Psalm 38 Macrosyntax
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Psalm 38/Macrosyntax
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Psalm 38
Please note: Resources for Psalm 38 are in the process of being reformatted for visual consistency and improved functionality.
Macrosyntax
Macrosyntax Diagram
| Macrosyntax legend | |
|---|---|
| Vocatives | Vocatives are indicated by purple text. |
| Discourse marker | Discourse markers (such as כִּי, הִנֵּה, לָכֵן) are indicated by orange text. |
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The scope governed by the discourse marker is indicated by a dashed orange bracket connecting the discourse marker to its scope. |
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The preceding discourse grounding the discourse marker is indicated by a solid orange bracket encompassing the relevant clauses. |
| Subordinating conjunction | The subordinating conjunction is indicated by teal text. |
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Subordination is indicated by a solid teal bracket connecting the subordinating conjunction with the clause to which it is subordinate. |
| Coordinating conjunction | The coordinating conjunction is indicated by blue text. |
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Coordination is indicated by a solid blue line connecting the coordinating clauses. |
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Coordination without an explicit conjunction is indicated by a dashed blue line connecting the coordinated clauses. |
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Marked topic is indicated by a black dashed rounded rectangle around the marked words. |
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The scope of the activated topic is indicated by a black dashed bracket encompassing the relevant clauses. |
| Marked focus or thetic sentence | Marked focus (if one constituent) or thetic sentences[1] are indicated by bold text. |
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Frame setters[2] are indicated by a solid gray rounded rectangle around the marked words. |
| [blank line] | Discourse discontinuity is indicated by a blank line. |
| [indentation] | Syntactic subordination is indicated by indentation. |
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Direct speech is indicated by a solid black rectangle surrounding all relevant clauses. |
| (text to elucidate the meaning of the macrosyntactic structures) | Within the CBC, any text elucidating the meaning of macrosyntax is indicated in gray text inside parentheses. |
If an emendation or revocalization is preferred, that emendation or revocalization will be marked in the Hebrew text of all the visuals.
| Emendations/Revocalizations legend | |
|---|---|
| *Emended text* | Emended text, text in which the consonants differ from the consonants of the Masoretic text, is indicated by blue asterisks on either side of the emendation. |
| *Revocalized text* | Revocalized text, text in which only the vowels differ from the vowels of the Masoretic text, is indicated by purple asterisks on either side of the revocalization. |
(Click diagram to enlarge)
- The first paragraph break is in v. 10 with the reintroduction of YHWH as a participant and the vocative.
- The second paragraph break is in v. 12 with the shift in topic from the psalmist to the people around him, marked by the fronted topic. In addition, vv. 12-15 are all connected by coordinating conjunctions, clearly setting them apart as a unit.
- The third paragraph break is in v. 16. The use of אַתָּ֥ה in v. 16 is not necessary for the grammar and so is emphatic. The emphatic use of the pronoun, the three vocatives, the fronting of לְךָ֣, and the contrastive כִּי all serve to emphasize this verse.
- The final paragraph break is in v. 22, marked by the frequent use of vocatives in this segment. The pattern the vocatives form (final, initial, final) also solidifies this as its own paragraph. The culmination of the three groups mentioned in vv. 20-21 also indicates the that that paragraph is closing, especially with the length of the fronted subject in v. 21.
- v. 2a is contrastive focus. David accepts that YHWH will rebuke him, but he doesn't want YHWH to do it while he is angry, but rather justly (cf. Jer 10:24, Isa 11:4).
- v. 2b is also contrastive focus.
- v. 3a is most likely information focus; however, it could also be topic activation. If this line is topic * activation, it could be paraphrased "For concerning your arrows, they have been shot into me." If it is topic activation, the arrows would need to be presupposed in the discourse, potentially from the concept of YHWH's wrath in the previous verse.
- v. 5a is contrastive focus.
- v. 5b has כְּמַשָּׂ֥א כָ֝בֵ֗ד fronted for poetic reasons. With the prepositional phrase fronted, the same word order is repeated in 5b as in 5a. In addition, the phonetics also emphasize this pattern, with the 3mp qatal and the 1cs suffix.
- v. 7bα is a frame setter, giving the temporal scope of the clause.
- v. 7bβ is information focus, introducing the new concept of the psalmist's emotional reaction to his suffering.
- v. 8 is topic shift. Since the psalmist's body is already in the discourse here, this is not a new subject, but a shift to discuss a particular body part.
- v. 10a is confirming focus.
- v. 10bα and β are fronted for poetic reasons, mirroring the word order in v. 10a. It is possible that וְ֝אַנְחָתִ֗י מִמְּךָ֥ could be fronted because of topic shift, but this is unlikely.
- v. 11a is topic shift. It could be that this is fronted due to poetic symmetry within the clause, however.
- v. 11cα is topic shift.
- v. 11cβ is scalar focus.
- v. 12aα is topic shift.
