Poaching on Psalms territory

By posting under the rubric Hebrew, my alter-bloggo has been studying the alef-bet through the Psalms. If you have missed them, be sure to have a look.

Rashi wins on Psalm 2

Further to a recent post, I really like the purity argument for BR now. Purity can stand in the circle (see the circular structure of the psalm here) with the anointed king in all ages. Also BR is alliterative with B`R in the same verse. So I have retranslated as follows - and rather than the military metaphor, I have used a fire metaphor for the kiss word.

נַשְּׁקוּ-בַר,
פֶּן-יֶאֱנַף וְתֹאבְדוּ דֶרֶךְ
כִּי-יִבְעַר כִּמְעַט אַפּוֹ
Aflame yourself pure,
lest he face you,
and you perish in the way,
for kindled a little his face.

So how do you enflame yourself in with - purity? You do what 1 John (3:3) advises - all who have this hope purify themselves as he is pure. Method is unspecified - but application of the ointment and spices of the cross strongly recommended.

And if you are Jewish - then rejoice that your Gentile siblings (even kings and peoples) have such a means to share purity and that this psalm (even this psalm!) implies that they too are invited into covenant. And if you read other books - ask yourself what means are at your disposal to achieve joy in self and over turbulence.

Reminiscing

	I no longer have the first diagram I did of Psalm 1. I remember being struck by the effect one could make of light at the centre if one reversed the gradient of two adjacent nodes. It was almost by accident that I began with individual words in each node.
	I don't recall how I first encountered the idea of shape in text that was so different from English rhythm and rhyme.In memory of that first diagram, I have reconstructed its shape from Psalm 1 - without the words. If you click either image, it will become one piece. Compare the shape with Psalm 1 as it is now.

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.

Rashi

I just received a copy of Rashi's commentary on Psalms - that should give me some challenging reading!

I see I haven't posted for 2 weeks - well I've been busy on the next release of our diagramming software. That's the tool I use to make all those diagrams. They are a major piece of test data. In essence the Logic Modeler is like a three-legged stool -

1. a free form drawing surface. Associative thought process.
   
2. a reporting mechanism. Sequential thought process.
   
3. a configuration environment that allows integration with any available data in the database and on the web.

I have used the drawing surface and the configuration environment extensively in these Blog pages - but I have used only a small part of the reporting - nothing more than images and simple queries and charts. I am still wondering how to apply some of the ideas that might make an interactive playing field for my readers and for me. An environment where you could experiment and interact with the psalms - perhaps without even needing to be connected to the database - we expect to use web-services for this type of play. I will be pursuing this idea over the next few months.

I was playing with the diagram I wrote about two weeks ago - the letter samech ס as first letter occurs in combination with 13 of the other letters. Of these some two letter combinations begin only one or only a few words in the Psalms. There are so many combinations, it is hard to know where to begin to report in an essay - but an interactive diagram would not just report a selected sequential presentation of a few results, but would enable exploration with I think something more than a search mechanism, valuable though those are.

Here's a bit of trivia I observed: (Firefox does not display Hebrew correctly - like some version of Java - I don't know why. I hope they fix it.). These are the counts of all 423 two letter combinations in the first two letters of every word in the psalter. Where the count is 23, the letter also occurs with itself. [update - I posted a full matrix here]

Hebrew letter ט as first letter occurs with 9 second letters in the words of the psalms.
Hebrew letter ז as first letter occurs with 13 second letters.
Hebrew letter ס as first letter occurs with 13 second letters.
Hebrew letter ק as first letter occurs with 13 second letters.
Hebrew letter צ as first letter occurs with 13 second letters.
Hebrew letter ד as first letter occurs with 14 second letters.
Hebrew letter ג as first letter occurs with 15 second letters.
Hebrew letter פ as first letter occurs with 15 second letters.
Hebrew letter שׂ as first letter occurs with 16 second letters.
Hebrew letter ח as first letter occurs with 18 second letters.
Hebrew letter ר as first letter occurs with 18 second letters.
Hebrew letter ע as first letter occurs with 18 second letters.
Hebrew letter שׁ as first letter occurs with 20 second letters.
Hebrew letter א as first letter occurs with 22 second letters.
Hebrew letter ו as first letter occurs with 22 second letters.
Hebrew letter ב as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.
Hebrew letter י as first letter occurs with 23 second letters (only because of my abbreviation of the tetragrammeton - the Genesis typo is not included!)
Hebrew letter ל as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.
Hebrew letter מ as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.
Hebrew letter ת as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.
Hebrew letter נ as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.
Hebrew letter כ as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.
Hebrew letter ה as first letter occurs with 23 second letters.

The 13s are of course all differing subsets of the 23.

Rashi will likely be more interesting...

Reached the two-year-old stage

How do you learn a language? When I was best at it, the process was completely unconscious. I knew nothing of grammar or of spelling. It was aurally imitative and whether I got it right or not, the rewards were adequate. Can one summon such momentum into an old age? I don't yet know, but even though I have deciphered the psalter, I am still having a hard time remembering spelling and grammar - though I can identify a few bits and pieces.

