Psalm 1 - a holiday meditation

I have been having a hard time starting to write again after my holiday. I wrote lots with pen and paper on the cruise, but the fourth page has been stopping me from reworking later pages. I had with me only psalms 1, 2 and 149 - as if I could learn from an opening and closing bracket. It strikes me that one should not divide translation into different types as the early posts from Joel Hoffman's blog seem to be doing and as many translators do. Translation must encompass the word for word, the dynamic equivalence, and the idiomatic all at once. Perhaps where there was no idiom a new one will arise from the translation. Perhaps where the literal is impossible, one will pass into equivalence as best as one can, and last but first in my bias, from the point of view of sound rather than meaning alone, one must hear the frame in order to know the content. Yet too - one might at times have to obscure the frame. In these cases, a footnote is important. I sympathize with Joel in his latest post.  A footnote that says 'Hebrew obscure' or unclear, is not very useful information. Obscure to whom? It certainly is obscured to the reader by such a comment.

So here is my meditation on Psalm 1. It is dialogue.
V. Walk stand sit... is that all I do? I thought it wicked to lie down.
R. You abstract wicked. I do not. My wicked are personal, not disembodied. The saints on their bed are blessed. I said nothing about lying down.
V. Blessed? Happy, you mean, don't you? Did you divide the wicked and the righteous from the beginning?
R. It has been mine from the beginning to know the differences between the one and the others.
V. So walk stand sit are a merism for me. And sinners and scornful are a subdivision of wicked. The other trio, advice way seat, is it one also?
R. No they are many and indistinguished.

V. The one has three times as many words as the many! "In your teaching his delight." Do many know your delight that is his teaching? or her teaching?
R.
V. No question. Your teaching becomes his. Learning such inexpressible delight. All senses participate in delight. So there is fruitfulness. The unfaded leaf can be touched. It has heard. It nourishes both itself and others. It propagates. It is deeply known. That is one way, named as such, known in the opening of the ear to learning from you. No other teacher will do though many may stimulate the beginning of the path. But the beginning is also the end for the end is you. That you know this way, their dross consumed, their husk scattered: that too is a type of fruitfulness. There is no point in me without you.

Post # 500 - trying to remember...

I took away with me to Alaska and on the south-bound cruise to Vancouver two 'work'-like things -

1. the Summer edition of JBL in which I read several articles. I very much enjoyed 'The Tale of an Unrighteous Slave' by Fabian Udoh  - a striking review of the parable of the unjust steward, and 'The Jewish Messiahs, the Pauline Christ, and the Gentile Question', by Matthew Novenson. This article was an almost direct anwser to some of my meandering questions on the meaning of Anointed. 
2. my old diagram of Psalm 1, 2 and 149 - just to keep in practice for reading and translation. Without any props or reference grammars, I found my three-year old brain confused over the pronomial suffixes of Psalm 2. Why is the translation not like this?

Let us break his bonds asunder and cast away his cords from us.
ננתקה את־מוסרותימו ונשליכה ממנו עבתימו

The suffix is a vav - meaning his. It is not a 'hem' meaning theirs. My grammar would not go with me in my head - so now I am back and searching Lambdin - and nowhere can I find a 'them' or 'their' where the word ends in a vav. Similarly in Putnam - a final vav (except for 1st person plural final nun-vav) is always his - never their. What am I failing to remember and failing to see?

Psalm 2 was an early psalm for me - and even a second time through, my familiarity with traditional translations and carefree nature as regards grammar prevented me from seeing this funny problem.

Psalm 1 - revisited

I have not revisited this psalm yet - but John has a number of posts on it beginning here.

Our new technology for charting has almost gotten into the next level of testing - so I have republished here an old image of my diagram for Psalm 1 with new graphs. The other psalms will follow eventually. Nice colors, eh? The profile at the bottom of the image is 'electric'. One day I also will rework the translation - exactly how, I am not sure... but it will be interesting. Maybe I will write a poem.

