TheBibleNet: Psalm 50

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

Descriptor, dedication, title - the Yehudit text then does what the KJ always does, which is to merge the opening line into the title, though on this occasion it places the title in parenthesis, as though it were the other way around.

50:1 MIZMOR LE ASAPH EL ELOHIM YHVH DIBER VA YIKR'A ARETS MI MIZRACH SHEMESH AD MEVO'O

מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף אֵל אֱלֹהִים יְהוָה דִּבֶּר וַיִּקְרָא אָרֶץ מִמִּזְרַח שֶׁמֶשׁ עַד מְבֹאוֹ

KJ (King James translation): (A Psalm of Asaph.) The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

BN (BibleNet translation): A Psalm for Asaph. {N} El, the gods, and YHVH have spoken, calling on the Earth {N} from the rising of the sun until it sets.

ASAPH: All the Psalms in Book Two, until this one, have been for the Beney Korach. Is Asaph a person's name, or the job he does, or even the anthology in which these Psalms are "gathered"? ASAPH means "gather", or "count", or "recite", as in the name YOSEPH. So the man who "gathers" all the musicians together might be named ASAPH, or ditto for the choir, or the scribes in the Mishnah preparing the texts for the congregations and the schools...

In fact, from 2 Chronicles 35:15, we know that Asaph was the name of a person - though I strongly suspect that, like the names of the Prophets, and the word Sadducee, there was a person who was the first to hold that office, and all his sucessors took the name as their title; this being the reason why they are known as Beney... not physical "sons" at all, but like mediaeval friars to their "father" (abbot, from the Yehudit AV = father).

EL...ELOHIM...YHVH: The three names cannot be rendered as in the KJ translation; this is an evocation of El, the pantrocrator, the Ouranos of the Yisra-Eli Olympus, alongside YHVH, the chief executive of the hosts of the heavens, and between these two the hosts themselves, the entire polytheon of gods and goddesses, the ELOHIM. Long before Monotheism. Long before the Omnideity.

MI MIZRACH...MEVO'O: Am I hearing a Laurence Binyon quote here? Verse 4. But actually it isn't. The sequence known as "Yehi chavod" in the daily liturgy uses a sequence of Psalmic (and other) quotes... of which "Yehi shem Adonay", the second allusion in the sequence, Psalm 113:2-4, is the source of Laurence Binyon's poem of 1914, "For the Fallen", the one recited every Remembrance Sunday in Great Britain: "From the rising of the sun till its going down."

YIKRA: The deity calling is all about "the Word", which is not human speech, but the articulation of the divine, which is to say the infinite and constant manifestations of physics, chemistry and biology. That "infinity" and "constancy" will be emphasised in verse 3, where we are told that the gods are never silent.

50:2 MI TSI'ON MICHLAL YOPHI ELOHIM HOPHIY'A

מִצִּיּוֹן מִכְלַל יֹפִי אֱלֹהִים הוֹפִיעַ

KJ: Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

BN: Out of Tsi'on, the perfection of beauty, the gods shine forth.

Here, and in Psalms 80:2 and 94:1, HOPHIY'A cannot be translated as "appear", though that is really what it means. And yes, the sun appears in the sky; but when the sun appears in the sky, it shines. See my notes at Joshua 19:12, which pick up the seeming repetition that we find here, but which is not a repetition at alll but merely a word-play using two very similar words, YOPHI and HOPHIY'A.

But even "shines" may be too narrow, because it misses the other word-play. The gods "shining" suggests the Yevarechecha, and its opposite "Histir panav"; but this is neither of these. This is Tipheret, and it picks up the celebratory Tsi'onism of Psalm 48. So we need to find an English equivalent: perhaps: Out of Tsion, the perfection of beauty, come the gods themselves , who are the beautification of the world. Too long-winded, I know; but at least it conveys the right idea.

50:3 YAV'O ELOHEYNU VE AL YECHERASH ESH LEPHANAV TO'CHEL U SEVIYVAV NIS'ARAH ME'OD

יָבֹא אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְאַל יֶחֱרַשׁ אֵשׁ לְפָנָיו תֹּאכֵל וּסְבִיבָיו נִשְׂעֲרָה מְאֹד

KJ: Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.

BN: Our gods come, and they are never silent; {N} fire consumes everything before them, while storms rage mightily all around.

