Psalm 10 → 116
Reasoning: 15104 Output: 6039 Total: 21143
Argument
Short answer: Psalm 116 reads very naturally as the “answer” to the plea of Psalm 10. Psalm 10 is an individual lament in which the oppressed beg God to arise, listen, and judge; Psalm 116 is an individual thanksgiving (todah) in which the delivered suppliant declares that God did listen, rescued from death, and now fulfills vows publicly in the temple. That lament→deliverance→vow-fulfillment sequence is exactly the standard life-setting of Israelite prayer and sacrifice. Details, moving from strongest to weaker links (by your weighting: identical forms/roots and rarer lexemes get more weight): Form and life-setting - Formally complementary: Ps 10 is an individual lament; Ps 116 is an individual thanksgiving with vow language (נְדָרַי… אֲשַׁלֵּם) and a thank-offering (זֶבַח תּוֹדָה, 116:17). In Israelite practice (cf. Leviticus 7:12–15; many psalms) a todah psalm follows a lament when God has delivered. So 116 is exactly what you would expect to follow 10 in real life. - Cultic destination: Ps 116 ends “in the courts of the house of YHWH… Jerusalem” (116:19) paying vows “before all his people” (vv. 14, 18). That is the ritual fulfillment one would make after the emergency of Ps 10. Shared lexicon/motifs with identical or near-identical forms/roots - Ear/hearing motif (אֹזֶן + שָׁמַע) - Ps 10:17 “תַּקְשִׁיב אָזְנֶךָ” (“you will make your ear listen”). - Ps 116:2 “הִטָּה אָזְנוֹ לִי” (“he inclined his ear to me”); 116:1 “יִשְׁמַע יְהוָה…”. - This is a tight lexical answer: the plea for God’s ear in 10 becomes the testimony that his ear turned in 116. - Distress (צָרָה, same noun) - Ps 10:1 “לְעִתּוֹת בַּצָּרָה” (“times of trouble”). - Ps 116:3 “צָרָה וְיָגוֹן אֶמְצָא”. - Death/deliverance (מוֹת/שְׁאוֹל vs verbs of rescue) - Ps 10:8–10 the wicked “kill the innocent,” trap and crush; near-death threat. - Ps 116:3 “חֶבְלֵי־מָוֶת,” “מְצָרֵי שְׁאוֹל”; 116:4 “מַלְּטָה נַפְשִׁי”; 116:8 “חִלַּצְתָּ נַפְשִׁי מִמָּוֶת… רַגְלִי מִדֶּחִי.” The imagery of cords, bonds, and stumbling answers the ambush/net imagery of 10 (10:8–9 “בַמִּסְתָּר… בְּרִשְׁתּוֹ”). - Oppressed/vulnerable (rare lexemes for the weak) - Ps 10 piles up terms for the vulnerable: עָנִי (vv. 2, 9), דַּךְ/דַּכָּא (vv. 10, 18), חֵלְכָה/חַלְכָּאִים (vv. 8, 10, 14), יָתוֹם (vv. 14, 18). - Ps 116 mirrors with allied vulnerability terms: דַּלּוֹתִי (116:6), פְּתָאִים (116:6). Not the same roots, but this is the same social field: the one preserved in 116 is exactly the kind of person crying in 10. - Crucially, 10:14 “יָתוֹם… עוֹזֵר” vs 116:16 “אֲנִי עַבְדֶּךָ בֶּן־אֲמָתֶךָ” and “פִּתַּחְתָּ לְמוֹסֵרָי”: the one bereft and powerless becomes a bonded servant whom God has freed. - Speech contrast (אמר/דבר; deceit vs vowed praise) - Ps 10 highlights corrupt speech: “אָמַר בְּלִבּוֹ” (vv. 6, 11, 13), “פִּיהוּ מָלֵא… מִרְמוֹת” (v. 7), “תַּחַת לְשׁוֹנוֹ עָמָל וָאָוֶן.” - Ps 116 flips to faithful speech: “הֶאֱמַנְתִּי כִּי אֲדַבֵּר” (v. 10), “אֲנִי אָמַרְתִּי…” (v. 11), and thrice “וּבְשֵׁם יְהוָה אֶקְרָא” (vv. 4, 13, 17), plus vow performance language “נְדָרַי… אֲשַׁלֵּם” (vv. 14, 18). The “lying mouth” of Ps 10 meets the “vowing, thanking mouth” of Ps 116. - Seeing/eyes motif (עַיִן / רָאָה) - Ps 10:11 the wicked says “בַּל־רָאָה לָנֶצַח” and claims God has hidden his face. - Ps 116:8 “אֶת־עֵינִי מִן־דִּמְעָה”; 116:15 “יָקָר בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה הַמָּוְתָה לַחֲסִידָיו.” Direct reversal: God’s “eyes” do evaluate and care; the psalmist’s eyes are dried. - נשא root in pointed echo - Ps 10:12 “נְשָׂא יָדֶךָ” (lift your hand!). - Ps 116:13 “כּוֹס־יְשׁוּעוֹת אֶשָּׂא” (I will lift