AN EVALUATION OF PSALM 119 AS CONSTRAINED WRITING Scott N. Callaham Alphabetical acrostic poems in the Hebrew Bible frequently provoke ad- verse critical commentary for violating current literary aesthetic tastes. Both the format and the length of the most elaborate alphabetical acrostic—Psalm 119—challenge the interpreter’s tolerance for repetition and sustained poetic musings on Torah, perhaps discouraging consideration of these dynamics as meaningful literary constraints. While the corpus of existing scholarly litera- ture attests to penetrating analysis of thought progressions of each stanza in the psalm and the employment of Torah words, no systematic investigations of compositional virtuosity under the psalmist’s chosen acrostic literary constraint currently exist. Employing “constrained writing” theory illuminated by reference to con- temporary examples, the present study sketches the contours of constraint in Psalm 119. The study contrasts stanzas disclosing evidence of least and great- est constraint, then focuses upon the most constrained stanzas in an attempt to determine a hierarchy of literary constraint among them. The result is a more refined apprehension of the literary artistry of the Great Psalm. Alphabetical acrostic poems in the Hebrew Bible frequently provoke ad- verse commentary from biblical scholars. Emblematic of what William Soll terms a “legacy of disdain” 1 is the appraisal of Hermann Gunkel; alphabeti- cal acrostics are “a decorative form which can only be appreciated by the eyes while offering nothing for the ear or the spirit.” 2 More sober are the de- scriptive statements of Luis Alonso Schökel, who notes the “obvious and ar- tificial” structure of alphabetical acrostics, adding that such a literary format “does not help the internal unity and coherence of the poem.” 3 The most extensive biblical elaboration of the acrostic structure is Psalm 119, composed of eight-line stanzas headed by successive Hebrew letters, ultimately comprising 176 lines. The psalm stands in sharp relief as the epitome of its acrostic format, notable for its considerable length and singu- lar focus on Torah. Scholarly treatments of its content manifest a broad 1 W. M. Soll, Psalm 119: Matrix, Form, and Setting (CBQMS 23; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1991), p. 6. 2 H. Gunkel and J. Begrich, Introduction to Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel (trans. J. D. Nogalski; Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1998), p. 64. 3 L. A. Schökel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics (trans. A. Graffy; SubBi 11; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1988), pp. 190–191.