The Book of Psalms vol. 1 - Gordon College Faculty

THE BOOK OF PSALMS A NEW TRANSLATION WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL

By J. J. STEWART PEROWNE, D. D. Canon Residentiary of Llandaff Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge Hon. Chaplain to the Queen Late Praelector in Theology and Fellow of Trinity College VOL. I PSALMS 1-72

George Bell and Sons in 1878, 4th edition. Digitized by Ted Hildebrandt: Gordon College 2006 with the help of Kim Spaulding, Apurva Thanju, and Brianne Records

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION ALTHOUGH the Fourth Edition of this work does not differ very materially from those that have preceded it, either in the translation or in the notes, yet in one respect it will I hope, be found much more complete and accurate. In preparing it, I have had the advantage of consulting many original authorities in Talmudical and Rabbinical literature which before were not within my reach, and I have consequently been able to correct several errors of quotation from these sources, some of which have found their way into many commentaries, one writer having often merely copied and repeated the blunders of another. And, further, I have had throughout the valuable assistance of Dr. Schiller-Szinessy, the learned Reader in Talmudical and Rabbinical Literature in this University, who is a master of Jewish lore, and who has most kindly spared no labour in verifying and correcting my references. Their greater accuracy is, in a large measure, due to the conscientious care which he has bestowed upon them, and of which I am the more sensible, because I know that it has been

viii

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

bestowed notwithstanding the pressure of other numerous and heavy engagements. It is a pleasure to me to take this opportunity of expressing my obligations to him, and my sense of the ready kindness with which his learning is always placed at the disposal of others. CAMBRIDGE, March 7, 1878.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION IN preparing a Third Edition of this work for the press, I have availed myself of the following critical aids and authorities:-I. Baer's critical text of the Psalter. His preface on the Metrical Accentuation of the Poetical Books deserves notice. 2. Field's admirable Edition of Origen's Hexapla. I have corrected by reference to it many quotations which were given in my former editions on the authority of Montfaucon. 3. Moll's Commentary in Lange's Bibelwerk. 4. The 2nd Edition of Delitzsch's Psalter. 5. The 3rd Edition of Ewald's work on the Psalms. 6. The 2nd Edition of Hitzig's Commentary. 7. Dr. Kay's Psalms with Notes. 8. Professor Conant's Translation. 9. The 2nd Edition of Dr. Phillip's Commentary. My special thanks are due to R. L. Bensly, Esq., Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, who has been so kind as to revise the sheets of the work as it passed through the press; to his knowledge and accuracy I am greatly indebted. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, April 22, 1873.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE Second Edition of this work will not be found to differ very materially from the First. I have made a few additions, more particularly to the Critical Notes in some of the earlier Psalms; and I have corrected errors wherever I have discovered them, or where they have been pointed out to me by friends. All the references have been carefully revised. Many of the apparent mistakes in the references of the First Edition were due to my having used the Hebrew Bible, without taking due care to mark where the Hebrew divisions of chapters or verses varied from the English. Where these differ, it will now be found, I hope, that both references are given, those to the Hebrew text being enclosed in square brackets. If, however, the double reference has still been omitted in some cases, it may be borne in mind that in all Psalms which have an inscription, the inscription is reckoned as a verse (occasionally as two verses) in the Hebrew text, whereas this is not the case in the English. Consequently the first verse in the English may be the second or even the third in the Hebrew, and so on all through. In the Critical Notes the references are always to the Hebrew text.

