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Professionally, Iā€™m a retired professor of accounting and former chair of the School of Accounting at the University of South Carolinaā€™s Moore School of Business. My academic work explored how people make decisions in complex systems, especially when information is imperfect or overwhelming. Iā€™ve published in a fair number of journals that few people read voluntarily, and I spent decades thinking about how technology shapes human behavior. These days, my time is divided between managing a small flock of chickens, herding goats, chatting on amateur radio (KO4LMP), and living just on the edge of the gridā€”literally and metaphorically. Iā€™m a father to five daughters, a grandfather to 17, and a great-grandfather to three. Somewhere along the way, I realized that what I enjoy most is simply talking about the world we live inā€”and how to make sense of it.

šŸŖ”Chiasm Analysis of Psalms 103: Structure and Themes

A friend of mine sent me a poem he had written inspired by Psalms 103. This led me to ask AI, “Does psalms 103 contain a chiasm?”

Note: One of my conversation guidelines is that I do not converse with AI on spiritual matters. AI is only a machine and machines lack a soul. My question here, however, is of a literary nature rather than spiritual.

ChatGPT said:

Yes. Many biblical scholars believe Psalm 103 is arranged as a chiasm, although there is no single universally accepted outline. Unlike some passages where the chiasm is very explicit, Psalm 103’s structure is more thematic than verbal, so different commentators divide it differently.

One commonly suggested pattern looks like this:

SectionTheme
A (vv. 1ā€“2)Bless the LORD, O my soul
B (vv. 3ā€“5)God’s benefits to the individual (forgiveness, healing, redemption, renewal)
C (vv. 6ā€“10)God’s righteous acts and mercy toward His people
D (vv. 11ā€“14)Center: God’s steadfast love and compassion, remembering our frailty
Cā€² (vv. 15ā€“18)Human frailty contrasted with God’s everlasting covenant love
Bā€² (vv. 19ā€“22a)God’s universal kingdom and the response of angels and all creation
Aā€² (vv. 22b)Bless the LORD, O my soul

The center (D) is especially striking:

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him… As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” (vv. 11ā€“14)

If this is indeed the literary center, then the psalm’s main emphasis is not simply God’s power or His blessings, but His compassionate covenant love toward frail human beings.

Another observation

The psalm also has what literary scholars call an inclusioā€”it begins and ends with exactly the same exhortation:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul.”

This “bookends” the entire psalm and reinforces that everything between those verses is the reason for praise.

Is it intentional?

Many Old Testament scholars think so. Hebrew poetry often combines several literary devices at once:

  • inclusio (bookending)
  • parallelism
  • repetition
  • chiasm

Psalm 103 exhibits all of these, though the exact boundaries of the chiasm remain debated.

Knowing your interest in biblical structure, another fascinating aspect is that Psalm 103 may also be organized as an expanding series of circles:

  1. God’s mercy to me (vv. 1ā€“5)
  2. God’s mercy to Israel (vv. 6ā€“18)
  3. God’s rule over the entire universe (vv. 19ā€“22)

Then, after reaching all creation, the psalm returns to where it began:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul.”

That movementā€”from the individual, to the covenant people, to the cosmos, and back to the individualā€”is one of the reasons Psalm 103 is often regarded as one of the most beautifully structured hymns in the Psalter

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