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
Once again the first line is the title, not a verse. Once again King James has merged verse one into the title, making their verse numbers different from the Yehudit.
8:1 LA MENATSE'ACH AL HA GITIT MIZMOR LE DAVID
BN (BibleNet translation): For the Leader of the Gitit. A Psalm to David.
LA MENATSE'ACH... AL HA GITIT: LA MENATSE'ACH tells us he is the leader of a section of the orchestra, and HA GITIT tells us which section; except that - we have absolutely no idea what the Gat (if that was the masculine form), or GITTI, (if that is the feminine), or GITIT (which is how it appears here) or Gittim (in the plural) were. Strong (see the link), simply calls it "a musical term of unc. meaning", which is a cop-out if ever there was one. Brown-Driver-Briggs (same link) argue whether it was a type of lyre, a type of melody (which would tie it in with the Shigayon of the previous Psalm), or simply a piece for performance at the ceremonies around the wine and olive presses - a GAT being a vineyard, and GAT SHEMEN, whence Gethsemane, an olive orchard.
This the above took without bothering to cite it from Gesenius, the last of the serious experts that we all go to for these sorts of questions. Gesenius notes that Psalms 81 and 84 are also LA MENATSE'ACH...AL HA GITIT, and then refers us to 2 Samuel 6, where David makes his disastrous first attempt to transport the Ark to Yeru-Shala'im, leading it eventually to the house of Oved-Edom ha Gitti (גִּתִּֽי), where it will stay until they can figure out how to resolve the catastrophe of this failed endeavour. Does that make Oved-Edom a member of a tribe called the Gittim, Gesenius wonders, or was a part of his priestly role the playing of the Gittim? And just to make matters more complex, en route to the disaster, coming from the house of Avi-Nadav where it had been kept until now, the thousands participating in the Triumph had been singing and dancing and (verse 5):
So if the Gittim are not a type of instrument, does GITIT define the rhythm of the piece, its tone, its form, its subject-matter? We simply do not know. And we are going to encounter the poroblem again when the term recurs in Psalms 81 and 84.
MIZMOR LE DAVID: A song "to" David (meaning the affectionate name for Yedid-Yah, the beloved of Yah which is another name for Tammuz, Adonis, Osher, Jesus etc...)
8:2 YHVH ADONEYNU MAH ADIR SHIMCHA BE COL HA ARETS ASHER TENAH HOD'CHA AL HA SHAMAYIM
KJ (8:1 cont): O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
BN: YHVH our Lord, how glorious is your name throughout the Earth, {N} whose splendour is set high up in the heavens.
Who does ADONEYNU "Our Lord", refer to? Logically it is Adonis, and therefore a sobriquet for David, to whom this is addressed. And in his Tammuz etc role, he is a variation of Adonis. Yet the text states YHVH, who is the father, not the son, the king, not the prince, the sun, not the Earth. Was YHVH a late editing, to remove the triad and enforce monotheism? Follow this through the rest of the piece and see whether it tends to the father or the son, but in this verse it could not be more graphic.
8:4 KI ER'EH SHAMEYCHA MA'ASEY ETSBE'OTEYCHA YARE'ACH VE CHOCHAVIM ASHER KONANTAH
KJ (8:3): When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
BN: When I look around your skies, at the work of your fingers, {N} at the moon and the stars which you established...
This verse is clearly the father, and just as clearly the sun-god.
Note again that two words exist for many of these fundamentals, both in ideas and in physical actualities. So here we have YARE'ACH for the moon, where elsewhere we have LAVANAH, and CHOCHAVIM for the stars, where elsewhere we have MAZALIM. Different concepts behind each: the Yerechim are the thighs, though in a fertility world of male sun gods and female moon goddesses, "thighs" may be a polite euphemism - but clearly it is the fertility aspect which is the "foundation" of this Psalm. LAVANAH means "white", which is the moon's colour (Guinevere in English, and Albion, the name of the land when she and Ar Thur ruled it, have the same meaning), and of course the milk ditto. As to the CHOCHAVIM (used here), and the MAZALIM, the former are the stars in their individuality, the latter their grouping into constellations.
ADONAY TSEVA'OT: "The Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens". Not named as such here, but still the intention here; the head of the pantheon, still centuries away from becoming the Omnideity.
