TheBibleNet: Psalm 21

Psalms:

Bk 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Bk 2: 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Bk 3: 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Bk 4: 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

Bk 5: 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119a 119b 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132
133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Additional Psalms: 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Samuel Chronicles

Essays: Intro - Music - Form & Language

21:1 LA MENATSE'ACH MIZMOR LE DAVID

לַמְנַצֵּחַ מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד

KJ (King James translation): (To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.) The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!

BN (BibleNet translation): For the Leader. A Psalm for David.

King James, as so often, merges the opening verse into the title, rendering its numbering different from the Yehudit.

21:2 YHVH BE AZCHA YISMACH MELECH U VIYSHU'AT'CHA MAH YAGEYL ME'OD

יְהוָה בְּעָזְּךָ יִשְׂמַח מֶלֶךְ וּבִישׁוּעָתְךָ מַה יָּגֶיל מְאֹד

KJ (21:1): The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!

BN: YHVH, in your strength does the king rejoice; and in your salvation - oh but he exults greatly!

If this is dedicated "to" David, then he is also "the king" in this verse; but if this is written "by" David, who is the king?

VIYSHU'ATCHA: And yet again we see that Moshi'a and Mashiyach are completely different concepts, and that Christianity has them the wrong way around.

YAGEYL: "Rejoice" is a very late development of the root, and while it may be correct - the parallel with YISMACH certainly insinuates it - we also need to understand the rich and complex word-play that lies inside it. The root may be GIL or GUL or GOL or even GAL; no one is quite sure with these primaeval two-letter roots, but they are among the earliest sounds-with-meanings in any of the human languages. Probably the original was onomatopoeic, the sound of a stone dropped into water, and/or the ripples that it caused. Apply that to the heart and you could be trembling (as in Psalm 2:11), or leaping for joy (as in Job 3:22, which also parallels GIL with SAMEYACH). How it gets from that to the great temple of Gil-Gal is less obvious, but the two are different words-with-meanings combined, and the other one means a circle. Was it a circle-dance - the Hora or several others that are still standard forms in the Jewish world? Was that circle-dance performed as an act of rejoicing, whether at Gil-Gal or any other shrine, including the Solomonic Temple? The stone circle was a commonplace of ancient worship and culture, providing Salisbury Plain with Stonehenge, Greece with its ampitheatres, and the South Bank of the Thames with the Globe Theatre.

21:3 TA'AVAT LIBO NATATAH LO VA ARESHET SEPHATAV BAL MANA'TA (SELAH)

תַּאֲוַת לִבּוֹ נָתַתָּה לּוֹ וַאֲרֶשֶׁת שְׂפָתָיו בַּל מָנַעְתָּ סֶּלָה

KJ (21:2): Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.

BN: You have given him his heart's desire, and the requests of his lips you have not withheld. (Selah)

This appears to be a continuation of the previous; or at the least, it picks up a key motif from the previous and takes it forward: Psalm 20:5, though actually the wording is different even if the intent is identical. Need to check if this is the case throughout the Psalms, and the numbering therefore not just a random sequence.

SELAH: The break here seems to be in the form/structure of the lyric, implying a musical change as well; but also in the manner and tone of the piece, which becomes rather more prosaic, or at least blank verse.

BAL: This word has cropped up several times in these Psalms, as a variant of AL and LO for "not". My only question about it is: why has such a useful word not been revived in modern Ivrit? BELI, which stems from it, and means "without", has, BELI SHE'ELAH, unquestionably, been revived.

21:4 KI TEKADMENU BIRCHOT TOV TASHIT LE ROSHO ATERET PAZ

כִּי תְקַדְּמֶנּוּ בִּרְכוֹת טוֹב תָּשִׁית לְרֹאשׁוֹ עֲטֶרֶת פָּז

KJ (21:3): For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.

BN: For you approach him with the choicest blessings; you set a crown of fine gold on his head.

Not in the Jewish world you don't! In the Kena'ani perhaps, or some of the other neighbouring peoples. But not in the Yisra-Eli, not Shelomoh or any who followed him, right up to the Herods of Roman times. Mashiyach they were; anointed with oil poured over their heads...

But wait. That is the traditional understanding. And yet. 2 Samuel 12:30 - someone else's crown, put on as a statement of conquest, not necessarily worn afterwards. Ezekiel 21:31 - one of the kings who rejected YHVH and followed the ways of other people. Job 19:9 - poetic metaphoric on this occasion, idealising human virtue (see also Proverbs 4:9 and 12:4). Numbers 32:3 and Joshua 16:7 - again a poetic metaphor, this time describing a geographical landscape.

21:5 CHAYIM SHA'AL MIMCHA NATATAH LO ORECH YAMIM OLAM VA'ED

חַיִּים שָׁאַל מִמְּךָ נָתַתָּה לּוֹ אֹרֶךְ יָמִים עוֹלָם וָעֶד

KJ (21:4): He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.

BN: He asked you for life, and you gave it him: immortality combined with eternity.

Not something generally granted by the gods to mortals, so we can add this to our list of confirmations that the David of these Psalms is primarily the "Beloved Son", the Bin-Yamin, the Earth-and-corn deity.

21:6 GADOL KEVODO BIYSHU'ATECHA HOD VE HADAR TESHAVEH ALAV

גָּדוֹל כְּבוֹדוֹ בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ הוֹד וְהָדָר תְּשַׁוֶּה עָלָיו

KJ (21:5): His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.

