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
As we come to the end of Book Two, we need to go back and check out the plotology, if there even was one. Everything up to this point has been dedicated to David (no: one recently was anonymous - perhaps that marked the transition-point between him and Shelomoh - and this one is to Shelomoh).
72:1 LI SHELOMOH ELOHIM MISHPATEYCHA LE MELECH TEN VE TSIDKAT'CHA LE VEN MELECH
לִשְׁלֹמֹה אֱלֹהִים מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ לְמֶלֶךְ תֵּן וְצִדְקָתְךָ לְבֶן מֶלֶךְ
KJ (King James translation): [A Psalm] of Solomon. Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness unto the king's son;
BN (BibleNet translation): To Shelomoh. Give the king your judgments, Elohim, and your understanding of justice to the king's son...
LE SHELOMOH: To Solomon, not by him; and, based on the last verse, "the king" here must still be David, "the king's son" Shelomoh (Solomon), so this belongs to the very last days of David's life, after the attempted coup by Adoni-Yah, when David had Shelomoh annointed as co-king, but being still alive himself it was only a co-Regency. Is it possible that the Psalm was written for the anointing ceremony (1 Kings 1)?
Other than the statement LI SHELOMOH there is no title for this piece; the remainder of verse 1 is text, not title.
MISHPATEYCHA... TSIDKAT'CHA: Defining the role of the king, which is to serve as the representative of the deity on Earth; but also confirming what the deity is not supposed to do, but which the deity cannot resist constantly doing, which is to interfere in human affairs. As Yitro told Mosheh (Exodus 18:14) - delegate, but delegate authority, and credit, as well as responsibility - very few bosses can. This is the verse which embeds that; the verse that follows then underscores it.
72:2 YADIYN AMCHA VE TSEDEK VA ANIYEYCHA VE MISHPAT
יָדִין עַמְּךָ בְצֶדֶק וַעֲנִיֶּיךָ בְמִשְׁפָּט
KJ: He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.
BN: ...so that he may judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.
72:3 YIS'U HARIM SHALOM LA AM U GEVA'OT BITSDAKAH
יִשְׂאוּ הָרִים שָׁלוֹם לָעָם וּגְבָעוֹת בִּצְדָקָה
KJ: The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.
BN: Let the mountains bring wholeness to the people, and the hills, through righteousness.
HARIM: The mountains here are not necessarily the physical ones so much as the metaphorical ones, the Yisra-Eli equivalent of Olympus and Valhalla, the place where the gods live.
SHALOM: As pointed out a multitude of times, SHALOM means "wholeness", of which "peace" is usually one component, but never the totality of it.
BITSDAKAH: TSEDAKAH to most modern Jews means "charity", and many homes, most synagogues and Jewish schools and community institutions, keep what they call a "tsedakah box" so that spare change can be put in it, and passed on to the needy. But TSEDAKAH is not in fact the charity; it is the righteousness behind the charity, and the root also yields TSEDEK, which is Justice, and a Tsadik, which is a wise person, and TSADOK, which was the name of the first Kohen Gadol (High Priest) annointed by David, who later gave his name to the advocates for Temple Judaism, the Sadducees, as they are pronounced in English.
72:4 YISHPOT ANIYEY AM YOSHIY'A LIVNEY EVYON VIYDAK'E OSHEK
KJ: He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
BN: May he judge the poor of the people, and save the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.
ANIYEY: And no coincidence, given my note the previous verse, that the needs of the poor should be so closely connected to the concept of Justice here. What this verse does not give, however, is any benchmarks or criteria for making this judgement. Fortunately, just over two thousand years after David and Shelomoh, the Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, provided some. Click here to read what is surely one of the most remarkable exemplars of ethical humanism ever created, the perfect response to both Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.
72:5 YIYRA'UCHA IM SHAMESH VE LIPHNEY YARE'ACH DOR DORIM
KJ: They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.
BN: They shall fear you as long as there is a sun, as long as there is a moon, which is to say throughout the generations.
What is the difference between DOR LA DOR and DOR DORIM? I think that the first is the points along the line, the second the line itself (the branches on the family tree, rather than the names on the individual branches). The latter is in use here.