the cup of salvations). Same root, flipped roles: God is asked to “lift” to act; the delivered one “lifts” the cup in thanks. - נגד preposition, from “out of sight” to “in front of” - Ps 10:5 “מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ מִנֶּגְדּוֹ” (your judgments are high, out of his sight). - Ps 116:14, 18 “נֶגְדָה־נָּא לְכָל־עַמּוֹ” (openly, in front of all his people). Same root: what was “away from his view” becomes public “in front of” all. Narrative/theological reversals that make 116 the resolution of 10 - Distance vs attention: 10:1 “Why do you stand far off? Hide in times of trouble” is answered by 116:1–2 “He hears… he inclined his ear to me.” - Murderous ambush vs rescued from death: 10:8–10 depicts the wicked killing the innocent; 116:3–8 depicts the psalmist ensnared by “cords of death” but delivered—“you rescued my soul from death… my feet from stumbling”—so that “I will walk before YHWH in the land of the living” (116:9). - God’s justice sought vs confessed: 10 asks God to arise, break the arm of the wicked, and judge the orphan and crushed (10:12, 15, 18). 116 confesses God’s character in judicial terms: “חַנּוּן… וְצַדִּיק… מְרַחֵם” (116:5) and exemplifies that justice in the rescue of “the simple” and “the low” (116:6). - Human arrogance vs humbled faith: The wicked in 10 says “בַּל־אֶמּוֹט” (10:6). In 116 the suppliant admits “אֲנִי עָנִיתִי מְאֹד” (116:10; “I was greatly afflicted”) yet now walks securely (116:9). False boast vs true stability. - From fear to worship: 10 closes with the wish “so that man of earth no longer terrify” (10:18). 116 shows the outcome: the worshiper stands unafraid in the temple courts, paying vows before all (116:14, 18–19). Macro-canonical/liturgical logic - Ps 116 belongs to the Hallel (Pss 113–118), used at major feasts (e.g., Passover). Its exodus-shaped diction (bonds/chains, rescue from death, public thanksgiving) gives it the right “mythic” contour to answer a psalm of oppression like 10. The movement from “nations perish from his land” (10:16) to “Jerusalem… courts of the house of YHWH” (116:19) traces a salvation-history arc from threat to settled worship. Caveats and weights - Strongest lexical links: אֹזֶן/הטה/תקשיב + שָׁמַע; צָרָה; the rescue cluster around מָוֶת/שְׁאוֹל/חֶבֶל/מוסֵר; נשׂא; נגד; “eyes/seeing.” These are shared roots, some with identical nouns, and not all are common. - Helpful but weaker links (different roots, same semantic field): עָנִי/דַּךְ/יָתוֹם in Ps 10 ~ דַּל/פֶּתִי/עֶבֶד in Ps 116; deceitful speech in 10 ~ vowed praise in 116; net/ambush in 10 ~ cords/bonds in 116. Conclusion Read together, Psalm 10 is the cry of the oppressed asking God to notice, arise, judge, and save; Psalm 116 is the same voice after rescue, affirming that God listened and delivered from death, and now fulfilling vows with a thank-offering in Jerusalem. The formal genre-pair, the ritual sequence, and the repeated, often identical Hebrew roots (ear/hear; trouble; death/rescue; lift; before/in front of; eyes/seeing) make a coherent case that Psalm 116 “logically follows” Psalm 10.
Evaluation
Score: 6.5
Evaluated at: 2025-12-12T03:42:13 (UTC)
Evaluator model: gpt-5
Evaluator version: v2
Reasoning: 4032 Output: 6870 Total: 10902
Checklist
- Has verse refs: Yes
- Factual error detected: No
- Only generic motifs: No
- Counterargument considered: Yes
- LXX/MT numbering acknowledged: No
Vocabulary specificity: 3.0 / 10
Accurate, multiple verse-level correspondences (ear/hear; צָרָה; death→deliverance; נשא; נגד; eyes/speech) and lament→todah sequence. Yet overlap is common, no editorial markers, and wide distance in Psalter, so H0 not decisively overcome.
