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
לַמְנַצֵּחַ מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד
KJ (King James translation): (To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.) Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
BN (BibleNet translation): For the Artistic Director. A Mizmor. To David.
KJ merges verse 1 into the title, reorganising the ensuing numbers out of synch with the Yehudit; I have noted the difference in brackets.
For who was the MENATSE'ACH, see my note at Psalm 51:1.
64:2 SHEM'A ELOHIM KOLI VE SIYCHI MI PACHAD OYEV TITSOR CHAYAI
KJ (64:1): Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
BN: Hear my voice, Elohim, in what I am saying; guard my life against fear of the enemy.
SHEM'A: Note how many key words keep on repeating, again and again, though often varying their form: SIYCHI, OYEV... TASTIYRENI and PO'ALEY AVEN in the next verse...
SIYCHI: Not the first time I have questioned this. Is it a prayer, a complaint, or a conversation? Properly a SIYACH is a conversation, and perhaps we can suggest that, in its original form, informal prayer was simply a person speaking to himself inside his head, as we all do, and either regarding the alter ego as a metaphorical deity, or perhaps even consciously addressing the deity as a structure to make inner reflection lucid. So one holds a conversation with oneself (and generally these are the best conversations any of us ever have!). So the verb LETHITPALEL, which literally means "to judge oneself", becomes the verb for "to pray",
OYEV: The enemy here is human, not a creature from the realm of mythology, which is to say: it is not ha-Satan. This is important to note, because the next verse appears to have Jobian inferences; see my notes to verses 4ff.
TITSOR: A TSUR is a rock, and the deity is repeatedly referred to as the "Rock of Yisra-El", so the play-on-words here is intentional. But this is from NATSAR, which really means "to guard", and yes life is preserved if it is well-guarded, but in fact the phrasing makes clear that he wants to be guarded against fearing the enemy, and not preserved against the enemy itself: which is to to say, he wants the play-on-words, the self-strengthening, the making himself rocklike, so that he can deal with the enemy fearlessly.
64:3 TASTIYRENI MI SOD MERE'IM ME RIGSHAT PO'ALEY AVEN
KJ (64:2): Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
BN: Hide me from the plottings of evil-doers; from the tumult of the workers of iniquity;
Plays with the letter Mem where the next verse plays with the homophony of the letters Chet and Chaf and also the letter Sheen. Actually the Mem recurs, and there are a couple of Dalets too - sometimes we have to ask ourselves: was this verse constructed to convey meaning, or to provide precise libretto to accompany the music? Probably both is the answer, but which comes first? Mmm, shhh, duh-duh-duh, mmm, shhh. Lyre, oboe, drum, flute, harp. Lovely! How to convey that in the English translation?
64:8 VA YOREM ELOHIM CHETS PIT'OM HAYU MAKOTAM
KJ (64:7): But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
BN: But Elohim shoots at them with an arrow at an unexpected moment; from this their wounds.
And if my conjecture about the choice of figures of speech is correct, then we can safely assume that, unlike Sha'ul with his javelin, Elohim will not miss; and that when, like Yehonatan, Elohim fires his arrows towards the stone of Ezel... the phrasing that we need is from 1 Samuel 20:2-23:
64:9 VA YACHSHIYLUHU ALEYMO LESHONAM YITNODADU KOL RO'EH VAM
`
KJ (64:8): So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.
BN: So he will make them trip over their own tongues; everyone who sees them will run away.
64:10 VA YIYRE'U KOL ADAM VA YAGIYDU PO'AL ELOHIM U MA'ASEHU HISKIYLU
KJ (64:9): And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God; for they shall wisely consider of his doing.
BN: And all men shall fear; and they shall declare the work of Elohim, and understand his deeds.
YIYRE'U: See my note to YOREM at verse 8.
64:11 YISMACH TSADIYK B'YHVH VE CHASAH VO VE YIT'HALELU KOL YISHREY LEV
KJ (64:10): The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.
