Endnote 1 – As Simple as ABC

Taken together, Psalms 9 and 10 form an imperfect acrostic, but it is not clear whether they were originally a complementary pair (as in the Hebrew) or a single poem (as in the Latin Vulgate). What may have once been an acrostic appears in Nahum 1, but it is the subject of much reconstruction and controversy.In addition to these alphabetical poems, some scholars find royal names in certain “Maccabean” psalms: Shimon (Simon) in the first four verses of Psalm 110 and Yannai (Alexander Jannaeus) in Psalm 2. Samuel Sandmel (The Hebrew Scriptures: An Introduction to Their Literature and Religious Ideas [New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978], p. 240) calls this exegesis “tortured”; and A. Cohen (The Psalms [London: Soncino Press, 1945], p. 371) says the “alleged discovery” should be dismissed as “fantastic.”The name YHWH, otherwise lacking in the Book of Esther, is said to be hidden at the head of the four sequential words yavo ha-melek we-haman ha-yom, “Let the king and Haman come today” (Esther 5:4).

Patrick W. Skehan has explicated a number of “alphabetizing” poems with 22 lines, corresponding to the number of letters in the alphabet. While not acrostics, they frequently use a small set of letters to introduce stanzas, to group ideas and to mark logical divisions; for example, three stanzas beginning with aleph and three beginning with lamed in Proverbs 2:1–11 and 12–22; aleph, he and ayin groupings in Job 9:2–4, 5–7, 8–10 and esp. 13–24. See Patrick W. Skehan, Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom, Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 1 (1971). Also see Roland E. Murphy, Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature 13 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 23–28, 52–57.