xii

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In revising my translation I have approached in several instances more nearly to the Authorized Version, and I have more frequently than before left the literal rendering of a clause for the note, giving the freer and more idiomatic in the text. In doing this, I have listened to the suggestions of my critics, some of whom, not agreeing in other respects, have agreed in censuring my trnaslation. And now as there is at last some reasonable hope that a revision of our Authorized Version will be undertaken by competent scholars, this question of translation possesses far more than a merely personal or temporary interest. Even a translator who has failed, if he has done his work honestly and conscientiously, may be a beacon, if he cannot be a guide, to those who come after him. I shal therefore be pardoned perhaps, if I discuss more fully than I should otherwise have done, some of the points that have been raised. The objections that have been brought against me are of this kind. One of my reviewers observes that, after having said that I had not “needlessly departed” from our Authorized Version, I have “judged if needful often enough to give an entirely new air to my translation.” Another writes: “The gain which is acquired by the greater accurarcy of the version by no means compensates for the loss of harmony and rhythm and sweetness, both of sound and of association. An English reader could undrestand the Psalms no better, and he could not enjoy them half so well.” I have been charged with going directly against “existing standards of public tastes and feeling,” in following the Hebrew order of the words, where such order is not the most natural in English. This is “to undo the work of such men as Wordsworth and Tennyson.” Again, “In the original, the paronomasia or alliteration” [to preserve which the structure of the sentence in English has been made to accomodate

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

xiii

itself to the structure in Hebrew] “amounts only to a delicate hint, which may pass unnoticed except to an observant eye; in the translation it obtrudes itself as a prominent feature of the style.” And both critics concur in thinking that I have myself fallen into the very errors in point of taste which I have condemned in other translations. Now I may at once say that to some extent, if not to the whole extent alleged by the reviewers, I plead guilty to the indictment. I have carried minute and punctilious accuracy too far. I have sometimes adhered too closely, without any adequate and compensating result, to the order of the words in the Hebrew. It will be an evidence of the sincerity of my reprentance on this head, that in the present edition I have in many instnaces corrected both the one fault and the other. But I cannot concede all that the critics demand of me. I. In the first place, I did not say, in the preface to my first edition, that I had not “needlessly departed from our Authorized Version,” but that I had “not needlessly departed from the sound English of our Authorized Version;” and my meaning was evident, because I immediately gave as instances of departure the use of the verb “to seize” and of the noun “sympathy.”* 2. In the next place, I feel quite sure that those who lay so much stress upon “harmony and rhythm and sweetness,” are thinking more of the Prayer-Book Version of the Psalms, than of that of King James’s translators. The former is far more musical, more balanced, and also more paraphrastic than the latter; and from constantly hearing it read in the Church Services, we have become so thoroughly habituated to it that almost any departure from its well-known cadences * So it ought to have stood: the verb “to sypmpathize” was put by mistake for the noun “sympathy.” I have only used it once in Ps. lxix., and there to express a Hebrew noun which occurs nowhere else.

xiv

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

offends the ear. Indeed our familiarity with this version is such, that not only would most English Churchmen having occasion to quote a verse of a Psalm quote it as it stands in the Prayer-Book, but they would often be very much surprised if they were told that the very sense of the Bible Version was different. Of the multitude of persons who are familiar with the phrase, "The iron entered into his soul," how many are aware that the rendering in our Bible is, “He was laid in iron” There can be no question as to which is the more rhythmical and the more expressive; but there can also be no question that the Authorized Version faithfully represents the Hebrew, which the other does not. It would be no difficult task to quote a number of passages from the Bible Version of the Psalms which fail essentially in rhythm just because they are faithful to the original. Take for instance the following (Ps. lviii. 7):—"Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces." Now contrast with this the freer but inaccurate rendering of the Prayer-Book Version:--"Let them fall away like water that runneth apace; and when they shoot their arrows, let them be rooted out." Again, the Bible version of lix. 19 is:---"God shall hear and afflict them, even He that abideth of old. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God." Whereas the Prayer-Book Version (again very inaccurate, but much smoother) is:—"Yea, even God, that endureth for ever, shall hear me, and bring them down: for they will not turn nor fear God." In the Bible, Ps. lxviii. 19 stands:—"Thou, 0 God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby Thou didst confirm Thine inheritance, when it was weary." In the Prayer-Book Version it is: “Thou, 0 God, sentest