Prompt
Consider Psalm 10 and Psalm 116 (reproduced below). What arguments could you make to justify that Psalm 116 logically follows on from Psalm 10? 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 10:
Psalm 10
1. לָמָ֣ה
יְ֭הוָה
תַּעֲמֹ֣ד
בְּרָח֑וֹק
תַּ֝עְלִ֗ים
לְעִתּ֥וֹת
בַּצָּרָֽה׃
2. בְּגַאֲוַ֣ת
רָ֭שָׁע
יִדְלַ֣ק
עָנִ֑י
יִתָּפְשׂ֓וּ ׀
בִּמְזִמּ֖וֹת
ז֣וּ
חָשָֽׁבוּ׃
3. כִּֽי־
הִלֵּ֣ל
רָ֭שָׁע
עַל־
תַּאֲוַ֣ת
נַפְשׁ֑וֹ
וּבֹצֵ֥עַ
בֵּ֝רֵ֗ךְ
נִ֘אֵ֥ץ ׀
יְהוָֽה׃
4. רָשָׁ֗ע
כְּגֹ֣בַהּ
אַ֭פּוֹ
בַּל־
יִדְרֹ֑שׁ
אֵ֥ין
אֱ֝לֹהִ֗ים
כָּל־
מְזִמּוֹתָֽיו׃
5. יָ֘חִ֤ילוּ
דרכו
דְרָכָ֨יו ׀
בְּכָל־
עֵ֗ת
מָר֣וֹם
מִ֭שְׁפָּטֶיךָ
מִנֶּגְדּ֑וֹ
כָּל־
צ֝וֹרְרָ֗יו
יָפִ֥יחַ
בָּהֶֽם׃
6. אָמַ֣ר
בְּ֭לִבּוֹ
בַּל־
אֶמּ֑וֹט
לְדֹ֥ר
וָ֝דֹ֗ר
אֲשֶׁ֣ר
לֹֽא־
בְרָֽע׃
7. אָלָ֤ה ׀
פִּ֣יהוּ
מָ֭לֵא
וּמִרְמ֣וֹת
וָתֹ֑ךְ
תַּ֥חַת
לְ֝שׁוֹנ֗וֹ
עָמָ֥ל
וָאָֽוֶן׃
8. יֵשֵׁ֤ב ׀
בְּמַאְרַ֬ב
חֲצֵרִ֗ים
בַּֽ֭מִּסְתָּרִים
יַהֲרֹ֣ג
נָקִ֑י
עֵ֝ינָ֗יו
לְֽחֵלְכָ֥ה
יִצְפֹּֽנוּ׃
9. יֶאֱרֹ֬ב
בַּמִּסְתָּ֨ר ׀
כְּאַרְיֵ֬ה
בְסֻכֹּ֗ה
יֶ֭אֱרֹב
לַחֲט֣וֹף
עָנִ֑י
יַחְטֹ֥ף
עָ֝נִ֗י
בְּמָשְׁכ֥וֹ
בְרִשְׁתּֽוֹ׃
10. ודכה
יִדְכֶּ֥ה
יָשֹׁ֑חַ
וְנָפַ֥ל
בַּ֝עֲצוּמָּ֗יו
חלכאים
חֵ֣יל
כָּאִֽים׃
11. אָמַ֣ר
בְּ֭לִבּוֹ
שָׁ֣כַֽח
אֵ֑ל
הִסְתִּ֥יר
פָּ֝נָ֗יו
בַּל־
רָאָ֥ה
לָנֶֽצַח׃
12. קוּמָ֤ה
יְהוָ֗ה
אֵ֭ל
נְשָׂ֣א
יָדֶ֑ךָ
אַל־
תִּשְׁכַּ֥ח
עניים
עֲנָוִֽים׃
13. עַל־
מֶ֤ה ׀
נִאֵ֖ץ
רָשָׁ֥ע ׀
אֱלֹהִ֑ים
אָמַ֥ר
בְּ֝לִבּ֗וֹ
לֹ֣א
תִדְרֹֽשׁ׃
14. רָאִ֡תָה
כִּֽי־
אַתָּ֤ה ׀
עָ֘מָ֤ל
וָכַ֨עַס ׀
תַּבִּיט֮
לָתֵ֢ת
בְּיָ֫דֶ֥ךָ
עָ֭לֶיךָ
יַעֲזֹ֣ב
חֵלֶ֑כָה
יָ֝ת֗וֹם
אַתָּ֤ה ׀
הָיִ֬יתָ
עוֹזֵֽר׃
15. שְׁ֭בֹר
זְר֣וֹעַ
רָשָׁ֑ע
וָ֝רָ֗ע
תִּֽדְרוֹשׁ־
רִשְׁע֥וֹ
בַל־
תִּמְצָֽא׃
16. יְהוָ֣ה
מֶ֭לֶךְ
עוֹלָ֣ם
וָעֶ֑ד
אָבְד֥וּ
