TheBibleNet: Psalm 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

5:1 LA MENATSE'ACH EL HA NECHIYLOT MIZMOR LE DAVID

לַמְנַצֵּחַ אֶל הַנְּחִילוֹת מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד

KJ (King James translation): (To the chief Musician upon Nehiloth, A Psalm of David.) Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.

BN (BibleNet translation): For the Leader of the wind section. A Psalm to David.

For the 3rd Psalm running, King James chooses not to follow the verse construction of the Yehudit, this time including the first verse of the actual Psalm alongside what is self-evidently just its title. This makes setting it problematic in a parallel text like this one. I have therefore set the KJ twice for the opening verse, but, as previously, will provide alternate verse numbers for the remainder.

NECHIYLOT: probably some sort of Pan-pipes, or an early flute. The root, CHALAL, means "to bore", in the sense of drilling a hole - see my notes on "Chaliyl (חליל)" here.

However: there is a significant group of scholars, mostly from Latin-trained Christian backgrounds, who make the case that many of the Psalmic titles are intended, not to indicate the instruments, but the melody, and that they do so by citing the opening words of some well-known song (so, for example, Paul Anka might have published the lyrics of his song "My Way", with an opening statement "to the tune of 'Comme d'Habitude").

As I do not really understand what follows, I shall simply quote it:

"Thus Nehiloth (Septuagint and Theodotion, hyper tes kleronomouses; Aquila, apo klerodosion; Symmachus, hyper klerouchion; Blessed Jerome, super haereditatibus; Vulg. pro ea quae haereditatem consequitur), occurs only in Psalm 5. The ancient versions rightly derive the title from 'to inherit'; Baethgen ('Die Psalmen', 3rd ed. 1904, p. xxxv) thinks Nehiloth was the first word of some ancient song; most critics translate 'with wind instruments' wrongly assuming that Nehiloth means flutes (cf. Is. 30:29)."

And I have done as suggested, and compared Isaiah 30:29 - and it uses CHALIL (חָלִיל), which is either a flute or a Pan-pipe, so I remain bewildered.

5:2 AMARAI HA'AZIYNAH YHVH BIYNAH HAGIYGI

אֲמָרַי הַאֲזִינָה יְהוָה בִּינָה הֲגִיגִי

KJ (5:1 cont): Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditations.

BN: Hear my words, YHVH; show understanding of my meditation.

HA'AZIYNAH: Impossible for a synagogue Jew to hear this word and not be immediately drawn to the great song of Mosheh (Moses) in Deuteronomy 32, about which I shall say nothing more here than, a) my full explanation of that song is at the link; and b) the full explanation of that song will also provide you with an enormous amount of background on the Psalms in general, their structure, the music that accompanied them, their role in the liturgy, and a great deal more - to the extent that Ha'azinu itself should really be regarded as an additional member of the Psalms.

BIYNAH: And likewise impossible for a Jew immersed in Kabbalah not to hear this word and be drawn immediately to the Gnostic Tree of Life, on which Binah (2nd row, left, red on grey in my illustration) represents "Understanding".

HAGIYGI: King James translates the phrase as "consider my meditation"; others prefer "groaning", "sighing" and "lament", and there are multiple instances of it meaning each of these in the Tanach. But the context here is both the sequence of the Psalms, and the sequence of the verses within each individual Psalm; and both of these are clearly the Psalmist wrestling between self-reliance and trust in the deity, and doing it without moaning: so "meditations", though not in the Buddhist sense.

5:3 HAKSHIYVAH LE KOL SHAV'I MALKI VE ELOHAI KI ELEYCHA ETPALEL

הַקְשִׁיבָה לְקוֹל שַׁוְעִי מַלְכִּי וֵאלֹהָי כִּי אֵלֶיךָ אֶתְפַּלָּל

KJ (5:2): Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

BN: Hearken to the voice of my cry, my king, and my gods; for to you do I pray.

