psa 103:0
Hymn in Honour of God the All-Compassionate One
To the "Thou wilt have compassion upon Zion" of Psa 102:14 is appended Psalms 103, which has this as its substance throughout; but in other respects the two Psalms stand in contrast to one another. The inscription לדוד is also found thus by itself without any further addition even before Psalms of the First Book (Psa 26:1, Ps 35, Ps 37). It undoubtedly does not rest merely on conjecture, but upon tradition. For no internal grounds which might have given rise to the annotation לדוד can be traced. The form of the language does not favour it. This pensive song, so powerful in its tone, has an Aramaic colouring like Ps 116; Psa 124:1-8; Psa 129:1-8. In the heaping up of Aramaizing suffix-forms it has its equal only in the story of Elisha, Kg2 4:1-7, where, moreover, the Kerמ throughout substitutes the usual forms, whilst here, where these suffix-forms are intentional ornaments of the expression, the Chethמb rightly remains unaltered. The forms are 2nd sing. fem. ēchi for ēch, and 2nd sing. plur. ājchi for ajich. The i without the tone which is added here is just the one with which originally the pronunciation was אתּי instead of אתּ and לכי for לך. Out of the Psalter (here and Psa 116:7, Psa 116:19) these suffix-forms echi and ajchi occur only in Jer 11:15, and in the North-Palestinian history of the prophet in the Book of Kings. The groups or strophes into which the Psalm falls are Psa 103:1, Psa 103:6, Psa 103:11, Psa 103:15, Psa 103:19. If we count their lines we obtain the schema 10. 10. 8. 8. 10. The coptic version accordingly reckons 46 CTYXOC, i.e., στίχοι. Psalms 103:1