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
BOOK TWO
But we need to ask, before we begin, why is it a second book? As we have no original texts to see it written down as such, it can only be deduction by later scholars, and possibly a tradition, or a genuine memory, from someone who had seen an original - but this is highly unlikely, given the historical circumstances.
So: from what are they deducing it? In the early chapters, inventing the word "plotology", I tried to identify a recurrent theme, and it seemed to be there: the journey of the Earth-god from the depths of metaphorical night to the bright light of day, whether that be the darkness of emotional turmoil or the growth of the crops in the spring and on until harvest-time; and in the second half of Book One the struggle to sustain positive light and life in the face of all the hardships, whether of rain and storm, human behaviour, sickness, and repeatedly going back to the deity/gods to find the resiliance to do this.
And if that is correct, then Book Two should either move on to an entirely new theme, or address it in an entirely new way. Or have some other reason for being a separate-but-connected book.
Which latter statement infers that it may not be "plotology" after all. Perhaps Book One contains Psalms of a certain musical type, a certain poetical type, from a particular epoch, or geographical region of Kena'an (Hebronite rather than Yeru-Shalmi, say), and Book Two reflects a different mode or form, a different time or place. Or perhaps different authors. Or different dedicatees - Shelomoh rather David.
So, from this last possibility, comes another scholarly theory, again from the "Choral Ode" school, that Psalms 42 and 43 were originally the same Psalm, broken into three distinct parts, called strophes. This they deduce from three perspectives: a) identity of subject: both yearn for the house of YHVH; b) metrical structure, which is identical; c) the text of the refrain: which can be found in Psalm 42 at verses 6 and 12, defining thereby the first two strophes, and at Psalm 43:5, completing the triplet.
I have placed all these thoughts here so that the reader can join me in seeking answers as we read on. And there may not be any.
42:1 LA MENATSE'ACH MASKIL LIVNEY KORACH
לַמְנַצֵּחַ מַשְׂכִּיל לִבְנֵי קֹרַח
KJ (King James translation): (To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.) As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
BN (BibleNet translation): For the Artistic Director. A Teaching Psalm. For the Beney Korach.
KJ merges verse 1 into the title and moves its verse-numbers down accordingly.
BENEY KORACH: As per my notes in the Introduction to the Psalms, Psalms 42-49 are all addressed to "the Beney Korach", which, like all of these prophetic and musical "Beney", does not mean "sons", though they may well have been family originally, but guilds - and guilds throughout history have guaranteed apprenticeships to sons, at some epochs even required sons to follow fathers.
The Beney Korach are described as "a family of Temple singers" in 2 Chronicles 20:19), so we can read them as the choir, while the Beney Asaph and the Beney Eitan provided the main instruments - strings and reeds, possibly also percussion though that may have been the provenance of the women, using cymbals and tambours - and Heman was probably the Menatse'ach, the conductor cum artistic director - see my notes on this latter in the linked essay.
42:2 KE AYAL TA'AROG AL APHIKEY MAYIM KEN NAPHSHI TA'AROG ELEYCHA ELOHIM
כְּאַיָּל תַּעֲרֹג עַל אֲפִיקֵי מָיִם כֵּן נַפְשִׁי תַעֲרֹג אֵלֶיךָ אֱלֹהִים
KJ (42:1): As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
BN: As the hart pants for the springs of water, so does my soul pant for you, my gods.
AYAL: A male deer (Deuteronomy 12:15), or possibly a billy goat (Song of Songs 2:9), or a ram (Job 42:8), masculine anyway, some kind of horned creature, where the cosmological AYELET HA SCHACHAR who we encountered near the beginning of Book One (18:34 and 22:1) was just as definitely feminine (and see Genesis 49:21).
Although an AYAL might also be an oak tree, of the sort that hosts the father-god El, or like the one at Eyl Pa'ran in Genesis 14:6. But surely, you reply, that would be a kerm or a terebinth oak, which are very hardy trees and can cope without water, which is why AYIL became one of the Yehudit words for "strong" or "robust", cf Exodus 15:15, and thence those who have power in the land (2 Kings 24:15 for example). Yes, but the deity in this verse, and even more explicitly in the next one, is EL, and in dry deserts like the Negev and the Aravah, even the kerm and the terebinth can look like they need a drop of rain.