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

xv

a gracious rain upon Thine inheritance, and refreshedst it when it was weary." Or compare the two versions in xlix. 7-9, or in cxxx. 1-4, and the same phenomenon presents itself, as it does in many other instances; the Bible is the more accurate, the Prayer-Book the more rhythmical version. But if this is the case, then in estimating a new translation, the object of which is avowedly to give as exactly as possible the sense of the original, justice requires that it should be compared with the language of the Authorized Version, not with that of the Prayer-Book. 3. Thirdly, I have been censured for adhering too closely to the form of the Hebrew, both in its idiom and in the structure of the clauses. Perhaps I have gone too far in this direction. But before a question of this kind can be decided, it is important to lay down as clearly as possible to the mind what it is we aim at in a translation. "There are two maxims of translation," says Goethe: "the one requires that the author of a foreign nation be brought to us in such a manner that we may regard him as our own; the other, on the contrary, demands of us that we transport ourselves over to him, and, adopt his situation, his mode of speaking, his peculiarities. The advantages of both are sufficiently known to all instructed persons, from masterly examples." Each of these methods "is good," says Mrs. Austin, the accomplished translator of Ranke's History of the Popes, "with relation to its ends —the one when matter alone is to be transferred, the other when matter and form." And she adds very truly: "The praise that a translated work might be taken for an original, is acceptable to the translator only when the original is a work in which form is unimportant." She instances Pope's Homer as essentially a failure, because we want to know not only what Homer said, but how he said it. "A light narrative," she

xvi

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

continues, “a scientific exposition, or a plain statement of facts, which pretends to nothing as a work of art, cannot be too thoroughly naturalized. Whatever may be thought of the difficulties in the way of this kind of translation, they are slight compared with those attending the other kind, as anybody who carefully studies the masterpieces in this way must perceive. In the former kind the requisites are two—the meaning of the author, and a good vernacular style; in the latter, the translator has, as far as possible, to combine with these the idiomatic tone of the author—to place him before the reader with his national and individual peculiarities of thought and of speech. The more rich, new, and striking these peculiarities are, the more arduous will the task become; for there is manifestly a boundary-line, difficult if not impossible to define, beyond which the most courageously faithful translator dares not venture, under pain of becoming unreadable. This must be mainly determined by the plasticity of his language, and by the taste of his fellow-countrymen. A German translator can effect, and may venture, more than an Egnlish; an English than a French;--and this, not only because his language is more fulll and pliant, but because Germans have less nationality, and can endure unusual forms of speech for the sake of gaining accurate insight into the characteristics of the literature of other countries.” It is on these grounds that Mrs. Austin defends her own “Germanisms” in her translation of Goethe into English. It is on similar grounds that I would defend “Hebraisms” in the rendering of the Psalms and the poetical portion of the Hebrew Scriptures into English. In the poetry of a people, more than in any other species of literature, form is of importance. Hence we find Mrs. Austin, whose skill as a translator has been universally admitted, not shunning *Characteristics of Goethe, vol. i. pp. xxxv-xxxxvii.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

xvii

inversions of language in her translations from Goethe, where “fidelity” and “literalness” are her object. Thus, for instance, the lines in the Metamorphose der Pflanzen: “Dich verwirret, Geliebte, die tausendfaltige Mischung, Dieses Blumengewuhls uber dem Garten umber;” are rendered by her— “Thee perplexes, beloved, the thousandfold intermixture Of this flowery throng, around in the garden.” And again, “Blattlos aber und schnell erhebt sich der zartere Stengel, Und ein Wundergebild zieht den Betrachtenden an,” is translated— “Leafless, however, and rapid, up darts the slenderer flower-stalk, And a wonderful picture attracts the observer’s eye.” I have in the same way deliberately preferred, where the English idiom did not absolutely forbid it, to retain the order of the words in the Hebrew, because I felt that in sacrificing the form, I should be inflicting a loss upon the reader. However, as I said, in revising my work I have somewhat modified my practice in this respect, and have contented myself on several occasions with putting the more literal rendering in a note. 4. Besides being guilty of too great “punctiliousness” and “inelegance,” where idiom and harmony are concerned, I have sinned, according to one of my reviewers,* in the introduction of the word “Jehovah” instead of “the Lord,” which has for centuries been its customary equivalent. The change, he says, would be perfectly legitimate, if I were professing to make everything give way to verbal exactness. But as I allow other considerations to come in, he thinks that the perpetual recurrence of the Hebrew form of the word is in the highest degree strange and unpleasant. “As the name *Saturday Review, July 2, 1864.

