A Table in the Wilderness: The Rhetorical Function of Food Language in Psalm 78

"Can God set a table in the wilderness?" (Ps 78:19)



In A Table in the Wilderness, Michelle Stinson considers the rhetorical power of the language of food in the hands of the biblical writers. Through a careful analysis of two key food-based events recalled in Psalm 78--the divine provision of food in the wilderness (vv. 15-31) and the dismantling of food supplies through the Egyptian plagues (vv. 44-51)--Stinson shows how the psalmist's rhetorical crafting of these accounts seeks to instill confident trust (v. 7) in the possibility of YHWH's renewed intervention in the present. By considering the psalmist's employment of food language across the historical recital, as well as comparing the psalm's use to other associated collections (historical and Asaph psalms), A Table in the Wilderness offers a compelling argument for the rhetorical power of the language of food, a force rooted in food's multidimensionality, literary flexibility, and the ready accessibility of this quotidian feature of human life.

Michelle A. Stinson is a Visiting Scholar in Old Testament at Denver Seminary. She serves as co-chair of the SBL Meals in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Its World unit and is an Associate Fellow of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology (Cambridge, UK). Her current research considers topics related to food, agriculture/land care, hope, and the Psalms.



J. Clinton McCann Jr. is the evangelical professor of biblical interpretation at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author of many books and articles, including The New Interpreter's Bible commentary on the Psalms, A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms, and Great Psalms of the Bible. He was the consulting translator of the book of Psalms for The Common English Bible.