Discourse Structure, Verb Forms, and Archaism in Psalm 18

Abstract

Psalm 18 is especially relevant to the occasional use of what might be called ‘old preterites’ in the Hebrew Bible. These forms act exactly like wyyqtl, i.e., the waw consecutive with the imperfect in respect to being a narrative tense and limited to clause initial position, but lack the w- on the front. In this particular psalm the distribution of this form correlates with the narrative progress which can be posited within the psalm. A secondary value in this psalm is its possible light on the use of the two basic forms of the Hebrew verb, the perfect (qtl) and the imperfect (yqtl) in off the line uses in the structure of the psalm.