42:3 TSAM'AH NAPHSHI L'ELOHIM LE EL CHAI MATAI AVO VE ERA'EH PENEY ELOHIM
צָמְאָה נַפְשִׁי לֵאלֹהִים לְאֵל חָי מָתַי אָבוֹא וְאֵרָאֶה פְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים
KJ (42:2): My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
BN: My soul thirsts for the gods, for the living god: {N} When shall I come and appear before the gods?
Is he wondering when he is going to die? Because if all he wants is to "come and appear before the gods", he can take a yearling AYAL to the Temple this very day, or to his nearest shrine if this is pre-Solomonic, as I strongly suspect. As indeed he will do in verse 5.
42:4 HAYETAH LI DIM'ATI LECHEM YOMAM VA LAILAH BE EMOR ELAI KOL HA YOM AYEH ELOHEYCHA
הָיְתָה לִּי דִמְעָתִי לֶחֶם יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה בֶּאֱמֹר אֵלַי כָּל הַיּוֹם אַיֵּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
KJ (42:3): My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?
BN: My tears have been my sustenance day and night, {N} while they say to me all day long, "Where are your gods?"
Does this not count as an act of sacrifice? Can you take your tears to the Temple, and shed them on the altar, alongside the AYAL? To which the answer is, yes, of course you can: by reciting Psalms like this one as you do so.
ELOHEYCHA: Still in the plural; YHVH will appear, but not until verse 9.
42:5 ELEH EZKERAH VE ESHPECHAH ALAI NAPHSHI KI E'EVOR BA SACH EDADEM AD BEIT ELOHIM BE KOL RINAH VE TODAH HAMON CHOGEG
אֵלֶּה אֶזְכְּרָה וְאֶשְׁפְּכָה עָלַי נַפְשִׁי כִּי אֶעֱבֹר בַּסָּךְ אֶדַּדֵּם עַד בֵּית אֱלֹהִים בְּקוֹל רִנָּה וְתוֹדָה הָמוֹן חוֹגֵג
KJ (42:4): When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.
BN: These I will remember, and I will pour out my soul in my inner depths, {N} because I shall cross over with the congregation, and lead them to the house of the gods, {N} with a voice of joy and praise, a congregation keeping the holy day.
ELEH: From AYAL to EL via ELOHIM, and now ELEH. Just playing, as poets do, because words are their medium. And we can be certain that it is word-play, because it's ungrammatical, lacking a noun (which KJ has added) to partner the pronoun, so the ELEH becomes emphasised as though it were itself the noun.
ALAI: And then one more, though this time it has an Ayin, first letter, rather than an Aleph. And it too is ungrammatical, and incomplete, but being so allows it to gain emphasis.
E'EVOR...EDADEM: As with EZKERAH and ESHPECHAH, these are in the future tense.
BE KOL RINAH: This is a teaching-Psalm for the Beney Korach. They are the ones who are going to "cross over", from the rehearsal rooms to the courtyard with the altar, and their training is for the singing of these Psalms. So this Psalm becomes something of an anthem for them. Verse 9 confirms this.
42:6 MAH TISHTOCHACHI NAPHSHI VE TEHEMI ALAI HOCHIYLI L'ELOHIM KI OD ODENU YESHU'OT PANAV
מַה תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי נַפְשִׁי וַתֶּהֱמִי עָלָי הוֹחִילִי לֵאלֹהִים כִּי עוֹד אוֹדֶנּוּ יְשׁוּעוֹת פָּנָיו
KJ (42:5): Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
BN: Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why do you moan within me? {N} Place your hope in the gods, for I shall go on praising them until I receive salvation in their face.
