Rethinking »Alternative« Sequences in the Psalms Manuscripts from Qumran

The presence of alternative sequences in the Psalms is a well-attested phenomenon and an established fact among the manuscripts from Qumran. The interpretation of these alternative orderings, however, is still unclear and under debate. In the main and up to now, manuscripts displaying different sequences of psalms have been used to speak to the composition history of the Book of Psalms and/ or the canonical shape (even nature) of the Psalter at Qumran, at least according to certain texts like 11QPsa (11Q5). The present essay analyzes these alternative sequences as such and without reference to what they may or may not say about the composition history of the Psalter. I examine these sequences in light of modern poetic theory on sequencing generally, focusing particularly on what is known as the lyric sequence, and I illustrate the benefits of such lyric theory by examining two intriguing alternative sequences: Psalm 38→71 found in 4QPsa (4Q83) and Psalm 31→33 found in 4QPsa and 4QPsq (4Q98).