Once again the volcano god of the world of Lot and Mosheh; but also the wildfires every year in California, the flooding of the Rhine and the Danube, the tropical storms over Haiti and the avalanches in the Alps.

50:4 YIKR'A EL HA SHAMAYIM ME'AL VE AL HA ARETS LADIYN AMO

יִקְרָא אֶל הַשָּׁמַיִם מֵעָל וְאֶל הָאָרֶץ לָדִין עַמּוֹ

KJ: He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.

BN: He calls to the heavens above, and to the Earth, that he may judge his people.

In which case: Yesh diyn! (I guess I have to explain that! No, just refer to my essay "The Mysterious Morgernstern" in "The Leprachauns of Palestine").

50:5 ISPHU LI CHASIDAI KORTEY VERIYTI ALEY ZAVACH

אִסְפוּ לִי חֲסִידָי כֹּרְתֵי בְרִיתִי עֲלֵי זָבַח

KJ: Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

BN: Gather my devoted followers together before me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

CHASIDAI: "Pious ones". I don't think they have saints in Judaism. (Well, one maybe. Camille Saint-Saens. Click here.)

ZAVACH: I continuously seek evidence for dating these pieces. Is this one? Or is it simply a matter of theological insistence - though even that would date it to some extent. "Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice" denotes the Tsadokim, the Sadducees, who rejected Shemu-El and Yesha-Yah and other of the prophets' insistence that "YHVH does not want your sacrifices, he wants your obedience [to his moral code]", and continued the Temple practices until the Temple was no more.

50:6 VA YAGIYDU SHAMAYIM TSIDKO KI ELOHIM SHOPHET HU (SELAH)

וַיַּגִּידוּ שָׁמַיִם צִדְקוֹ כִּי אֱלֹהִים שֹׁפֵט הוּא סֶלָה

KJ: And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.

BN: And the heavens declare his righteousness; for Elohim, he is the judge. (Selah)

50:7 SHIM'AH AMI VA ADABERAH YISRA-EL VE A'IYDAH BACH ELOHIM ELOHEYCHA ANOCHI

שִׁמְעָה עַמִּי וַאֲדַבֵּרָה יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָעִידָה בָּךְ אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֶיךָ אָנֹכִי

KJ: Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

BN: Hear, my people, and I will speak, Israel. Through you I will be testified: {N} Elohim, your gods, am I.

ADABERAH...A'IYDAH: Why are these in the feminine? Or maybe they are not, and the Hey ending has some other purpose. A dative perhaps on ADABERAH, simply part of the grammatical construction of A'IYDAH? But dative to what? Nor is it required because AMI is feminine - though we have the same feminine ending on SHIM'AH because there it is required.

BACH: Why the assumption that this is "against"? BACH means "in" or "to". And the next verse endorses my questioning it. The question that needs to be asked is the intention of "in"; hopefully my translation provides that answer.

50:8 LO AL ZEVACHEYCHA OCHIYCHECHA VE OLOTEYCHA LE NEGDI TAMID

לֹא עַל זְבָחֶיךָ אוֹכִיחֶךָ וְעוֹלֹתֶיךָ לְנֶגְדִּי תָמִיד

KJ: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.

BN: I will not reprove you for your sacrifices, not for your burnt-offerings that you continually present to me.

I am not sure how you sing a verse like this and make it pleasant to the throat, let alone the ear. Those 2nd person plural endings all make it sound like a legal contract, "whereas" clauses and the like. Could OCHICHYECHA win a prize for the least musical (the most dissonant and discordant) word in musical history (CH as in the Scottish "loch" not as in the English "chair")? No, probably not, because MICHLE'OTEYCHA in the next verse is about to challenge it (and anyway, the Scots might object! It's one of their favourite sounds).

NEGED: I questioned BACH in the last verse; the Yehudit word for "against" is... NEGED; but it doesn't really mean "against" here either, does it (that's a statement, not a question).

But we also have to imagine this, in performance, from the listeners' perspective. Poor Yesha-Yah, sitting there in row 3 with his disciples, the very day after he gave his most powerful sermon yet on the subject of obedience to the moral code versus sacrifice. Reproving the people, in no uncertain terms. And now, this, in the Temple, part of liturgy, and the Kohen Gadol in the royal box, taking great delight in watching, not the soloist, but the Prophet.