For fun, I used the diagramming tool to create some mac-tac blocks with a little help from 4 bags of cheap blocks from the $ store. (Thanks for the wood to my comptroller - and what do my employees think of this application of their software!)

It is a challenge to spell with blocks - I doubled and trebled some of the more common letters but it is quite an exercise still to look for the last resh to complete a word.

Imagine if you had learned phonetics at your mother's knee. (See this post from Iyov and the comments.)

Psalm 12

[I deleted the questions - I asked them on the Biblicalist and got some very helpful responses].

Let me see if I can 'make sense' of this psalm, having just read the morning's Globe and Mail section 1 with its stories of mass child abuse and the corruption of warlords, and the bridge column - warning me to make an appropriate safety play.

For the leader, in octaves	A Psalm of David
Save LORD, for ceased are the mercied for vanished are the faithful among the children of dust.
	Emptiness they speak a man to his friend lip divided in heart and heart they speak
	The LORD shall cut off all lips from the divided tongue speaking boasts
	who said with our tongue is strength our lips with us who is Lord to us?
	For havoc of the poor for the groaning of the needy now I will arise says the LORD I will impose. In safety he will breathe to it.
	The sayings of the LORD sayings of purity silver refined in a furnace in earth purified seven times
	You, O LORD keep them You will guard us from this generation to an age
All around the wicked walk to lift up the worthlessness of the children of dust.

If the first pass through the psalms took 1.5 years - the second pass will take 15. Every letter, every differing translation, every note - one psalm a month? Yet I know this is not possible - there must be a better way. Instant love.

Analysis word by word

This diagram is the unfolding of the inside of a possible data cube.

In the dynamic cube - in which there are roughly 400 starting points (not 23x23 since not all combinations occur in the psalms) and many thousands of possible displays, the user picks a starting letter, then a pair of letters, and all keywords beginning with those letters appear in an adjacent table. The user clicks a row in the key word display and the system responds with a display of other instances of the key word in the set of diagrams and other exact matches - in my case other places where I have translated the Hebrew exactly as in the picked keyword. In addition the full text of the selected diagram is displayed where the user can query additional similarities.

It is a simple data processing concept. It allows the user to see the database behind any set of diagrams that I might draw. In my case the 20,000 words in the psalter. The displayed diagram is an image of a single cut.

The first nodes show all the keywords with one selected - in this case $V) in Psalm 12. The tables below (on the diagram image) show other instances in the psalter. The table on the right side shows the whole psalm. further below to the left I clicked 'divided' in the psalm and other instances of that root appeared. This is a preliminary image - a little hard to imagine without the interaction. I hope we will produce eventually a dynamic version which will not require login or java. It is possible in principle as a reporting function for a set of diagrams.

The Alter Psalter

I finally got my 2 week loan of the Psalms by Alter from the Public Library. My first reaction is muted. His notes are nowhere near as inventive as those of his Five Books of Moses. They do not stand alone without the Hebrew to read beside them. I think this is maybe a stage of notes and translations - some can stand alone in the target language - some cannot.

Here are some rough notes from me - if I get time, I will flesh out some more.

Psalm 1 - Alter sees the opening as something that Job would not agree with. Perhaps there are some possible inferences that the theology of Job would counteract, but I don't see anything wrong with the Psalm itself. It is promise and prophecy for me, not a lame theology.

Psalm 2 - his treatment of kiss the son is unbalanced structurally. The end of the poem simply does not work for me without the anointed as 'son' - - and this is not a Trinitarian referent.

Psalm 4 - Alter does not seem to identify God's voice. On 4:9 - as antithesis to Job, I think he makes a good call. We all know troubled sleep or sleep as the gift to the beloved.

Psalm 9:17 - here Alter fills in an ellipsis (as he says in his note). Ellipses are better left unsaid most of the time I think. Let the reader do the work. Poetry is not explanation.

Alter - The Lord is known for the justice He did.
נוֹדַע יְהוָה--מִשְׁפָּט עָשָׂה
JPS - The LORD hath made Himself known, He hath executed judgment. (=RSV less the hath's)
Bob - The LORD is known - judgment he makes.

I am sure Bob is defective - I am beginning to be inarticulate, disdainful of auxiliaries.

Psalms 111-112 and Book 5 of the Psalter

אוֹדֶה יְהוָה, בְּכָל-לֵבָב; בְּסוֹד יְשָׁרִים וְעֵדָה.	At home, abroad most willingly I will Bestow on God my praise’s uttmost skill:
גְּדֹלִים, מַעֲשֵׂי יְהוָה; דְּרוּשִׁים, לְכָל-חֶפְצֵיהֶם.	Chaunting his workes, workes of unmatched might, Deem'd so by them, who in their search delight.

The beginning of Psalm 111 from the Psalms of Sir Philip Sydney and the Countess of Pembroke. You can see it is going to be its own acrostic.

Psalms 111-112 are a response to Psalm 110, according to The Composition and Theology of the Fifth Book of Psalms, Psalms 107-145 [sic] by Eric Zenger, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 1998; 23; 77.

I have adjusted my table of contents slightly to reflect some of his statements - notably the chaistic relationship of the Songs of Ascent. It appears that I will need to make the details more visible - hopefully later. - Here's a sample of his structural ideas.