BN: The righteous shall take delight in YHVH, and find their refuge in him; and all the upright in heart shall sing his praises. {P}
ELOHIM throughout this Psalm, but suddenly, at the end, a switch to YHVH. Is it perhaps an addition by the Redactor, to YHVHise (Yahwehify?) this for his contemporaries, who had elevated YHVH to the Pisgah of the holy mountain, and then performed Götterdämmerung against the others in the pantheon? We have seen something very similar on several occasions.
64:2 SHEM'A ELOHIM KOLI VE SIYCHI MI PACHAD OYEV TITSOR CHAYAI
שְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים קוֹלִי בְשִׂיחִי מִפַּחַד אוֹיֵב תִּצֹּר חַיָּי
KJ (64:1): Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
BN: Hear my voice, Elohim, in what I am saying; guard my life against fear of the enemy.
SHEM'A: Note how many key words keep on repeating, again and again, though often varying their form: SIYCHI, OYEV... TASTIYRENI and PO'ALEY AVEN in the next verse...
SIYCHI: Not the first time I have questioned this. Is it a prayer, a complaint, or a conversation? Properly a SIYACH is a conversation, and perhaps we can suggest that, in its original form, informal prayer was simply a person speaking to himself inside his head, as we all do, and either regarding the alter ego as a metaphorical deity, or perhaps even consciously addressing the deity as a structure to make inner reflection lucid. So one holds a conversation with oneself (and generally these are the best conversations any of us ever have!). So the verb LETHITPALEL, which literally means "to judge oneself", becomes the verb for "to pray",
OYEV: The enemy here is human, not a creature from the realm of mythology, which is to say: it is not ha-Satan. This is important to note, because the next verse appears to have Jobian inferences; see my notes to verses 4ff.
TITSOR: A TSUR is a rock, and the deity is repeatedly referred to as the "Rock of Yisra-El", so the play-on-words here is intentional. But this is from NATSAR, which really means "to guard", and yes life is preserved if it is well-guarded, but in fact the phrasing makes clear that he wants to be guarded against fearing the enemy, and not preserved against the enemy itself: which is to to say, he wants the play-on-words, the self-strengthening, the making himself rocklike, so that he can deal with the enemy fearlessly.
64:3 TASTIYRENI MI SOD MERE'IM ME RIGSHAT PO'ALEY AVEN
תַּסְתִּירֵנִי מִסּוֹד מְרֵעִים מֵרִגְשַׁת פֹּעֲלֵי אָוֶן
KJ (64:2): Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
BN: Hide me from the plottings of evil-doers; from the tumult of the workers of iniquity;
Plays with the letter Mem where the next verse plays with the homophony of the letters Chet and Chaf and also the letter Sheen. Actually the Mem recurs, and there are a couple of Dalets too - sometimes we have to ask ourselves: was this verse constructed to convey meaning, or to provide precise libretto to accompany the music? Probably both is the answer, but which comes first? Mmm, shhh, duh-duh-duh, mmm, shhh. Lyre, oboe, drum, flute, harp. Lovely! How to convey that in the English translation?
TASTIYRENI: We have allusions to the YEVARECHECHA constantly - shine your face on us, sun-god, and give us fertile and creative life. But there are cloudy days too, when the face of the sun is blocked out, and light hidden; in Talmudic lore, when bad things happen, it is because the deity has turned his face aside, and the verb used is the one here: HISTIR PANAV.
64:4 ASHER SHANENU CHA CHEREV LESHONAM DARCHU CHITSAM DAVAR MAR
KJ (64:3): Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:
BN: Who have whet their tongue like a sword, and have aimed their arrow, a poisoned word.
