TheBibleNet: Psalm 73

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

BOOK THREE

"The Psalms of the Performers"

My sub-title, and it may be that this should say "The Psalms of the Section Leaders", with Asaph... but I have explained all this in detail in my Introductory essay to these hymns (click here), so I shall not re-explain them here. 73-83 are all attributed to Asaph, 84, 85,87 and 88 to the Beney Korach, with 86 unattributed; 88 is Heman, 89 Eitan.

However, as with the Davidic Psalms, and number 72, which was Solomonic, these are all inscribed "LE", and not "SHEL": "to", not "of"; so it is actually more probable that they are either dedicated in their honour, or simply these have been written for the full orchestra, and therefore Asaph, or for the choir, and therefore the Beney Korach, or a particular section of the orchestra or choir, and therefore Heman and Eitan. We cannot ignore our knowledge of the archive of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: no full scripts were ever handed out to the actors, but only their own lines, and an indication of cues, so when it came to collating the full play for publication years later, actors copies were gathered in, and a final text established from them. But there were diferences. Burbage's copy of the famous Hamlet speech started "To be or not to be, aye there's the rub", where Shakespeare's brother Michael, who took the part with a different company, had the version that was collected in the Folio edition - the Burbage was eventually published in the Quarto edition. Can we then read these "dedications" as nothing more than envelopes? "Copy for the temple archivist (le Asaph)", "copy for Eitan", "copy for the royal chamberlain for His Majesty (le David)", "copy for stage management", "copy for make-up", copy for the orchestra leader (la menatse'ach)? I strongly suspect that we not only can, but should.

And why do we think that this is Book Three anyway? See my response to this question when it was raised for Book Two at Psalm 42.

73:1 MIZMOR LE ASAPH ACH TOV LE YISRA-EL ELOHIM LE VAREY LEVAV

מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף אַךְ טוֹב לְיִשְׂרָאֵל אֱלֹהִים לְבָרֵי לֵבָב

KJ (King James translation): (A Psalm of Asaph.) Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

BN (BibleNet translation): A Psalm for Asaph. {N} Oh but Elohim is good to Yisra-El, to those who are pure in heart.

MIZMOR LE ASAPH is the title, the rest is the opening verse.

As above, is this Asaph, as in the name of a man? And is this dedicated "to" Asaph, that being the title of an official position, possibly the man who "collected" (the root means "collect") all these Psalms, possibly the man who "collected" all the component parts of choir and orchestra together for performance at the liturgical event? Part of the Asaph, the "collection"? A maestro named Rattle or Karajan might well be just a name, but one named John Batonwaver or Carolyn Timekeeper seems a touch less likely.

LE VAREY: Or LEVAREY? It is an odd grammatical construction, employing a plural (VAREY) where no plurality is obvious: so presumably an idiom of the period. See VAR'I in verse 4, which comes with a final Aleph.

From the outset the tone, the language, the very choice of vocabulary, tells us this is a different writer from any we have encountered previously.

73:2 VA ANI KIM'AT NATAVU'I RAGLAI KE AYIN SHUPCHOH ASHURAI

וַאֲנִי כִּמְעַט נָטָוֻי רַגְלָי כְּאַיִן שֻׁפְּכֻה אֲשֻׁרָי

KJ: But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.

BN (provisional translation): But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had very nearly slipped.

NATAVU'I: Much dispute among the scholars as to whether the Vav is pronounced or not; and if not, then is it NATU'I (נטוי) or NATAYU (נָטָ֣יוּ) (click here and/or here for more on this). Most texts offer both, but none offer NATAVU'I, even though that is how it is actually written in the Masoretic (though, as with SHUPHCHUH below, the Masoretic may be the one that has it incorrectly).