MALKI: The earthly king is David, to whom the Psalm is addressed; but the Psalm is also being recited at the Temple on the summit of Mount Tsi'on, where the god Moloch ruled before the Davidic conquest. Is this then a pre-Davidic Psalm retained, but with revisions? We cannot know - unless there is clear evidence in the text that follows.

ELOHAI: Singular or plural? The grammatical form here is Elohim, which is the multiple plural, with its ending ammended to allow the possessive pronoun "my" - really it should be "Elohim shel li - אלוהם שלי", but the suffix-pronoun is how it has always been done in Yehudit/Ivrit. The answer is: plural.

ETPALEL: The note above does not in fact answer its own question. Elohim is the multiple plural, but ETPALEL is in the 3rd person singular. We witness this throughout the Tanach, and have to assume that it is a protocol determined at the time of the Redaction, when proto-Judaism was being established under Ezra as a monotheistic patriarchalism, "you shall have no other gods before me" being, at that time, ammended into "there are no other gods but me". So the multiple plural is rendered as a singular throughout the redacted Tanach; the "royal we", but in reverse.

5:4 YHVH BOKER TISHM'A KOLI BOKER E'ERACH LECHA VA ATSAPEH

יְהוָה בֹּקֶר תִּשְׁמַע קוֹלִי בֹּקֶר אֶעֱרָךְ לְךָ וַאֲצַפֶּה

KJ (5:3): My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

BN: In the morning, YHVH, you will hear my voice; in the morning I will turn myself towards you, and will look up.

BOKER...BOKER: The first phrase addressed to the deity, the second relates back to the speaker; and then a completion phrase.

KOLI: King James adds "my prayer" in italics, but actually it isn't the prayer at all, it's the entire being, "myself", including prayer, but not exclusively that. And it is also a further echo of the Yevarechecha, which was referenced in the previous Psalm: the one calling to the deity to turns its face towards him, the latter completing the alliance by doing the same himself. So Earth greets Sun - and self-evidently that takes place in the morning.

ATSAPEH: Really means "shining" or "bright", because that is what you get when you look up into a sunny sky, and the sun is the chief male deity; but as a verb it means "to observe", and is used for "to foresee". The root gives Mitspeh, which is a watchtower, usually of the military sort (a Migdal tends to be an astronomical watchtower, which was also the point of the original church spire and Moslem minaret), though there are also several important shrine-towns that bear the name Mitspeh, for which see the link.

5:5 KI LO EL CHAPHETS RESHA ATAH LO YEGURCHA RA

כִּי לֹא אֵל חָפֵץ רֶשַׁע אָתָּה לֹא יְגֻרְךָ רָע

KJ (5:4): For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.

BN: For you are not a god who takes pleasure when bad things happen; those who do evil shall not take up their lodging with you.

RESHA...RA: In the western (Christian) world, we deal with Good and Evil as nouns, exterior to ourselves, beyond our control - a wonderful evasion of personal responsibility. In the Jewish world there can be no such evasion of responsibility, humans being endowed with a Yetser ha Tov and a Yetser ha Ra, an "inclination to do good" and an "inclination to do bad". But there is also at least a sense of something exterior, of forces in the world ("forces" = Elim = gods in the original invention of that idea: the same E as in Einstein's famous equation) which intrinsically cause bad things to happen: tectonic plates which cause earthquakes, volcanos which erupt, winds which hurricane, rain storms that wash away your crop, the wonderfully gorgeously lovely sun which brings a rich harvest, blooming flowers and a holiday tan, but also drought and skin cancer. So there is Resha and there is Ra, and the very phrasing of the verse tells us which is which (though I have slightly extended my translation to make it absolutely clear).

And is it just coincidence that we are talking about the rising sun, and simultaneously speaking about wickedness, the former of which is Ra in the Egyptian world, the latter of which is Ra in the Yisra-Eli? Probably, yes, it is just coincidence; but unlikely that the ancient inhabitants of Yeru-Shala'im, singing this Psalm, would not have noticed it.

