Psalm 155: An Acrostic Poem on Repentance from the Second Temple Period

A small number of Syriac manuscripts attest to five psalms that are similar in nature to biblical Psalms, but do not appear in the Masoretic Text. In the oldest of these Syriac manuscripts, the five compositions are found at the end of the biblical book of Psalms, as Pss 151-155. It is generally accepted that they were written in Hebrew during the Second Temple period, and were translated into Syriac in the course of the first millennium C.E.

Among the writings found at Qumran are three scrolls (11QPsa, 4QPsf, 11QPsb) containing biblical Psalms together with psalms that are not found in MT. A total of eight apocryphal psalms are found in these scrolls. Four of these are “new” psalms, i.e. compositions that are attested only in the scrolls found at Qumran, while the remaining four were previously known, in other languages, prior to their discovery in Hebrew at Qumran. 11QPsa, which is the largest of these three scrolls, includes a Hebrew version of three of the five Syriac psalms (Pss 151, 154, and 155). In this article, we analyze Psalm 155, which is attested both in the Syriac manuscripts and in 11QPsa. In our opinion, this psalm reflects the religious experience of a penitent. Four of the apocryphal psalms that appear in the three Qumran scrolls, including Psalm 155, are alphabetical acrostics.