Psalm 73
I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
A psalm.
By Asaph.
Surely good to Israel is God,
To the pure of heart.
And as for me, my feet had almost stumbled;
My steps nearly slipped,
Because I envied the arrogant;
The peace of the wicked I see,
Because there are no bonds of death,
And robust is their strength.
In the toil of men they are not,
And with mankind they are not afflicted.
Therefore haughtiness necklaces them;
A garment of violence wraps them.
Their eye bulges from fatness;
The imaginings of the heart overflow.
They mock and speak with evil;
Oppression from on high they speak.
They set their mouth in the heavens,
And their tongue walks on the earth.
Therefore he turns his people here,
And waters of abundance are poured out for them.
And they say, “How can the Mighty One know?
And is there knowledge with the Most High?”
Look, these are the wicked,
And carefree forever they increase wealth.
Surely in vain I cleansed my heart,
And washed my palms in innocence,
And was afflicted all the day,
And my chastisement came in the mornings.
If I said, “I will recount like this,”
Look, the generation of your sons I would have betrayed.
And I pondered to know this;
A trouble it was to my eyes,
Until I came to the holy places of my Mighty One;
I understood their end.
Surely in slippery places you set them;
You make them fall down to ruins.
How they are brought to desolation in a moment!
They come to an end; they are finished because of terrors.
Like a dream upon waking, my Master;
When you rouse yourself, their image you will despise.
When my heart was embittered,
And as for my kidneys, I was pierced,
As for me, I was brutish and did not know;
Like cattle I was with you.
But as for me, I am continually with you;
You grasp my right hand.
By your counsel you guide me;
And toward glory you take me.
Who do I have in heaven?
And beside you, I desire no one on earth.
Wasted away are my flesh and my heart;
The rock of my heart and my portion is God forever,
For look! Those far from you will perish;
You destroy all who go whoring from you.
And as for me, the nearness of God is good to me;
I make my Master, Yahweh, my refuge,
To recount all your works.
A few comments about the translation of this difficult psalm:
Line 3: “Stumbled” here (as in NKJV; cf. Hengstenberg, Tate) is an attempt to capture the sense of this verb, which is found also in Psalm 62:3, where it has to do with a wall that is leaning and about to fall. There, I translated it “leaning,” but that doesn’t work so well here.
Lines 3-4: “Almost” is literally “like a little” and “nearly” is literally “like nothing,” that is, it was so close to happening that it was as if nothing was keeping it from happening.
Line 4: “Slipped” may be the sense of the word here, but it’s literally “poured out” or “spilt” (like water).
Line 5: “Arrogant” translates a word that comes from a root that has to do with shining (halal). Hirsch renders it “those that seemed resplendent.” See its use also in Psalm 5:5.
Line 7: For “bonds,” compare the use of the word in Isaiah 58:6, and for similar language to “bonds of death” see Job 11:17; Psalm 18:6.
Line 8: For “strength,” compare the use of the word in 2 Kings 24:15 and Job 21:7. The word rendered “robust” here means “fat,” but not here in the sense of corpulent, overweight. Perhaps you’d prefer “stout is their strength”?
Line 10: The word translated “afflicted” here is used also for “touch,” and in particular is used in the Bible for the “touch” or “affliction” that we (wrongly) call “leprosy” in, e.g., Leviticus.
Line 13: Hirsch, interestingly, takes the subject to be “violence” (from the previous line) and renders it: “It stands out from the fat of their eye” (which means that he takes “fat” with “their eye” as a construct chain). The parallel would be interesting: Their haughtiness or violence goes forth from the fat of their eye (line 13) and “The imaginings of their heart overflow” (line 14). I’m tempted….
Line 17: “In the heavens” could be “against the heavens” (NKJV; Hirsch), but it seems to me that the parallel with “on the earth” in the next stich argues for “in the heavens” here.