The sun and the moon, the male and the female, YHVH and YAH! Are we about to hear evidence of a fertility cult, still very much alive, and not yet the patriarchal monotheism of the Ezraic Redaction?
72:6 YERED KE MATAR AL GEZ KIR'VIYVIM ZARZIPH ARETS
KJ: He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.
BN: May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth.
The sky god ejaculates the semen of rain into the womb of goddess-Earth, and then the sun shines, and fertility... male and female, YHVH and Yah. But the keyword here is GEZ, from the root GAZAZ, which is mostly used for the shearing of sheep (Deuteronomy 18:4, Job 31:20). And why is this the key word? Because rain is simply one of the essences and elements of the Cosmos, the definition of the deities, and so raining is not interfering in human life, but simply performing the function for which it exists. And the deities, as noted above, are precluded from interfering, because they did their job in six days, and on the sixth day, before they rested from Creation (Brahma) and settled down to an eternity of sustaining (Vishnu) and destroying (Siva) by natural means, they appointed Humankind to take charge of pollution and global warming, sorry, correct that, to take charge of stewarding the Earth and mainting its pristine and healthy condition. The word "mown" is the proof that they are doing that (though of course Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher would insist that there is no such thing as Humankind, but only individuals, and so it is not the responsibility of the king to interfere in matters of this kind, but individuals should deal with all these matters on their own).
72:7 YIPHRACH BE YAMAV TSADIYK VE ROV SHALOM AD BELI YARE'ACH
KJ: In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
BN: In his days let the righteous flourish, and an abundance of wholeness, till the moon be no more.
Is this the later Redactor, adding a verse, to insinuate that Yah will be subsumed into YHVH, that polytheism will become monotheism, that the Omnideity will be predominantly male, and that this was already known in Davidic times?
Or is it that the previous verse only explained the sun's part in Creation, which is obvious, but ignored the moon's part (the menstrual cycle especially), which is not so obvious - so this verse completes the androgyn and we are definitely still in polytheistic times?
72:8 VE YER'D MI YAM AD YAM U MI NAHAR AD APHSEI ARETS
KJ: He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
BN: May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the Earth.
YER'D: This does not by any means convince me, but I have applied my phonetic system to it anyway. Can someone please try to convince me that this is grammatically correct. Why is it not VE YIRED?
NAHAR: The only river of any significance in Yisra-El is the Yarden, which is actually a rather small stream for the most part, and dies as soon as it enters the Dead Sea. When the Tanach speaks of "the River" it usually means the Perat (Euphrates) - the Nile is always the Ye'or not the Nahar; and probably it means it here metaphorically: if this were an English text, it would name that unimaginable far end of the world as Timbuktu.
72:9 LEPHANAV YICHRE'U TSIYIM VE OYEVAV APHAR YELACHECHU
KJ: They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.
BN: Let those who dwell in the wilderness bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust.
YICHRE'U: Bow down, which is to say genuflection, whereas YISHTACHAVU in verse 11 is the full prostration.
72:10 MALCHEY TARSHISH VE IYIM MINCHAH YASHIYVU MALCHEY SHEVA U SEVA ESHKAR YAKRIYVU
KJ: The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
BN: The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall render tribute; {N} the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
TARSHISH: Two options for this, Tartessus in Spain, whither both Yonah and St Paul were sailing when they were hit by storms; this the more likely, because there are multiple isles and islands en route, from the vastness of Cyprus to the small Canaries and Ballearics, whereas Tarsus in Turkey (where St Paul was born) is decidedly inland.
MINCHAH: Is the intention a princely gift, or a sacrifice at the altar? This word is generally reserved for the latter.
SHEVA: A name of some significance in Shelomoh's life; his mother was Bat Shev'a (בַּת־שֶׁ֣בַע- with an Ayin not an Aleph so it is only homophonically connected), and one of his many wives was the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10); her name is spelled with an Aleph, as in this verse, so she could very well be regarded as a "gift" from that particular realm. There is also the village of Be'er Shev'a (Beersheba), which figures significantly throughout the Torah; it too is spelled with an Ayin, and is therefore unconnected, except aurally.
