Psalm 6 → 126

Reasoning: 8512 Output: 3292 Total: 11804

Argument

Here are ways to argue that Psalm 126 is a logical sequel or “answer” to Psalm 6.

1) A strong lexical hinge: שוב “return/restore”
- Identical form: שובה יהוה “Return, O YHWH” occurs verbatim in both poems:
  - Ps 6:5 שובה יהוה חלצה נפשי
  - Ps 126:4 שובה יהוה את שבותנו
  This is rare and weighty: same root, same imperative form, same vocative.
- Elaborated fulfillment: Ps 6 asks YHWH to “return” to the sufferer; Ps 126 narrates the time “when YHWH returned/restored”:
  - Ps 126:1 בשוב יהוה את שיבת ציון (“when YHWH restored the fortunes/returning of Zion”)
- Closure to Ps 6’s enemy line: Ps 6 ends with “they will turn back” (ישבו, 6:11) in shame; Ps 126 opens with YHWH’s great “turning back/returning” and then prays again for further restoration (126:1,4). The “turning” motif moves from enemies’ reversal to God’s restorative reversal.

2) Tears → joy: identical and related lexemes
- Identical noun with the same preposition: בדמעה
  - Ps 6:7 בדמעתי (“with my tears”)
  - Ps 126:5 בדמעה (“with tears”)
- Same root for weeping: בכה
  - Ps 6:9 קוֹל בכיי (“the voice of my weeping”)
  - Ps 126:6 ובכה (“and weeping”)
- Programmatic reversal: Ps 126 explicitly turns tears into harvest-joy:
  - Ps 126:5–6 הזורעים בדמעה ברנה יקצרו … הלוך ילך ובכה … בוא יבוא ברנה
  This is precisely the emotional and theological reversal Ps 6 hopes for: from weeping (6:7,9) to a heard prayer and vindication (6:9–11); 126 narrates that reversal as laughter and song.

3) Water imagery transformed
- Ps 6’s night-tears create a watery scene: “I soak my bed… I drench my couch with my tears” (6:7 אשחה… בדמעתי… אמסה).
- Ps 126 answers with life-giving waters: “like channels in the Negev” (126:4 כאפיקים בנגב).
- The tears that flood a bed in the night (6) become the waters that flood dry wadis, irrigating a parched land (126). Same conceptual field (rare words too: אפיקים is uncommon), but now turned from sterile grief to fruitful restoration.

4) From “How long?” to “Then…”
- Ps 6:4–5: ואתה יהוה עד מתי? “But you, YHWH—how long?” followed by the plea “Return, O YHWH… Save me.”
- Ps 126:1–2 repeatedly uses אז “then” to mark the long-awaited moment: אז ימלא שחוק פינו… אז יאמרו בגוים (“then our mouth was filled with laughter… then they said among the nations”). “How long?” (6) is answered by “then” (126).

5) Speech and praise: death’s silence vs. living testimony
- Ps 6:6 laments the impossibility of praise in death: כי אין במות זכרך בשאול מי יודה לך (“In death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will praise you?”).
- Ps 126 supplies the living, public praise Ps 6 longs for:
  - “Our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy” (126:2),
  - “Then the nations said, ‘The Lord has done great things for them’” (126:2), and Israel replies, “The Lord has done great things for us; we were glad” (126:3).
- Thus 126 provides the very remembrance and acknowledgment among the living (and even among the nations) that Ps 6 feared would be cut off by death.

6) Structural/formal parallels that move from lament to assurance
- Ps 6 (individual lament): address + plea (2–5), reasons (3–7), enemies (8–9), assurance/confidence (9–11).
- Ps 126 (communal praise-petition): memory of restoration (1–3), petition for further restoration with the same imperative (4: שובה יהוה), assurance in proverbial form (5–6).
- In both, plea → assurance; in 126 the proverbial promise (“those who sow in tears…”) functions like Ps 6’s confidence that YHWH has heard.