5:6 LO YITYATSVU HOLELIM LE NEGED EYNEYCHA SAN'ETA KOL PO'ALEI AVEN

לֹא יִתְיַצְּבוּ הוֹלְלִים לְנֶגֶד עֵינֶיךָ שָׂנֵאתָ כָּל פֹּעֲלֵי אָוֶן

KJ (5:5): The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

BN: The show-offs shall not set themselves up in your sight; you hate anyone who does what he does out of vanity.

Is this the same intention as Psalm 1:5?

HOLELIM: Complex! Very complex! One extended series of these Psalms (113-118) will come to be known as Hallel, and imbued with a special place in the liturgy. They have that place because they, more than any others, are expressions of joy and delight, pure light indeed, which is the meaning of the root HALAL ("to be clear", even "to be brilliant") - which fact of course takes us back into the Yevarechecha yet again.

How, then, do we get from this to "foolish", in some translations, "boasters" in others? The answer lies where RA and RESHA lie, the making of a distinction between something that can be both good or bad; the difference, say, between choosing your clothing and doing your hair and grooming yourself with great fastidiousness, so that you are one of the bright lights in the room, a creature of brilliance, a glow that others look up to; this, and walking around with that "look at me" expression on your face, that wants to be looked at, that is taking narcissistic pride in all of that attention.

And of course, there in an implied criticism of the deity in this too - the sun does not need to boast about its warmth, any more than a caring, omnipotent god needs a monthly round of Hallel prayers.

YITYATSVU: I should have placed this note before HOLELIM, as it comes earlier in the verse; but better here, because the previous note helps to elucidate it. The "show-offs" do not simply "stand", which would be YA'AMDU; this is a reflexive verb relating to place: the people in question are self-consciously putting themselves there. To use Maimonides' Eight Levels of Charity for a moment, these are the wonderful philanthropists who don't just leave a large and anonymous cash donation in the collection box, and require no thanks, but rather they send it by cheque, so their name is known, and then bring their friends and family to the very expensive gala dinner, at which they are being personally honoured for their wonderful gift, and the plaque with their name on it is being formally placed on the honours board.

PO'ALEI AVEN: "Workers of inquity" doesn't really say anything specific. Aven is a variant of Ayin, which is a form of nothingness (a deep well is also an Ayin - one stares down into the darkness of nothingness in hope of finding water at the bottom of it - and also an eye, which is the well of knowledge, and the same description applies; but both of those are spelled with a first letter that is also an Ayin, where Aven is spelled with an Aleph). The opposite of "there is" (YESH) is EYN ("there is not"), from the same root (see verse 10). So we can define the universal generalisation of "iniquity" much more precisely: this is not the HAVEL of Ecclesiastes 1:2, which is the vanity of futility, nor is it the total emptiness, the absolute darkness, but it is a negative nonetheless.

5:7 TE'ABED DOVREI CHAZAV ISH DAMIM U MIRMAH YETA'EV YHVH

תְּאַבֵּד דֹּבְרֵי כָזָב אִישׁ דָּמִים וּמִרְמָה יְתָעֵב יְהוָה

KJ (5:6): Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

BN: You destroy those who tell lies or act deceitfully; YHVH abhors the bloodthirsty and the fraudulent.

Another of the interesting techniques with which we will become familiar; the first half of the verse speaks about the deity, in a manner that appears to address him; the second half speaks about the deity, in a manner that appears to address the congregation. So, again, we witness this seeming conflict of roles for the shali'ach tsibur, the prayer leader: which way does he face? who does he represent? upwards or downwards?

5:8 VA ANI BE ROV CHASDECHA AVO VEITECHA ESHTACHAVEH EL HEYCHAL KADSHECHA BE YIR'ATECHA

וַאֲנִי בְּרֹב חַסְדְּךָ אָבוֹא בֵיתֶךָ אֶשְׁתַּחֲוֶה אֶל הֵיכַל קָדְשְׁךָ בְּיִרְאָתֶךָ

KJ (5:7): But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

BN: But as for me, in the abundance of your lovingkindness I will come to your house; I will prostrate myself before your holy temple in fear of you.