Line 19 is extremely tough to translate. First, you have to decide if you’re going to go with the Qere: Is the verb qal or hiphil? If it’s the latter (which is how I’ve translated it), then who is the subject? God? He hasn’t been the subject yet in this psalm. The clearest antecedent is the proud person, and so perhaps, if we go with this reading, taking the verb as causative (as usual with hiphil), we get the proud person turning his people hither. Or thither. Or whatever word you choose. For this approach, see Hengstenberg. Or, if you take the verb as qal, then you have the people themselves turning (back) thither. In any case, this isn’t a good thing, it appears.
Line 20 is also hard to translate. What are “waters of fullness” or “waters of abundance” or “waters of satisfaction/satiation”? It’s possible, as Hirsch points out, that the noun here should be taken as an adjective: “The waters of the satisfied one.” That is, the people want to drink the water of the one described earlier in the psalm who is full, satisfied, wealthy and lacking nothing. “They, too,” says Hirsch, “desire to have some portion of his happy lot.”
The verb, here rendered “poured out,” is used for the draining out of the blood of a nearbringing in Lev 1:15; 5:9; in the qal, it is also used for Gideon squeezing out the fleece (Judges 6:38) and for draining a cup dry (Isa 51:17; Ezek 23:34; Ps 75:9). So the idea, it seems to me, is that the waters are given to them in order for them to drink.
Line 36: “Ruins” seems to work with Psalm 74:3; I’m not sure that “deceits” (Hirsch; cf. Tate) works there.
Line 40: It’s possible that the word translated here “When you rouse yourself” should actually be “in the city” (cf. Hengstenberg, Hirsch; Alexander mentions it as a strong possibility, though he doesn’t use it in his translation). That’s how this word is always translated elsewhere. For it to be “when you awake,” it would have to be an infinitive of ‘ur, but it would also have to be intransitive, whereas ‘ur is always transitive everywhere else (with the possible exception, says Alexander, of Job 8:6; Ps. 35:23). Still, while “in the city” is possible, “in awakening” or “when you rouse yourself” seems to fit the context better.
Obedient Faith
At long last, it’s finally here: P. Andrew Sandlin & John Barach, eds., Obedient Faith: A Festschrift for Norman Shepherd (Mount Hermon, California: Kerygma Press, 2012).
Preface — P. Andrew Sandlin
Tributes — John H. Armstrong, John M. Frame, Charles A. McIlhenny, Michael D. Pasarilla, Steve M. Schlissel, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Roger Wagner
1. Growing in Covenant Consciousness — Norman Shepherd
2. The Whole Counsel of God: The Abandonment of John Murray’s Legacy at Westminster Theological Seminary — Ian Alastair Hewitson
3. Original Righteousness — Ralph F. Boersema
4. The Glory of the Man: Women, Psalms, and Worship — James B. Jordan
5. Faith’s Obedience and Israel’s Triumphant King: Romans 1-5 Against Its Old Testament Backdrop — Don Garlington
6. Mother Paul and the Children of Promise (Gal. 4:19-31) — Peter J. Leithart
7. Sola Fide: True and False — P. Andrew Sandlin
8. The Reformed Doctrine of Justification by Works: Historical Survey and Emerging Consensus — Rich Lusk
It’s currently available from Lulu, but it will soon be available on Amazon as well as from Biblical Horizons (from whom you can purchase this book, together with new books from Ralph Boersema and Peter Leithart, as a package deal: Watch for it!).
Psalm 72
I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
By Solomon.
God, give your judgments to the king,
And your righteousness to the son of the king.
He will judge your people with righteousness,
And your lowly ones with justice.
The mountains will bear peace to the people,
And the hills, in righteousness.
He will judge the lowly of the people;
He will save the sons of the needy,
And crush the oppressor.
They will fear you while the sun lasts,
And in the presence of the moon, generation after generation.
He will come down, like rain upon mown grass,
Like showers, the watering of the earth.
In his days, the righteous man will sprout,
And abundance of peace, until the moon is no more.
And he will rule from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.
