TheBibleNet: Psalm 4

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

4:1 LA MENATSE'ACH BIN'GIYNOT MIZMOR LE DAVID

לַמְנַצֵּחַ בִּנְגִינוֹת מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד

KJ (King James translation): (To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David.)

BN (BibleNet translation): For the leader of the strings. A Psalm to David.

This time the King James has amalgamated the title with the opening line, where it is the Yehudit that separates them. I have noted this with the bracketed numbering for the KJ.

Most of the Psalms would have been accompanied by the full Temple orchestra, including percussion, reeds and pipes; this is exclusively for the strings. The modern equivalent would be John Lennon singing "Imagine" to solo accoustic guitar, as opposed to the full Beatles set, electric instruments. So we can imagine something gentle, melodic, introspective, rather than the large-scale communal chant.

But what precisely is BIN'GIYNOT? The prefix infers an instrument, and this therefore is "to be played on..."; but on what? There is no known instrument connected with this root, whereas a MANGIYNA (מַנְגִּינָה) is a word still very much in use today, though cantors in synagogues vary in their preference between this and NUSACH; the former is really the melody of a specific piece of liturgy, where the latter is the general musical traditions of that particular community - which sounds like two ways of saying the same thing, and maybe it is.

4:2 BE KAR'I ANENI ELOHAI TSIDKI BA TSAR HIRCHAVTA LI CHANENI U SHEM'A TEPHILATI

בְּקָרְאִי עֲנֵנִי אֱלֹהֵי צִדְקִי בַּצָּר הִרְחַבְתָּ לִּי חָנֵּנִי וּשְׁמַע תְּפִלָּתִי

KJ (4:1 cont): Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

BN: Answer me when I call, you gods of my righteousness. In my distress you set me free. Show compassion to me now, and hear my prayer.

The first four words all rhyme (Elohey is an almost-rhyme); three more in the second half of the phrase; the two words that are not part of the sequence nonetheless rhyme with each other - this is more complex than the writing of a 15-square cryptic crossword puzzle!

BE KAR'I... BA TSAR structures the two halves of the phrase on an identical grammatical pattern. Those first four words are also an integral phrase. The second half, however, is itself split in two, as per the punctuation in my translation.

4:3 BENEY ISH AD MEH CHEVODI LICHLIMAH TE'EHAVUN RIYK TEVAKSHU CHA ZAV (SELAH)

בְּנֵי אִישׁ עַד מֶה כְבוֹדִי לִכְלִמָּה תֶּאֱהָבוּן רִיק תְּבַקְשׁוּ כָזָב סֶלָה

KJ (4:2): O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah.

BN: O my fellow humans, for how long must my honour be turned into shame, through your love of vanity, your seeking after falsehoods? (Selah)

BENEY ISH: Rather than BENEY ADAM, which is the more customary Yehudit way of saying "human beings". "Ish" is the word for "a man", probably derived from the Babylonian Enosh, as we can assume from the plural of Ish being Anashim rather than Ishim; Adam was the "first human" of the Book of Genesis.

CHEVODI: We have to determine whose is the narrative voice; and it may be that there are two voices, each taking its own lines, and this a dialogue. Verse 2 appeared to be a human calling upwards to the gods; verse 3 seems to be the gods who are speaking in criticism of humans. Or is the "human" voice both the "to" and the "of" in the title: King David the sacred-king astride the human throne, but as the representative of the gods, and therefore able to speak in both directions? It is worth considering, in this regard, the different designs of both synagogues and churches, not architecturally, but with regards the priestly role: in some synagogues (mostly orthodox) the Rabbi is the "shali'ach tsibur", the "representative of the community", standing alongside his flock and leading their prayers upwards to the altar; in others (mostly Reform) the Rabbi stands by the altar, his back to it, and represents the deity down towards the flock. Here, my sense is, both - and the form, the syntax, the rhyme, the very grammar, manifests it.

And is it also - and this might explain why King James has amalgamated the title and the first verse - that the opening is a statement of the spiritual challenge, and the remainder the theological response? We will see that it is.

4:4 U DE'U KI HIPHLAH YHVH CHASID LO YHVH YISHMA BE KAR'I ELAV

וּדְעוּ כִּי הִפְלָה יְהוָה חָסִיד לוֹ יְהוָה יִשְׁמַע בְּקָרְאִי אֵלָיו

KJ (4:3): But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him.

BN: But know that YHVH has set apart the pious man as his own; YHVH will hear when I call to him.

CHASID: every Chasid I have ever known insists on translating this word as "pious", though the King James translators would not have had that opportunity, and "godly" is sufficient for a synonym. The original Chasidim were the followers of Yehudah ha Maccabee, who led the revolt against the Greeks which is commemorated in the festival of Chanukah (the link is to chabad.org, the principal website of world-wide Chasidism). The term, as the name for an ideological movement, was revived in the 18th century, in western Ukraine at first, then throughout central and eastern Europe, but especially in the lands that we now call Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The spiritual leader of most Jewish communities is known as a Rabbi, but in Chasidic communities he is the Rebbe. One last piece of information, and an oddity within it: whenever the Maccabeean Chasidim are referred to, in the Apocrypha, in the Gospels, at the time of the destruction of the Temple, and in the revolt of Shim'on Bar Kochba, the word is translated into English, not as "pious ones", but as "Zealots", and with an upper case Z. Are "Zealots" and "pious ones" then also synonyms? Most people would think of them almost as opposites.