MAH TISHTOCHACHI: My synapses are doing word association, and they too want to go to the nearest shrine, to check the synagogue liturgy. Mah tishtochachi ve mah something else which may well be Tehemi or maybe Techemi - but phrased slightly differently. Adon Olam? Yigdal? No. Another Psalm? No, though actually it is another Psalm as well - the very next one, 43:5, has this line again, with a very minor alteration at the end (wich actually makes more sense, is grammatically more correct, and confirms the plurality of my translation, as does the first word of the next verse of this Psalm):
MAH TISHTOCHACHI NAPHSHI U MAH TEHEMI ALAI HOCHIYLI L'ELOHIM KI OD ODENU YESHU'OT PANAI V'ELOHAI
מַה תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי נַפְשִׁי וּמַה תֶּהֱמִי עָלָי הוֹחִילִי לֵאלֹהִים כִּי עוֹד אוֹדֶנּוּ יְשׁוּעֹת פָּנַי וֵאלֹהָיI finally got it. Lecha Dodi. Welcoming in the Shabbat on Friday evening. Click here. Verse 6.
But also verse 12 of this Psalm, where the line turns out to be a refrain and the Psalm turns out to have two distinct parts, five verses each part, and that refrain.
42:7 ELOHAI ALAI NAPHSHI TISHTOCHACH AL KEN EZKARCHA ME ERETS YARDEN VE CHERMONIM ME HAR MITS'AR
אֱלֹהַי עָלַי נַפְשִׁי תִשְׁתּוֹחָח עַל כֵּן אֶזְכָּרְךָ מֵאֶרֶץ יַרְדֵּן וְחֶרְמוֹנִים מֵהַר מִצְעָר
KJ (42:6): O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.
BN: O my gods, my soul is cast down within me. {N} That is why I call you to mind from the land of Yarden, and the Chermon mountains, from the hill Mits'ar.
CHERMONIM: Clearly this Psalm, and several others like it, were assimilated into the hymnal of the Beney Yisra-El, but came originally from other peoples, other cults. The gods here have their Olympus on Mount Chermon not Mount Tsi'on or even Mount Chorev. The river Yarden flows through Yisra-El, but there are no lands bearing the river's name - or perhaps there are, on the east of the river, where that name is now in use, or further north, at its sources around Banyas (Caesarea Philippi), in Ashur (Syria).
And as to MITS'AR, the name occurs uniquely here, and all we can assume is that it was one of the low peaks or small hills in that range - the size from the word Tso'ar, which means "small". Which opens the remote possibility that MITS'AR should be MI TSO'AR, and this the mountain where Lot and his daughters sought refuge after the destruction of the Cities of the Plain - which would place it at the southern rather than the northern end of the Yarden.
42:8 TEHOM EL TEHOM KOR'E LE KOL TSINOREYCHA KOL MISHBAREYCHA VE GALEYCHA ALAI AVARU
תְּהוֹם אֶל תְּהוֹם קוֹרֵא לְקוֹל צִנּוֹרֶיךָ כָּל מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ עָלַי עָבָרוּ
KJ (42:7): Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
BN: Deep calls to deep in the sound of your cataracts. {N} All your waves and your billows have swept over me.
TEHOM: See the link. I am assuming that all these images of water in springs (verse 2) and cataracts among the weirs, are musical analogies: water and wind are the two main "choirs" of Nature, not including the actual songs of the mammals and the birds.
Given that the Dead Sea is made of bitumen and potash from some ancient volcanic eruption, and the water so densely salty that nobody can avoid floating on its surface, and nobody can swim beneath that surface however hard they try, the concept of "deeps" and "cataracts" rather diminishes the likelihood of MITS'AR being MI TSO'AR. Whereas the kayak-paradise of Banyas definitely fits the bill. But where in Yisra-Eli liturgy or rite does YHVH, or any other god, inhabit the whitewater - unless the very minor one at Gil-Gal? This is imported liturgy, not native. The gods, not any single deity, and certainly not YHVH, despite his appearance in the next verse. Late substitution!