BN: His glory is achieved precisely through your salvation; you bestow upon him honour and majesty.

And yet again, it is the deity who is the Moshi'a, the earthly king who is the Mashiyach.

21:7 KI TESHIYTEHU VERACHOT LA'AD TECHADEHU VE SIMCHAH ET PANEYCHA

כִּי תְשִׁיתֵהוּ בְרָכוֹת לָעַד תְּחַדֵּהוּ בְשִׂמְחָה אֶת פָּנֶיךָ

KJ (21:6:): For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.

BN: For Thou makest him most blessed for ever; Thou makest him glad with joy in Thy presence.

TESHIYTEHU: But this is from the verb LASET = "to put" or "to place", though it does indeed sound at first like the MOSHI'A is being repeated. Word-play and sound-play. Always word-play and sound-play in these Psalms.

21:8 KI HA MELECH BOTE'ACH BA YHVH U VE CHESED ELYON BAL YIMOT

כִּי הַמֶּלֶךְ בֹּטֵחַ בַּיהוָה וּבְחֶסֶד עֶלְיוֹן בַּל יִמּוֹט

KJ (21:7): For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.

BN: For the king trusts YHVH, yea, in the mercy of the Most High; he shall not be moved.

MELECH: Could apply to king David, and probably does, but calling him Melech rather than Mashiyach allows the term to be more general, and as such could apply to any "leader", "ruler", "boss" (the root being HALACH = "to go", but in the Pi'el or Hiph'il form, as MELECH, it is the one who gets the others to go, i.e. a leader).

ELYON: While this is very specifically a different deity from YHVH.

YIMOT: That verb again! "Moved" is the standard translation, though its meaning in this context is not obvious. See my notes at Psalm 1:3.

21:9 TIMTS'A YADCHA LE CHOL OYEVEYCHA YEMIYNCHA TIMTS'A SON'EYCHA

תִּמְצָא יָדְךָ לְכָל אֹיְבֶיךָ יְמִינְךָ תִּמְצָא שֹׂנְאֶיךָ

KJ (21:8): Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

BN: Your hand will track down all your enemies; your right hand will track down those who hate you.

TIMTS'A: If a word is deliberately repeated in the original, why would you not do the same in the translation? KJ does, and I do, but several translations that I have seen do not.

YEMIYNCHA... SON'EYCHA: That seemingly additional Yud again - must check the Dead Sea Scrolls and/or other pre-Masoretic texts to see if they are there, or Masoretically added as an aide to pronunciation. TESHIYTEMU and PANEYCHA in the next verse ditto (and odd that ESH doesn't, as really it's EYSH).

But the more important point here is the repetition yet again that Bin-Yamin (Benjamin) is a title before it is a name, that the Mashiyach sits at the right hand of the Moshi'a, and is not himself the Moshi'a.

21:10 TESHIYTEMU KE TANUR ESH LE'ET PANEYCHA YHVH BE APO YEVAL'EM VE TO'CHLEM ESH

תְּשִׁיתֵמוֹ כְּתַנּוּר אֵשׁ לְעֵת פָּנֶיךָ יְהוָה בְּאַפּוֹ יְבַלְּעֵם וְתֹאכְלֵם אֵשׁ

KJ (21:9): Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.

BN: Thou shalt make them as a fiery furnace in the time of thine anger; {N} the LORD shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them.

TANUR ESH: A bread oven or a roasting oven would be a TANUR ESH, whereas the fire that barbecues sacrificial meat on the altar would be called a MIZBACH or MIZBE'ACH. But the original YHVH was a volcano god, as we know from the tales of Mosheh, and can assume from the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, which was probably the same volcano; the enemies in those tales were also devoured by fire, so in fact the TANUR ESH here is metaphorical, and it is the volcano that is intended.

21:11 PIRYAMO ME ERETS TE'ABED VE ZAR'AM MI BENEY ADAM

פִּרְיָמוֹ מֵאֶרֶץ תְּאַבֵּד וְזַרְעָם מִבְּנֵי אָדָם

KJ (21:10): Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.

BN: You will destroy their offspring from the Earth, and their seed from Humankind.

The enemies being humans, it is their human "fruit" and "seed" that is meant.

21:12 KI NATU ALEYCHA RA'AH CHASHVU MEZIMAH BAL YUCHALU

כִּי נָטוּ עָלֶיךָ רָעָה חָשְׁבוּ מְזִמָּה בַּל יוּכָלוּ

KJ (21:11): For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

BN: For they intended evil against you; they have conspired a plot, but they are unable to carry it out.

21:13 KI TESHIYTEMU SHECHEM BE MEYTAREYCHA TECHONEN AL PENEYHEM

כִּי תְּשִׁיתֵמוֹ שֶׁכֶם בְּמֵיתָרֶיךָ תְּכוֹנֵן עַל פְּנֵיהֶם

KJ (21:12): Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

BN: For you shall make them turn their shoulder, by setting up your bows and arrows in their faces.

SHECHEM is another of those words we cannot read without hearing resonances - though it may be here in all innocence; but we have to check. See the link.

21:14 RUMAH YHVH VE UZECHA NASHIYRAH U NEZAMRAH GEVURATECHA

רוּמָה יְהוָה בְעֻזֶּךָ נָשִׁירָה וּנְזַמְּרָה גְּבוּרָתֶךָ

KJ (21:13): Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.

BN: Be exalted, YHVH, in your own strength; so will we sing and praise your power. {P}

NEZAMRAH: As in Pesukei d'Zimrah...

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Psalms:

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