8:5 MAH ENOSH KI TIZKERENU U VEN ADAM KI TIPKEDENU
KJ (8:4): What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
BN: What is the human race, that you bother to remember him? And this individual or that one, that you bother yourself over him or her?
ENOSH versus BEN ADAM, reflecting CHOCHAVIM versus MAZALIM at the human level. The first almost certainly from the Chaldean, the other not so obvious; we know it from the land of Edom, and the red earth of Kena'an which is Adamah, which would make it a Hurrian word as well, but probably it was Hittite originally, and both took it from there. Both designate "the Human race", or "Personkind" (definitely not Mankind, which is only half the species), and despite the theological needs of Christianity, the latter has absolutely nothing to do with the Messiah, then or at any other time (click here).
Note the parallelism.
I wondered, at the beginning of this chapter, whether SHIGAYON inferred depression; verses like this one are the thought-provokers in that direction. The tone of the KJ does not seem to me to capture that of the Yehudit: "YHVH, why do you waste your time with these third-rate human creatures?"
8:6 VA TECHASREHU ME'AT ME ELOHIM VE CHAVOD VE HADAR TE'ATREHU
KJ (8:5): For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
BN: Yet you have set him just one rung lower than the gods themselves, and have surrounded him with glory and honour.
While this verse takes the Zero and transforms it into a positive, at least in potensis.
8:7 TAMSHILEHU BE MA'ASEI YADEYCHA KOL SHATAH TACHAT RAGLAV
KJ (8:6): Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
BN: You have appointed him to supervise and maintain all the works of your hands; you have placed all things beneath his feet...
A key philosophical statement. But also the completion of a piece of word-play that I chose not to comment on at verse 5. There we had TIPKEDENU, and yes it means what it meant there, which is "taking trouble over", or even more literally it is a case of the deity "visiting" the human race - see Exodus 3:16 where this is stated explicitly. But a PAKAD is a position of authority, both civilian and military; see for example Genesis 39:4, where Poti-Pherah appoints Yoseph as his senior chamberlain. And its use in this verse is precisely that: the gods are appointing Humankind to the position of Earth's Chamberlain, tasked with ensuring that the glaciers do not melt or the ozone layer overheat or the endangered species become obsolete.
ALAPHIM: as in the letter Aleph (א), which also yields the numbers 1 and 1000, and as to word-play, if you are giving out TAPHKIDIM (appointments), none comes higher, in the military, than the Aluph, the commander. Zoologically, the Aleph is generally thought to be the antelope-ox.
8:9 TSIPOR SHAMAYIM U DEGEY HA YAM OVER ARCHOT YAMIM
KJ (8:8): The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
BN: The birds of the air, and the fish in the sea; whatever is born from the elements of the Cosmos.
8:10 YHVH ADONEYNU MAH ADIR SHIMCHA BE CHOL HA ARETS
KJ (8:9): O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
BN: YHVH, our Lord, how glorious is your name throughout the Earth! {P}
The last verse echoes but does not fully repeat the first.
לַמְנַצֵּחַ עַל הַגִּתִּית מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד
KJ (King James translation): (To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.)
BN (BibleNet translation): For the Leader of the Gitit. A Psalm to David.
LA MENATSE'ACH... AL HA GITIT: LA MENATSE'ACH tells us he is the leader of a section of the orchestra, and HA GITIT tells us which section; except that - we have absolutely no idea what the Gat (if that was the masculine form), or GITTI, (if that is the feminine), or GITIT (which is how it appears here) or Gittim (in the plural) were. Strong (see the link), simply calls it "a musical term of unc. meaning", which is a cop-out if ever there was one. Brown-Driver-Briggs (same link) argue whether it was a type of lyre, a type of melody (which would tie it in with the Shigayon of the previous Psalm), or simply a piece for performance at the ceremonies around the wine and olive presses - a GAT being a vineyard, and GAT SHEMEN, whence Gethsemane, an olive orchard.