KJ: Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.
BN: All kings shall prostrate themselves before him; all nations shall serve him.
Which does seem to endorse my suggestion at verse 1 that this might have been a coronation Psalm.
72:12 KI YATSIYL EVYON MESHAVE'A VE ANI VE EYN OZER LO
KJ: For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.
Do you begin to feel, as this Psalm goes on listing the kingly role, and responsibilities, and duties, that this is, surely, a definition of the Messiah? And so indeed it is, for that was the purpose of the sacred kingship in Yisra-El, the earthly ruler surrogating for the divine. BUT! The earthly king is "anointed", and the verb for that is LEHOSHIYACH. And when he "delivers the needy", as in this verse, the verb used is YATSIYL, not MOSHI'A, which is the role of the deity, not the human. MOSHI'A and MASHIYACH both find themselves translated as Messiah today, but they are very different concepts. See also Psalm 27, which uses both. And then see the next verse, which clearly presents a challenge to my argument.
72:13 YACHOS AL DAL VE EVYON VE NAPHSHOT EVYONIM YOSHI'A
KJ: He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
BN: He will have pity on the poor and needy, and the souls of the needy he will save.
YOSHI'A: And no sooner do we begin to wonder it, than there it is, placed before us like a challenge: leaving open the question: is the modern mis-translation simply a continuation of an ancient ambiguity? I leave this to the theologians, but make one suggestion: that perhaps, because he is surrogating for the deity, there is understood to be an overlap between the two roles, at least inside the human realm (if the king dispenses charity, it is really the king on behalf of the god, who is the true Moshi'a; but the rain that ruined their crop and left them in need of charity, that was purely the deity).
72:14 MI TOCH U ME CHAMAS YIG'AL NAPHSHAM VE YEYKAR DAMAM BE EYNAV
KJ: He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
BN: He will redeem their soul from oppression and violence, and their blood will be precious in his eyes...
Nor is it obvious how a human king would be able to do this, unless in his priestly role, through his participation in prayer and sacrifice. Or does redemption in this context simply mean his creation of just codes of law, an effective police and military, even the opening of hospitals?
72:15 VIY'CHI VE YITEN LO MI ZEHAV SHEVA VE YITPALEL BA'ADO TAMID KOL HA YOM YEVARACHENHU
KJ: And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.
BN: ... so they may live, and he may give them of the gold of Sheba, {N} that they may pray for him continually, yea, bless him all the day.
VIY'CHI: Need to look at the grammar closely. Is this "he" or "they"?
BA'ADO: Or BA ADO?
KJ: There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.
BN: May he be as a rich cornfield in the land upon the top of the mountains; {N} may his fruit rustle like Lebanon; and may they blossom out of the city like grass of the earth.
BE ROSH HARIM: Cornfields on mountaintops do not conform with most of our sense of world geography and climate. But we think of the Himalayas and the Alps when we say "mountains", where the land of Yisra-El may think Chermon, and plan a skiing holiday, or kayaking in the summer, but mostly HARIM are "hills" not "mountains", or "heights" like those of Bashan (the Golan, in today's language), and cornfields will take some cultivation, but in the upper Korazim, north of the Sea of Galilee, there are plenty such today.
The Psalm has moved through several phases, defining both the divine and the earthly roles, rendering them inseparable. In the second section the gods predominate, providing the sun, the moon, the rain, the earth, the means of fertility. In the third section the earthly king, who is the steward of all that, adds Tsedakah, and provides the parallel harmony within human society. Achieving both makes the country feared (respected) because successful; and brings reverence to the gods from within and from without. Now, in this verse, that inseperability is confirmed.
YATSIYTSU: This word needs to be cross-referenced to the relevant Torah passages; here the TSITS are definitely BLOSSOM, not FEATHERS - which affects our understanding of TSITSIS (or TSITSIT if you prefer) massively (a massif being a chain of hills...).
72:17 YEHI SHEMO LE OLAM LIPHNEY SHEMESH YANIN SHEMO VE YITBARCHU VO KOL GOYIM YE'ASHRUHU
KJ: His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
BN: May his name endure for ever; may his name be continued as long as the sun; {N} may men also bless themselves by him; may all nations call him happy.