42:9 YOMAM YETSAVEH YHVH CHASDO U VA LAILAH SHIYRAH IMI TEPHILAH LE EL CHAYAI
יוֹמָם יְצַוֶּה יְהוָה חַסְדּוֹ וּבַלַּיְלָה שִׁירָהּ עִמִּי תְּפִלָּה לְאֵל חַיָּי
KJ (42:8): Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.
BN: By day YHVH will give instruction for lovingkindness, and by night his song will be with me, {N} in the form of a prayer to the very force of life.
EL CHAYAI: And understanding that this Psalm belongs to the mythological rather than the metaphysical age, not simply metaphor but the pure science that we might call pre-metaphor, these are the gods as the base elements of life, the Universal Pulse; whence my translation.
And that EL CHAYAI definitely confirms YHVH as a late substitution; as indeed does EL SAL'I in the next verse.
42:10 OMRAH LE EL SAL'I LAMAH SHECHACHTANI LAMAH KODER ELECH BE LACHATS OYEV
KJ (42:9): I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
BN: I will say to the power that serves me like a rock: "Why have you forgotten me? {N} Why do I go on mourning under the oppression of the enemy?"
42:11 BE RETSACH BE ATSMOTAI CHERPHUNI TSORERAI BE AMRAM ELAI KOL YA HOM AYEH ELOHEYCHA
KJ (42:10): As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God
BN: As if they were crushing my bones, my tormentors taunt me, {N} saying to me all day long: "Where are your gods?'
Is this verse a continuation of what he "will say" in verse 10, and therefore should occupy the same quotation marks? Or a return to the general lament of the previous verse?
42:10 OMRAH LE EL SAL'I LAMAH SHECHACHTANI LAMAH KODER ELECH BE LACHATS OYEV
אוֹמְרָה לְאֵל סַלְעִי לָמָה שְׁכַחְתָּנִי לָמָּה קֹדֵר אֵלֵךְ בְּלַחַץ אוֹיֵב
KJ (42:9): I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
BN: I will say to the power that serves me like a rock: "Why have you forgotten me? {N} Why do I go on mourning under the oppression of the enemy?"
42:11 BE RETSACH BE ATSMOTAI CHERPHUNI TSORERAI BE AMRAM ELAI KOL YA HOM AYEH ELOHEYCHA
בְּרֶצַח בְּעַצְמוֹתַי חֵרְפוּנִי צוֹרְרָי בְּאָמְרָם אֵלַי כָּל הַיּוֹם אַיֵּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
KJ (42:10): As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God
BN: As if they were crushing my bones, my tormentors taunt me, {N} saying to me all day long: "Where are your gods?'
Is this verse a continuation of what he "will say" in verse 10, and therefore should occupy the same quotation marks? Or a return to the general lament of the previous verse?
BE RETSACH: In the Ten Commandments AL TIRTSACH, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (Exodus 20:12). And ATSMOTAI are definitely "my bones"; but, as we have seen in several previous Psalms, the word is used for "strength" in general, because the bones are the framework that gives the body its strength. So "as if they were killing my strength" would also serve here.
TSORERAI: My endless repeated complaint against KJ. Words that have specific meanings in one language need to retain them in translation. These are TSORERAI, not SATANAI, nor OYEVAI.
AYEH ELOHEYCHA: Repeating the end of verse 4.
42:12 MAH TISHTOCHACHI NAPHSHI U MAH TEHEMI ALAI HOCHIYLI L'ELOHIM KI OD ODENU YESHU'OT PANAI V'ELOHAI
מַה תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי נַפְשִׁי וּמַה תֶּהֱמִי עָלָי הוֹחִילִי לֵאלֹהִים כִּי עוֹד אוֹדֶנּוּ יְשׁוּעֹת פָּנַי וֵאלֹהָי
KJ (42:11): Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
BN: Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why do you moan within me? {N} Place your hope in the gods, for I shall go on praising them until I receive salvation in their face, and know that they are my gods.{P}
Verse 6 repeated; or nearly. This adds the final part, which we have seen is present in 43:5.
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
Copyright © 2022 David Prashker
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The Argaman Press
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