50:9 LO EKACH MI BEIT'CHA PHAR MI MICHLE'OTEYCHA ATUDIM

לֹא אֶקַּח מִבֵּיתְךָ פָר מִמִּכְלְאֹתֶיךָ עַתּוּדִים

KJ: I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.

BN: I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he-goats out of your folds.

And yet this does appear to be a rejection, or at least a partial rejection, of animal sacrifice; and even, in the following verses, of carnivorism. Does such a philosophical position help us date the piece? The great assault on sacrifice belongs to First Yesha-Yah (Isaiah), not earlier than 740 BCE, fully 200 years after Shelomoh (Solomon), let alone David; but it is a major theme of all the major and several of the minor Prophets - click here for a detailed account. What the gods want, according to the verses that follow here, is indeed moral behaviour - Isaiah 1:16-17, for just one example, says precisely the same. So Yesha-Yah, in my little fiction above, may well be looking unhappy at verse 8, but we shall see in a moment who will leave with the biggest smile, him or the Kohen Gadol.

50:10 KI LI CHOL CHAYETO YA'AR BEHEMOT BE HAREREY ALEPH

כִּי לִי כָל חַיְתוֹ יָעַר בְּהֵמוֹת בְּהַרְרֵי אָלֶף

KJ: For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

BN: For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

CHAYETO...BEHEMOT: The point of the sacrifice is propitiation. The response here says: I don't need the animals, because all creatures belong to me anyway. If you want to propitiate me, sacrifice your bad deeds on the altar of virtue, and live a decent and honest life.

What this argument ignores, however, is the other original reason for making sacrifice in the ritual and ceremonial manner, under the auspices of the priests. Humans know perfectly well that these are "YHVH's creatures", but we need to eat, and this regardless whether they are animals, vegetables, fruit or grain. The "sacri" part means "sacred", while the "fice" part means "make"; by offering the first fruits at the Temple, the rest is "made sacred", and permission is therefore granted by the gods to eat. A moral position, just as Yesha-Yah would require.

50:11 YAD'ATI KOL OPH HARIM VE ZIZ SADAI IMADI

יָדַעְתִּי כָּל עוֹף הָרִים וְזִיז שָׂדַי עִמָּדִי

KJ: I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

BN: I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

YAD'ATI: "I know", as in "so you don't need to keep on telling me" by bringing these animals to the altar. Even though, as we have just seen, they still do. And as the next verse will confirm.

50:12 IM ER'AV LO OMAR LACH KI LI TEVEL U MELO'AH

אִם אֶרְעַב לֹא אֹמַר לָךְ כִּי לִי תֵבֵל וּמְלֹאָהּ

KJ: If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

BN: If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine, and everything that grows in it.

Yes, but we are hungry, and the world is not ours. We need to eat. We need to take "YHVH's creatures" and turn them into food. We need your consent to do that.

50:13 HA OCHAL BESAR AVIYRIM VE DAM ATUDIM ESHTEH

הַאוֹכַל בְּשַׂר אַבִּירִים וְדַם עַתּוּדִים אֶשְׁתֶּה

KJ: Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?

BN: Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?

No to the first - but yet we do: barbecued, steaked, burgered, curried. And don't you just love the smell from the kitchen when the aroma incenses your nostrils!

No to the second too - and we don't either, because we have agreed that blood is the most sacred part, and may not be. This too is part of the debate.

50:14 ZEVACH L'ELOHIM TODAH VE SHALEM LE ELYON NEDAREYCHA

זְבַח לֵאלֹהִים תּוֹדָה וְשַׁלֵּם לְעֶלְיוֹן נְדָרֶיךָ

KJ: Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:

BN: Offer to the gods the sacrifice of thanksgiving; and fulfill your vows to Elyon.

And then there is the third part of this. Beyond propitiation and "making sacred", there is also Grace After Meals - isn't it interesting that the 10% tip in a restaurant should be called a "gratuity", both from the same word, "gratis", meaning "thanks" in Latin; but the coins go to the waitress, the chanting to the heavens.

50:15 U KERA'ENI BE YOM TSARAH ACHALETSCHA U TECHABDENI

וּקְרָאֵנִי בְּיוֹם צָרָה אֲחַלֶּצְךָ וּתְכַבְּדֵנִי

KJ: And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

BN: And call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honour me.

