A Touch of Support: Ps 3,6 and the Psalmist’s Experience 197 Ps 4,9 (19). This comparison is not entirely satisfactory, though. Whereas in Ps 4,9 the poet’s peaceful sleep, attributed to divine protection, brings the psalm to its serene close, the sleep in Ps 3,6 is not qualified as peaceful, nor does it strike a concluding note. Rather, it builds up towards the awakening (III above), which goes unmentioned in Psalm 4. Finally, this interpretation leaves Ps 3,6 somewhat isolated in its context of crisis: Why would the psalmist, hard pressed by his enemies, single out his sleep and awakening as a token of divine grace? What would this have to do with the immediately preceding report that he cried to YHWH and was answered “from his holy mountain” (v. 5)? There is, to be sure, one reading of Psalm 3 which brings it somewhat closer to Psalm 4 and its presentation of the psalmist’s peaceful sleep as the ultimate expression of divine protection. This is Pap. Ryl. 461 (Rahlfs 2057), a 6th century Greek parchment of unknown provenance containing parts of Ps 3,4.5.7.9.6 followed by Ps 62,2.4.5 (20). In this text v. 6 is placed at the end of Psalm 3, after v. 9. Although perhaps not fully intentional (21) the misplacement seems to fit in with the characterization of the text as a protective amulet (22). Text-critically, however, the uniqueness of this arrangement of v. 6 coupled with other features of Ryl. 461 which indicate that it is not a proper Psalter manuscript, renders its testimony practically valueless (23). (19) GUNKEL, Die Psalmen, 13; DUHM, Die Psalmen, 11-12; BRIGGS, Psalms, 25; Cp. WEISER, The Psalms, 118. According to BUTTENWEISER, The Psalms, 398- 399, 402, 404 the parallel in Ps 4,9 has “more weight, since Psalm 4 is a companion piece to Psalm 3” from the hand of the same author. Cp. DUHM. (20) Text: Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library Manchester III: Theological and Literary Texts (Nos. 457-551) (ed. C.H. ROBERTS) (Manchester 1938) 13-15; Rahlfs number and description: Two Manuscripts of the Greek Psalter in the Chester Beatty Library Dublin (ed. A. PIETERSMA) (Analecta biblica 77; Rome 1978) 7. I am grateful to Prof. Albert Pietersma for his patient guidance in the readings and import of this text as well as for his permission to quote from our correspondence (notes 22, 23 below), and to Prof. Emanuel Tov for referring me to Prof. Pietersma. (21) According to ROBERTS, Catalogue, 15, “there is nothing to indicate that the scribe recognized that this verse was out of place”. (22) For this characterization see ROBERTS, Catalogue, 13. Pietersma prefers the definition “lectionary”: “A brief text with unusual psalm order and without title may be a lectionary rather than an amulet”. (23) The other indicators as to the nature of Ryl. 461, according to Pietersma, are: (a) the sequence of Psalms 3 + 62 and (b) the omission of the superscription of Psalm 62. Together they “point in a single direction: that Ryl. 461 is not a