And so far has the Mashiyach merged with the Moshi'a in the course of this Psalm, it is no longer possible to determine whether the intention of this verse is Shelomoh, the earthly king, or Elohim, the divine one.
72:18 BARUCH YHVH ELOHIM ELOHEY YISRA-EL OSEH NIPHLA'OT LEVADO
KJ: Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
BN: Blessed be YHVH Elohim, the god of Yisra-El, who only does wondrous things;
This can be found in the liturgy as "Baruch Adonay Le-Olam", after the closing Ashrey of morning prayers. The sequence of Psalms there ends with a blessing, and with a double amen, and is constructed line-by-line from other Psalms:
YHVH: Once again YHVH appears as an afterthought in the closing verse, or last two verses on this occasion. Added by the Redactor seven hundred years after they were written? Most probably. In Ezra's time, the supremacy of YHVH was just becoming established, and an opportunity like this one to enhance him could not have been ignored.
2:19 U VARUCH SHEM KEVODO LE OLAM VE YIMAL'E CHEVODO ET KOL HA ARETS AMEN VE AMEN
KJ: And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.
BN: And blessed be his glorious name for ever; {N} let the whole Earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen.
But no doubt that these last two verses, in spite of their praising of the earthly king, do finally return all power, authority, and especially credit, to the divine king - only when things go wrong is it Man's fault, but never the deity's.
72:20 KALU TEPHILOT DAVID BEN YISHAI
KJ: The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
BN: The prayers of David ben Yishai are ended. {P}
Which last verse is strange, given that this is titled as a Psalm of Shelomoh (but see my note on that in verse 1); and are there not Psalms later on attributed to David? And if so, why is this here, at number 72?
It all depends on how we understand KALU; a most uncommon verb, though we recognise the very common KOL meaning "all". LESAYEM (לִגמוֹר), LIGMOR (לִגמוֹר), even LEHASHLIYM (לְהַשְׁלִים) or LISGOR (לִסְגוֹר), or LINOL (לִסְגוֹר) for the closing of the gate for the final act of worship on Yom Kippur - any of these, and several more, can be used for closing, winding up, shutting down, ending, finishing... but KALU. I have given all these others in the infinitive, but how you even make an infinitive out of KALU?
END OF BOOK TWO
72:4 YISHPOT ANIYEY AM YOSHIY'A LIVNEY EVYON VIYDAK'E OSHEK
יִשְׁפֹּט עֲנִיֵּי עָם יוֹשִׁיעַ לִבְנֵי אֶבְיוֹן וִידַכֵּא עוֹשֵׁק
KJ: He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
BN: May he judge the poor of the people, and save the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.
ANIYEY: And no coincidence, given my note the previous verse, that the needs of the poor should be so closely connected to the concept of Justice here. What this verse does not give, however, is any benchmarks or criteria for making this judgement. Fortunately, just over two thousand years after David and Shelomoh, the Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, provided some. Click here to read what is surely one of the most remarkable exemplars of ethical humanism ever created, the perfect response to both Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.
72:5 YIYRA'UCHA IM SHAMESH VE LIPHNEY YARE'ACH DOR DORIM
יִירָאוּךָ עִם שָׁמֶשׁ וְלִפְנֵי יָרֵחַ דּוֹר דּוֹרִים
KJ: They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.
BN: They shall fear you as long as there is a sun, as long as there is a moon, which is to say throughout the generations.
What is the difference between DOR LA DOR and DOR DORIM? I think that the first is the points along the line, the second the line itself (the branches on the family tree, rather than the names on the individual branches). The latter is in use here.
The sun and the moon, the male and the female, YHVH and YAH! Are we about to hear evidence of a fertility cult, still very much alive, and not yet the patriarchal monotheism of the Ezraic Redaction?
72:6 YERED KE MATAR AL GEZ KIR'VIYVIM ZARZIPH ARETS
יֵרֵד כְּמָטָר עַל גֵּז כִּרְבִיבִים זַרְזִיף אָרֶץ
KJ: He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.
BN: May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth.
