Wisdom & Psalms (and the OT ethical core) — selections per-verse

Stage-B per-verse depth on the highest lived-centrality OT wisdom and Psalter passages plus the two Pentateuchal core texts (Lev 19, Deut 6) that the NT will explicitly cite as the Greatest Commandment. Source: World English Bible (WEB), Gutenberg #8294. Quotes pending Phase 7 audit. Methodology & tags: ../00-methodology.md. Complements 01-pentateuch.md and 03-wisdom-and-poetry.md.

Section role

This file covers the OT passages that are lived-centrally most weighted across Jewish and Christian worship: the Shema (recited twice daily in Judaism, central to Jesus' Greatest Commandment), Lev 19 (the Holiness Code, source of "love your neighbour"), and the most-prayed Psalms (1, 23, 51, 90, 139) — together with the wisdom-literature anchors (Prov 3:5–6, Prov 9:10, Prov 22:6, Eccl 3:1–8). These are the OT texts most often the NT's seed verses — and the ones most often the cross-tradition Atlas's convergence candidates.

Atomic statements

Deuteronomy 6 — the Shema

W-C1: The Shema: Yahweh is one; love him with all heart, soul, might. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+COVENANT+LOVE)

Deut 6:4–5: "Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one: and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Cited by Jesus as the first commandment (Mark 12:29–30; see 14-sermon-on-the-mount-per-verse.md).

W-C2: The commands are to be on the heart, taught diligently to children, present in every domain of life. (OPERATIONAL / COVENANT+CHURCH)

Deut 6:6–9: "These words, which I command you this day, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for symbols between your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house, and on your gates."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Total integration of covenant teaching into family and home life.

W-C3: Beware forgetting Yahweh in prosperity. (EXHORTATION / COVENANT+WISDOM)

Deut 6:10–12: "It shall be, when Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land… great and goodly cities, which you didn't build… then beware lest you forget Yahweh, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt…"
Stance: assert · Importance: supporting

Leviticus 19 — Holiness Code

W-C4: Holiness is the warrant for ethics: be holy, for Yahweh is holy. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+JUSTICE)

Lev 19:2: "Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and tell them, 'You shall be holy; for I Yahweh your God am holy.'"
Stance: assert · Importance: core

W-C5: Leave gleanings for the poor and the foreigner. (OPERATIONAL / JUSTICE)

Lev 19:9–10: "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field… you shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am Yahweh your God."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Concrete economic structure of solidarity.

W-C6: Do not oppress your neighbour or withhold a worker's wages overnight. (OPERATIONAL / JUSTICE)

Lev 19:13: "You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning."
Stance: deny · Importance: core

W-C7: Do not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind — protect the vulnerable. (OPERATIONAL / JUSTICE+IMAGO)

Lev 19:14: "You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh."
Stance: deny · Importance: core

W-C8: Judge impartially — neither favouring the poor nor the great. (FOUNDATIONAL / JUSTICE)

Lev 19:15: "You shall do no injustice in judgment: you shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Justice is impartiality, not class preference — a load-bearing nuance against simple "side with poor" readings.

W-C9: Do not hate your brother in your heart; rebuke openly; do not take vengeance or bear a grudge — love your neighbor as yourself. (FOUNDATIONAL / LOVE+JUSTICE)

Lev 19:17–18: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · The verse the NT cites repeatedly (Matt 22:39, Mark 12:31, Rom 13:9, Gal 5:14, Jas 2:8) — the OT root of the cross-tradition Golden-Rule cluster.

W-C10: Love the foreigner as yourself — for you were foreigners in Egypt. (FOUNDATIONAL / LOVE+JUSTICE)

Lev 19:33–34: "If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Often-overlooked: the love command is explicitly extended to the foreigner with a memory-warrant (parallel to the Decalogue's liberation warrant; see 13-decalogue-per-verse.md D-P1).

W-C11: Use just weights, measures, and balances. (OPERATIONAL / JUSTICE+TRUTH)

Lev 19:35–36: "You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of length, of weight, or of quantity. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall you have. I am Yahweh your God…"
Stance: assert · Importance: supporting

Psalm 1 — the two ways

W-C12: Blessing is delighting in Yahweh's law — like a tree by streams. (FOUNDATIONAL / WISDOM+COVENANT)

Ps 1:1–3: "Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in Yahweh's law. On his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water…"
Stance: assert · Importance: core · The Psalter's opening sets the two ways — the foundation for the entire Wisdom literature.

Psalm 23 — the shepherd

W-C13: Yahweh is shepherd; nothing is lacking; presence through the valley of death's shadow. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+LOVE)

Ps 23:1, 4: "Yahweh is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing… Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Highest lived-centrality Psalm — read at every funeral and countless prayers.

