Psalm 2 - and Rashi

Rashi's psalms will not unpack easily. His comments are stream of consciousness notes. The footnotes by the translator Mayer I. Gruber are physically after each Psalm and the Hebrew is in an appendix. If you were trying to learn medieval Hebrew and fathom the commentary, you need to have fingers in three places in the text at once.

But Rashi's comments do yield some historical nuggets... It seems that the translation of verse 11 - Kiss the son - was not even on the horizon in France the 11th century. Since Rashi specifically comments to preclude Christian arguments, it was surprising to me that he says nothing on this. Apparently (from the footnote) it was Abraham Ibn Ezra a few years later in Spain who read the Hebrew as Kiss the son - (and so Luther and the KJV.) Rashi also adds the word heart to the verse - Arm yourselves with purity of heart.

Arm yourselves with purity - is a nice parallel to the beginning of the poem - parallel to the anointed. I think I could live with this structurally and as a pointer to Christ also. Reminds me of the instruction in 1 John to become pure as he is pure.

The crux for Rashi in verse 11 is whether it is reasonable to suppose that the same people can both rejoice and tremble. I never considered this a problem - rejoicing with trembling is just what one might do when discovering the joy of life in the covenant of the Lord. [update: I wonder just what kind of trembling though - this word seems rare in the Bible and not very positive - but perhaps there is need of an extreme negative to accompany its opposite...] I guess one could say that Rashi is not a translation - since he didn't have to translate anything of course.

Curiously enough there is an answer in this verse in the LXX to James McGrath's recent question - Seize upon instruction or the Lord may become angry!

There was much discussion of psalm 2 among bloggers a year ago. Some links here.

Craigie on Psalm 2:12

[Revised] Craigie translates נַשְּׁקוּ-בַר (nashiqu-bar) as 'kiss the son' interpreting the br as Aramaic, son. He also gives a variation from Holladay who translates as: 'you who forget the grave' using what looks to me like a substantial rework of the text נַשְּׁי-קבַר . Though grave has a potential parallel in 'perish', it seems like a replacement of the poetic line rather than a translation. My contention is simply that the phrase must refer to the anointed directly or indirectly in order to complete the 8th structural component in the envelope surrounding the installation of the king as shown in my new diagram.

Staring at psalm 2

There is no easy way to deal with Psalm 2 - and so for the moment, I am shelving it. [Much later, read Rashi and realize that purity is a great structural completion and even a Janus parallel.]

Structurally, the last three verses sum up the previous nine: The kings of the earth (1) are recalled in 10. The wrath and burning (5) are reflected in 12 in reverse order with a diminutive hint of humour recalling the laughter of verse 4. The anointed, the subject of 2, 6-9, the ruler of the kings of the earth, the one about whom is the substance of the enthronment psalm is not mentioned in the recap unless we recognize the son in verse 12.

I can't get any other hint as to what נַשְּׁקוּ-בַר means unless it refers back to this major section and subject of the poem. I have to stick with kiss the son for now since otherwise the poem is structurally incomplete. It cannot mean do homage to the LORD; but kiss the ground is possible if it is deemed an act of submission to the anointed.

To see a readable enlargement of the image illustrating these relations click here. I could improve my colouring. One day, I will learn that less is more, but my excuse is that this was one of the first I translated and coloured - and I was testing a product - and it goes beyond colour.

The son, the Son, the field, purity

update: 8 months later - see this (with some refinement of the rough suggestion in this post) as an example of possible resolving of unknowns with structure.
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Psalm 2 has given rise to much discussion in the past weeks. See for instance here which links to John Hobbins who references Craigie's translation among others. I have a problem with the whole confusing sense. My brain makes short links among all these concepts - wondering if they are connected. Pure now seems out. Kiss purely? Kiss the bar=son? Kiss the field=ground=grovel? What ironic or sincere twist is appropriate?

Psalm 2 is one of two that govern our interpretation of the whole. The last verse forms an inclusio with the first verse of Psalm 1. The first editor of the 150 presumably is pre-Christendom. Is there a clue here?

Can we take the end of the poem from the beginning? Presumably the kings are being warned - seriously yet also with some mockery - as if to say - who do you think you are fighting against? Also the hint of anger at the end compared to the threat of confrontation at the beginning invite finding the hint to BR at the beginning of the Psalm...

The hint is in the installation of the king on the holy hill of Zion.
a Kings rising -
b God laughing -
c wrath -
d installation -
הַר-קָדְשִׁי HaR-QADSHi
[declaration of the king as son and invitation to rule] -
naSHQU-baR נַשְּׁקוּ-בַר
d' - [unknown translation of BR]
c' - wrath
b' - a little
a' - blessing

Can this structure be supported? Perhaps the poet wanted BR to rhyme with HR - it's all very alliterative.