But which human enemy? Is this a generalisation, or a specific? I ask, in part, because of my note to OYEV in verse 2, mostly because of the choice of language in this and the next verse. This Psalm is Davidic, but its title does not provide a context-point within the biography, as many of the other Psalms do. Twice during David's time at the court of King Sha'ul, the king threw his javelin at him, intending fatality, but missing, so a figure of speech that recalls this is exactly what we would expect from David.
64:4 ASHER SHANENU CHA CHEREV LESHONAM DARCHU CHITSAM DAVAR MAR
אֲשֶׁר שָׁנְנוּ כַחֶרֶב לְשׁוֹנָם דָּרְכוּ חִצָּם דָּבָר מָר
KJ (64:3): Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:
BN: Who have whet their tongue like a sword, and have aimed their arrow, a poisoned word.
But which human enemy? Is this a generalisation, or a specific? I ask, in part, because of my note to OYEV in verse 2, mostly because of the choice of language in this and the next verse. This Psalm is Davidic, but its title does not provide a context-point within the biography, as many of the other Psalms do. Twice during David's time at the court of King Sha'ul, the king threw his javelin at him, intending fatality, but missing, so a figure of speech that recalls this is exactly what we would expect from David.
Only it isn't. In 1 Samuel 18:10 and 11, and again in 1 Samuel 19:10, Sha'ul has a CHANIT, which is a spear or javelin, not the CHEREV that is named here. So we need to look elsewhere in the Davidic biography for a possible source and context.
64:5 LIYROT BA MISTARIM TAM PITOM YORUHU VE LO YIYRA'U
KJ (64:4): That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.
BN: That they may shoot from their hiding-places at the innocent; at unexpected moments do they shoot at him, and do it fearlessly.
LIYROT: If it was not either of the incidents in my note to the previous verse, perhaps it comes from the moment when David finally got the message and fled Sha'ul's court, when he skipped the three-day banquet and made an arrangement with Sha'ul's son Yehonotan (Jonathan) by which they could meet from time to time, and agreed a signal, so that his friend could tell him how matters lay with the king with regards David's safety: three arrows, fired towards the stone of Ezel (1 Samuel 20 - and see especially the oath sworn in verse 16, which refers explicitly to "David's enemies - OYEVEI DAVID"), in the wilderness of Yehudah, deliberately landing them short if a meeting was not possible because things were bad, hitting or overhitting the target as a signal to meet. Eventually Av-Ner, Sha'ul's chief of staff, got wind of the stratagem...
Word play between YORUHU and YIYRA'U, but more important is their "fearlessness", which he envies, as per verse 2.
64:6 YECHAZKU LAMO DAVAR RA YESAPRU LITMON MOKSHIM AMRU MI YIR'EH LAMO
KJ (64:5): They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?
BN: They encourage one another to perform still more wicked deeds; they plot to lay snares in secretly; {N} they say "Who will see them?"
LAMO: rather than LAHEM. Simply a matter of archaics - the equivalent difference is between Chaucerian and Shakespearian English.
64:7 YACHPESU OLOT TAMNU CHEPHES MECHUPAS VE KEREV IYSH VE LEV AMOK
KJ (64:6): They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.
BN: They seek out wicked deeds; and they have completed a most diligent search; {N} even in the inward thought of every one, and the depths of the heart.
YACHPESU OLOT: more word play? Without nekudot YACHPESU could be mistaken for YACHPESHU, a non-existent word, but at first sight you might think that this was PESHA = "a sin", as it is affixed to OLOT = "iniquities".
But the word-play in fact lies elsewhere, and translating it is very difficult, because English simply doesn't binyan from shoreshim in the way that Yehudit-Ivrit does: structures of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs built (binyan) out of roots (shoreshim). So the root KATAV can lead to "dictation" (hachtavah), or "correspondence" (hitkatvut), or "to scribble" (lekatev), or simply be itself (ketiv = "writing"); where English requires four completely different words, derived from four completely different etymologies. So, here, we have YACHPESU, CHEPHES and MECHUPAS, all from the same root, all connected with the concept of "seeking".