The sky god ejaculates the semen of rain into the womb of goddess-Earth, and then the sun shines, and fertility... male and female, YHVH and Yah. But the keyword here is GEZ, from the root GAZAZ, which is mostly used for the shearing of sheep (Deuteronomy 18:4, Job 31:20). And why is this the key word? Because rain is simply one of the essences and elements of the Cosmos, the definition of the deities, and so raining is not interfering in human life, but simply performing the function for which it exists. And the deities, as noted above, are precluded from interfering, because they did their job in six days, and on the sixth day, before they rested from Creation (Brahma) and settled down to an eternity of sustaining (Vishnu) and destroying (Siva) by natural means, they appointed Humankind to take charge of pollution and global warming, sorry, correct that, to take charge of stewarding the Earth and mainting its pristine and healthy condition. The word "mown" is the proof that they are doing that (though of course Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher would insist that there is no such thing as Humankind, but only individuals, and so it is not the responsibility of the king to interfere in matters of this kind, but individuals should deal with all these matters on their own).
72:7 YIPHRACH BE YAMAV TSADIYK VE ROV SHALOM AD BELI YARE'ACH
יִפְרַח בְּיָמָיו צַדִּיק וְרֹב שָׁלוֹם עַד בְּלִי יָרֵחַ
KJ: In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
BN: In his days let the righteous flourish, and an abundance of wholeness, till the moon be no more.
Is this the later Redactor, adding a verse, to insinuate that Yah will be subsumed into YHVH, that polytheism will become monotheism, that the Omnideity will be predominantly male, and that this was already known in Davidic times?
Or is it that the previous verse only explained the sun's part in Creation, which is obvious, but ignored the moon's part (the menstrual cycle especially), which is not so obvious - so this verse completes the androgyn and we are definitely still in polytheistic times?
72:8 VE YER'D MI YAM AD YAM U MI NAHAR AD APHSEI ARETS
וְיֵרְדְּ מִיָּם עַד יָם וּמִנָּהָר עַד אַפְסֵי אָרֶץ
KJ: He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
BN: May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the Earth.
YER'D: This does not by any means convince me, but I have applied my phonetic system to it anyway. Can someone please try to convince me that this is grammatically correct. Why is it not VE YIRED?
NAHAR: The only river of any significance in Yisra-El is the Yarden, which is actually a rather small stream for the most part, and dies as soon as it enters the Dead Sea. When the Tanach speaks of "the River" it usually means the Perat (Euphrates) - the Nile is always the Ye'or not the Nahar; and probably it means it here metaphorically: if this were an English text, it would name that unimaginable far end of the world as Timbuktu.
72:9 LEPHANAV YICHRE'U TSIYIM VE OYEVAV APHAR YELACHECHU
לְפָנָיו יִכְרְעוּ צִיִּים וְאֹיְבָיו עָפָר יְלַחֵכוּ
KJ: They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.
BN: Let those who dwell in the wilderness bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust.
YICHRE'U: Bow down, which is to say genuflection, whereas YISHTACHAVU in verse 11 is the full prostration.
72:10 MALCHEY TARSHISH VE IYIM MINCHAH YASHIYVU MALCHEY SHEVA U SEVA ESHKAR YAKRIYVU
מַלְכֵי תַרְשִׁישׁ וְאִיִּים מִנְחָה יָשִׁיבוּ מַלְכֵי שְׁבָא וּסְבָא אֶשְׁכָּר יַקְרִיבוּ
KJ: The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
BN: The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall render tribute; {N} the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
TARSHISH: Two options for this, Tartessus in Spain, whither both Yonah and St Paul were sailing when they were hit by storms; this the more likely, because there are multiple isles and islands en route, from the vastness of Cyprus to the small Canaries and Ballearics, whereas Tarsus in Turkey (where St Paul was born) is decidedly inland.
MINCHAH: Is the intention a princely gift, or a sacrifice at the altar? This word is generally reserved for the latter.
