A Touch of Support: Ps 3,6 and the Psalmist’s Experience 205 through dreams. How do these general observations affect our understanding of the experience reflected in Ps 3,5-6? It could still be argued that a reference to sleeping, waking, and divine support in the midst of a crisis (Ps 3,6) subsequent to a report of a successful invocation of YHWH (v. 5) is compatible with a sought theophany or with incubation. It seems however, that the theophany ensuing from such procedures was not necessarily expected to occur in a dream. The possibility that an incubation leading to a real theophany was reflected in a psalm has already been raised in the case of Ps 17 (47). In its general course this shift from the suggestion of dream theophany or incubation towards a real encounter is similar to the one recognizable in some prophetic liminal reports: What appears like an incipient incubation scene culminates with a divine message addressed to a wakeful recipient (1 Sam 3,11-14; 1 Kgs 19,15-18). Although originally it was not offered for psalm 3 (48), such a theory could help explain not only the absence of explicit dream terms in this psalm (an absence that it shares with other liminal reports), but also — as shown below — the connection between ynkmsy ‘y (“YHWH supports me”) and the emphatically positioned reference to the psalmist’s waking in v. 6b (III and IV in the statement of the problem, above). As often in the Psalms and unlike the above-mentioned prophetic narratives, Psalm 3 does not cite a divine message, but the statement of YHWH’s support (ynkmsy òy) is hardly less expressive. The link between this element and the psalmist’s waking is expressed by yk in v. 6b. Although this particle sometimes serves as an emphatic introduction to an expression of confidence (Ps 38,16) or of God’s protective intervention (PS 22,10; 31,4), its most natural sense here would be causal, as indeed recognized by many interpreters (49). Often these interpreters represent the ‘spiritual’ approach, taking ynkmsy to express (47) See above, note 38. (48) Lindblom (“Theophanies in Holy Places”, 104-105) concluded that in Psalm 3 it would be natural “to think of an incubation-oracle imparted in an incubation-dream”: The psalmist received a propitious answer during his sleep in the courtyard of the temple, and recited the psalm in the following morning. (49) See note 19. For a discussion of yk as an emphatic introductory particle in the passages mentioned above see A. BARUCQ, L’Expression de la louange divine et de la prière dans la Bible et en Égypte (Institut français d’archéologie orientale, bibliothèque d’etude 32) (Cairo 1962) 338-339. I am grateful to my colleague Prof. Nili Shupak for this reference.