SHUPCHOH is my compromise for the Yehudit of the traditional Masoretic text, which is untenable - there can't be a kubutz (the diagonal three dots) before a final Hey (ה); so either there is a cholam (a single dot) above the Chaf (כ), or the Hey should be a Vav (ו). Mechon-Mamre agrees with me, leaving the Hey version unpointed so that it logically reads as in my transliteration, and then offering the bracketed correction, which allows the kubutz before the Vav, and would then give SHUPHCHU (שֻׁפְּכוּ).

That now leaves us needing to look at meanings to determine which is correct, because the root SHAPHACH, means "to pour", and feet may slip when the rain has been pouring, but the feet themselves do not pour. However! In Psalm 22:15, it was precisely "like water" that the writer deemed himself to be "poured out", at least in the KJ translation; Sefaria prefers "My life ebbs away". Job 30:16 likewise employs it as an idiom.

Which then necessitates looking again at ASHURAI, which are indeed steps, but... OSHER, ASHER, ASHERAH... we have explored this particular play on words repeatedly in the earlier Psalms, so no need to do more than state it here.

And then look again at KE AYIN, which doesn't mean "nearly" or "almost", but gets translated that way here for reasons that I cannot explain. AYIN requires three full pages in Gesenius' lexicon, but in brief: "nothing", "emptiness", "vacuity" - much closer to the Sefaria rendition of 22:15.

BN (revised translation): But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; like the nothingness itself, my happiness had drained out of me.

73:3 KI KINE'TI BA HOLELIM SHELOM RESH'AIM ER'EH

כִּי קִנֵּאתִי בַּהוֹלְלִים שְׁלוֹם רְשָׁעִים אֶרְאֶה

KJ: For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

BN: For I was envious of the self-praisers, when I saw how well-off their wickedness had made them.

Even the politics is different: a king would never write this, nor a priest or a prophet, and definitely not a modern politician - but only a commoner.

HOLELIM...SHELOM: Using key positive words from the liturgy, but negativising them; so the translation needs to retain the holiness behind the pun. HOLELIM → HALLAL, SHELOM → SHALOM (and remember that Shalom means "wholeness" before it means "peace" or "hello-goodbye").

73:4 KI EYN CHARTSUBOT LE MOTAM U VAR'I ULAM

כִּי אֵין חַרְצֻבּוֹת לְמוֹתָם וּבָרִיא אוּלָם

KJ: For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.

BN: For they do not suffer when they die, because their bodies remain healthy.

VAR'I: See my note at verse 1, where BAR means "chosen" or "beloved" in Aramaic, whence its use for "son", where Yehudit uses BEN; and also its use for "corn" - the corn-god being the "beloved son" of the sun-god and the moon-goddess. But this is BAR'A with a final Aleph, and it is used to mean "fat", which was regarded as a sign of good health and prosperity in those days; possibly because the root is also one of the "create" verbs of Genesis 1, in this case "carving" or "cutting out". So all the gifts of the fertility gods: lots of children, lots of wives, lots of herds and flocks, abundant vineyards, a Mercedes, and a villa in the south of France.

However, I must beg to disagree with the anti-bourgeois, left-wing Socialist generalisation of the second part of this verse. The rich may (!) have earned their money entirely legitimately, and therefore merit healthy old age and a well-hospiced death in a private medical institution paid for by private medical insurance; and even if they didn't, how many old people, just because they are rich, just because they have private medical insurance, manage to avoid the "pangs" of old age? Very few. Pangs of death are not a matter of wealth or class, though it is true the rich can afford better nursing. Still, one wonders (the polypped tongue pressed not too firmly to the bruised cheek lest the scars from the recent surgery become infected) what the socio-economic conditions were that induced this piece of rhetoric, and how it managed to get Levitical approval for the anthology.

ULAM: One more for my note at verse 3, and of course AYN at the start of this verse, with AYIN in verse 2, needs to be on the list as well. UL really means "strength", but is used for the belly or the abdomen, depending on whether it has run to fat, as here, or remained muscular, as in 2 Kings 24:15. But add the personal pronoun to make it "their" and you are homophoning ULAM with an Ayin, which is "eternity". See verse 12.