64:5 LIYROT BA MISTARIM TAM PITOM YORUHU VE LO YIYRA'U
לִירוֹת בַּמִּסְתָּרִים תָּם פִּתְאֹם יֹרֻהוּ וְלֹא יִירָאוּ
KJ (64:4): That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.
BN: That they may shoot from their hiding-places at the innocent; at unexpected moments do they shoot at him, and do it fearlessly.
LIYROT: If it was not either of the incidents in my note to the previous verse, perhaps it comes from the moment when David finally got the message and fled Sha'ul's court, when he skipped the three-day banquet and made an arrangement with Sha'ul's son Yehonotan (Jonathan) by which they could meet from time to time, and agreed a signal, so that his friend could tell him how matters lay with the king with regards David's safety: three arrows, fired towards the stone of Ezel (1 Samuel 20 - and see especially the oath sworn in verse 16, which refers explicitly to "David's enemies - OYEVEI DAVID"), in the wilderness of Yehudah, deliberately landing them short if a meeting was not possible because things were bad, hitting or overhitting the target as a signal to meet. Eventually Av-Ner, Sha'ul's chief of staff, got wind of the stratagem...
Word play between YORUHU and YIYRA'U, but more important is their "fearlessness", which he envies, as per verse 2.
64:6 YECHAZKU LAMO DAVAR RA YESAPRU LITMON MOKSHIM AMRU MI YIR'EH LAMO
יְחַזְּקוּ לָמוֹ דָּבָר רָע יְסַפְּרוּ לִטְמוֹן מוֹקְשִׁים אָמְרוּ מִי יִרְאֶה לָּמוֹ
KJ (64:5): They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?
BN: They encourage one another to perform still more wicked deeds; they plot to lay snares in secretly; {N} they say "Who will see them?"
LAMO: rather than LAHEM. Simply a matter of archaics - the equivalent difference is between Chaucerian and Shakespearian English.
64:7 YACHPESU OLOT TAMNU CHEPHES MECHUPAS VE KEREV IYSH VE LEV AMOK
יַחְפְּשׂוּ עוֹלֹת תַּמְנוּ חֵפֶשׂ מְחֻפָּשׂ וְקֶרֶב אִישׁ וְלֵב עָמֹק
KJ (64:6): They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.
BN: They seek out wicked deeds; and they have completed a most diligent search; {N} even in the inward thought of every one, and the depths of the heart.
YACHPESU OLOT: more word play? Without nekudot YACHPESU could be mistaken for YACHPESHU, a non-existent word, but at first sight you might think that this was PESHA = "a sin", as it is affixed to OLOT = "iniquities".
But the word-play in fact lies elsewhere, and translating it is very difficult, because English simply doesn't binyan from shoreshim in the way that Yehudit-Ivrit does: structures of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs built (binyan) out of roots (shoreshim). So the root KATAV can lead to "dictation" (hachtavah), or "correspondence" (hitkatvut), or "to scribble" (lekatev), or simply be itself (ketiv = "writing"); where English requires four completely different words, derived from four completely different etymologies. So, here, we have YACHPESU, CHEPHES and MECHUPAS, all from the same root, all connected with the concept of "seeking".
TAMNU: And then, just to add Nabokov to Joyce (the two English-language writers who use word-games more than any others, even Shakespeare), we had TAM at verse 5, and only No'ach and Iyov ever get that particular appellation: "perfect in their ways". But these men are the very opposite of "perfect", even if they have "perfected" their skills for committing wickedness.
KEREV...AMOK: Contrasting their inward "conversations" with the one that the Psalmist asks Elohim to hear in verse 2.
KEREV...AMOK: Contrasting their inward "conversations" with the one that the Psalmist asks Elohim to hear in verse 2.