SHEVA: A name of some significance in Shelomoh's life; his mother was Bat Shev'a (בַּת־שֶׁ֣בַע- with an Ayin not an Aleph so it is only homophonically connected), and one of his many wives was the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10); her name is spelled with an Aleph, as in this verse, so she could very well be regarded as a "gift" from that particular realm. There is also the village of Be'er Shev'a (Beersheba), which figures significantly throughout the Torah; it too is spelled with an Ayin, and is therefore unconnected, except aurally.
SEVA: For information about this place, click here.
72:11 VA YISHTACHAVU LO CHOL MELACHIM KOL GOYIM YA'AVDUHU
72:11 VA YISHTACHAVU LO CHOL MELACHIM KOL GOYIM YA'AVDUHU
וְיִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לוֹ כָל מְלָכִים כָּל גּוֹיִם יַעַבְדוּהוּ
KJ: Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.
BN: All kings shall prostrate themselves before him; all nations shall serve him.
Which does seem to endorse my suggestion at verse 1 that this might have been a coronation Psalm.
72:12 KI YATSIYL EVYON MESHAVE'A VE ANI VE EYN OZER LO
כִּי יַצִּיל אֶבְיוֹן מְשַׁוֵּעַ וְעָנִי וְאֵין עֹזֵר לוֹ
KJ: For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.
BN: For he will take care of the needy when he cries; the poor also, and he who has no helper.
Do you begin to feel, as this Psalm goes on listing the kingly role, and responsibilities, and duties, that this is, surely, a definition of the Messiah? And so indeed it is, for that was the purpose of the sacred kingship in Yisra-El, the earthly ruler surrogating for the divine. BUT! The earthly king is "anointed", and the verb for that is LEHOSHIYACH. And when he "delivers the needy", as in this verse, the verb used is YATSIYL, not MOSHI'A, which is the role of the deity, not the human. MOSHI'A and MASHIYACH both find themselves translated as Messiah today, but they are very different concepts. See also Psalm 27, which uses both. And then see the next verse, which clearly presents a challenge to my argument.
72:13 YACHOS AL DAL VE EVYON VE NAPHSHOT EVYONIM YOSHI'A
יָחֹס עַל דַּל וְאֶבְיוֹן וְנַפְשׁוֹת אֶבְיוֹנִים יוֹשִׁיעַ
KJ: He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
BN: He will have pity on the poor and needy, and the souls of the needy he will save.
YOSHI'A: And no sooner do we begin to wonder it, than there it is, placed before us like a challenge: leaving open the question: is the modern mis-translation simply a continuation of an ancient ambiguity? I leave this to the theologians, but make one suggestion: that perhaps, because he is surrogating for the deity, there is understood to be an overlap between the two roles, at least inside the human realm (if the king dispenses charity, it is really the king on behalf of the god, who is the true Moshi'a; but the rain that ruined their crop and left them in need of charity, that was purely the deity).
72:14 MI TOCH U ME CHAMAS YIG'AL NAPHSHAM VE YEYKAR DAMAM BE EYNAV
מִתּוֹךְ וּמֵחָמָס יִגְאַל נַפְשָׁם וְיֵיקַר דָּמָם בְּעֵינָיו
KJ: He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
BN: He will redeem their soul from oppression and violence, and their blood will be precious in his eyes...
Nor is it obvious how a human king would be able to do this, unless in his priestly role, through his participation in prayer and sacrifice. Or does redemption in this context simply mean his creation of just codes of law, an effective police and military, even the opening of hospitals?
72:15 VIY'CHI VE YITEN LO MI ZEHAV SHEVA VE YITPALEL BA'ADO TAMID KOL HA YOM YEVARACHENHU
וִיחִי וְיִתֶּן לוֹ מִזְּהַב שְׁבָא וְיִתְפַּלֵּל בַּעֲדוֹ תָמִיד כָּל הַיּוֹם יְבָרֲכֶנְהוּ
KJ: And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.
BN: ... so they may live, and he may give them of the gold of Sheba, {N} that they may pray for him continually, yea, bless him all the day.
VIY'CHI: Need to look at the grammar closely. Is this "he" or "they"?
BA'ADO: Or BA ADO?