Psalm 111 celebrates [the LORD]’s turning towards his people in rescue. Psalm 112 extols an ['ish]~ whose actions correspond to [the LORD] praised in Psalm 111. The composition directs the reader to see in the ['ish] of Psalm 112 the king whom [the LORD] has called to his side in Psalm 110. [see also Psalm 1].

(2) Psalms 111 and 112 are connected to Psalms 108-10 by the theme of [rsh']- of this I am not yet convinced [rsh' appears only in psalm 109 as a structural element and in psalm 112 once] - which is missing in Psalms 113-18 (and in Pss. 120-37 with the exception of 129.4).
(3) Each of the two acrostics 111-12 shares with the acrostic Psalm 145 the citation of the Sinai-formula, Exod. 34.6 (111.4 and 112.4 have the same word order as 145.8, namely, [xnun vraxum]).

Eventually I will follow up some of these claims with an image. To be convinced of a structural feature, I think I need some confirming aspect in the poem or some uniqueness in the set of poems. Book 5 does have some complexity that needs a visual aid.

Liberalism

A liberal pastor has posted a talk about Bishop Spong, a few of whose middling books I have read.

A long time ago in another world, round about 1998, I wrote a light hearted response to Spong not because I didn't believe everything he seemed to be saying, but because I didn't believe the accuracy of his apparent pigeon-holing of all the flock.
-------------------
Bishop: come out! where I can debate you, you old fox.
Old Fox: Ah sir, I knew you would chase me eventually. What safety can I find with you now a-sceptered and me a lay vixen?
Bishop: just hold my opinion for a moment and you will be safe.
Old Fox: Opine? I was opining that safety lay elsewhere sir.
Bishop: where else could safety lie but in my hermeneutic circle?
Old Fox: Good sir, in the historical opinion of the catholick and apostolick Church, those very bindings which you wear on your own person.
Bishop: You dare to call upon a creed and an office whose origins you are ignorant of? Give me none of your knowledge, you will find the truth soon enough in the teeth of my hounds. Sic Midrash! Run, Panthera! On Darwin, Go Coper! At him, Nicus!

The Old Fox scampered through the forest now forging ahead of the pack, now circling behind them. The first hurdle was Coper and Nicus. They were the curious ones. The Old Fox led them into a dark night. The hounds looked up and were transfixed with the beauty of the 15 billion year old cosmic womb from whose explosive dust they were made. The Old Fox left them with this thought:

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is the merciful one towards them that stand in awe.

"Awesome", sighed CoperNicus. And the Old Fox breathed out a thanks to the sweet psalmist of Israel.

Next she separated Darwin from the group and led him to a fertile valley, a place apart. She knew that Darwin took to taxonomy more than the chase.

Here the heavens let down joy like the dew;
the clouds rained their pleasure:
salvation sprung up from the earth;
the trees budded with deliverance.

And Darwin watched, tended, counted, classified, named, studied, and loved the creatures. And it was good. The Old Fox murmured a thanks to Isaiah.

But Panthera took up the chase anew. The Old Fox dashed away. She couldn't count her chickens yet. At that moment, the sound of a virginal playing an old Roman martial tune was heard in the distance and Panthera's genes remembered the tunes from his first stables in the year that the divine Augustus was conceived at the Temple of Apollo. (That was about 63 BCE - Panthera was from an old breed.) He went into a trance, meditating on what was closer to divine justice: an emperor clothed in fine linen or a landless peasant. And the Old Fox whispered a thanks to the memory of the Baptist.

Next she found Midrash, somewhat confused by the disappearance of the pack. But he stood there before the vixen, literally growling: if you don't believe in Midrash, you don't believe in anything! She stared him down. He backed away wondering if Isaac or Ishmael were the chosen one after all and decided to study history, his lust for the chase transformed. And the Old Fox yelped her thanks to the Apostle.

Only the indomitable Bishop remained in the dust and heat of the chase. "What have you done with my dogs?" he barked. She laughed her reply - it is enough - and ran into the forest. "Wait," he said, "I didn't quite catch what you said."

Keyword in its context

I have listed every individual word form as it occurs in the MT for the Psalms together with my current unedited translation. This list is supposed to help me see the errors I have made - but it is not yet imaginative enough!

Firefox doesn't do Hebrew right - don't know why, but with vowels it is a bit of a mess. So view with IE if you want to help me fix my most egregious blunders.

Psalm prayers and lesson for Compline

The lesson at Compline is typically a snippet of a verse of the NT - meant to remind us of the Gospel and our hope. But what if we used a snippet of a Psalm? Tomorrow's Next week's lectionary includes Psalm 66. How's this for a lesson:

We went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place. I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows.

And a reflection on it later as a prayer from the Countess of Pembroke:

You folk his flock come then employ
In lauding him your songes of joy
On God, our God, your voices spending,
Still praying, praising, never ending,
For he our Life hath us re-given,
Nor would he let our goings slide;
Though for our triall neerly driven,
Yea silver like in furnace tryde.