This the above took without bothering to cite it from Gesenius, the last of the serious experts that we all go to for these sorts of questions. Gesenius notes that Psalms 81 and 84 are also LA MENATSE'ACH...AL HA GITIT, and then refers us to 2 Samuel 6, where David makes his disastrous first attempt to transport the Ark to Yeru-Shala'im, leading it eventually to the house of Oved-Edom ha Gitti (גִּתִּֽי), where it will stay until they can figure out how to resolve the catastrophe of this failed endeavour. Does that make Oved-Edom a member of a tribe called the Gittim, Gesenius wonders, or was a part of his priestly role the playing of the Gittim? And just to make matters more complex, en route to the disaster, coming from the house of Avi-Nadav where it had been kept until now, the thousands participating in the Triumph had been singing and dancing and (verse 5):
But no GITIT, which you would think they would, especially if they were heading for Oved-Edom ha Gitti's house. For the information (see my essay "Music and Musical Instruments in the Psalms", Roshim are probably castanets, Kinorot are lyres or possibly harps, Nevalim are either timbrels or psalteries, Mena'ane'im are whatever is the plural of a sistrum according to some scholars, a type of maracca according to others, and Tseltseltim are thought by some to be cymbals, though from the ringing of those tseltsels they are much more likely to have been the onomatopoeic mini-cymbals that ring the edges of a tambourine.וְדָוִ֣ד וְכָל בֵּ֣ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל מְשַֽׂחֲקִים֙ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה בְּכֹ֖ל עֲצֵ֣י בְרוֹשִׁ֑ים וּבְכִנֹּר֤וֹת וּבִנְבָלִים֙ וּבְתֻפִּ֔ים וּבִמְנַֽעַנְעִ֖ים וּֽבְצֶלְצֶלִֽים
"And David and all Yisra-El were celebrating before YHVH, all of them with wooden instruments, with Roshim, and Kinorot, and Nevalim, and Tupim, and Mena'ane'im, and with Tseltselim."
So if the Gittim are not a type of instrument, does GITIT define the rhythm of the piece, its tone, its form, its subject-matter? We simply do not know. And we are going to encounter the poroblem again when the term recurs in Psalms 81 and 84.
One other suggestion, which I think unlikely here, but is well worth looking at when we get to Psalm 22, is that "AL HA GITIT" was a well-known song whose melody was being used for this Psalm (we used to sing "Adon Olam" to the tune of "Yellow Submarine" in my shul at Polack's; it fits to perfection).
MIZMOR LE DAVID: A song "to" David (meaning the affectionate name for Yedid-Yah, the beloved of Yah which is another name for Tammuz, Adonis, Osher, Jesus etc...)
8:2 YHVH ADONEYNU MAH ADIR SHIMCHA BE COL HA ARETS ASHER TENAH HOD'CHA AL HA SHAMAYIM
יְהוָה אֲדֹנֵינוּ מָה אַדִּיר שִׁמְךָ בְּכָל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר תְּנָה הוֹדְךָ עַל הַשָּׁמָיִם
KJ (8:1 cont): O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
BN: YHVH our Lord, how glorious is your name throughout the Earth, {N} whose splendour is set high up in the heavens.
Who does ADONEYNU "Our Lord", refer to? Logically it is Adonis, and therefore a sobriquet for David, to whom this is addressed. And in his Tammuz etc role, he is a variation of Adonis. Yet the text states YHVH, who is the father, not the son, the king, not the prince, the sun, not the Earth. Was YHVH a late editing, to remove the triad and enforce monotheism? Follow this through the rest of the piece and see whether it tends to the father or the son, but in this verse it could not be more graphic.
And if not, is it an early statement, more fully elaborated in Yesha-Yah and the later prophets, that David is the Mashiyach, the earthly king, representative of YHVH on Earth; but YHVH is himself the Moshi'a?
HOD'CHA: Glory,majesty, splendour, as you prefer; the point is: this is the sun, shining, about 75⁰ Fahrenheit, perfect temperature for sun-bathing and crop-growth, Yevarechecha accomplished, just as the last several Psalms have been petitioning.
8:3 MI PI OLELIM VE YONKIM YISADETA OZ LEMA'AN TSOREREYCHA LEHASHBIT OYEV U MITNAKEM
KJ (8:2): Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
BN: Out of the mouths of suckling babes and nursing infants you have established a strong foundation, {N} in order to bring rest to your anxieties and your adversaries, and to avenge them.