YITPALEL: And now go back to my comments at verse 12 and 13, because this appears to be the disconfusion of the bewilderingness. No one prays to a king, a human king, an earthly monarch. And YITPALEL has only one meaning. The Mashiyach and the Moshi'a are being overlapped, and what is being said of the earthly king is really being said of the heavenly. Because any good thing that any human does is really the deity doing it through him or her. So we are anointing Shelomoh, but in so doing we are anointing YHVH (in England the coronation takes place in the same way, "in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord": affirmation of the faith through the Oath of Allegiance to the monarch).
YEVARACHENHU: Need to go over this letter by vowel. If you think you have recognised the Yevarechecha, the great Priestly Blessing, in this word, you are correct. And if that doesn't endorse my paragraph on YITPALEL, then let the theologians explain why not.
ZEHAV SHEVA: Three references in the same Psalm! And he hasn't even met her yet, let alone married her! Which leaves me wondering if she too was not a part of the mythology, a goddess name like Ester, an annual pageant to choose the May-Queen. And as with "Easter" in English, which should be, which used to be, spelled "Oestre", change the spelling so that no one will recall the original when the theology changes.
72:16 YEHI PISAT BAR BA ARETS BE ROSH HARIM YIR'ASH KA LEVANON PIRYO VE YATSIYTSU ME IR KE ESEV HA ARETS
ZEHAV SHEVA: Three references in the same Psalm! And he hasn't even met her yet, let alone married her! Which leaves me wondering if she too was not a part of the mythology, a goddess name like Ester, an annual pageant to choose the May-Queen. And as with "Easter" in English, which should be, which used to be, spelled "Oestre", change the spelling so that no one will recall the original when the theology changes.
72:16 YEHI PISAT BAR BA ARETS BE ROSH HARIM YIR'ASH KA LEVANON PIRYO VE YATSIYTSU ME IR KE ESEV HA ARETS
יְהִי פִסַּת בַּר בָּאָרֶץ בְּרֹאשׁ הָרִים יִרְעַשׁ כַּלְּבָנוֹן פִּרְיוֹ וְיָצִיצוּ מֵעִיר כְּעֵשֶׂב הָאָרֶץ
KJ: There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.
BN: May he be as a rich cornfield in the land upon the top of the mountains; {N} may his fruit rustle like Lebanon; and may they blossom out of the city like grass of the earth.
BE ROSH HARIM: Cornfields on mountaintops do not conform with most of our sense of world geography and climate. But we think of the Himalayas and the Alps when we say "mountains", where the land of Yisra-El may think Chermon, and plan a skiing holiday, or kayaking in the summer, but mostly HARIM are "hills" not "mountains", or "heights" like those of Bashan (the Golan, in today's language), and cornfields will take some cultivation, but in the upper Korazim, north of the Sea of Galilee, there are plenty such today.
The Psalm has moved through several phases, defining both the divine and the earthly roles, rendering them inseparable. In the second section the gods predominate, providing the sun, the moon, the rain, the earth, the means of fertility. In the third section the earthly king, who is the steward of all that, adds Tsedakah, and provides the parallel harmony within human society. Achieving both makes the country feared (respected) because successful; and brings reverence to the gods from within and from without. Now, in this verse, that inseperability is confirmed.
This, I am sorry to tell religious people of our day, is why your religions are rapidly dying out. What is described in this Psalm is the human understanding of the working of the Cosmos, and if this is how the Cosmos works, then we need to create a parallel in our corner of it, so that Harmony - which is the meaning of the Greek word Kosmos - can reign, and rain, and without rein. If humans have moved on to a new understanding of the workings of the Cosmos, then the parallel system is rendered anachronistic and obsolete, and must either adapt to the new epistemology, or, to use the words of a previous Psalm, "be forsaken in its old age".
KA LEVANON: But quite probably pronounced KAL'VANON on this occasion, because the ellipses and ellisions work that way.
KA LEVANON: But quite probably pronounced KAL'VANON on this occasion, because the ellipses and ellisions work that way.
YATSIYTSU: This word needs to be cross-referenced to the relevant Torah passages; here the TSITS are definitely BLOSSOM, not FEATHERS - which affects our understanding of TSITSIS (or TSITSIT if you prefer) massively (a massif being a chain of hills...).