Before him shall kneel the wilderness-dwellers,
And his enemies will lick the dust.
The kings of Tarshish and the coastlands return a gift;
The kings of Sheba and Seba will bring near tribute.
All kings will bow to him;
All nations will serve him,
For he rescues the needy man who pleads,
And the lowly who has no one to help him.
He will have pity on the poor and needy,
And the souls of the needy he will save.
From oppression and violence he will redeem their souls,
And precious is their blood in his eyes.
And he will live,
And he will give to him from the gold of Sheba.
And he will pray for him continually;
All the day he will bless him.
There will be an abundance of grain in the land,
On the heads of the mountains.
Its fruit will rustle like Lebanon,
And they will blossom from the city like the grass of the earth.
His name will be forever,
In the presence of the sun, his name will have descendants.
And they will be blessed in him;
All the nations will call him happy.
Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel,
Who alone does wonders.
And blessed be his glorious name forever,
And filled with his glory be all the earth.
Amen
And amen.
The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are finished.
A few comments about this translation:
Line 1: If I could, I’d like to capture the Hebrew structure by putting “give” at the end of the line, but that’s a bit awkward in English (“your judgments to the king give”).
Line 4: “Justice” here is the same word as “judgments” in line 1. Alexander has “judgment” in both lines, but I’m not sure that “judge … with judgment” is clear.
Line 7: The word for “judge” here (shaphat) is not the same as the word in line 3 (din), but is the root of the words rendered “justice” and “judgments” in lines 1 and 4.
Lines 10-11: Literally, “They will fear you with the sun, / Before the moon, generation of generations.” Cf. Ps. 89:37-38: David’s throne “as the sun before me, as the moon it will be established forever.”
Lines 20-21: Interestingly, the language used here could be sacrificial: “Gift” in “return a gift” (which means, by the way, to give a gift in return for the king’s favors, including his giving them audience) is minchah, which is used for the grain offering (tribute offering), and the verb in “bring tribute near” is the Hiphil of qrb (“cause to draw near”), which is used for the nearbringings (that is, what we usually call “offerings”).
Line 34: “Abundance” is a guess: the word appears only here in Scripture.. Following a rabbinical tradition, the KJV has “handful,” as does Alexander, who sees it as a statement that contrasts with what follows, along these lines: “Though there’s only a handful of grain in the land, nevertheless there’s going to be a rich harvest.” Hirsch, taking his own path as usual, links this word pisah with the root pss, which he takes to mean “to stop,” so that pisah would mean “the border.” The point, says he, is that the border of the grainfields will reach up to the tops of the mountains, so abundant will it be. In any case, everyone takes this to mean that there will be abundance of grain, in one way or another, and that’s what I’ve gone with.
“Land” here is the same word rendered “earth” earlier in the Psalm, which suggests that perhaps it should be rendered “land” throughout.
Line 36: “Rustle” (Alter, Hirsch) seems better to me — read: closer to “shake,” which is the normal meaning of the word — than the guesses that usually substitute for it (e.g,. “thrive”).
Line 39: The verb yanan occurs only here but it’s related to the noun nin, “descendant.” Alexander renders it “his name will propagate (itself),” which sounds awkward to me. So does Hirsch’s “be perpetuated in progeny.” Alter has “bear seed,” but I don’t want to import the idea of seed into the translation, given the importance of seed motifs elsewhere. Perhaps “procreate” would be a possibility. But I’ve gone with “have descendants” to make the connection with nin (“descendant”) clear.
Line 40: While many commentators treat the hithpael here as reflexive (“they will bless themselves by him”), as they do with the same form in Genesis 22:18 and 26:4, it seems to me that it is best to render it as a passive (“be blessed in/by/through/with him”). See O. T. Allis’s “The Blessing of Abraham,” Princeton Theological Review 25 (1927):263-298, where Allis shows that the hithpael can have a passive meaning.