4:5 RIGZU VE AL TECHETA'U IMRU VILVAVCHEM AL MISHKAVCHEM VE DOMU (SELAH)

רִגְזוּ וְאַל תֶּחֱטָאוּ אִמְרוּ בִלְבַבְכֶם עַל מִשְׁכַּבְכֶם וְדֹמּוּ סֶלָה

KJ (4:4): Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

BN: Tremble, but do not sin; commune with your own hearts upon your beds, and be still. (Selah)

VILVAVCHEM AL MISHKAVCHEM: "You" in English cannot clarify whether this is singular or plural, but "hearts" and "beds" can; both are in the plural, as are the verbs RIGZU, TECHETA'U, IMRU and DOMU. Another line built on rhymes, one for the verbs, the other for the nouns.

4:6 ZIVCHU ZIVCHEY TSEDEK U VIT'CHU EL YHVH

זִבְחוּ זִבְחֵי צֶדֶק וּבִטְחוּ אֶל יְהוָה

KJ (4:5) Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD.

BN: Sacrifice your sacrifices righteously, and put your trust in YHVH.

ZIVCHU ZIVCHEY: When translating prose, we have, I think, greater liberty to focus on meaning than on the precise language used; but not so in poetry. "Zivchu zivchey" is a deliberate choice by the Psalmist, repetition of a word with variation both for its musical quality and to convey a very precise meaning. It sounds awkward in English, but that is not a reason to alter it, unless we can find an exact equivalent in the English language; I do not have one.

4:7 RABIM OMRIM MI YAR'ENU TOV NESAH ALEYNU OR PANEYCHA YHVH

רַבִּים אֹמְרִים מִי יַרְאֵנוּ טוֹב נְסָה עָלֵינוּ אוֹר פָּנֶיךָ יְהוָה

KJ (4:6) There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.

BN: There are many who ask: Who will show us some good? Turn your face to shine on us, YHVH.

NESAH: There is only one way of translating this, because it is a direct and intentional allusion to Numbers 6:24-26, the most famous of all the prayers in the Jewish liturgy (and Christian too; it is used regularly in Christian prayer services), the "Yevarechecha" as it is sometimes known from its opening word, more correctly the "Birkat ha Kohanim", the "Priestly Blessing":

YEVARECHECHA YHVH VE YISHMERECHA
May YHVH bless you and watch over you
YA'ER YHVH PANAV ELEYCHA VIY'CHUNECHA
May YHVH set his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you
YISA YHVH PANAV ELEYCHA VE YASEM LECHA SHALOM
May YHVH turn his face towards you, and make everything in your life complete.

My link on "Yevarechecha" is to a Karaite website - the most ancient of surviving Jewish sects, though regarded as heretical by many other Jewish denominations. The melody on this link is as close as we are ever likely to get to the one that would have been sung in the Temple.

My link on "Birkat ha-Kohanim" is to a Klezmer version, very much a Chasidic take on the same words.

Note that the verse comes in three distinct parts, the first two ending with a rhyme.

4:8 NATATAH SIMCHAH VE LIBI ME ET DEGANAM VE TIYROSHAM RABU

נָתַתָּה שִׂמְחָה בְלִבִּי מֵעֵת דְּגָנָם וְתִירוֹשָׁם רָבּוּ

KJ (4:7): Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

BN: You have satisfied my heart, more than any increase in my supply of corn or wine could manage.

SIMCHAH: We saw the root of this word earlier (Psalm 3:6), and noted the connection with SMICHA, Latin "Satis"; this is a word-play on the difference between the satisfaction of the basic physical needs, which are the second half of the verse, and the deeper spiritual needs; though remember that the LEV (VE LIBI in this verse) in Biblical times was the seat of subjective thought rather more than of the emotions (see especially Deuteronomy 6:5, the second line of the Shema).

4:9 BE SHALOM YACHDAV ESHKEVAH VE IYSHAN KI ATAH YHVH LEVADAD LA VETACH TOSHIYVENI

בְּשָׁלוֹם יַחְדָּו אֶשְׁכְּבָה וְאִישָׁן כִּי אַתָּה יְהוָה לְבָדָד לָבֶטַח תּוֹשִׁיבֵנִי

KJ (4:8): I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

BN: Whole and complete will I both lay me down and sleep; for you, YHVH, you alone enable me to live secure. {P}

BE SHALOM: "In peace" is an inadequate translation, though peace is definitely one necessary aspect. "Complete" would be more complete, as per my translation of the Yevarechecha, above.

LEVADAD: Levad means "only", but this is an intensified form of the word.

And in that final statement we can see why this is a Psalm to David, and not of David. Whether he be the corn-god of mythology (and alluded to as such in verse 8), or the divine representative on the throne in Tsi'on, he is the one who ensures the human realm.

Given that Simon & Garfunkel started their partnership doing camp-fire at Jewish youth camp, where the Psalms would have been regularly on the study-list as well as the song-list, can we hear the former crossing the bridge over troubled water here? Like their Jewish song-writer buddies Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, Jewish liturgy is a frequent source.

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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