Bad boy bears

Tagged on Elisha and the two bears - I have answered here.

Posting on Sufficiency

I am going to post from now on - on the Sufficiency blog [now Dust] till I run out of room. Here is a first post on Matthew. I hope also to continue with Ruth and to post some new diagrams and charts on Job and the Psalms.

Psalms and concordant translation

I did not approach the Psalms as I am approaching Job. Job is one book - ostensibly one epic poem. So when it is translated, it should be done with as much attention to the sound and feel of the words as possible. So where Elihu uses the words of Job or Bildad - and he frequently does, the translator should use the same English word so that the hearer can hear the similar sounds in the target language. But with the Psalms I did not begin to do this. ZMR for instance - sing, sing praise, make melody, psalm, hymn etc - I have been quite free with synonyms - or better said - quite careless. The psalms are one book but many poems. Within a poem I may have paid more attention - especially since I was looking for recurring words.

But should the Psalms be translated with such concordance? There are arguments against it - especially if different ages can be discerned. One would not expect Shakespeare to sound like Milton or Eliot. One would expect style and language differences and different nuances in the same sounds.

The psalms have done their job for me and in me - I approached them to learn Hebrew and to hear the ancient mind more fully. I learned much more than this. Now after a few more weeks with Job, I have a long journey back to the first century and then perhaps into my own time as well.

Translating and praying

With John's posts on Psalm 26 I realize afresh not that I should stop translating, but that I should ensure that I read now these prayers as prayers. Psalm 26 is a very good prayer as prayer.

Quiet but still here

Peter Lopez of the Beauty of the Bible has honoured me with a Noblesse Oblige award for this and related blogs. Thank you Peter.

Here is a short list of nominees for the award. May they be creative in their work - Perhaps they will see this on this now low-volume blog, perhaps not.

• Duane at Abnormal Interests
• Irshad Manji at Irshad Manji blog and official website
• Richard at תהלים

Psalms - let's read Greek

Louis Sorenson [Psalms GreekStudy Coordinator] psalms at letsreadgreek.com/psalms is reading some popular psalms in a group - see here for instructions.

I joined in for psalm 1 - but there is not enough time in the day to do a psalm a week and compare 12 translations and translate Job - a job which is all engaging! Besides Greek is even more of a strain than Hebrew for me.

But Psalm 8 - the results on the list - are intriguing - where would I find the results? They are only on the emails received from the list. I say intriguing since none has taken this division of the text - reading roughly as follows (I think this is due to Fokkelman's influence on me about 2 years ago.)

יְהוָה our Lord
how majestic is your name in all the earth

יְהוָה אֲדֹנֵינוּ
מָה-אַדִּיר שִׁמְךָ בְּכָל-הָאָרֶץ

your splendor that is chanted
above the heavens by the mouth
of children and nurselings

אֲשֶׁר תּוּנָּה הוֹדְךָ
עַל-הַשָּׁמָיִם מִפִּי
עוֹלְלִים וְיֹנְקִים

You have set strength for the sake of your foes
that you might rest enemy and vengeance

יִסַּדְתָּ-עֹז לְמַעַן צוֹרְרֶיךָ
לְהַשְׁבִּית אוֹיֵב וּמִתְנַקֵּם

It may be that the Greek versification and reordering of the text does not allow such a reading.

Considering Job and the Psalms

I wondered if the apparently thorough index at the end of J. M. Neale's 4 volume commentary on the Psalms, primitive and medieval writers and from the various office books and hymns of the Roman, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Gallican, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac Rites. That is indeed the subtitle! I wondered, as I said, if this would provide an insight into relationships between Job and the Psalms - but after a few tests, I think it will not be a quick decision.

This comprehensive index, manually created in a mechanical but pre-electronic time, is a marvel of completeness with respect to the contents of his book. But it is not a companion reading except to the extent that it reflects where Job is referenced in the commentary by those detailed prior authors and rites.

