'And all nations shall serve Him': Text and concept analysis in royal psalms

This dissertation is a concept-critical exegetical study of Psalms 2, 110, and 132 all of which have been generally identified within the category of royal psalms. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship of text and concept in these three psalms specifically focusing on structure analyses of the text, and the concomitant reconstruction of the intratextual concepts in the texts that have effectuated and function within the final form of the texts. To be sure, text and concept analysis is a historical-critical method informed by the historicality of the text and not dissociated from that reality. A secondary purpose is to compare the three psalms with regard to both the agreement and disagreement or contrast of the concepts within these psalms.;Part one investigates the history of research on the royal psalms which helps in defining the specific problem under investigation. The investigation discloses that previous analysis of these psalms is generally guided by two closely-related questions: (1) What is their original societal setting? and (2) What is their purpose? Further examination also reveals that there is no scholarly consensus on either question. Efforts in responding to the first question have identified the original societal setting with numerous possibilities, while there are several distinct scholarly prospects vying for the designation of the purpose of these three psalms. No scholarly tradition, though, has afforded sufficient attention to the elucidation of the nature of the composition of these three psalms with respect to their macro- and microstructure analyses. Thus, part one also entails an explication and a justification for the exegetical method used to approach and interpret the texts.;Part two comprises four sections. Each of these sections, except for the last one, engages in a text and concept analysis of the text unit by unit of these three psalms. Moreover, an array of questions triggered in and by the texts themselves, and the pursuit of answers to these questions steer the investigation towards the form and function of the texts and how form and function might shape the conceptual aspects which are the foci of the texts. In each case the subsurface text is focused on a presupposed relationship between ideology and history in that the one who is praised as "the king" is conceptualized as the representative of Yahweh in all the earth.;The final section of part two, which provides the conclusion to the dissertation, consists of a comparison with regards to the agreement and disagreement of the concepts within these psalms.