7) Individual to communal, sickness to exile/return
- Ps 6 is an individual, near-death crisis with enemies; Ps 126 transposes the logic to Israel’s communal crisis (exile) and return. This fits a common Israelite theological pattern: individual plight typologically mirrors national plight; personal deliverance language becomes corporate restoration language.
- The same key lexemes carry over into the communal frame (שובה יהוה; בדמעה; בכה), suggesting deliberate reuse that invites a “sequel” reading.

8) Night-bed and dream motif
- Ps 6:7 situates grief “all night” on the bed (מיטה, ערש).
- Ps 126:1 says “we were like dreamers” (כחלמים). The bed/night scene of Ps 6 moves naturally into the image of awaking to find the unthinkable restoration has happened—“like a dream.”

9) Vindication before “others”: enemies vs nations
- Ps 6 ends with enemies shamed and put to flight (6:11).
- Ps 126 displays vindication before the nations (126:2 “then the nations said…”). Both culminate in public reversal recognized by outsiders; the scale simply widens from personal enemies to the nations.

10) Canonical trajectory and performance notations
- Formally, both are performance-marked psalms (Ps 6: למנצח… על השמינית; Ps 126: שיר המעלות), and the macro-shape of the Psalter moves from many laments in Book I (Ps 6) toward songs of restoration in Book V (Ps 126). Reading 126 after 6 fits that editorial-theological arc: prayer of distress → realized restoration.

Summary
- The identical imperative שובה יהוה, the shared and relatively rare tear-lexemes (בדמעה; root בכה), the transformation of watery grief into irrigation (אשחה/אמסה → כאפיקים), the temporal shift from “How long?” to “Then…,” and the move from threatened silence in death to public, living praise all argue that Ps 126 reads naturally as the narrative and communal fulfillment of the plea of Ps 6. In short, 126 is what it looks like when the God who was begged to “return” in Ps 6 in fact returns and turns night-tears into harvest-joy.

Evaluation

Score: 6.5

Evaluated at: 2025-11-22T03:49:54 (UTC)

Evaluator model: gpt-5

Evaluator version: v2

Reasoning: 4224 Output: 4111 Total: 8335

Vocabulary specificity: 6.0 / 10

Strong hinge: identical שובה יהוה (6:5; 126:4) + tear lexemes. But motifs common (tears, enemies), and שובה יהוה also in Ps 90:13; distance across Books weakens editorial linkage.

Prompt

Consider Psalm 6 and Psalm 126 (reproduced below). What arguments could you make to justify that Psalm 126 logically follows on from Psalm 6? Consider stylistic similarities, similarities of form, similarities of vocab or ideas, shared roots (if you're doing the search in Hebrew), connections to sequences of events common in ancient Israelite life, mythology or history shared by the two psalms.

Rarer words are more significant than commoner words. Identical forms are more significant than similar forms. The same word class is more significant than different word classes formed from the same root. Identical roots are more significant than suppletive roots.