OLELIM...YONKIM: Two words, both meaning "to suckle". The root of the first is UL, and can be found at Genesis 33:13, 1 Samuel 6:7/10, Isaiah 49:15...; the root of the second is YANAK, for which look at Genesis 21:7, Exodus 2:7, Deuteronomy 32:25...
HOD'CHA: Glory,majesty, splendour, as you prefer; the point is: this is the sun, shining, about 75⁰ Fahrenheit, perfect temperature for sun-bathing and crop-growth, Yevarechecha accomplished, just as the last several Psalms have been petitioning.
8:3 MI PI OLELIM VE YONKIM YISADETA OZ LEMA'AN TSOREREYCHA LEHASHBIT OYEV U MITNAKEM
מִפִּי עוֹלְלִים וְיֹנְקִים יִסַּדְתָּ עֹז לְמַעַן צוֹרְרֶיךָ לְהַשְׁבִּית אוֹיֵב וּמִתְנַקֵּם
KJ (8:2): Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
BN: Out of the mouths of suckling babes and nursing infants you have established a strong foundation, {N} in order to bring rest to your anxieties and your adversaries, and to avenge them.
OLELIM...YONKIM: Two words, both meaning "to suckle". The root of the first is UL, and can be found at Genesis 33:13, 1 Samuel 6:7/10, Isaiah 49:15...; the root of the second is YANAK, for which look at Genesis 21:7, Exodus 2:7, Deuteronomy 32:25...
Why two words? In the language, probably because words come from all manner of different sources, through trade, cultural interchange, travel, conquest. In this verse, because the Psalmist loves word-games? Let me explain:
The OLELOT (feminine, where OLELIM are masculine), according to Midrash, are also the "gleanings" from the harvest, and specifically the grape-gleanings (see the link to Midrash); and gleanings can only happen when the sun shines in his full glory and creates the sure foundation in which the land of suckling milk and sun-coloured honey can flourish. In modern Israel, to create that foundation, an organisation was established called Keren ha Yesod, known in anti-Semitic circles as the investment bank of the International Zionist Conspiracy, but actually the central fund-raiser of the Jewish community. And why that name? Look at the sixth word in this verse, YISADETA.
So the OLELIM pair with YISADETA, while YONKIM is reverse-mirrored in MITNAKEM at the end of the verse, a completely different root, word and meaning, a completely opposing idea - "vengeance", but positioned to be unmissable as homophones.
LEHASHBIT: From the same root that gives us the Shabat.
8:4 KI ER'EH SHAMEYCHA MA'ASEY ETSBE'OTEYCHA YARE'ACH VE CHOCHAVIM ASHER KONANTAH
כִּי אֶרְאֶה שָׁמֶיךָ מַעֲשֵׂי אֶצְבְּעֹתֶיךָ יָרֵחַ וְכוֹכָבִים אֲשֶׁר כּוֹנָנְתָּה
KJ (8:3): When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
BN: When I look around your skies, at the work of your fingers, {N} at the moon and the stars which you established...
This verse is clearly the father, and just as clearly the sun-god.
Note again that two words exist for many of these fundamentals, both in ideas and in physical actualities. So here we have YARE'ACH for the moon, where elsewhere we have LAVANAH, and CHOCHAVIM for the stars, where elsewhere we have MAZALIM. Different concepts behind each: the Yerechim are the thighs, though in a fertility world of male sun gods and female moon goddesses, "thighs" may be a polite euphemism - but clearly it is the fertility aspect which is the "foundation" of this Psalm. LAVANAH means "white", which is the moon's colour (Guinevere in English, and Albion, the name of the land when she and Ar Thur ruled it, have the same meaning), and of course the milk ditto. As to the CHOCHAVIM (used here), and the MAZALIM, the former are the stars in their individuality, the latter their grouping into constellations.
ADONAY TSEVA'OT: "The Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens". Not named as such here, but still the intention here; the head of the pantheon, still centuries away from becoming the Omnideity.
8:5 MAH ENOSH KI TIZKERENU U VEN ADAM KI TIPKEDENU
מָה אֱנוֹשׁ כִּי תִזְכְּרֶנּוּ וּבֶן אָדָם כִּי תִפְקְדֶנּוּ
KJ (8:4): What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
BN: What is the human race, that you bother to remember him? And this individual or that one, that you bother yourself over him or her?