KERA'ENI: This is problematic. Petition is an aspect of propitiation. Humans who believe that the gods are open to influence will offer their prayers in spiritual brown envelopes, and in Temple times that meant the act of sacrificial offerings. Is the statement here then: the gods don't need bribes. If you are behaving as you should be, we will see it, and respond. Fulfilling your petition will be a reward, not a pay-back. (Yesha-Yah is smiling broadly; the Kohen Gadol is wondering whether they even need the meeting planned for next week, to decide which of the apprentice priests should be trained for the secondary role on Yom Kippur).

50:16 VE LA RASH'A AMAR ELOHIM MAH LECHA LESAPER CHUKAI VA TIS'A VERIYTI ALEY PHIYCHA

וְלָרָשָׁע אָמַר אֱלֹהִים מַה לְּךָ לְסַפֵּר חֻקָּי וַתִּשָּׂא בְרִיתִי עֲלֵי פִיךָ

KJ: But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?

BN: But to the wicked the gods say, What busines is it of yours to go declaring my statutes? How dare you place my covenant in your mouth...

All the above applies to the good, the obedient, the followers of the moral code. Societies don't need police forces if there is no crime. But there is crime. So the good have to accept that some of their liberties may have to be limited, in order to ensure that the criminals don't "limit" them in other ways.

50:17 VE ATAH SANE'TA MUSAR VA TASHLECH DEVARAI ACHAREYCHA

וְאַתָּה שָׂנֵאתָ מוּסָר וַתַּשְׁלֵךְ דְּבָרַי אַחֲרֶיךָ

KJ: Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.

BN: ...seeing that you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you?

50:18 IM RA'IYTA GANAV VA TIRETS IMO VE IM MENA'APHIM CHELKECHA

אִם רָאִיתָ גַנָּב וַתִּרֶץ עִמּוֹ וְעִם מְנָאֲפִים חֶלְקֶךָ

KJ: When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.

BN: When you saw a thief, you kept company with him, and took your portion among the adulterers.

None of which has anything to do with sacrifice; and everything to do with the moral code. Or does it? You see, Yesha-Yah, thinks the Kohen Gadol, it's all very well saying we need an open and liberal society, built on an adult code of ethics and a responsible table of values, and then trust the people. But you can't trust the people. The flea-market operators and the barrow-boys are still scamming you. The cheats are still cheating. Two of your own disciples came here straight from the brothel, and your deputy senior Prophet had to resign last week because he got caught using a false identity card. Tell every single one of them to bring a sacrifice to the Temple, a bullock for a sin-offering and a ram for redemption, and then we can re-open this discussion.

50:19 PIYCHA SHALACHTA VE RA'AH U LESHONCHA TATSMIYD MIRMAH

פִּיךָ שָׁלַחְתָּ בְרָעָה וּלְשׁוֹנְךָ תַּצְמִיד מִרְמָה

KJ: Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit.

BN: You let loose your mouth with evil, and your tongue concocts lies.

And if the Kohen Gadol has read Yesha-Yah's book (if Baruch the scribe has finished writing it up yet, let alone found a publisher), he may well be remembering that phrase in chapter 6, in which the Prophet admits that he is himself "a man of unclean lips", and that he lives among a people who are just the same.

50:20 TESHEV BE ACHIYCHA TEDABER BE VEN IMCHA TITEN DOPHI

תֵּשֵׁב בְּאָחִיךָ תְדַבֵּר בְּבֶן אִמְּךָ תִּתֶּן דֹּפִי

KJ: Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son.

BN: You sit next to your brother and defame him; you slander your own mother's son.

50:21 ELEH ASIYTA VE HECHERASHTI DIMIYTA HEYOT EHEYEH CHAMOCHA OCHIYCHACHA VE E'ERCHAH LE EYNEYCHA

אֵלֶּה עָשִׂיתָ וְהֶחֱרַשְׁתִּי דִּמִּיתָ הֱיוֹת אֶהְיֶה כָמוֹךָ אוֹכִיחֲךָ וְאֶעֶרְכָה לְעֵינֶיךָ

KJ: These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

Sar Shalom translation: These things hast thou done, and should I have kept silence? Thou hadst thought that I was altogether such a one as thyself; {N} but I will reprove thee, and set the cause before thine eyes.