The Human Face of God
John does not describe the transfiguration, as the other Gospels do; in a sense, John’s whole story is about the transfiguration. He invites us to be still and know; to look again into the human face of Jesus of Nazareth, until the awesome knowledge comes over us, wave upon terrifying wave, that we are looking into the human face of the living God. And he leads us on, with our awe and bewilderment reaching its height, to the point where we realize that the face is most recognizable when it wears the crown of thorns. When John says, “We beheld his glory,” he is thinking supremely of the cross. And those who see this glory in this cross are, very shortly afterwards, commissioned to follow the one who has made this glory visible. — N. T. Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship, 34.
Psalm 71
I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
In you, Yahweh, I have taken refuge;
Let me not be shamed forever.
In your righteousness rescue me and deliver me.
Incline to me your ear and save me.
Be for me a rock of refuge,
To come to continually.
You commanded to save me,
For my rock and my stronghold you are.
My God, deliver me from the hand of the wicked,
From the palm of the unjust and the corrupt,
For you are my hope, my Master;
Yahweh, my confidence from my youth.
Upon you I leaned from the womb;
From the belly of my mother you separated me;
In you is my praise continually.
As a wonder I was to the many;
And you are my strong refuge.
May my mouth be filled with your praise;
All the day, with your beauty.
Do not cast me off at the time of old age;
When my strength fails do not forsake me,
For my enemies speak to me,
And those who watch my soul counsel together,
Saying, “God has forsaken him.
Pursue and catch him because there is no one to rescue.”
God, do not be far from me;
My God, to help me hasten.
Let them be shamed, let them perish,
The accusers of my soul.
Let them be clothed with reproach and be disgraced,
The ones who seek my harm.
And I myself, continually I will hope;
And I will add to all your praise.
My mouth will recount your righteousness;
All the day your salvation,
For I do not know the numbers.
I will come in the powers of my Master, Yahweh.
I will memorialize your righteousness, yours only.
God, you have taught me from my youth;
And until now I declared your wonders.
And also unto old age and gray-headedness,
God do not forsake me,
Until I declare your right arm to the generation,
To all who will come, your power.
And your righteousness, God, is unto the heights,
You who have done great things —
God, who is like you?
You who have shown us oppressions, many and evil,
You will return; you will make us live,
And from the depths of the earth,
You will return, you will bring me up.
You will multiply my greatness
And you will turn around; you will comfort me.
As for me also, I will thank you with the voice of the lute —
Your trustworthiness, God.
I will psalm to you with the lyre,
The holy one of Israel.
My lips will sing when I psalm to you,
And my soul which you have redeemed.
My tongue also, all the day,
Will tell your righteousnesses,
For they are shamed, for they are disgraced,
Those who sought my harm.
A few comments about the translation of this psalm:
Line 10: The last word here is hard to translate. It appears to be the long form of a Qal participle of a word, which in the Qal means “to be (thoroughly) leavened, to be sour(ed).” Note that leaven in the Bible is not yeast but sourdough starter. In the Hiphil, it can mean “turn sharp, bitter” (Ps 73:21), though “sour” works there, too. The related noun means “vinegar” (Ps 69:22).
Lexicons suggest that it means “to be ruthless,” either because they think that meaning comes by extension from “to be sour/sharp” or because they think the word is an alternate spelling of hms, “to be violent.” Maybe.
Hirsch says that the word refers “to one who pours a drop of vinegar into the cup of peace and happiness of another and thus causes the other’s peace and prosperity to curdle and ferment.” This man is, then, the “vinegarer,” the “sourer” or life. Alexander, similarly, suggests that the word has to do with becoming sour, fermented, putrified, and translates it “corrupt doer.” Perhaps one could opt for “corrupter” to convey the idea that this man does not just do corrupt things but actually corrupts or sours things. On the other hand, the root verb in Qal does seem to refer to something true of the subject (“to be leavened/sour”), not to something the subject does to something else (“make leavened/sour”). That said, I’ve gone for “corrupt.” For now.