ג֝וֹיִ֗ם
מֵֽאַרְצֽוֹ׃
17. תַּאֲוַ֬ת
עֲנָוִ֣ים
שָׁמַ֣עְתָּ
יְהוָ֑ה
תָּכִ֥ין
לִ֝בָּ֗ם
תַּקְשִׁ֥יב
אָזְנֶֽךָ׃
18. לִשְׁפֹּ֥ט
יָת֗וֹם
וָ֫דָ֥ךְ
בַּל־
יוֹסִ֥יף
ע֑וֹד
לַעֲרֹ֥ץ
אֱ֝נ֗וֹשׁ
מִן־
הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Psalm 116:
Psalm 116
1. אָ֭הַבְתִּי
כִּֽי־
יִשְׁמַ֥ע ׀
יְהוָ֑ה
אֶת־
ק֝וֹלִ֗י
תַּחֲנוּנָֽי׃
2. כִּֽי־
הִטָּ֣ה
אָזְנ֣וֹ
לִ֑י
וּבְיָמַ֥י
אֶקְרָֽא׃
3. אֲפָפ֤וּנִי ׀
חֶבְלֵי־
מָ֗וֶת
וּמְצָרֵ֣י
שְׁא֣וֹל
מְצָא֑וּנִי
צָרָ֖ה
וְיָג֣וֹן
אֶמְצָֽא׃
4. וּבְשֵֽׁם־
יְהוָ֥ה
אֶקְרָ֑א
אָנָּ֥ה
יְ֝הוָ֗ה
מַלְּטָ֥ה
נַפְשִֽׁי׃
5. חַנּ֣וּן
יְהֹוָ֣ה
וְצַדִּ֑יק
וֵ֖אלֹהֵ֣ינוּ
מְרַחֵֽם׃
6. שֹׁמֵ֣ר
פְּתָאיִ֣ם
יְהֹוָ֑ה
דַּ֝לּוֹתִ֗י
וְלִ֣י
יְהוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃
7. שׁוּבִ֣י
נַ֭פְשִׁי
לִמְנוּחָ֑יְכִי
כִּֽי־
יְ֝הוָ֗ה
גָּמַ֥ל
עָלָֽיְכִי׃
8. כִּ֤י
חִלַּ֥צְתָּ
נַפְשִׁ֗י
מִ֫מָּ֥וֶת
אֶת־
עֵינִ֥י
מִן־
דִּמְעָ֑ה
אֶת־
רַגְלִ֥י
מִדֶּֽחִי׃
9. אֶ֭תְהַלֵּךְ
לִפְנֵ֣י
יְהוָ֑ה
בְּ֝אַרְצ֗וֹת
הַֽחַיִּֽים׃
10. הֶ֭אֱמַנְתִּי
כִּ֣י
אֲדַבֵּ֑ר
אֲ֝נִ֗י
עָנִ֥יתִי
מְאֹֽד׃
11. אֲ֭נִי
אָמַ֣רְתִּי
בְחָפְזִ֑י
כָּֽל־
הָאָדָ֥ם
כֹּזֵֽב׃
12. מָֽה־
אָשִׁ֥יב
לַיהוָ֑ה
כָּֽל־
תַּגְמוּל֥וֹהִי
עָלָֽי׃
13. כּוֹס־
יְשׁוּע֥וֹת
אֶשָּׂ֑א
וּבְשֵׁ֖ם
יְהוָ֣ה
אֶקְרָֽא׃
14. נְ֭דָרַי
לַיהוָ֣ה
אֲשַׁלֵּ֑ם
נֶגְדָה־
נָּ֝֗א
לְכָל־
עַמּֽוֹ׃
15. יָ֭קָר
בְּעֵינֵ֣י
יְהוָ֑ה
הַ֝מָּ֗וְתָה
לַחֲסִידָֽיו׃
16. אָֽנָּ֣ה
יְהוָה֮
כִּֽי־
אֲנִ֢י
עַ֫בְדֶּ֥ךָ
אֲֽנִי־
עַ֭בְדְּךָ
בֶּן־
אֲמָתֶ֑ךָ
פִּ֝תַּ֗חְתָּ
לְמוֹסֵרָֽי׃
17. לְֽךָ־
אֶ֭זְבַּח
זֶ֣בַח
תּוֹדָ֑ה
וּבְשֵׁ֖ם
יְהוָ֣ה
אֶקְרָֽא׃
18. נְ֭דָרַי
לַיהוָ֣ה
אֲשַׁלֵּ֑ם
נֶגְדָה־
נָּ֝֗א
לְכָל־
עַמּֽוֹ׃
19. בְּחַצְר֤וֹת ׀
בֵּ֤ית
יְהוָ֗ה
בְּֽת֘וֹכֵ֤כִי
יְֽרוּשָׁלִָ֗ם
הַֽלְלוּ־
יָֽהּ׃