For God, thou didst our feete innett
And pinching saddles on us sett
Nay (which is worse to be abidden),
Ev'n on our heads a man hath ridden.
Hee rode us through where fiers flashed;
Where swelling streames did rudely roare;
Yet scorched thus, yet we thus washed,
Were sett by thee on plenties shore.

I therefore to thy house will go,
To pay and offer what I owe:
To pay my vowes, my lippes then vowed
When under grief my body bowed
...
Praise, praise him then, for what is left me,
But praise to him: who what I praid
Rejected not, nor hath bereft me
My hopeful helpe, his mercies aid.

There are several prayers based on the Psalm in Neale and Littledale. Neale adds all the collects he can find from the traditions that he documented. I find them not untrue in general, but I find them not as true to the positive nature of the Psalm itself which is one of invitation to praise - as Psalm 100 and others.

Example of a Mozarabic prayer based on this psalm

Grant, O God, that we believing in thee, go into thine house with burnt offering, may serve thee with dedication of our works and sanctification of the body, that so thou mayest not cast out our prayers, nor turn thy mercy from us, whilst thou dost inspire us to seek that which thou knowest to be good for us.

How would I pray this psalm?

How do I dare speak of you, O God of Israel, who have shown me the fire of the love in your own burnt offering, who have brought me into your presence and given me a claim who had no claim on you. Yet I will speak, and will not be overwhelmed by flood or even a lake of fire, for you have shown, among those who are hurt, that you hold us in life who believe and who could not have lifted up ourselves. How will I describe the wealth of your place to others - it can only be by your invitation to sing that goes out to all the world. So, O God, I who made you no promise as Jacob did, will pay my vows in the promises you have made to me and which you have fulfilled in the gift of the accepted offering of the Pascal Lamb. So I, by your Spirit, make my body, your house, a living sacrifice acceptable through him in whose name we pray, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

Percent of unique word forms by psalm

Just over 20% of the words in the psalms, 4109/19548, 21.02% are used in that form in only one psalm. I was wondering if it would tell me anything about rarer language. All but one psalm have some unique word forms. By this measure Psalm 114 should be harder to understand than others since over 1/3 of the word forms it uses are unique to it in the Psalter. (Well maybe not - since many of them might have other root usage in other psalms.) You can see the graph here.