Line 14: The verb here is puzzling. It appears to be from a root that means “to cut off,” but as Hirsch points out, the idea has to do with separation in Numbers 11:31, not necessarily with cutting. Hirsch himself opts for “you set me apart,” with connotations of being isolated. That may go too far.
Line 36: “The numbers” refers to the number of God’s acts of salvation and righteousness. More literally, it’s “I do not know numbers.” Note that the root of the word for “numbers” here is the same as the root of the verb “recount” earlier. In fact, the Psalmist might even be saying that he would count or number God’s acts of salvation.
Evil and Ecumenicity
C. S. Lewis, writing to Don Giovanni Calabria, 20 September 1947, on how God uses hardships and even enemies to bring about the unity of the Church :
Common perils, common burdens, an almost universal hatred and contempt for the Flock of Christ can, by God’s Grace, contribute much to the healing of our divisions. For those who suffer the same things from the same people for the same Person can scarcely not love each other.
Indeed I could well believe that it is God’s intention, since we have refused milder remedies, to compel us into unity, by persecution even and hardship. Satan is without doubt nothing else than a hammer in the hand of a benevolent and severe God. For all, either willingly or unwillingly, do the will of God: Judas and Satan as tools or instruments, John and Peter as sons.
Even now we see more charity, or certainly less hatred, between separated Christians than there was a century ago. The chief cause of this (under God) seems to me to be the swelling pride and barbarity of the unbelievers. Hitler, unknowingly and unwillingly, greatly benefited the Church! — The Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis, 35, 37.
Psalm 70
I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
By David.
For the memorial.
God, to rescue me,
Yahweh, to help me, hasten!
May they be shamed and confounded,
The ones who seek my soul.
May they shrink back and be disgraced,
The ones who wish me evil.
May they turn because of their shame,
The ones who say, “Aha! Aha!”
Let them be glad and rejoice in you,
All who seek you.
Let them say continually, “Great is God!,”
Those who love your salvation.
And I am oppressed and needy;
God, hasten to me!
My help and my deliverer you are;
Yahweh, do not delay.
A comment on the translation (which also, by the way, applies to Psalm 40, part of which is almost word-for-word what we have in Psalm 70):
Line 7: The expression seems to be “turn back on the heel(s) of their shame” (cf. Alter), but it is probably used, as most commentators think, to mean “because of, on account of their shame.”
Psalm 69
I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
Upon lilies.
By David.
Save me, God,
For the waters have come, up to my soul.
I have sunk in the mire of the deep,
And there is no place to stand.
I have come into depths of water,
And a torrent has washed me away.
I am weary with my calling;
My throat is parched.
My eyes fail
From waiting for my God.
More than the hairs of my head
Are those who hate me undeservedly.
Mighty are my destroyers,
My lying enemies.
What I did not steal,
I must then return.
God, you yourself know my foolishness,
And my guilts from you are not hidden.
Let them not be shamed in me, the ones who wait for you,
My Master, Yahweh of hosts.
Let them not be disgraced in me, the ones who seek you,
God of Israel,
Because for you I have borne reproach;
Disgrace has covered my face.
Estranged have I been from my brothers,
And a foreigner to my mother’s sons,
Because the zeal of your house has consumed me,
And the reproach of your reproachers has fallen upon me.
And I wept in fasting for my soul;
And it became a reproach to me.
And I made my clothing sackcloth,
And I was to them a byword.
They talk about me, those who sit in the gate:
The songs of those who drink beer.
But as for me, my prayer is to you:
Yahweh, a time of favor!
God, in the abundance of your loyalty,
Answer me in the trustworthiness of your salvation.
Rescue me from the mire and do not let me sink;
Let me be rescued from my haters and from depths of water.
Let not the torrent of water wash me away;
And let not the deep swallow me;
And let not the pit shut upon me its mouth.
Answer me, Yahweh, for good is your loyalty;
According to the abundance of your compassions, turn to me.
Do not hide your face from your servant;
For I am distressed. Hurry, answer me!
