Abstract:
This paper contends that Ps 12 should be read, as part of the composition
Pss 9–14, as a response to and an explication of Prov
30:1–14 by exponents of Wisdom thinking in the Persian period. The
suffering of the righteous people in Ps 12 is described as the result
of arrogant Jewish and also non-Jewish rulers who use speech as an
instrument of deception, fraud, flattery, boasting, and questioning
Yahweh’s authority in order to oppress and intimidate believers. It
is proposed that the historic context of the final form of the text was
that of the “piety of the poor,” a theology which developed from the
need to restore dignity and provide hope to victims of social and
religious oppression in the post-exilic era. It would seem that these
people sought comfort in the word of Yahweh and that they found
vindication for themselves in those sections of the developing
“canon” which promised that Yahweh would intervene on behalf of
those people who represented true humility and piety.