Psalm -70 has 0 unique word forms out of 46 in 24 verses. 0%
Psalm 108 has 3 unique word forms out of 98 in 31 verses. 3.06%
Psalm -14 has 3 unique word forms out of 73 in 7 verses. 4.11%
Psalm -53 has 4 unique word forms out of 77 in 9 verses. 5.19%
Psalm -96 has 6 unique word forms out of 112 in 13 verses. 5.36%
Psalm 148 has 6 unique word forms out of 111 in 14 verses. 5.41%
Psalm -47 has 5 unique word forms out of 77 in 15 verses. 6.49%
Psalm -67 has 4 unique word forms out of 53 in 36 verses. 7.55%
Psalm -29 has 7 unique word forms out of 91 in 13 verses. 7.69%
Psalm 134 has 2 unique word forms out of 25 in 21 verses. 8%
Psalm -98 has 6 unique word forms out of 74 in 9 verses. 8.11%
Psalm 111 has 6 unique word forms out of 74 in 10 verses. 8.11%
Psalm 112 has 7 unique word forms out of 79 in 10 verses. 8.86%
Psalm --1 has 6 unique word forms out of 67 in 12 verses. 8.96%
Psalm 135 has 15 unique word forms out of 167 in 26 verses. 8.98%
Psalm 138 has 7 unique word forms out of 76 in 24 verses. 9.21%
Psalm -57 has 10 unique word forms out of 105 in 12 verses. 9.52%
Psalm -86 has 16 unique word forms out of 147 in 17 verses. 10.88%
Psalm -13 has 6 unique word forms out of 55 in 7 verses. 10.91%
Psalm 101 has 9 unique word forms out of 82 in 29 verses. 10.98%
Psalm -24 has 10 unique word forms out of 89 in 22 verses. 11.24%
Psalm -40 has 21 unique word forms out of 185 in 18 verses. 11.35%
Psalm -97 has 11 unique word forms out of 95 in 12 verses. 11.58%
Psalm 117 has 2 unique word forms out of 17 in 29 verses. 11.76%
Psalm 116 has 16 unique word forms out of 131 in 19 verses. 12.21%
Psalm 115 has 17 unique word forms out of 135 in 19 verses. 12.59%
Psalm -71 has 26 unique word forms out of 203 in 24 verses. 12.81%
Psalm -99 has 11 unique word forms out of 83 in 9 verses. 13.25%
Psalm 136 has 22 unique word forms out of 166 in 26 verses. 13.25%
Psalm 100 has 6 unique word forms out of 44 in 8 verses. 13.64%
Psalm -33 has 22 unique word forms out of 161 in 23 verses. 13.66%
Psalm -62 has 16 unique word forms out of 117 in 13 verses. 13.68%
Psalm -43 has 8 unique word forms out of 58 in 27 verses. 13.79%
Psalm 143 has 17 unique word forms out of 117 in 15 verses. 14.53%
Psalm -94 has 25 unique word forms out of 169 in 23 verses. 14.79%
Psalm -27 has 22 unique word forms out of 148 in 14 verses. 14.86%
Psalm -61 has 10 unique word forms out of 67 in 13 verses. 14.93%
Psalm -25 has 24 unique word forms out of 159 in 22 verses. 15.09%
Psalm -26 has 13 unique word forms out of 86 in 14 verses. 15.12%
Psalm 131 has 5 unique word forms out of 33 in 18 verses. 15.15%
Psalm 119-Ts-T has 44 unique word forms out of 283 in 48 verses. 15.55%
Psalm -28 has 15 unique word forms out of 96 in 11 verses. 15.63%
Psalm --3 has 11 unique word forms out of 70 in 9 verses. 15.71%
Psalm --9 has 26 unique word forms out of 165 in 21 verses. 15.76%
Psalm 149 has 10 unique word forms out of 63 in 9 verses. 15.87%
Psalm 125 has 8 unique word forms out of 49 in 6 verses. 16.33%
Psalm 113 has 10 unique word forms out of 60 in 9 verses. 16.67%
Psalm -87 has 9 unique word forms out of 54 in 19 verses. 16.67%
Psalm 118 has 33 unique word forms out of 198 in 40 verses. 16.67%
Psalm -15 has 9 unique word forms out of 54 in 11 verses. 16.67%
Psalm --6 has 14 unique word forms out of 83 in 18 verses. 16.87%
Psalm --4 has 13 unique word forms out of 77 in 14 verses. 16.88%
Psalm -42 has 22 unique word forms out of 129 in 13 verses. 17.05%
Psalm 145 has 26 unique word forms out of 152 in 21 verses. 17.11%
Psalm 140 has 20 unique word forms out of 116 in 14 verses. 17.24%
Psalm -21 has 18 unique word forms out of 104 in 32 verses. 17.31%
Psalm -63 has 16 unique word forms out of 92 in 12 verses. 17.39%
Psalm 142 has 13 unique word forms out of 74 in 12 verses. 17.57%
Psalm -54 has 11 unique word forms out of 62 in 24 verses. 17.74%
Psalm -41 has 21 unique word forms out of 117 in 14 verses. 17.95%
Psalm -66 has 28 unique word forms out of 154 in 20 verses. 18.18%
Psalm -84 has 21 unique word forms out of 115 in 14 verses. 18.26%
Psalm --7 has 26 unique word forms out of 142 in 18 verses. 18.31%
Psalm 110 has 12 unique word forms out of 65 in 10 verses. 18.46%
Psalm --2 has 17 unique word forms out of 92 in 12 verses. 18.48%
Psalm -56 has 22 unique word forms out of 119 in 14 verses. 18.49%
Psalm -59 has 29 unique word forms out of 156 in 18 verses. 18.59%
Psalm -10 has 30 unique word forms out of 161 in 18 verses. 18.63%
Psalm 119-V-Y has 47 unique word forms out of 250 in 48 verses. 18.8%
Psalm -36 has 19 unique word forms out of 100 in 40 verses. 19%
Psalm 109 has 44 unique word forms out of 228 in 31 verses. 19.3%
Psalm --8 has 15 unique word forms out of 77 in 21 verses. 19.48%
Psalm -31 has 43 unique word forms out of 220 in 25 verses. 19.55%
Psalm -16 has 19 unique word forms out of 97 in 15 verses. 19.59%
Psalm -30 has 19 unique word forms out of 97 in 25 verses. 19.59%
Psalm 120 has 10 unique word forms out of 51 in 8 verses. 19.61%
Psalm -38 has 33 unique word forms out of 167 in 23 verses. 19.76%