73:5 BA AMAL ENOSH EYNEMO VE IM ADAM LO YENUGA'U

בַּעֲמַל אֱנוֹשׁ אֵינֵמוֹ וְעִם אָדָם לֹא יְנֻגָּעוּ

KJ: They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

BN: They are not afflicted by human troubles, nor are they touched by suffering like other men.

YENUGA'U: The verb does indeed mean "to touch", but it used rather more strongly than that in certain contexts; see verse 14 below for its echo here (every key-word at the start of this Psalm will be echoed in a negative-positive word-play in the later verses), but see also Genesis 12:17, Exodus 11:1, many others.

73:6 LACHEN ANAKATMO GA'AVAH YA'ATAPH SHIYT CHAMAS LAMO

לָכֵן עֲנָקַתְמוֹ גַאֲוָה יַעֲטָף שִׁית חָמָס לָמוֹ

KJ: Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.

BN: So pride becomes a chain about their neck; violence covers them like a garment.

Yet the tone, the manner of using these figures of speech, is very much that of the Prophets - though it is also very much that of those banal platitudes the Proverbs too. Pride as a chain about the neck I can understand and accept, but what does it even mean that "violence covers them like a cloak"?

73:7 YATS'A ME CHELEV EYNEMO AVRU MASKIYOT LEVAV

יָצָא מֵחֵלֶב עֵינֵמוֹ עָבְרוּ מַשְׂכִּיּוֹת לֵבָב

KJ: Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.

BN: Their eyes bulge with their own obesity; they have gone beyond the imaginations of their heart.

Or should that be rendered as "their eyes are popping out of their sockets, seeing all the many more things they can acquire to make them even fatter"?

And which is the real sin here: that of the obscenely rich who are self-indulging in enjoyment of their excess wealth, or that of the Psalmist, doing envy at such a rate he could turn this Psalm into a Canto of Dante's Inferno and we might not be able to see the join.

73:8 YAMIYKU VIYDABRU VE RA OSHEK MI MAROM YEDABERU

יָמִיקוּ וִידַבְּרוּ בְרָע עֹשֶׁק מִמָּרוֹם יְדַבֵּרוּ

KJ: They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily.

BN: They scoff, and say only nasty things about other people's troubles; they talk down to everybody.

YAMIYKU: From the root MUK meaning... might this be the original source of "moquer" in French, "mokken" in German... click here? Definitely the source of my response to verse 4.

73:9 SHATU VA SHAMAYIM PIYHEM U LESHONAM TIHALACH BA ARETS

שַׁתּוּ בַשָּׁמַיִם פִּיהֶם וּלְשׁוֹנָם תִּהֲלַךְ בָּאָרֶץ

KJ: They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.

BN: They aim their mouths against the heavens, and send their tongues walking across the Earth.

It seems to me a much richer vocabulary, with a much more sophisticated deployment of the available possibilities of grammar; though I also recommend not using this Psalm in synagogue on the next occasion that a major donations programme is being announced. What traumatic experience induces a man to hate the rich so profoundly he will write a Psalm to purge it?

73:10 LACHEN YASHIV AMO HALOM U MEY MAL'E YIMATSU LAMO

לָכֵן יָשִׁיב עַמּוֹ הֲלֹם וּמֵי מָלֵא יִמָּצוּ לָמוֹ

KJ: Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.

BN: So he takes it out on his people yet again; and every last drop is drained out by them.

HALAM: Yes, there is a HALAM which is used to mean "hither" (Genesis 16:13, Exodus 3:5 et al), but this is not it. This is HALAM as in Judges 5:26, when Ya'el pounded Sis-Ra's head with a hammer; this is HALAM as in Isaiah 41:7, when the blacksmith pummels the anvil. Though whether his pummeling of his people is the sort described in Exodus 2:11, or simply zero-hours contracts and non-disclosure clauses, is not stated specifically here.