xviii

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

had fallen out of use in the Jewish Church, and never became current in the Christian, our old translators did well to prefer the idea to the name; and the attempt to bring back the name seems now to force into prominence its local and national character, where everything calls for a word which has nothing local or national about it." In reply to these objections, it might be almost sufficient to observe that in retaining the Hebrew name I have only followed the example of every modern translator of eminence. But of course it is still a question for consideration, whether there are sufficient grounds for the change. I think there are very cogent grounds, which the reviewer in his dislike of novelty, or his dislike of Puritanism, has entirely overlooked, (I) In the first place, our translators in their use of the word "Lord" make no distinction between two names, "Jehovah and "Adonai," perfectly distinct in Hebrew, and conveying different conceptions of God. (2) In the next place, it is well known that whole Psalms are characterized, just as sections of the Pentateuch are characterized, by peculiar names of God, and it is surely of some importance to retain as far as possible these characteristic features, especially when critical discussions have made them prominent, and questions of age and authorship have turned upon them. (3) What the reviewer regards as a disagreeable innovation, has been held by very good authorities to be a desirable emendation in our Authorized Version. "Why continue the translation of the Hebrew into English," says Coleridge, "at second hand, through the medium of the Septuagint? Have we not adopted the Hebrew word Jehovah? Is not the Kur an interrogative in Greek. To return, however, to Horsley's explanation, what meaning after all does it convey? What sense is there in saying, "Heal my soul, for I bear the blame before Thee. Heal my soul, for I am not a sinner, but only in the character of a sinner"? Such interpretations introduce the idea * ]All ] i!na h[ grafh> plhrwq^?, o[ trwn a@rton e]p^?ren e]p ] e]me> th>n pte e]mou?; an interpretation which is adopted in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Ewald, Delitzsch, and others, strangely enough render, " Lo, I come with the roll of the Book," &c. as if the Psalmist actually took the roll of the Pentateuch (or of Deuteronomy, a copy of which the king in particular was commanded to have, Deut. xvii. 14—20) with him into the Temple. What the propriety or significance of such an act could be, I am at a loss to imagine. They then explain the prep. lfa differently. Ew. "für mich," "for me." Del. "über mich,"concerning me," i.e. as prescribing to me my duties as a king. De Wette, "Lo, I come with .the roll of the Book written upon me," i.e. upon

my heart, referring to Jer. xxxi. 33, Prov. iii. 3. But first it seems very doubtful if ylafA, "upon me," could stand thus nakedly for "upon my heart" (xlii.4 [5] is not strictly parallel, as "my soul" follows): secondly, though the Law might be said to be written on his heart, to say that the roll of the Book was written upon his heart, would be a very different and a very harsh expression. 8. TO DO THY PLEASURE (Or will). These words would seem naturally to depend on the foregoing, "Lo, I come," and so they are twice cited in Heb. x. 7, 9. Instead of that, however, a new verb is supplied, "I delight." IN MY INMOST HEART (lit. " in the midst of my bowels," as the seat of the affections), written there on its "fleshy tables," and not merely in the Book. Comp. xxxvii. 31, Deut. vi. 6, and see the prophetic promises that so it should be with the whole nation (Jer, xxxi. 33, Is. Ii. 7). 9. But not obedience only, but thanksgiving also shall form a part of his grateful acknowledgement of God's goodness; he will both do the will and speak the praises of Jehovah. This last, too, is better than sacrifice, I. 14, 15, 23. On the enumeration of the various attributes of God, see above, xxxiv. 5—7. 9, 10. I HAVE PUBLISHED ... I WOULD NOT REFRAIN ... I HAVE NOT HID . . . I HAVE UTTERED . . . I HAVE NOT CONCEALED: words are heaped upon words to express the