Psalm -46 has 20 unique word forms out of 100 in 13 verses. 20%
Psalm -93 has 9 unique word forms out of 45 in 23 verses. 20%
Psalm -72 has 33 unique word forms out of 162 in 28 verses. 20.37%
Psalm 102 has 43 unique word forms out of 211 in 29 verses. 20.38%
Psalm -79 has 27 unique word forms out of 132 in 20 verses. 20.45%
Psalm -92 has 23 unique word forms out of 112 in 16 verses. 20.54%
Psalm 119-K-* has 61 unique word forms out of 297 in 48 verses. 20.54%
Psalm -34 has 34 unique word forms out of 165 in 28 verses. 20.61%
Psalm -77 has 32 unique word forms out of 154 in 72 verses. 20.78%
Psalm -85 has 20 unique word forms out of 96 in 17 verses. 20.83%
Psalm -51 has 32 unique word forms out of 153 in 21 verses. 20.92%
Psalm 122 has 13 unique word forms out of 62 in 9 verses. 20.97%
Psalm -22 has 53 unique word forms out of 252 in 32 verses. 21.03%
Psalm 119-A-H has 49 unique word forms out of 232 in 48 verses. 21.12%
Psalm 146 has 18 unique word forms out of 85 in 20 verses. 21.18%
Psalm 150 has 8 unique word forms out of 37 in 6 verses. 21.62%
Psalm --5 has 24 unique word forms out of 111 in 14 verses. 21.62%
Psalm -48 has 24 unique word forms out of 111 in 21 verses. 21.62%
Psalm -60 has 25 unique word forms out of 113 in 14 verses. 22.12%
Psalm 130 has 12 unique word forms out of 54 in 8 verses. 22.22%
Psalm -52 has 20 unique word forms out of 90 in 11 verses. 22.22%
Psalm -89 has 86 unique word forms out of 384 in 53 verses. 22.4%
Psalm 105 has 66 unique word forms out of 294 in 48 verses. 22.45%
Psalm 132 has 30 unique word forms out of 131 in 18 verses. 22.9%
Psalm -82 has 14 unique word forms out of 61 in 19 verses. 22.95%
Psalm 121 has 13 unique word forms out of 56 in 9 verses. 23.21%
Psalm 127 has 14 unique word forms out of 60 in 6 verses. 23.33%
Psalm -74 has 46 unique word forms out of 195 in 23 verses. 23.59%
Psalm -50 has 42 unique word forms out of 178 in 23 verses. 23.6%
Psalm -49 has 40 unique word forms out of 167 in 23 verses. 23.95%
Psalm 126 has 12 unique word forms out of 50 in 6 verses. 24%
Psalm 141 has 23 unique word forms out of 95 in 10 verses. 24.21%
Psalm -69 has 70 unique word forms out of 288 in 37 verses. 24.31%
Psalm 103 has 41 unique word forms out of 167 in 35 verses. 24.55%
Psalm 124 has 14 unique word forms out of 57 in 8 verses. 24.56%
Psalm -12 has 19 unique word forms out of 77 in 9 verses. 24.68%
Psalm -81 has 31 unique word forms out of 125 in 17 verses. 24.8%
Psalm -39 has 32 unique word forms out of 129 in 18 verses. 24.81%
Psalm -37 has 74 unique word forms out of 298 in 40 verses. 24.83%
Psalm -11 has 17 unique word forms out of 68 in 9 verses. 25%
Psalm -32 has 28 unique word forms out of 110 in 22 verses. 25.45%
Psalm -73 has 49 unique word forms out of 192 in 28 verses. 25.52%
Psalm -76 has 23 unique word forms out of 90 in 21 verses. 25.56%
Psalm -64 has 21 unique word forms out of 82 in 14 verses. 25.61%
Psalm -95 has 23 unique word forms out of 89 in 13 verses. 25.84%
Psalm -35 has 60 unique word forms out of 228 in 28 verses. 26.32%
Psalm -18 has 105 unique word forms out of 396 in 51 verses. 26.52%
Psalm -58 has 27 unique word forms out of 100 in 18 verses. 27%
Psalm -55 has 52 unique word forms out of 192 in 24 verses. 27.08%
Psalm 133 has 11 unique word forms out of 40 in 3 verses. 27.5%
Psalm -75 has 24 unique word forms out of 87 in 13 verses. 27.59%
Psalm 128 has 13 unique word forms out of 47 in 8 verses. 27.66%
Psalm -90 has 39 unique word forms out of 140 in 17 verses. 27.86%
Psalm -44 has 55 unique word forms out of 197 in 27 verses. 27.92%
Psalm 137 has 24 unique word forms out of 83 in 9 verses. 28.92%
Psalm -17 has 36 unique word forms out of 124 in 51 verses. 29.03%
Psalm 147 has 41 unique word forms out of 141 in 20 verses. 29.08%
Psalm 104 has 79 unique word forms out of 271 in 45 verses. 29.15%
Psalm 144 has 38 unique word forms out of 130 in 21 verses. 29.23%
Psalm 123 has 12 unique word forms out of 41 in 8 verses. 29.27%
Psalm -23 has 17 unique word forms out of 57 in 10 verses. 29.82%
Psalm 106 has 99 unique word forms out of 331 in 48 verses. 29.91%
Psalm -20 has 21 unique word forms out of 70 in 14 verses. 30%
Psalm 107 has 84 unique word forms out of 278 in 43 verses. 30.22%
Psalm -65 has 33 unique word forms out of 109 in 20 verses. 30.28%
Psalm -88 has 43 unique word forms out of 142 in 53 verses. 30.28%
Psalm -78 has 163 unique word forms out of 530 in 72 verses. 30.75%
Psalm -83 has 40 unique word forms out of 130 in 19 verses. 30.77%
Psalm -91 has 35 unique word forms out of 111 in 16 verses. 31.53%
Psalm -45 has 51 unique word forms out of 160 in 18 verses. 31.88%
Psalm -68 has 99 unique word forms out of 309 in 37 verses. 32.04%
Psalm 139 has 58 unique word forms out of 176 in 24 verses. 32.95%
Psalm 129 has 18 unique word forms out of 54 in 8 verses. 33.33%
Psalm -19 has 41 unique word forms out of 123 in 15 verses. 33.33%
Psalm -80 has 49 unique word forms out of 141 in 20 verses. 34.75%
Psalm 114 has 19 unique word forms out of 52 in 18 verses. 36.54%