64:8 VA YOREM ELOHIM CHETS PIT'OM HAYU MAKOTAM
וַיֹּרֵם אֱלֹהִים חֵץ פִּתְאוֹם הָיוּ מַכּוֹתָם
KJ (64:7): But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
BN: But Elohim shoots at them with an arrow at an unexpected moment; from this their wounds.
And if my conjecture about the choice of figures of speech is correct, then we can safely assume that, unlike Sha'ul with his javelin, Elohim will not miss; and that when, like Yehonatan, Elohim fires his arrows towards the stone of Ezel... the phrasing that we need is from 1 Samuel 20:2-23:
"I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. Then I will send a boy and say, 'Go, find the arrows'. If I say to him, 'Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here', then come, because, as surely as YHVH lives, you are safe; there is no danger. But if I say to the boy, 'Look, the arrows are beyond you', then you must go, because YHVH has sent you away. And about the matter you and I discussed - remember, YHVH is witness between you and me forever."Note however that the text of Samuel says YHVH, where this Psalm says Elohim (and once again in Book Two, no mention of YHVH anywhere - until verse 11, but see my note there).
And even without that I am by no means convinced of my conjecture; but I cannot find any other tale.
YOREM: KJ, and most others, render this in the future, but it is definitely present tense. The root is YARAH, which already has a first-letter Yud; to make this future tense would require a second Yud, or at the very least a Dagesh in the single Yud to indicate a double-letter (actually, you can see this at work, with YIYRE'U in verse 10).
YOREM: KJ, and most others, render this in the future, but it is definitely present tense. The root is YARAH, which already has a first-letter Yud; to make this future tense would require a second Yud, or at the very least a Dagesh in the single Yud to indicate a double-letter (actually, you can see this at work, with YIYRE'U in verse 10).
64:9 VA YACHSHIYLUHU ALEYMO LESHONAM YITNODADU KOL RO'EH VAM
`
וַיַּכְשִׁילוּהוּ עָלֵימוֹ לְשׁוֹנָם יִתְנֹדֲדוּ כָּל רֹאֵה בָם
KJ (64:8): So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.
BN: So he will make them trip over their own tongues; everyone who sees them will run away.
64:10 VA YIYRE'U KOL ADAM VA YAGIYDU PO'AL ELOHIM U MA'ASEHU HISKIYLU
וַיִּירְאוּ כָּל אָדָם וַיַּגִּידוּ פֹּעַל אֱלֹהִים וּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ הִשְׂכִּילוּ
KJ (64:9): And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God; for they shall wisely consider of his doing.
BN: And all men shall fear; and they shall declare the work of Elohim, and understand his deeds.
YIYRE'U: See my note to YOREM at verse 8.
PO'AL...MA'ASEHU: Three different words for the ways in which the metaphorical deities act in the physical world, and it is really very difficult to know what the ancients understood those difference to be. PO'AL takes us to the verb-forms, but is also the word used for Labour by the modern Israeli trades unions. AVODAH, which does not appear here, is "service", which could mean praying in synagogue or slavery in Egypt. MA'ASEH is generally associated with BERE'SHIT (click here), the "breaking of the vessels" or the "Big Bang" that enabled Creation in the firstplace.
64:11 YISMACH TSADIYK B'YHVH VE CHASAH VO VE YIT'HALELU KOL YISHREY LEV
יִשְׂמַח צַדִּיק בַּיהוָה וְחָסָה בוֹ וְיִתְהַלְלוּ כָּל יִשְׁרֵי לֵב
KJ (64:10): The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.
BN: The righteous shall take delight in YHVH, and find their refuge in him; and all the upright in heart shall sing his praises. {P}
ELOHIM throughout this Psalm, but suddenly, at the end, a switch to YHVH. Is it perhaps an addition by the Redactor, to YHVHise (Yahwehify?) this for his contemporaries, who had elevated YHVH to the Pisgah of the holy mountain, and then performed Götterdämmerung against the others in the pantheon? We have seen something very similar on several occasions.
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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