ENOSH versus BEN ADAM, reflecting CHOCHAVIM versus MAZALIM at the human level. The first almost certainly from the Chaldean, the other not so obvious; we know it from the land of Edom, and the red earth of Kena'an which is Adamah, which would make it a Hurrian word as well, but probably it was Hittite originally, and both took it from there. Both designate "the Human race", or "Personkind" (definitely not Mankind, which is only half the species), and despite the theological needs of Christianity, the latter has absolutely nothing to do with the Messiah, then or at any other time (click here).
Note the parallelism.
I wondered, at the beginning of this chapter, whether SHIGAYON inferred depression; verses like this one are the thought-provokers in that direction. The tone of the KJ does not seem to me to capture that of the Yehudit: "YHVH, why do you waste your time with these third-rate human creatures?"
8:6 VA TECHASREHU ME'AT ME ELOHIM VE CHAVOD VE HADAR TE'ATREHU
וַתְּחַסְּרֵהוּ מְּעַט מֵאֱלֹהִים וְכָבוֹד וְהָדָר תְּעַטְּרֵהוּ
KJ (8:5): For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
BN: Yet you have set him just one rung lower than the gods themselves, and have surrounded him with glory and honour.
While this verse takes the Zero and transforms it into a positive, at least in potensis.
ELOHIM: "Angels"? No, KJ translators. It says "gods", it means "gods". And actually my translation is inaccurate too, though not with this word. With:
TECHASREHU: Which does set indeed set Humanity just one rung lower than the gods, but Humanity has to go down to get there, not up to reach it. The root, CHASAR, means "to decrease", and even "to lack".
KAVOD...HADAR:
TE'ATREHU: First word rhyming with last word - not a format I have ever seen in English poetry; it functions as a variant of the echo-line.
8:7 TAMSHILEHU BE MA'ASEI YADEYCHA KOL SHATAH TACHAT RAGLAV
תַּמְשִׁילֵהוּ בְּמַעֲשֵׂי יָדֶיךָ כֹּל שַׁתָּה תַחַת רַגְלָיו
KJ (8:6): Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
BN: You have appointed him to supervise and maintain all the works of your hands; you have placed all things beneath his feet...
A key philosophical statement. But also the completion of a piece of word-play that I chose not to comment on at verse 5. There we had TIPKEDENU, and yes it means what it meant there, which is "taking trouble over", or even more literally it is a case of the deity "visiting" the human race - see Exodus 3:16 where this is stated explicitly. But a PAKAD is a position of authority, both civilian and military; see for example Genesis 39:4, where Poti-Pherah appoints Yoseph as his senior chamberlain. And its use in this verse is precisely that: the gods are appointing Humankind to the position of Earth's Chamberlain, tasked with ensuring that the glaciers do not melt or the ozone layer overheat or the endangered species become obsolete.
TAMSHILEHU: And no surprise then that the verb chosen here, out of several possibilities for ruling, reigning, governing, etc, should be this one, because this is the one used in the Creation story, in Genesis 1:18 for the appointment of the sun and moon to "rule over the day and night", in 3:16 for the relationship of husband and wife (which of course is the same thing, the sun being the male and the moon the female).
TACHAT RAGLAV: Two possible interpretations of this idiom. The first, that we are talking about the supervision of the Earth (upper case E), so what is "under his feet" is both the earth (lower case e) and the Underworld, where all the dead matter goes to biodegrade and form compost for the future fertility of the earth and the Earth. The second, that as the sacred king, who will be anointed as the official ruler and have all the god-like privileges, his feet will be bound, his heels immolated, and he will be forced to walk on tiptoes, barely touching the dirty soil where ordinary humans live, and so human life will be metaphorically "under his feet", in the way that the stage both is and is not for the ballet dancer. Probably the latter grew out of the former, and the intention here is both.
8:8 TSONEH VA ALAPHIM KULAM VE GAM BAHAMOT SADAI
KJ (8:7): All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
BN: Sheep and oxen, all of them, and even the cattle in the paddock...