The Shacharit service, the morning worship in synagogue, has opened since Rav Amram Gaon recorded it in his prayer book, in Babylon, in the 9th century CE, with a prayer known by its first phrase as Mah Tovu. That first phrase comes from Numbers 24:5, and belongs to Bil'am (Balaam); the second verse of that prayer is the verse that we are reading now.

The other verses that constitute "Mah Tovu" are also from Psalms: 26:8, 69:14 and 95:6, the latter modified to the singular from its original plural. In Sephardic communities - the communities of Jews from Spain and North Africa – "Mah Tovu" is not sung, but Psalm 5:8 is recited on entering the synagogue, and Psalm 5:9 on leaving it.

The final section of "Mah Tovu" was added by the French community, at the time of Rashi, by one of his students indeed, Simchah ben Samuel, who wrote what is called the "Machzor Vitry" after his home-town; we will encounter that when we reach its source, which is again Psalm 69:14; though in fact the Vitry text also includes Psalm 122:1, which is no longer sung.

ESHTACHAVEH: Not "bow down", which would be mere genuflection. The "shetach" is the floor-surface; this is full prostration, which is no longer a part of Jewish ritual.

HEYCHAL KADSHECHA: One of several names for the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im - click here and follow the several links for more detail.

YIR'ATECHA: The use of YIR'A rather than EMUNA confirms that we are still in the mythological epoch, and not yet the metaphysical: fear of the elemental powers that make and break the universe, rather than acceptance of an intellectual construct.

5:9 YHVH NECHENI VE TSIDKATECHA LEMA'AN SHORERAI HOSHAR LEPHANAI DARKECHA

יְהוָה נְחֵנִי בְצִדְקָתֶךָ לְמַעַן שׁוֹרְרָי הוֹשַׁר לְפָנַי דַּרְכֶּךָ

KJ (5:8): Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.

BN: YHVH, lead me in the way of your righteousness, because of those who lie in wait for me; make your way straight before me.

As noted above, this is the verse that is sung at the opening of prayer services in Sephardic synagogues. And as we try to understand the system (if there even is one) by which the compiler of this anthology decided its order, logical enough to find this at the very start: prayers for beginning the process of praying at the beginning of the prayer service.

5:10 KI EYN BE PHIYHU NECHONAH KIRBAM HAVU'OT KEVER PATU'ACH GERONAM LESHONAM YAHALIYKUN

כִּי אֵין בְּפִיהוּ נְכוֹנָה קִרְבָּם הַוּוֹת קֶבֶר פָּתוּחַ גְּרוֹנָם לְשׁוֹנָם יַחֲלִיקוּן

KJ (5:9): For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

BN: For there is no sincerity in their mouth; their inner selves are a yawning gulf, their throats are an open sepulchre; they do nothing but flattery with their tongues.

HAVU'OT, or just HAVOT? Is that first Vav pointed as a dagesh, a dagesh chazak to reinforce the second Vav, or as a vowel? There is a vowel on top of the second Vav as well. I do not have an answer to this question (I think it should be Havu'ot, but I have only ever heard it pronounced Havot).

The root is HAVAH, which means "to breathe", and is one of the sources of the name of the deity - "He will breathe" - Yehoah or Yehovah = YHVH; probably itself a development of HAYAH, which is "to be", and definitely the principal source, as confirmed by Exodus 3:14. But all commentators and translators prefer to bestow upon the word a secondary meaning, which is "ruin" or "destruction", and from there render this as "wickedness"; that secondary meaning is derived exclusively from Job 37:6, where YHVH commands the snow to fall, and has nothing whatsoever to do with breath or wickedness; and which anyway uses an Aramaic verb with an Aleph ending, so this is evasion on the grand scale by the commentators, and we need to wonder why.

5:11 HA'ASHIYMEM ELOHIM YIPLU MI MO'ATSOTEYHEM BE ROV PISH'EYHEM HA DIYCHEMO KI MARU VACH

הַאֲשִׁימֵם אֱלֹהִים יִפְּלוּ מִמֹּעֲצוֹתֵיהֶם בְּרֹב פִּשְׁעֵיהֶם הַדִּיחֵמוֹ כִּי מָרוּ בָךְ

KJ (5:10): Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.

