'The Lord Looks at the Heart' (1 Sam 16:7): 11QPs a 151 A-B as a 'Variant Literary Edition' of Ps 151 LXX

Basing itself on an earlier translation-technical examination of the two extant textual witnesses of Ps 151, the present study aimed at further investigating the interrelation of Ps 151 LXX and Ps 151A-B. In this respect, it has been examined whether a pattern of textual variants could be isolated in Ps 151A, in order to substantiate the claim that Ps 151 LXX and Ps 151A-B represent ‘variant literary editions’. It has been observed that three units of ‘pluses’ immediately stand out in Ps 151A and that, when taken together, they remarkably exhibit a midrash to 1 Sam 16,7. While Ps 151 LXX is only a ‘paraphrase’ of the events recounted in 1 Sam 16-17 in autobiographical style, a creative scribe has enriched its Vorlage with a midrash in Ps 151A, emphasising that God does not judge man according to his outward appearance, but according to his inner dedication, as it is exemplified in the preference given to David over his brothers. Most likely, both editions of Ps 151 are not directly connected to each other, but ultimately depend on a common ancestor, which has been here termed ‘edition n’, indicating that this edition was not necessarily the first edition of this psalm. As both editions were derived independently from this now lost ‘edition n’, they have been designated as ‘edition (n+1)a’ and ‘edition (n+1)b’.