E.g. Job 1:6 Psalm 37:12 - Any relationship at all verbally? None. Job 14:4-5, he notes Psalm 39:5, Job 14:14:19, Psalm 18:3. But no mention of the tree image in Psalm 1 - a possible companion to Job 14. And the Psalm 39 allusion is anticipated by Job 14:13 not verses 4 and 5. Besides this, I must continuously translate Roman numerals to numbers.

There are allusions to the Psalms in Job - some chapters invite a companion reading. I have referenced a few in the translations on Job - but I am not quite ready to try the reverse references. Each allusion needs more than a touch. And each needs a new word in our times.

Parallelism and Grammar

At Narrative and Ontology, Phil Sumpter has asked some close questions on parallelism here, here, and here. There is recognition of parallelism by many writers since Lowth (about whom I will soon read more as background to a study of Hazlitt). Also those I have dabbled in are Kugel, James L., The Idea of Hebrew Poetry, and O'Connor, M., Hebrew Verse Structure.

Many others too, I am sure and most of these allow for positive parallels and negative ones, and some chiastic and some with ellipses (things that the reader must fill in). And some that are not parallels and many times, as does Tur Sinai in his Commentary on Job, it is possible to use the expected parallel to reconstruct or critique some readings. See these articles by John Hobbins here and here.

I just received my copy of the Journal of Biblical Literature and turned to Vertical Grammar of Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry by David Toshio Tsumura. It is well laid out, but I find the spelling out of the meaning of the parallel based on 'vertical' grammar to be disappointing. It reduces the impact of the poem and fractures the meaning of the frame.

He says that parallelism is a device for expressing one thought in two lines. I do not find his reasoning or examples convincing. Every explanation reads flat:

Psalm 47:6 God, the Lord, has gone up with shouts of joy and with the sound of the trumpet.

Psalm 18:12 He made darkness, that is darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies, around him to be his covering, that is, his canopy.

Psalm 24:3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in his holy place?

This reduction of a poem to one grammatical meaning is not productive. It substitutes explanation for hearing.

The conversation on Phil's blog noted above is revealing and full of questions well-asked and well-answered by John Hobbins among others. So I say, do not look for explanation - look for pattern - and hear the voice of the poet in conversation with God. The best introductory book on Psalms that I have read is this one: Jonathon Magonet, A Rabbi reads the Psalms 1994 (2004). He would never reduce the meaning. He has heard the command to hear too many times to sink to explanations.

Parallelism is a special case of recurrence as John Hobbins notes in his articles cited above. Recurrence is a frame for meaning. The repetition is not subservient or simply coupled, but its redundancy locks in the meaning of the poem. Recurrence may be distant in the poem. From far away an echo will close a bracket and circles will surround the core. It is these circular structures that Magonet illustrates so well and which I have had so much fun looking for in these past two years. They don't subject themselves to a quick taxonomy. Nor will their meanings be exhausted by an explanation.

Psalm 84 revisted

A brief visit here gives a good resolution to the double ellipsis in Psalm 84.10

Fallow time

The Psalms are lying fallow for the moment while I concentrate on Job. Please do move from the fallow field to follow my plough on Sufficiency.

Rarely used words in the Psalter - 22

The rare word today is bruise - not מחץ as in Psalm 110:6 - wound, not דכא to be crushed or broken as in Isaiah 53:10, but שוף used only 4 times in the Bible, Genesis 3:15 twice, Job 9:17 who with a tempest bruises me - hence my current interest, and Psalm 139:11 - surely darkness will crush me... remarkable! Not where we might expect it. Traditional translations have cover, I chose crush, but I did not notice the connection with the promise to the woman in Genesis.

Job is capturing all my attention these days - an occasional foray back to psalms ... This word seems structurally insignificant in Job. Just another complaint - all in a day's work.