MEY MAL'E: Isn't that a lovely metaphor for the consequences of capitalist exploitation! (Sorry I'm back in verse 4 mode and still trying to define YAMIYKU). I like Sefaria's translation of this.

73:11 VE AMRU EYCHAH YADA EL DE'AH VE ELYON

וְאָמְרוּ אֵיכָה יָדַע אֵל וְיֵשׁ דֵּעָה בְעֶלְיוֹן

KJ: And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

BN: And they say: "How does El know? And is El Elyon aware of this?"

A much higher level of intellectual engagement as well. David continuously affirms, he never questions; this questions.

EL...EL ELYON: Not Elohim, nor YHVH. A Kena'ani (Canaanite) hymn, then, "collected" by Asaph, not even adapted, or not up until this point anyway - perhaps later in the Psalm; we shall see. And specifically a hymn of the pre-city that will become Yeru-Shala'im - El Elyon is Malki-Tsedek's deity, the one introduced to Av-Raham after the War of the Kings (Genesis 14:18).

73:12 HINEH ELEH RESHA'IM VE SHALVEY OLAM HISGU CHAYIL

הִנֵּה אֵלֶּה רְשָׁעִים וְשַׁלְוֵי עוֹלָם הִשְׂגּוּ חָיִל

KJ: Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.

BN: Behold, these are the wicked; and they live in a state of permanent tranquility, forever increasing their wealth.

OLAM: Completing the word-play in verse 4.

73:13 ACH RIYK ZIKIYTI LEVAVI VA ERCHATS BE NIKAYON KAPAI

אַךְ רִיק זִכִּיתִי לְבָבִי וָאֶרְחַץ בְּנִקָּיוֹן כַּפָּי

KJ: Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

BN: Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands naively.

ZIKIYTI: Returning to the language of verse 1, but wondering why he has bothered, given that his "clean heart" has not brought him either "tranquility" or "wealth": which is to say, so much for the covenant that we agreed, which stated that I will obey you in all things ("clean heart"), and you will provide the milk and honey.

73:14 VA EHI NAGU'A KOL HA YOM VE TOCHACHTI LA BEKARIM

וָאֱהִי נָגוּעַ כָּל הַיּוֹם וְתוֹכַחְתִּי לַבְּקָרִים

KJ: For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.

BN: For I am plagued all day long, and I wake every morning to still more chastisement.

VA EHI: Using the Vav Consecutive in the first person.

NAGU'A: Plagued by what? How chastised? The answer lies in verse 5, where the same verb is applied rather differently to the objects of his envy.

73:15 IM AMARTI ASAPRAH CHEMO HINEH DOR BANEYCHA VAGADETI

אִם אָמַרְתִּי אֲסַפְּרָה כְמוֹ הִנֵּה דוֹר בָּנֶיךָ בָגָדְתִּי

KJ: If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.

BN : If I were to say: "I will speak thus", guess what, it turns out I have betrayed my children's entire generation.

If you are finding yourself lost with this text, that may be because the Psalmist is too! I read what I am told to read, but the words keep homophoning on me, and turning out to mean something different. Just like he who obeys the moral code given him in Torah, but gets nothing but further plague as a consequence. Why am I bothering to read a text that confuses me in this manner? Why am I bothering to worship a deity who... the author role-modeling his message through the form and language of his text. Cf Borges, Joyce, Faulkner...

IM AMARTI: But this is how it works. You grow up in an epoch that has a Zeitgeist, a set of beliefs and values which are endorsed daily by priests, politicians, the media. So you accept it. Then your children's generation tell you it was all lies and falsehoods, throw every statue of your heroes in the river, Woke and Cancel all your icons, start calling you bad names. And they won't listen when you tell them that their children will do exactly the same thing to them (any more than you did when you rejected what your parents had believed).