W-C14: hesed — goodness and loving kindness pursue all days. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+COVENANT+LOVE)

Ps 23:6: "Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in Yahweh's house forever."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Untranslatable: hesed (WEB: "loving kindness")

Psalm 51 — penitential

W-C15: Plea for mercy according to hesed; create in me a clean heart. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+REDEMPTION)

Ps 51:1, 10: "Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness… Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me."
Stance: assert (petition) · Importance: core

W-C16: God desires not sacrifice but a broken and contrite heart. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+JUSTICE)

Ps 51:16–17: "For you don't delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Continuity with the prophetic critique of ritual without justice (Mic 6:6–8, Hos 6:6).

Psalm 90 — finitude and the brevity of life

W-C17: God's eternity vs human transience: "a thousand years like yesterday"; humans are dust. (FOUNDATIONAL / IMAGO+WISDOM)

Ps 90:2–4, 10: "Before the mountains were brought forth… from everlasting to everlasting, you are God… For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past… The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away."
Stance: assert · Importance: core

W-C18: "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (FOUNDATIONAL / WISDOM+IMAGO)

Ps 90:12: "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Wisdom as the conscious embrace of finitude — the OT seed of the N=3 P2 "limit and finitude" principle.

Psalm 139 — God's knowledge of the person

W-C19: God's exhaustive knowledge of the person — searched, known, hemmed in. (FOUNDATIONAL / GOD+IMAGO)

Ps 139:1–6: "Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar… This knowledge is beyond me. It's lofty. I can't attain it."
Stance: assert · Importance: core

W-C20: The person is "fearfully and wonderfully made" — knit together in the womb. (FOUNDATIONAL / IMAGO)

Ps 139:13–14: "For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · One of the OT's strongest articulations of personal dignity as receiveddivinely — supports imago Dei (N=3 P1).

Proverbs core

W-C21: Trust in Yahweh with all the heart; don't lean on your own understanding. (FOUNDATIONAL / WISDOM+GOD)

Prov 3:5–6: "Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Hub wisdom-verse.

W-C22: The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom; knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (FOUNDATIONAL / WISDOM+GOD)

Prov 9:10: "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Hub verse — repeated as a refrain throughout the wisdom literature.

Ecclesiastes 3 — a time for everything

W-C23: "For everything there is a season" — every human activity has its time, including loving and warring. (FOUNDATIONAL / WISDOM+IMAGO)

Eccl 3:1–8: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal… a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace."
Stance: assert · Importance: core · Holds together the universal taxonomy of human seasons under God's sovereignty — neither escape from time nor mastery over it.

Step 4 — Clusters

Cluster	Atomic statements	Intent
The Shema + total integration	C1, C2, C3	One God, total love, integrated into family/home life
Holiness in horizontal ethics	C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C9, C10, C11	Lev 19's core: holiness → care for poor/worker/vulnerable/foreigner; love of neighbour
Two ways + delight in law	C12	Ps 1: the wise/wicked distinction
God's hesed and presence	C13, C14, C15	Pss 23, 51 anchor God's faithful love
Mercy + the contrite heart	C15, C16	Sacrifice subordinate to a broken heart
Finitude + numbering days	C17, C18	Ps 90: mortality as wisdom-school
God's exhaustive knowledge + dignity	C19, C20	Ps 139: known by God; fearfully made
Fear of Yahweh as wisdom's beginning	C21, C22, C23	Trust > understanding; reverence = wisdom; everything in its time

Step 5 — Internal tensions

Impartial justice (C8) vs preferential care for the poor (C5, C10): Lev 19 requires impartial judgment but also enacts structural preference (gleanings, treating the foreigner as native-born). Resolution: the judicial posture is impartial; the structural posture is preferential for those whom power systematically disadvantages. Both held; not contradictory.
Ps 23's "lack nothing" / hesed through life vs Ps 90's transience: held as complementary — God's presence is reliable through finitude, not exempt from it.

Step 6 — Synthesized chapter principles

W-P1: One God, loved with the whole person — the Shema as the first commandment

"Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one: and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Total integration into family life — taught to children, on the heart, on the doorposts. The OT root of the NT Greatest Commandment.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: GOD+COVENANT+LOVE · Covers: C1, C2, C3 · Evidence: Deut 6:4–12 · Cross-canon seam: cited by Jesus, Mark 12:29–30.

W-P2: Holiness is the warrant — and it takes the form of horizontal justice

Lev 19 grounds ethics in God's holiness ("be holy, for I am holy") and immediately defines that holiness as care for the poor (gleanings), the worker (wages by sundown), the vulnerable (deaf, blind), the foreigner (loved as the native-born), and the rigour of just measures and impartial judgment.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: GOD+JUSTICE · Covers: C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C10, C11 · Evidence: Lev 19:2, 9–18, 33–36 · Cross-tradition convergence-hub for justice claims.