Oracles

I made a minor modification or two to the table of contents to show a unique relationship between Psalms 110 and 36 - both are oracles though they do not exactly use the word as a title. In each case the word can be taken as a verb or a noun. So Psalm 36 can begin, The transgression of the wicked speaks within my heart or An oracle of transgression of the wicked within my heart.

(Some want to change my heart to his heart - but why? says Augustine - for sin speaks very clearly in my heart and about me not necessarily about others.)

So why 'oracle'? Because these psalms are prophetic and that word n)m is used in the expression 'thus saith the Lord' many times and almost exclusively. Why not translate as a verb? Verb is OK, but we pass over it. Psalm 36 has no genre in its title in Hebrew, and the word seems to fill that emptiness nicely. Psalm 110 has the genre order reversed from the usual order, so it seems to invite the additional identity.

By prophetic, I mean they say truth to us and to their generation. Notice also the repetition (not exclusive but shared by both these psalms) of the motif of the torrent.

Psalm 110 Neale

Glory be to the Father, who hath said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand; Glory be to the Son, My Lord, Who is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek; glory be to the Holy Ghost, the heavenly dew of our youth...

So ends a 15 page summary of the opinions of the fathers on Psalm 110. I am pleased to say that my suggestion that verse 7 of the Psalm is of death and resurrection is confirmed by Bellarmine among other witnesses, who describes the torrent as "the hurried, turbid, and noisy yet brief discourse of human life, to which the Lord bowed himself by his Incarnation, from His throne on the right hand of the Father; drinking of the troubles of our mortal condition, truly in the way, for He was a stranger and pilgrim on earth, far from his country; nay going down by His Passion into the lowest depths of the torrent..."

Verse 3 is the most varied of the versions. I asked a question on the Biblicalist but unfortunately, unicode troubles make it difficult to read the answer. Variations in Hebrew pointing and consonants may have produced significant differences and per the note from George Somsel on the list, it seems that the LXX translators began a trajectory of reading that magnified differences in later Latin versions.

Here is what Neale offers: [spread out for comparison]

First, his lead translation.

In the day of thy power shall the people offer thee free-will offerings with an holy worship : the dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning.

A.V. Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning [or, more than the dew of the morning,] Thou hast [or, shalt have] the dew of thy youth.

Modern critics take it thus, but with little deviation,

Thy people are ready volunteers in Thy battle-day [literally army-day] in holy vestments [or according to a variant here, on the holy hills; בְּהַרְרֵי instead of בְּהַדְרֵי] from the womb of the dawn Thou hast Thy young men [like] dew.

The LXX and Vulgate have

With Thee [is] the beginning [LXX, rule, arche] in the day of Thy power, in the splendours of the Saints, from the womb before the morning star have I begotten Thee [reading יְלּדְתּיךָ instead of יַלְדֻתֶיךָ]

and the Syriac, combining some of the peculiarities of all these, reads

Thy people shall be glorious in the day of power; in the beauties of holiness I have begotten thee, as a youth, from the womb of old time.

Now - what does it all mean? There are two pages of interpretation on this verse alone from Epiphanius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom and a few others. In them I find opinions dependent on one reading. What do we make of so many readings? What would fit with the experience of the writers/editors of the Psalms?

Here is my own interpretation.

A straightforward application to those who are in Christ comes immediately from Romans 12:1 -

I beseech you, beloved, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to him, which is your reasonable service.

Here is the day of battle, our battle, and we are to be willing priests of our own bodies as sacrifice. Here is the beauty of holiness in that the individual is brought by that death into the Holy of Holies and in that life renews the dew of youth, sharing in the glorious nature of the One who is raised from the dead.

This too is a day of his power. Given the nature of his rest, it is also the day in which the Lord God created the earth and heaven (Genesis 2:4). The womb of old time is the black hole of the cross where time is slowed to nil and transcending radiation emerges in all lives forward and backward, redeeming the time. So it is in the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world that our birth in the Spirit is grounded. So it could be said that the Lord both precedes and follows this oracle of David.

Psalm 110 continuing

Psalm 110 is among my favorites ever since I first sang Dixit Dominus by G. F. Handel. Handel's setting is fierce and challenging youthful work, almost unsingable, as difficult as any Bach line, and full of word painting and extreme of emotion.

How do you translate ferocity into love? How do you prevent war mongering based on Scriptural justification? How do you prevent superiority and privilege based on the Divine right of kings? How do you combine the priestly and royal anointing without succumbing to the tyranny of too much power in the hands of one?

I don't know that I can find a short answer to these questions. I do want, however, to move away from violent overthrow to adoration - and an adoration that is not constrained but an abundance of joy from the knowledge of the 'torrent in the way'. I want also to find structural clues in the double use of the word מָחַץ meaning wound used about 14 times in TNK. (5 times in the psalms - 18, 68, 110 - See also Isaiah 30:26 - a hapax of the noun).

Whatever lessons I have learned, they will not be passed on to others in a few words. If the words are useful, their reception into the body of another will be an insemination that undermines the commonplace and in the mysterious working of the life of a human, gives uneasy birth to a new thing in the world.