BN: You did all these things, and I held my peace. You thought that I was just like you, and always would be; {N} but I will prove you wrong, and make the cause clear in your eyes.

HECHERASHTI: Is that HE an interrogative, or part of the verb? King James thinks the latter, Sar Shalom the former.

The root is CHARASH - and already our commentary is in difficulty, because CHARASH has absolutely nothing to do with "silence". A sense of "cutting", whether the earth with a plough (Job 1:14), or a stone stele with an inscription knife (Jeremiah 17:1); from which the business of moulding or manufacturing out of bronze or brass or wood or stone, for which see Exodus 35:35. Though actually 35:33 is much more useful for our purpose, and not for the two usages of CHARASH, but for the closing phrase, "all manner of skilled workmanship". Creating scams and tax-fiddles requires "skilled workmanship". Conning an old lady out of her pension ditto, and creating a fake identity card ibid. So CHARASH came to mean the commission of crime, as in Hosea 10:13 and Job 4:8.

But that still does not explain the silence (which is not the same as the silence in verse 3), nor determine the grammar. I suspect that two things happened over the course of time. One of them was the shift from CHERES with a Seen to CHERESH with a Sheen, easy enough to do when language is written down without pointing, as it was through the First and Second Temple periods. CHERES with a Seen is an earthenware vessel (Ezekiel 23:34 is the transition point, using the same word both for the pot and the shards it has been cut into; but see also Leviticus 6:21 et al)), made from the same soil that gets ploughed, cut into shape with a carving knife: so there is a logical overlap, and maybe it was just a dialect variation.

The second is the silence - probably metaphorical originally, the "cutting out" of the ability to hear, or the "cutting away" of sound, which results in deafness and silence. Though it is also possible (Gesenius has a lengthy piece on this) that it is about "acting deaf" in order to avoid taking responsibility. Certainly there is a sense of this at Genesis 34:5, and note that the verb there is HECHERISH, as it is here. But Exodus 14:14 is surely the place to go for this - to the degree that our current Psalmic verse may well be a deliberate reference to it.

OCHIYCHACHA: Again; do the two occurrences mirror, or are they just coincidence? No, in verse 8 it was OCHIYCHECHA, and the rest of the verse was quite different.

HEYOT...EHEYEH: Two forms of the verb "to be", one as far back as the past goes, the other forever into the future. Two variants of the name YHVH. See Exodus 3:12 before you look at Exodus 3:14.

VE E'ERCHAH LE EYNEYCHA: Which of course answers any residual questions about the "testifying" in verse 7. Yes, Yesha-Yah and the other Prophets are correct: humans need a table of values, to which they can be held to account. But who is going to undertake that responsibility? See the next verse.

50:22 BIYNU NA ZOT SHOCHECHEY ELOHA PEN ETROPH VE EYN MATSIL

בִּינוּ נָא זֹאת שֹׁכְחֵי אֱלוֹהַּ פֶּן אֶטְרֹף וְאֵין מַצִּיל

KJ: Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.

BN: Now consider this, you who forget the gods, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be no one to save you.

ELOHA: worth listing the number of god-names in this single Psalm. Elohim, YHVH, Yeheyeh, Eloheynu, Eloha, Elyon...

50:23 ZOVE'ACH TODAH YECHABDANENI VE SAM DERECH AR'ENU BE YESH'A ELOHIM

זֹבֵחַ תּוֹדָה יְכַבְּדָנְנִי וְשָׂם דֶּרֶךְ אַרְאֶנּוּ בְּיֵשַׁע אֱלֹהִים

KJ: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.

BN: Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me; and to he who sets his path correctly I will demonstrate the salvation of the gods. {P}

Split this verse in two halves. The first half will be the one the Kohen Gadol takes away, full of smug self-satisfaction at the endorsement of the sacrifices. The second half will be the verse that Yesha-Yah will be repeating to his disciples, on the way back to the Yeshiva, where he will ask his secretary Baruch to set up disciplinary meetings with those two disciples that I fictionalised at verse 18.

Result of the debate? An honourable draw.

And now tell me that this was not another Maskil, another teaching-Psalm for the Beney Korach, even though it did not say so in the title.

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Psalms:

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