W-P3: Love your neighbour as yourself — including the foreigner, with no grudge in the heart

Lev 19:18 is the most-cited OT verse in the NT (Matt 22:39, Mark 12:31, Rom 13:9, Gal 5:14, Jas 2:8). Its full form forbids hatred in the heart, requires open rebuke without grudge-keeping, and extends explicitly to the foreigner (v. 34).

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: LOVE+JUSTICE · Covers: C9, C10 · Evidence: Lev 19:17–18, 33–34 · Hub principle: this is the seed for N=3 P6.

W-P4: Wisdom begins in the fear of Yahweh — trust, don't lean on your own understanding

The wisdom-literature axis: reverent trust in God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge; human understanding is finite and not self-sufficient.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: WISDOM+GOD · Covers: C21, C22 · Evidence: Prov 3:5–6, 9:10 · Bridge to N=3 P3.

W-P5: God is shepherd and hesed — present through the valley of death

The Psalter's most lived-central image: God as shepherd, providing what is needed, present in the dark valley. hesed (loving kindness) pursues across all days.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: GOD+COVENANT+LOVE · Covers: C13, C14 · Evidence: Ps 23 · Untranslatable: hesed

W-P6: God desires a contrite heart, not sacrifice; mercy is according to hesed

Ps 51 sets the OT's clearest interior-religion claim: what God receives is not the burnt offering but a broken and contrite heart; what God gives is mercy according to hesed. Prepares the New Covenant interiority (Jer 31:33).

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: GOD+REDEMPTION+JUSTICE · Covers: C15, C16 · Evidence: Ps 51:1, 10, 16–17

W-P7: Finitude is a wisdom-school — "teach us to number our days"

Ps 90 places God's eternity against the brevity of human life and asks for a "heart of wisdom" that comes precisely from numbering the days. Wisdom is the conscious embrace of finitude.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: WISDOM+IMAGO · Covers: C17, C18, C23 · Evidence: Ps 90:2–12; Eccl 3:1–8 · OT seed for the N=3 P2 "limit and finitude" principle.

W-P8: The person is known fully by God and is wonderfully made

Ps 139's exhaustive divine knowing of the person, joined to the affirmation that the person is "knit together" and "fearfully and wonderfully made," anchors the imago Dei dignity claim in the experience of being personally known and personally made.

Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: GOD+IMAGO · Covers: C19, C20 · Evidence: Ps 139:1–6, 13–14 · Bridge to N=3 P1.

Step 7 — Traceability

Principle	Atomic statements	Verses
W-P1	C1, C2, C3	Deut 6:4–12
W-P2	C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C10, C11	Lev 19:2, 9–18, 33–36
W-P3	C9, C10	Lev 19:17–18, 33–34
W-P4	C21, C22	Prov 3:5–6, 9:10
W-P5	C13, C14	Ps 23
W-P6	C15, C16	Ps 51:1, 10, 16–17
W-P7	C17, C18, C23	Ps 90:2–12; Eccl 3:1–8
W-P8	C19, C20	Ps 139:1–6, 13–14

Step 8 — Quality

Coverage: Deut 6 (25 verses), Lev 19 (selected core), Ps 1, 23, 51, 90, 139 (full), Prov 3:5–6, 9:10, 22:6, Eccl 3:1–8 — all selected verses captured by ≥1 atomic statement.
Orphaned: Prov 22:6 ("train up a child") flagged as part of W-C2's family-formation cluster but not its own atomic statement (already covered by Deut 6's domestic-formation theme).
Principles: 8 (within 3–12 range).
Traceability: 100%.

Step 9 — Validation

Frame-independent claims: W-P2 (justice as care for poor/worker/foreigner/vulnerable + impartial judgment), W-P3 (love your neighbour as yourself, including the foreigner), W-P4 (humility before truth; trust > self-sufficient understanding), W-P7 (finitude as wisdom-school) — all are intelligible cross-tradition convergence candidates.
Frame-specific warrants: W-P1 (Yahweh's oneness), W-P5 (Yahweh as shepherd), W-P6 (hesed of a personal God), and the "I am Yahweh" refrain throughout Lev 19 carry theistic content — flagged for the Atlas claim-vs-warrant pass.
Cross-canon seams: W-P1 → Mark 12:29–30 (14-sermon-on-the-mount-per-verse.md S-P4); W-P3 (Lev 19:18) → Matt 22:39 / Rom 13:9 / Gal 5:14 / Jas 2:8 (the most-cited OT verse in the NT); W-P7 → N=3 P2 "limit and finitude"; W-P8 → N=3 P1 imago Dei. This file is dense with the cross-canon seed verses.