BN: Hold them guilty, Elohim; let them fall by their own counsel; {N} cast them down in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against you.

HA'ASHIYMEM: Is this a Christian translator imposing his/their aspiration onto the text? To be "ashem" is to be guilty; that and absolutely nothing else. TE'ABED in verse 7 was "destroy" - no issue there either. Elsewhere, especially in Yesha-Yah (Isaiah), we will see NICHRETAH, where YHVH doesn't simply destroy the guilty person, but, as in Genesis 17:14 "that soul shall be cut off from his people, for he has broken my covenant". But here the text is again about responsibility: expiation, not destruction.

MO'ATSOTEYHEM: once again that awkward Vav: is it pointed or unpointed? do we say MO'ATSOTEYHEM, or MO'ATSVOTEYHEM. The former is the usual reading.

PISH'EYHEM: The following is from my section on Paragraph Six of the Amidah, in "A Myrtle Among Reeds":

What is the difference between "chatanu - sinned" and "pash'anu - transgressed"? Biblical usage suggests that a pesh'a is stronger than a chet. A chet will incur a forfeit or a fine, but is expiable and may only be an error. A pesh'a has the sense of wilfulness, even of protest or rebellion against the Law and against God. That is why the words for pardon are also varied - a selicha for the chet, a mechilah for the pesh'a. Selicha is forgiveness, mechilah the full pardon, relative strength to relative strength. Only on Yom Kippur itself do we ask for and receive the highest level, beyond selicha, beyond mechilah, the full kappara which gives the day its name, the complete obliteration of our sins from the record books, the nulling and voiding of the entire page, so that we may start again afresh, at-one."

5:12 VE YISMECHU CHOL CHOSEI VACH LE OLAM YERANENU VE TASECH ALEYMO VE YA'LETSU VECHA OHAVEI SHEMECHA

וְיִשְׂמְחוּ כָל חוֹסֵי בָךְ לְעוֹלָם יְרַנֵּנוּ וְתָסֵךְ עָלֵימוֹ וְיַעְלְצוּ בְךָ אֹהֲבֵי שְׁמֶךָ

KJ (5:11): But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.

BN: But all who take refuge in you shall rejoice; they will shout out their pleasure forever, and you will shelter them; {N} and let those who love your name likewise find joy in you.

YISMECHU...YA'LETSU: Difficult in English to find synonyms, because our culture doesn't tend to render nuances quite so finely or subtly as this. Yismechu is closer to mere "pleasure", Ya'letsu is at the exultant end of "joy".

5:13: KI ATAH TEVARECH TSADIK YHVH KA TSINAH RATSON TA'TERENU

כִּי אַתָּה תְּבָרֵךְ צַדִּיק יְהוָה כַּצִּנָּה רָצוֹן תַּעְטְרֶנּוּ

KJ (5:12): For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

BN: For you bless the righteous, YHVH; you enclose him in your favour like a shield. {P}

KA TSINAH. Interesting word. The root is actually TSANAN (צנן), and it is much larger than the standard Magen that soldiers usually carry - this one stands on the ground and provides a wall right up to the top of the head, even longer than the one in the rather awful illustration which, with apologies, was the best that I could find.

What makes it such an interesting word? Keep the second Nun, and it isn't; but by dropping the second Nun, the word appears to be Tsinah, and in Talmudic Aramaic a Tsin is a small palm tree, where in Biblical Yehudit a Tsinah is a thorn (Proverbs 22:5, Job 5:5), but Tsin is also the name of the wilderness in southern Yehudah (Numbers 13:21, 20:1, 27:14 and many more), and the same root also yields Tsi'on, because Tsi means "dry", and a "dry land" or an "arid place" is therefore a Tsi'on (Zion in English) - and yet, by establishing his central fortress on Mount Tsi'on, David transformed both the place and the word into... the shield of the nation.

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Psalms:

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