To what extent did the ancients up to the end of the first century also reframe the violence of their tradition? We there any 'pacifists' among them? I am not a pacifist - a category of thought that John also rejects by implication in his post on this psalm. True peace does not come by a thought process or a name that does not put body where trouble lies. Am I then against peace? I do not understand my ways - in my imagination I have destroyed enough. Bashing the teeth of the wicked is not a foreign thought to me, though as far as I remember I only did it actually once - at about age 10 or so - some 52 or 53 years ago. More recently, as I pray for sudden shame on my enemies, it is only עַל כֵּן by the reality of shame, we can see the righteousness of God. So for God to bash the heads of the wicked is not necessarily to mean that there is no follow-up - as one of his spokesmen said, he wounds, he makes alive. (Much as I hate to agree with Eliphaz - Job 5:18, he is only alluding to God's word in the Torah - Deuteronomy 32:39).

(I threw in an extra causative in that paragraph to see if the reading of עַל כֵּן in the last line of the MT is unreasonable as John suggests. It looks like I could have left it out or substituted another word like 'that' and no one would have noticed in current English. How difficult it is to get to the what might have been a common hearing of an ancient phrase.)

Before reading Neale on this psalm, I think that death and resurrection are the subject of this psalm. God himself drinks of the torrent in the way - a torrent of death by which he wounds, and a torrent of life by which he raises up the head he has smitten and us in that head. In this way violence into adoration is transformed by the one who tasted death for us, the king of righteousness and the high priest. This psalm gives the writer of the Apocalypse permission to construct a theology of violence that is purely a meditation on the wounding of the Anointed - High Priest, King, and Lambkin.

Psalm 110

John leads on Psalm 110. His phrase 'Assimilation to the usual' is a challenge to see something else. I will take Neale to the office today and see if I can use Psalm 110 as test data. From the Psalms of Sir Philip Sydney and the Countess of Pembroke - the poem is already online here.

Seth Holler looks like an interesting blog.

King, Servant, and Torah

To have a little more fun with charts, I have published several more here - and here.

The second link images relationships on the Bob scale among the psalms mentioning king and servant separately and together.

The Pillars

When will I get back to serious study! This image shows psalms with verbal relationships that score over 5.5 on the Bob scale. Roughly speaking, the scale measures words per verse where the verse count is the greater of the count for the two psalms being compared and a word is any three equal consecutive consonants.
[ps - if you click any of the links and if I have placed a graph of that psalm's profile on the page, then the score will agree]

Psalm -14 Psalm -53 10.29 - this one was obvious.

Psalm -18 Psalm -69 5.59, Psalm -78 5.78, Psalm -89 7.17
Psalm -25 Psalm -86 5.68

Psalm -31 Psalm -35 5.54, Psalm -71 6.24
Psalm -35 Psalm -31 5.54, Psalm -71 5.71
Psalm -40 Psalm -71 7, Psalm -86 6.5

Looked at from the point of view of psalm 42, there are 7 psalms that stick together.

Psalm -42 Psalm -43 5.54, Psalm -56 6.64, Psalm -57 5.69, Psalm -86 6.35, Psalm -88 6.11, Psalm 143 7

Psalm -43 Psalm -42 5.54
Psalm -45 Psalm 145 5.9
Psalm -53 Psalm -14 10.29
Psalm -56 Psalm -42 6.64
Psalm -57 Psalm -42 5.69
Psalm -68 Psalm -69 6

Psalm -69 Psalm -18 5.59, Psalm -68 6, Psalm -78 5.56, Psalm 104 5.41, Psalm 109 5.68
Psalm -71 Psalm -31 6.24, Psalm -35 5.71, Psalm -40 7, Psalm -86 5.83
Psalm -78 Psalm -18 5.78, Psalm -69 5.56, Psalm -89 6.33, Psalm 105 6.89, Psalm 106 7.14

Seven in this group too - extending the similarities to psalm 42.

Psalm -86 Psalm -25 5.68, Psalm -40 6.5, Psalm -42 6.35, Psalm -71 5.83, Psalm 136 5.46, Psalm 143 6.47

Psalm -88 Psalm -42 6.11
Psalm -89 Psalm -18 7.17, Psalm -78 6.33, Psalm 105 5.66, Psalm 136 8.21
Psalm 103 Psalm 115 5.41, Psalm 136 7.35, Psalm 145 5.82
Psalm 104 Psalm -69 5.41

Psalm 105 Psalm -78 6.89, Psalm -89 5.66, Psalm 106 6.96
Psalm 106 Psalm -78 7.14, Psalm 105 6.96, Psalm 107 6.44
Psalm 107 Psalm 106 6.44
Psalm 109 Psalm -69 5.68

so surprisingly, Psalm 113 is a hallel that strongly relates to psalm 150 - why is there a hallel here? (maybe it has something to do with the previous psalms - especially 110?)

Psalm 113 Psalm 150 7.22
Psalm 115 Psalm 103 5.41, Psalm 135 7.43
Psalm 118 Psalm 136 10.69
Psalm 135 Psalm 115 7.43

Psalm 136 Psalm -86 5.46, Psalm -89 8.21, Psalm 103 7.35, Psalm 118 10.69, Psalm 145 6.27
Psalm 143 Psalm -42 7, Psalm -86 6.47
Psalm 145 Psalm -45 5.9, Psalm 103 5.82, Psalm 136 6.27
Psalm 148 Psalm 150 11.21
Psalm 150 Psalm 113 7.22, Psalm 148 11.21