Draw near to my soul, redeem me;
Because of my enemies, ransom me.
You yourself know my reproach,
And my shame and my disgrace;
Before you are all my oppressors.
Reproach breaks my heart, and I am sick;
I wait for sympathy and there is none,
And for comforters and I do not find them.
They give for my food gall,
And for my thirst they make me drink vinegar.
Let their table before them become a snare,
And for the ones at peace a trap.
Let their eyes be too dark to see;
And let their loins shake continually.
Pour out upon them your wrath,
And let your burning anger overtake them.
Let their encampment be desolate;
In their tents let there be no one dwelling,
Because as for you — whom you have struck, they persecute,
And the suffering of your wounded they recount.
Give liability upon their liability,
And let them not come into your righteousness.
Let them be blotted from the book of the living,
And with the righteous let them not be written.
But I am lowly and suffering;
Let your salvation, God, set me on high.
I will praise the name of God in song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
And it will be better to Yahweh than an ox,
A bull horned and hooved.
The lowly have seen and rejoiced;
Those who seek God, may your hearts live,
For Yahweh is listening to the needy,
And his captives he does not despise.
Let heaven and earth praise him;
Seas and everything swarming in them,
For God will save Zion,
And build the cities of Judah,
And they will dwell there and possess it,
And the seed of his servants will inherit it,
And the lovers of his name will live in it.
A few comments about the translation of this psalm:
Line 2: “Up to my soul” could, according to many commentaries, be “up to my neck,” which fits this context. The association between nephesh and breath may justify taking the word as neck or throat here, but for now I’m sticking with the way it’s usually translated elsewhere. The point is that the waters are going to cut off his breath, I think.
Line 4: “Place to stand” (Alexander, Alter) is at attempt to translate m’md. Holladay has “firm ground,” which is certainly what is in view. Tate’s “foothold” is good, too. But the root has to do specifically with standing, and I wanted to capture that in the translation.
Line 14: More literally, “my enemies of a lie.” I take this as a construct chain in which the second noun (“a lie”) functions to describe the first (“my enemies”).
Line 29: What “my soul” is doing in this verse is unclear. It could be the indirect object of the verb “weep” (which can take an object in this sense: “weep for X”). But it’s also possible that it is a second subject: “I weep, namely, my soul” (Delitzsch). Or, I suppose, it could be a direct object: Alexander thinks that it’s “I weep away my soul/life” (cf. Hirsch: “I wept out my soul on the fast day”).
Line 33: “Talk” is really too weak here. The word implies deliberation, debate, discussion, something resulting from intense meditation (which makes me wonder if the word translated “byword” in the previous line could better be rendered “parable” or “riddle”). Sometimes, the word is even rendered “complaint,” though that depends on the context.
Line 34: “Beer” is the correct translation of shekar. There are only two things that an Israelite could make into a fermented drink. One was fruit, and the product would be wine (yayin). The other was grain, and the product would be beer (shekar).
Line 38: “The trustworthiness of your salvation” might be an adjectival construct chain, so that it could be rendered “Your saving trustworthiness.” I opt for “trustworthiness” instead of “truth” (which is often what other translations have) because the idea here is not simply conformity to the facts. Tate reverses the adjectival order: “Your sure salvation” (cf. Alter: “Your steadfast rescue”).
Line 59: The word here is the plural of shalom, which means “peace, well-being, prosperity.” So KJV, Calvin, and Hirsch take it to be saying that the enemies’ prosperity (Hirsch: “abundance of good fortune”) would be a trap for them. I’m not sure, in that case, why the word has a l- prefix, though that’s not determinative. The Targum takes it as the plural of shelem, “Peace offering,” which is pretty attractive, given the context … but that would be a significantly different form of the word. Alexander and Hengstenberg think it refers to those who are secure, but following Alter and Tate, it may be best to take it as the friends of the enemies’, those who are at peace with them, which is how the word shalom is used in Psalm 55:20.
Line 77: More literally, “A bull of horns, hooves.”