Roland Meynet, Les psaumes des montées, RBSem 9, Peeters, Leuven 2017 (202 p.)
The psalter comprises several collections; most of them are distributed in several places. Psalms 120 to 134 are the only ones that form a compact whole, all fifteen having a title that begins with “Psalm of the Ascents”. In the old commentaries, they are analyzed one after the other, without more. A new movement is gaining ground, which seeks to see if this group of psalms is composed. The present work endeavors to analyze and comment on the whole of the psalms of the ascents at each of the levels of its organization: first each psalm in particular, then the sub-sequences, then the sequences that they form and finally the whole collection. After the study of the textual questions, the other usual rubrics of the collection are systematically followed: composition, context, interpretation.
The psalms of the ascents reveal themselves to be structured in a remarkable way: two septuplets, themselves concentrically organized, frame the only psalm that is said to be “of Solomon”. Thus the son and successor of David is enthroned at the center of the collection, he whom God himself had called Yedidyah, “beloved of the Lord”.