There's growth and history in these blogs

John Hobbins has a series of posts on Habakkuk, the latest one here. In it he refers to a post from 2 years ago on Selah by Christopher Heard. Note the comment and you will arrive at Duane's Abnormal Interests, another blog on the old languages with at least 2 years history. Blogs are new, so there isn't much history yet. And some blogs are written by learners like me rather than scholars, so they provide a history of a bootstrap rather than the meditation of experience. But hey- you can't have experience without starting somewhere. My first cut at Habakkuk from last January is here.

The problem with history is remembering! I am trying to remember why I translated Habakkuk - maybe because it is a psalm. What will beginning with poetry do to my experience with this tongue? - assuming I live long enough that it might be said of me that I am past my bootstrap (as opposed to past my best by date).

Sage Publications Online

Sage Publications is again offering free online access till April 30

Images of Hornby

Nothing to do with psalms - but over at Sufficiency I am getting so thick with Job, I thought I would put my photo link from the holidays here - it's on a facebook album. (Hope that link works OK.)

For the love of the language

An 11-year old student has overcome the enigma of Hebrew letters in a short three weeks. At his lesson tonight, we read through Psalm 112, reading alternate lines. He corrected me once. Now here is a challenge - I wonder if anyone will respond: Can we develop a series of readings that will cover sufficient memorable vocabulary and be fun and inspiring to read so that at the end of 12 weeks of reading, we would have sufficient vocabulary and usage that grammar and forms would begin to appear before us?

This student is not afraid of memorizing rules. He clearly remembered a few rules from the sections of Putnam that he had read. But to push the University level reading any further would be a mistake at the moment. What is needed is short pithy exercises and translations - then a sorting of all the words and a shaking out of pronouns, prepositions, parsings and other paraphernalia of the language.

What do you think of using the acrostics for just such an exercise? How much vocabulary and grammar would fall from them after three months of reading? It works out to 2315 separate words - here they are. (Update - sorted by root maybe. Update 2 - sorted by psalm etc)

Rarely used words in the Psalter - 21

That day - let it be darkness
let God not ask for it from above
nor let a sunbeam on it shine

Job at the beginning of his opening speech. Can't you just imagine the comic strip 'For better or for worse' and the sunbeam that the little one used to greet?

I have been buried with Job and paying little attention to rare words over here. It turns out that I have seen dozens of linkages in the first five chapters of Job to the Psalms and some of them are rare words in both. If only I would stop long enough to make a note or two - and then be able to find the note!

But here is one - that word 'sunbeam' traditionally rendered as 'light'.

Light rare? What are you saying? Light is that initial statement of faith.

And God saw the light that it was good.
וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאֹור כִּי־טֹוב

No this sunbeam is not the אֹור, a word which Job also uses at the end of his first speech:

Why give to the miserable light
לָמָּה יִתֵּן לְעָמֵל אֹור

but the נהר as in the enlightened used in Psalm 34.

הִבִּיטוּ אֵלָיו וְנָהָרוּ וּפְנֵיהֶם אַל־יֶחְפָּרוּ (Psalm 34:5)
him they paid attention to and were radiant,
and their faces were not embarrassed.

I wondered how many words begin with nun and end with resh? Some are among the first we learn in the old grammar books - like lad נער, and river, נהר. That looks so familiar! Light as a river? A stream of light as an ancient metaphor? No. BDB simply lists the second meaning of 'beam' as derived from other languages.

Psalm 107 and the structure of the Psalter

Henry asked for some input on the seam between books 4 and 5 here (but I did respond a bit too quickly - writing is dangerous. I shortchanged the complexity of the doxologies. Here is my penance.)

I had fun rereading these psalms - which of course I encourage all to do .

Apart from seeing the odd relationship between Job and Psalms, I have been idling as you can tell. I have some ideas but am percolating them offline between snatches of Job which itself will be slow going.