The Lord Has Saved Me: A Study of the Psalm of Hezekiah, Isaiah 38:9-20

A thorough yet readable examination of the Psalm of Hezekiah. In the generous introduction, Barr begins by stating that this is the first major treatment of the Psalm of Hezekiah since Joachim Begrich's monograph (of sixty-eight pages in length) appeared in 1926 and continues with a brief review of relevant scholarship since Begrich. B.'s purpose is fourfold: to establish the earliest recoverable text; to see the psalm as a work of poetry; to deal with literary genre, date of composition, and authorship; finally, to attend to the issue of the place of the Psalm of Hezekiah in the larger context of Isaiah. The statement about purpose is followed by helpful sections on working assumptions and methodology (texts and versions of Isaiah, comparative philology, textual emendations) and some principal characteristics of Hebrew poetry (metrics and a sense of symmetry, structure, stylistic devices). B. concludes the introduction with an overview.

Michael L. Barré, S.S., ed., is a former president of the Catholic Biblical Association.