72:17 YEHI SHEMO LE OLAM LIPHNEY SHEMESH YANIN SHEMO VE YITBARCHU VO KOL GOYIM YE'ASHRUHU
יְהִי שְׁמוֹ לְעוֹלָם לִפְנֵי שֶׁמֶשׁ יָנִין שְׁמוֹ וְיִתְבָּרְכוּ בוֹ כָּל גּוֹיִם יְאַשְּׁרוּהוּ
KJ: His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
BN: May his name endure for ever; may his name be continued as long as the sun; {N} may men also bless themselves by him; may all nations call him happy.
And so far has the Mashiyach merged with the Moshi'a in the course of this Psalm, it is no longer possible to determine whether the intention of this verse is Shelomoh, the earthly king, or Elohim, the divine one.
72:18 BARUCH YHVH ELOHIM ELOHEY YISRA-EL OSEH NIPHLA'OT LEVADO
בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עֹשֵׂה נִפְלָאוֹת לְבַדּוֹ
KJ: Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
BN: Blessed be YHVH Elohim, the god of Yisra-El, who only does wondrous things;
This can be found in the liturgy as "Baruch Adonay Le-Olam", after the closing Ashrey of morning prayers. The sequence of Psalms there ends with a blessing, and with a double amen, and is constructed line-by-line from other Psalms:
"Baruch
Adonay
(89:53) - Blessed be YHVH forever."
"Baruch
Adonay mi-Tsi'on (135:21) - Blessed be YHVH from Tsi'on."
“Baruch
Adonay Elohim (72:18-19) - Blessed be YHVH Elohim."
see "A Myrtle Among Reeds" page 141 for a fuller exegesis.
YHVH: Once again YHVH appears as an afterthought in the closing verse, or last two verses on this occasion. Added by the Redactor seven hundred years after they were written? Most probably. In Ezra's time, the supremacy of YHVH was just becoming established, and an opportunity like this one to enhance him could not have been ignored.
2:19 U VARUCH SHEM KEVODO LE OLAM VE YIMAL'E CHEVODO ET KOL HA ARETS AMEN VE AMEN
וּבָרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹדוֹ לְעוֹלָם וְיִמָּלֵא כְבוֹדוֹ אֶת כֹּל הָאָרֶץ אָמֵן וְאָמֵן
KJ: And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.
BN: And blessed be his glorious name for ever; {N} let the whole Earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen.
But no doubt that these last two verses, in spite of their praising of the earthly king, do finally return all power, authority, and especially credit, to the divine king - only when things go wrong is it Man's fault, but never the deity's.
72:20 KALU TEPHILOT DAVID BEN YISHAI
כָּלּוּ תְפִלּוֹת דָּוִד בֶּן יִשָׁי
KJ: The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
BN: The prayers of David ben Yishai are ended. {P}
Which last verse is strange, given that this is titled as a Psalm of Shelomoh (but see my note on that in verse 1); and are there not Psalms later on attributed to David? And if so, why is this here, at number 72?
It all depends on how we understand KALU; a most uncommon verb, though we recognise the very common KOL meaning "all". LESAYEM (לִגמוֹר), LIGMOR (לִגמוֹר), even LEHASHLIYM (לְהַשְׁלִים) or LISGOR (לִסְגוֹר), or LINOL (לִסְגוֹר) for the closing of the gate for the final act of worship on Yom Kippur - any of these, and several more, can be used for closing, winding up, shutting down, ending, finishing... but KALU. I have given all these others in the infinitive, but how you even make an infinitive out of KALU?
Should we then read this differently? "I have said what I have to say (in this Psalm), and that is all." But there will be more, in other Psalms.
Or was it the end of his Psalming because, within days of the co-Regency being established (1 Kings 2:10), the frail King David was dead?
END OF BOOK TWO
Psalms:
Bk 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
Bk 2: 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72
Bk 3: 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
Bk 4: 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106
Bk 5: 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119a 119b 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132
133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
Additional Psalms: 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Samuel Chronicles
Essays: Intro - Music - Form & Language
Copyright
© 2022 David Prashker
All
rights reserved
The
Argaman Press
No comments:
Post a Comment