Psalm 6:
Psalm 6
1. לַמְנַצֵּ֣חַ
        בִּ֭נְגִינוֹת
        עַֽל־
        הַשְּׁמִינִ֗ית
        מִזְמ֥וֹר
        לְדָוִֽד׃
2. יְֽהוָ֗ה
        אַל־
        בְּאַפְּךָ֥
        תוֹכִיחֵ֑נִי
        וְֽאַל־
        בַּחֲמָתְךָ֥
        תְיַסְּרֵֽנִי׃
3. חָנֵּ֥נִי
        יְהוָה֮
        כִּ֤י
        אֻמְלַ֫ל
        אָ֥נִי
        רְפָאֵ֥נִי
        יְהוָ֑ה
        כִּ֖י
        נִבְהֲל֣וּ
        עֲצָֽtמָי׃
4. וְ֭נַפְשִׁי
        נִבְהֲלָ֣ה
        מְאֹ֑ד
        ואת
        וְאַתָּ֥ה
        יְ֝הוָ֗ה
        עַד־
        מָתָֽי׃
5. שׁוּבָ֣ה
        יְ֭הוָה
        חַלְּצָ֣ה
        נַפְשִׁ֑י
        ה֝וֹשִׁיעֵ֗נִי
        לְמַ֣עַן
        חַסְדֶּֽךָ׃
6. כִּ֤י
        אֵ֣ין
        בַּמָּ֣וֶת
        זִכְרֶ֑ךָ
        בִּ֝שְׁא֗וֹל
        מִ֣י
        יֽוֹדֶה־
        לָּֽךְ׃
7. יָגַ֤עְתִּי ׀
        בְּֽאַנְחָתִ֗י
        אַשְׂחֶ֣ה
        בְכָל־
        לַ֭יְלָה
        מִטָּתִ֑י
        בְּ֝דִמְעָתִ֗י
        עַרְשִׂ֥י
        אַמְסֶֽה׃
8. עָֽשְׁשָׁ֣ה
        מִכַּ֣עַס
        עֵינִ֑י
        עָֽ֝תְקָ֗ה
        בְּכָל־
        צוֹרְרָֽי׃
9. ס֣וּרוּ
        מִ֭מֶּנִּי
        כָּל־
        פֹּ֣עֲלֵי
        אָ֑וֶן
        כִּֽי־
        שָׁמַ֥ע
        יְ֝הוָ֗ה
        ק֣וֹל
        בִּכְיִֽי׃
10. שָׁמַ֣ע
        יְ֭הוָה
        תְּחִנָּתִ֑י
        יְ֝הוָ֗ה
        תְּֽפִלָּתִ֥י
        יִקָּֽח׃
11. יֵבֹ֤שׁוּ ׀
        וְיִבָּהֲל֣וּ
        מְ֭אֹד
        כָּל־
        אֹיְבָ֑י
        יָ֝שֻׁ֗בוּ
        יֵבֹ֥שׁוּ
        רָֽגַע׃

Psalm 126:
Psalm 126
1. שִׁ֗יר
        הַֽמַּ֫עֲל֥וֹת
        בְּשׁ֣וּב
        יְ֭הוָה
        אֶת־
        שִׁיבַ֣ת
        צִיּ֑וֹן
        הָ֝יִ֗ינוּ
        כְּחֹלְמִֽים׃
2. אָ֤ז
        יִמָּלֵ֪א
        שְׂח֡וֹק
        פִּינוּ֮
        וּלְשׁוֹנֵ֢נוּ
        רִ֫נָּ֥ה
        אָ֭ז
        יֹאמְר֣וּ
        בַגּוֹיִ֑ם
        הִגְדִּ֥יל
        יְ֝הוָ֗ה
        לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת
        עִם־
        אֵֽלֶּה׃
3. הִגְדִּ֣יל
        יְ֭הוָה
        לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת
        עִמָּ֗נוּ
        הָיִ֥ינוּ
        שְׂמֵחִֽים׃
4. שׁוּבָ֣ה
        יְ֭הוָה
        אֶת־
        שבותנו
        שְׁבִיתֵ֑נוּ
        כַּאֲפִיקִ֥ים
        בַּנֶּֽגֶב׃
5. הַזֹּרְעִ֥ים
        בְּדִמְעָ֗ה
        בְּרִנָּ֥ה
        יִקְצֹֽרוּ׃
6. הָ֘ל֤וֹךְ
        יֵלֵ֨ךְ ׀
        וּבָכֹה֮
        נֹשֵׂ֢א
        מֶֽשֶׁךְ־
        הַ֫זָּ֥רַע
        בֹּֽא־
        יָב֥וֹא
        בְרִנָּ֑ה
        נֹ֝שֵׂ֗א
        אֲלֻמֹּתָֽיו׃