All joy for those who are the complete of the way of those walking in the teaching of יְהוָה | אַשְׁרֵי תְמִימֵי דָרֶךְ הַהֹלְכִים בְּתוֹרַת יְהוָה |
All joy for those observing his testimonies With their whole heart they seek him | אַשְׁרֵי נֹצְרֵי עֵדֹתָיו בְּכָל לֵב יִדְרְשׁוּהוּ |
Also they do no injustice They walk in his ways | אַף לֹא פָעֲלוּ עַוְלָה בִּדְרָכָיו הָלָכוּ |
And you commanded your precepts to keep in full | אַתָּה צִוִּיתָה פִקֻּדֶיךָ לִשְׁמֹר מְאֹד |
Ah if only my ways were directed to keep your statutes | אַחֲלַי יִכֹּנוּ דְרָכָי לִשְׁמֹר חֻקֶּיךָ |
And then I would not be ashamed in my gaze on all your commandments | אָז לֹא אֵבוֹשׁ בְּהַבִּיטִי אֶל כָּל מִצְוֹתֶיךָ |
And I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn from the judgments of your righteousness | אוֹדְךָ בְּיֹשֶׁר לֵבָב בְּלָמְדִי מִשְׁפְּטֵי צִדְקֶךָ |
And I will keep your statutes you will not forsake me in full perpetuity | אֶת חֻקֶּיךָ אֶשְׁמֹר אַל תַּעַזְבֵנִי עַד מְאֹד |
Time and again I am straying like a sheep that has perished
seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments
But this thought is already present in verse 5. The form is not of parallel cola, at least not particularly. The poet seems free to begin with hope. I struggle to balance the repeated word in the fourth and eighth verses. The forsaking reminds me of psalm 22. The first verse reminds me of psalm 1. To keep the instruction of יְהוָה in full and not to be forsaken 'for ever' (though that phrasing loses the sound of the poem), not to be forsaken fully in perpetuity - says to me that the cost of creation, unlimited though it be, is not a cost that cannot be met. The time of the forsaken is limited.seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments
Here are the words in order in small doses with the grammar noted.
asheri | אשׁרי | happy - in construct |
tamymi | תמימי | tamim is also a word in itself though it means the same as tam and looks like a plural so the only grammatical aspect of this word is the final yod from the construct |
derek | דרך | the noun that is the end point of the construct chain? - how did it become definite when there is no article? Implicitly by the parallel that follows? |
haholkim | ההלכים | qal active plural participle with article interpreted as relative but perhaps this is the end of the construct chain |
betorat | בתורת | in the teaching of |
יהוה | יהוה | יהוה |
asheri | אשׁרי | happy - in construct |
notsrei | נצרי | qal active participle in construct |
`edotaiv | עדתיו | plural feminine with possessive pronoun third person masculine |
becol | בכל | with + adjective |
lev | לב | noun |
yidreshuhu | ידרשׁוהו | qal imperfect third person plural with third person pronomial suffix |
'aph | אף | conjunction |
lo | לא | negative particle |
pa`alu | פעלו | third person plural qal perfect (of course - there's that vav again) |
`avlah | עולה | word occurs both with and without the ה listed separately in BDB and Hebrew-Latin concordance, even misspelled in Hosea 10:9 ('alva!) - also appears with a taf ('avlata) Psalm 92:15 (16 Hebr) |
bidrakaiv | בדרכיו | plural ways, singular pronomial suffix, prepositional affix |
halaku | הלכו | they walk - third person plural qal perfect |
'atta | אתה | you - pronoun |
tsivitah | צויתה | second person singular masculine perfect piel (this word is always piel - and it's hollow too and a III-he - yikes! - so the green grammar letters are those letters that are not a part of the regular root) צוה It seems to me that piel is only distinguishable from qal by diacritics (except for participles where there is an extra mem prefix). |
piqudeyka | פקדיך | plural with possessive second person masculine pronoun |
lishmor | לשׁמר | infinitive with preposition |
me'od | מאד | much - note later recurrence |
)`axalai | אחלי | interjection -if only - Rashi reads it as prayers - i.e. the interjection is prayer as is the sentence - "these [my prayers] are that my ways are firm". |
yikonu | יכנו | third person plural (next word is the subject) - niphal. The root כּוּן is 'hollow' so the vav disappears in this form. |
draki | דרכי | could be singular with first person pronoun = my way, but verb is plural so as with the construct form, the masculine noun plural in im (which for this noun דרך occurs by itself only 6 times in the Bible) is shortened. This word is very common - 12 columns in my concordance 705 occurrences according to BLB |
lishmor | לשׁמר | infinitive with preposition |
xuchaika | חקיך | plural (shortened) with pronomial suffix |
'az | אז | then |
lo | לא | negative particle |
'ebosh | אבושׁ | first person imperfect qal |
behabiti | בהביטי | preposition+hiphil infinitive+possessive first person pronoun |
el | אל | preposition |
kol | כל | adjective |
mitsvoteika | מצותיך | plural with pronomial second person suffix |
'odek | אודך | first person imperfect qal (lucky for the poet it always starts with aleph) |
beyosher | בישׁר | preposition+construct |
levav | לבב | noun - and the spelling is full - both hearts - negative and positive - represented! |
belamdi | בלמדי | same construction as above only preposition+qal infinitive+first person pronoun |
mishpatei | משׁפטי | plural in construct = judgments of |
tsedeqeka | צדקך | noun singular with second person possessive pronoun |
et | את | direct object marker as a lead in a poem - it's as bad as my 'Ah' or 'And' |
xuqeik | חקיך | noun plural with second person possessive pronoun |
eshmor | אשׁמר | poet could have begun the line with this verb too - again first person imperfect qal |
al | אל | negative particle |
ti`azbeni | תעזבני | imperfect second person with pronomial suffix with an extra nun - to make the suffix easier to say? |
`ad | עד | until |
me'od | מאד | much - note how it recurs earlier in this poem |
3 comments:
Very good! In my limited experience, if I may point out something: sometimes construct chains are best translated with the second noun being an adjective: "your righteous statutes" sounds like much better English than "the statutes of your righteousness."
Gary - I concur - adjectives and even conversion into a relative clause are less cumbersome than the concatenation of nouns - but in this case, I thought I perceived a head over heels approach to the poetry by the writer - a sort of I-am-going-to-delay-my-point-as-long-as-I-can - well at least till the end of the first bi-colon.
I must figure out a way to automate some of the layout! Or I will be doing grammar exercises for years to come.
It is interesting that Rashi treats the full first verse as a title: Praiseworthy are those who are blameless with respect to behaviour is how the English version of Rashi's commentary puts it. It makes me think that he also read the whole of that verse as a single concatenated thought.
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