TSONEH: Interesting moment for the Bible-daters and the linguists. Tsade-Nun-Heh. Numbers 32:24 used a root Tsade-Nun-Aleph. Psalm 114:4 and 6 used a root Tsade-Aleph-Nun. All three with the same meaning: "herds" or "flocks", generally thought to mean "cattle" but invariably used for "sheep". Did they plow with one but plough with the second, and neether with the third? And anyway I thought sheep were KEVASIM (כבשים), though there are occasions when that gets rendered as KESAVIM (כשבים) - see my notes on that at Genesis 30:31, where Tson is also Tsade-Aleph-Nun.
8:8 TSONEH VA ALAPHIM KULAM VE GAM BAHAMOT SADAI
צֹנֶה וַאֲלָפִים כֻּלָּם וְגַם בַּהֲמוֹת שָׂדָי
KJ (8:7): All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
BN: Sheep and oxen, all of them, and even the cattle in the paddock...
TSONEH: Interesting moment for the Bible-daters and the linguists. Tsade-Nun-Heh. Numbers 32:24 used a root Tsade-Nun-Aleph. Psalm 114:4 and 6 used a root Tsade-Aleph-Nun. All three with the same meaning: "herds" or "flocks", generally thought to mean "cattle" but invariably used for "sheep". Did they plow with one but plough with the second, and neether with the third? And anyway I thought sheep were KEVASIM (כבשים), though there are occasions when that gets rendered as KESAVIM (כשבים) - see my notes on that at Genesis 30:31, where Tson is also Tsade-Aleph-Nun.
And doesn't TSONEH mean "cold", or at least "chilly", in modern Ivrit? While Biblically, minus the pointing, there is TSINAH, which is a "thorn" (see Numbers 33:55), and gives its name to that vast wilderness of gorse, thorn and brambles known as the Wilderness of Tsin (see Numbers 13:21).
ALAPHIM: as in the letter Aleph (א), which also yields the numbers 1 and 1000, and as to word-play, if you are giving out TAPHKIDIM (appointments), none comes higher, in the military, than the Aluph, the commander. Zoologically, the Aleph is generally thought to be the antelope-ox.
8:9 TSIPOR SHAMAYIM U DEGEY HA YAM OVER ARCHOT YAMIM
צִפּוֹר שָׁמַיִם וּדְגֵי הַיָּם עֹבֵר אָרְחוֹת יַמִּים
KJ (8:8): The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
BN: The birds of the air, and the fish in the sea; whatever is born from the elements of the Cosmos.
So we started these Psalms with the Earth-god plunged into night-time and mid-winter, yearning for the spring; and then witnessed the sunrise. And now in this verse, the full Creation is being described, what was under our feet, what is above us and in the waters, the entire domain: so we have reached the Eighth Day, the gods having rested, and Humankind is now about to be held accountable for his abysmal failure to meet the requirements of his job contract.
ARCHOT YAMIM: And yes, I am fully aware that you dislike my translation of this. But take a look at Genesis 18:11, where Sarah, who after all is a humanisation of the fertility goddess Asherah, was reckoned to have reached the menopause: CHADAL LIHEYOT LE SARAH ORACH KA NASHIM (חָדַל לִהְיוֹת לְשָׂרָה אֹרַח כַּנָּשִׁים) is the phrase used there, with ORACH the key word, as far as we are concerned here anyway. In the fertility cults - see my notes on Tiamat especially - the YAMIM were not just the Mediterranean and the Sea of Galilee et al, but the primordial sea itself, the invisible elements in which the microbes and the molecules pass across the Cosmos, waiting to become manifest as Life in some form; and the MAYIM, the "waters" of Genesis 1, likewise. If all that this phrase means here is "whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas", as in the standard translations, then it is redundant and prolix, because we already have that with U DEGEY HA YAM, "all the fish in the sea". What this is providing is "et cetera", and therefore my rendition.
8:10 YHVH ADONEYNU MAH ADIR SHIMCHA BE CHOL HA ARETS
יְהוָה אֲדֹנֵינוּ מָה אַדִּיר שִׁמְךָ בְּכָל הָאָרֶץ
KJ (8:9): O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
BN: YHVH, our Lord, how glorious is your name throughout the Earth! {P}
The last verse echoes but does not fully repeat the first.
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
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