 18-20 lines of poetry that reflect this state of mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, there is a state of mind that seems to be interrogative. Here the psalmist is in a state I call wondering and questioning. This is neither a period of triumph or hopefulness, nor a time of clear challenge or opposition. Rather, the writer is posing questions to a God he cannot see or fathom. According to my calculations, there are 13 lines of poetry like this, several of them overlapping with the two other states.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of all the verses in Psalms 42-43, 20% of them are devoted to a state of wondering and questioning, 26% to conflict and challenge, and 64% to a state of anticipation and hopefulness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now the English teacher in me reemerges to ask several interpretive questions based on these computations:<\/span><\/p>\n