- v. 12aβ is replacing focus.
- v. 12b repeats the structure of 12a. It is possible that אֹֽהֲבַ֨י ׀ וְרֵעַ֗י is fronted because of topic shift.
- v. 13b is fronted for poetic reasons in order to mirror the word order of v. 13a.
- v. 13cα is topic shift. The fronted וּ֝מִרְמ֗וֹת is semantically similar to הַוּ֑וֹת, so it is already active in the discourse.
- v. 13cβ is information focus.
- v. 14aα is topic shift.
- v. 14aβ is contrastive focus. From the previous context, it would be more likely that David would be listening to everything his enemies have been muttering, so the comparison of David to a deaf person is unexpected.
- v. 16a is fronted as contrastive focus, emphasizing that David trusted in God rather than man.
- v. 16b is confirming focus.
- v. 17cα is a frame setter, setting the temporal orientation for the rest of the clause.
- v. 17cβ is fronted for poetic reasons, mirroring the word order in v. 17b.
- v. 18a is confirming focus.
- v. 19a is fronted for poetic purposes, mirroring the word order in v. 19b. This is further strengthened by the phonological similarity with the two verbs. If not poetic, it could be topic reactivation, since עָוֹן hasn't been mentioned since verse 4.
- v. 20a is topic shift.
- v. 21a is fronted to match the structure of v. 20a.
- The vocatives are evenly spaced throughout the psalm, about 7 verses apart from each other. The psalm also begins and ends with vocatives. In addition, the vocatives increase towards the end of the psalm. Verse 16 takes the two vocatives used previously and adds a third all in one verse. These same three vocatives are repeated in vv. 22-23.
- The vocative in v. 2 is clause-initial, used here to grab God's attention to answer this urgent request (Kim 2022, 213-217).
- The vocative in v. 10 is clause-initial, serving to reactivate YHWH as a participant in the psalm, since there has been no mention of him since v. 4, identifying the antecedent of the pronoun in נֶגְדְּךָ֥.
- The first vocative in v. 16 immediately follows the fronted לְךָ֣, further emphasizing that prepositional phrase as the focus (Miller 2010, 357).
- The vocatives in v. 16b serve to indicate line delimitation (Miller 2010, 360-363).
- In both v. 22 and v. 23 there are two vocatives grouped together. The position of the vocatives in these verses creates a pattern: clause-final, clause-initial, and clause-final.
For comments on the structural and poetic usage of vocatives in this psalm see Psalm 38 Poetics.
(There are no notes on discourse markers for this psalm.)
- vv. 12-14 are grouped according to semantic similarities. However, the conjunction and pronoun in 14a sets vv. 14-15 apart as in contrast with vv. 12-13.
- The כִּי in v. 16 could be functioning in one of three ways. First, it could be introducing a counter statement to the previous segment, contrasting the abandonment by humans and David's trust in God (BHRG 2017, §40.21.2). Second, it could be causal, giving the reason why David gives no arguments: because he has placed his hope in the Lord, not in any arguments he could make. Third, it could be causal, but subordinate to the following clause, giving the reason why YHWH will answer. Because of the fronting of לְךָ֣, the focus is on YHWH, not necessarily on the answer or the arguments, so the first analysis is more likely.
- The פֶּן in v. 17 governs both the clause immediately following it and the clause subordinate to it.
- The כִּי in v. 18 gives David's motivation for saying what he did in v. 17. It is possible that this segment could be subordinate to the פֶּן clause in v. 17, in which case it would indicate the reason for why David's enemies are rejoicing.
- The כִּי in v. 19 functions as a concessive (BHRG §40.29.1(1)d), showing that even though David is confessing his iniquity, it is useless, since he is still anxious about his sin.
- ↑ When the entire utterance is new/unexpected, it is a thetic sentence (often called "sentence focus"). See our Creator Guidelines for more information on topic and focus.
- ↑ Frame setters are any orientational constituent – typically, but not limited to, spatio-temporal adverbials – function to "limit the applicability of the main predication to a certain restricted domain" and "indicate the general type of information that can be given" in the clause nucleus (Krifka & Musan 2012: 31-32). In previous scholarship, they have been referred to as contextualizing constituents (see, e.g., Buth (1994), “Contextualizing Constituents as Topic, Non-Sequential Background and Dramatic Pause: Hebrew and Aramaic evidence,” in E. Engberg-Pedersen, L. Falster Jakobsen and L. Schack Rasmussen (eds.) Function and expression in Functional Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 215-231; Buth (2023), “Functional Grammar and the Pragmatics of Information Structure for Biblical Languages,” in W. A. Ross & E. Robar (eds.) Linguistic Theory and the Biblical Text. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 67-116), but this has been conflated with the function of topic. In brief: sentence topics, belonging to the clause nucleus, are the entity or event about which the clause provides a new predication; frame setters do not belong in the clause nucleus and rather provide a contextual orientation by which to understand the following clause.