338

PSALM XL. 11 Thou, O Jehovah, wilt not refrain Thy tender compassion from me; Let Thy loving-kindness and Thy truth alway defend me. 12 For evils have come about me without number; My iniquities have overtaken me that I cannot see: They are more than the hairs of my head, And my heart hath failed me. 13 Be pleased, O Jehovah, to deliver me; O Jehovah, haste Thee to help me, 14 Let them be ashamed and confounded together That seek after my life to destroy it! Let them be turned backward, and brought to dishonour, That delight in my hurt!

eager forwardness of a heart burning to show forth its gratitude. No elaborate description could so well have given us the likeness of one whose "life was a thanksgiving." 11. The Psalmist turns to earnest entreaty. Apparently, therefore, he has recalled a former deliverance, in order to comfort himself therewith in his present sorrow, and pleads his conduct in the past as a ground for fresh mercies. THOU WILT NOT REFRAIN, with evident reference to the I WOULD NOT REFRAIN, ver. 9. Again, THY LOVINGKINDNESS AND THY TRUTH, with like reference to the preceding verse, "As I have not concealed them from others, so let them ever defend me." 12. MY INIQUITIES. This verse is quite decisive as to the question which has been raised respecting the Messianic interpretation of the Psalm. It is quite impossible to refer such words as these to Christ; and when expositors choose to say that "my iniquities" mean "the iniquities laid upon me," they are doing violence most unjustifiably to the plain words of the text.

Such interpreters can hardly find fault with Romanists for adding to the Word of God. FAILED, lit. "forsaken." 13. From this verse to the end appears in a separate form as Ps. lxx., where consult the notes for the variations, &c. Hupfeld maintains that Ps, lxx. is the original which has been appended here; but then, in order to support this hypothesis, he is obliged to make Ps. xl. end with ver. 1l, feeling, no doubt, that with ver. 12 the conclusion would be lame and imperfect. But it is, on the face of it, improbable that Ps, lxx. should have been joined on here by means of an intercalated verse. It is more likely that the latter part of this Psalm was detached and altered by a later writer, who felt, perhaps, that he could not so well use the former part in his own case. BE PLEASED (omitted in Ps. lxx.), here used apparently with reference to "Thy pleasure," ver. 8. The whole of the conclusion of this Psalm reminds us of the conclusion of Ps. xxxv.

PSALM XL.

339

15 Let them be struck dumb as a reward of their shame, That say unto me, Aha, Aha! 16 Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee! Let such as love Thy salvation say alway, " Jehovah be magnified." 17 And as for me,—afflicted and poor, the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my Help and my Deliverer: O my God, make no long tarrying. a

NOxwA rOBmi. LXX. e]k la th>n pte gnwr a]peiqou?ntej tou? kataskhnw?sai. o -smAfEya. This verb (like xWn and lbs) seems to combine the two meanings, (i) to put a burden upon another, and (2) to bear a burden. In the former sense it is always construed with lfa. Of those who adopt (a), some, as Calv., and the E. V., take it in a good sense, "who daily loadeth us (with benefits);" others, as L. de Dieu, De W., Reuss, make UnlA-smAfEya the protasis to what follows, "If any lay a burden upon us, (still) God is," &c.; others, again, as Gei., take lxehA as the subject, "He who lays (or laid) a burden upon us is the God who is also our salvation," i.e. this burden was a discipline and so a means of blessing. But these constructions are harsh, and (2) seems preferable. Comp. Is. xlvi. 1, 3, Zech. xii. 3. Then UnlA either stands here (according to later usage) for the accus., as Hupf. takes it, "schleppt uns" (and so Jerome, portavit nos); or, which is better, retains its proper force as a dat. commodi,. "Who beareth for us (our burden)." So Ew. and Del., and De Wette says of this rendering, "besser vielleicht." p tOxcAOT tv,mAla, lit. "means of escape for death," or with reference to i.e. against or from death." So Ew. explains, " God gives to Israel the means to escape from death." Similarly De W., "Vona Tode Rettung;" Zunz, "Ausgänge vom Tode." And the E. V., "issues from death." (2) Others, "goings forth to death," i.e. God has means of leading the enemy to death. So Symm. ai[ ei]j qa