How Midrash Tehillim Reads David Habakkuk Abraham and Moses

Midrash Tehillim sets two passages on the Psalms of David that reach back across the prophets and the patriarchs to read the verses of David through the lives of those who came before and after. The first passage opens with Solomon's warning about guarded speech and runs through Habakkuk's complaint until it lands on David hiding from Saul. The second passage opens with the verse "with a pious person, act piously" and walks through Abraham and Moses, matching each step the patriarchs took with a step the Holy One took in return. Read in sequence, the two passages frame David's Psalms as the meeting point of the prophets, the patriarchs, and the lawgiver.

How Solomon's warning frames the prophets' complaint

The first passage opens with King Solomon's verse from Proverbs, "He who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles," and joins it with the verse from Ecclesiastes, "Do not be hasty with your mouth." The compiler then turns to the prophets who pressed the Holy One about the good given to the heathen nations in this world. The answer the prophets receive draws from Deuteronomy, that the Holy One repays those who hate Him, and from Isaiah, that the one who argues with his Maker is a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth. Solomon's warning sits at the head of the passage, and the prophets' complaint is set against it as the test case for guarded speech.

Habakkuk enters the passage in the same posture. He fashions a figurine of bread, stations himself on the ramparts, and cries out the verse from the Psalms of David, "How long, O Lord, will You forget me forever?" The Holy One answers that Habakkuk is a son of Torah, that the first tablet sets out the Aleph Bet, and that the end of the matter is written for those who can read it. The verse from Habakkuk, "Write the vision down, inscribe it clearly on the tablets," is then placed beside the verse from Chronicles about Cyrus of Persia, so that the seventy years of Babylon serve as the proof that the later end will also come.

Why David's prayer closes the first passage

Habakkuk's response is to fall on his face and plead that the Holy One not judge him willfully but ignorantly. The compiler reads this plea through the heading of the third chapter of Habakkuk, and then turns to David. The verse, "Meditation for David. When he was being pursued by Saul," is set beside Habakkuk's prayer, and the scene from First Samuel of Saul going down to the Wilderness of Ziph follows. Abishai's offer to strike Saul down and the people's warning that David himself should not go out close the passage. Solomon's warning opens the chain, Habakkuk tests it against the case of the heathen nations and the long exile, and David's prayer under pursuit from Saul shows the same guarded speech in the mouth of the king.

How Abraham and Moses walk in matched measure

The second passage opens with the verse of David, "With a pious person, act piously; with an upright man, be upright; with a pure one, be pure; and with a crooked one, deal crookedly." Rabbi Judah reads the verse through Abraham. When Abraham walked with the Holy One in piety, the Holy One walked with him in piety, and Abraham's words, "O Lord God, what can You give me," carry the answer, "This man shall not be your heir." When Abraham walked in innocence, his words, "Please do not pass by Your servant," carry the answer, "And Abraham was still standing before the Lord." When Abraham walked in shrewdness, his words, "How will I know," carry the answer, "You shall surely know." Each step of Abraham receives the matching step in return.

Rabbi Simon adds that the final redaction of the Torah was delayed because the Shechinah was waiting for Moses to finish his conversation with the Holy One. Rabbi Nehemiah then reads the same verse of David through Moses. Moses asks why the bush does not burn, and the answer is that his words stood firm, with the verse, "And Moses hid his face," carrying the piety. Moses asks what he shall say to the people, and the answer, "I will be who I will be," carries the innocence. Moses asks the Holy One to send someone else, and the answer about speaking to the people carries the stubbornness. The verse from David lays down the rule, and Moses walks each rung in turn.

How Midrash Tehillim preserves the readings

The two passages reach the reader through the verse-by-verse arrangement of Midrash Tehillim on the Psalms of David. The first passage opens at a Psalm of David and gathers Solomon, Habakkuk, and the verse of pursuit by Saul into a single chain. The second passage opens at another Psalm of David and gathers Abraham, Moses, and the seven days of consecration into a second chain. The compiler does not press the two passages into a single story, and does not flatten the voices of Rabbi Judah, Rabbi Simon, Rabbi Nehemiah, Rabbi Samuel, Rabbi Berechiah, and Rabbi Helbo into a single ruling. Each rabbi keeps his reading, and the verse of David sits in the middle as the anchor that holds the chain in place. The arrangement keeps the Psalms open as the place where the prophets, the patriarchs, and the lawgiver come back into the same room.

What the paired passages carry forward

Set beside each other, the two passages frame the Psalms of David as the meeting point of the earlier and later figures of the tradition. The first passage works through the case of speech under pressure, from Solomon's warning to Habakkuk's complaint to David's prayer in the cave. The second passage works through the case of the matched walk, from Abraham's three steps to Moses's three answers and on to the seven days of waiting on Sinai. The verse of David in the first chain carries the prophets back into the king's voice, and the verse of David in the second chain carries the patriarchs and the lawgiver into the same king's voice. Midrash Tehillim preserves both chains so that the Psalms are read as the record of a tradition that runs from Abraham through Moses to Solomon and gathers in the prayer of David.