73:16 VA ACHASHVAH LADA'AT ZOT AMAL HI VE EYNAI

וָאֲחַשְּׁבָה לָדַעַת זֹאת עָמָל הִיא בְעֵינָי

KJ: When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;

BN: And when I reflected on how I might find a way to understand this, the entire business simply left me more depressed;

Some serious intellectual turmoil going on here, deep questioning, philosophy way more profound than anything in Book Two. This is a Mahler Lied, not a pop song from Fiddler on the Roof. This is Nietzsche and Camus, not Wordsworth and Keats (which is not to insult either Wordsworth or Keats; indeed, it pays a very high compliment to the authors of Book Two, and Fiddler is by far the most musically sophisticated among the musicals).

73:17 AD AVO EL MIKDESHEY EL AVIYNAH LE ACHARIYTAM

עַד אָבוֹא אֶל מִקְדְּשֵׁי אֵל אָבִינָה לְאַחֲרִיתָם

KJ: Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.

BN: Only when I came inside the sanctuary of El did I finally understand their consequences.

EL: Note again who the deities are, or who the deity is on this occasion.

This verse is echoed in Dostoievski's infamous abandonment of philosophy in favour of phantasy: "If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth." Though it is perfectly possible that he was lying when he said that.

73:18 ACH BA CHALAKOT TASHIYT LAMO HIPALTAM LE MASHU'OT

אַךְ בַּחֲלָקוֹת תָּשִׁית לָמוֹ הִפַּלְתָּם לְמַשּׁוּאוֹת

KJ: Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.

BN: Surely you set them on the slippery slope, from which they will be hurled headlong down to bottomless perdition.

HIPALTAM: I rather like my translation, even if it is slightly more than the Yehudit says. But surely this is the source of those great Miltonic lines, at the very opening of "Paradise Lost":

Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

73:19 EYCH HAYU LE SHAMAH CHE RAG'A SAPHU TAMU MIN BALAHOT

אֵיךְ הָיוּ לְשַׁמָּה כְרָגַע סָפוּ תַמּוּ מִן בַּלָּהוֹת

KJ: How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.

BN: How they could be reduced to total desolation in a moment! They live in a state of permanent anxiety.

73:20 KA CHALOM ME HAKIYTS ADONAI BA IR TSALMAH TIVZEH

כַּחֲלוֹם מֵהָקִיץ אֲדֹנָי בָּעִיר צַלְמָם תִּבְזֶה

KJ: As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.

BN: Like a dream from which one wakens, so, my Lord, when you rise in the morning, you will despise what they have become.

KA CHALOM: Dreams being things we have at night, which is the period when there is no sun to turn its face and shine on us and bring us milk and honey, let alone whatever the truth may be (I mentioned Keats before deliberately: his great lie follows Dostoievski's, that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." Ode on a Grecian Urn. As this Psalm makes clear repeatedly, Ugliness is also Truth, and Truth can be very ugly, and that too we need to know if we are to understand this Earth, however depressing it may prove, however much we may despise those who create it.

TSELMAH: Yet one more word for our list. The TSELEM is the "image" and "likeness" in which the deity made Humankind in Genesis 1:27. But EYN LO DEMUT HA GUPH VE EYNO GUPH" as we sing in verse 4 of the Yigdal; Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith turned into song for Friday evening prayers, and it is also Maimonides, in the opening chapter of his "Guide For The Perplexed" (a title that may well be sourced in this very Psalm) who explains that the Jewish deity has no "image" or "likeness", except in the most minimally molecular of senses, that all of us are essence, manifest in our own form, and human beings become what they become, based on the choices that they make of their own accord.

73:21 KI YIT'CHAMETS LEVAVI VE CHILYOTAI ESHTONAN

כִּי יִתְחַמֵּץ לְבָבִי וְכִלְיוֹתַי אֶשְׁתּוֹנָן

KJ: Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.

BN: For my heart was embittered, and I was sick to my stomach.

YIT'CHAMETS: Literally "pickled in vinegar" - see my notes on this word at Psalm 69:22.

CHILYOTAI: The KJ makes it sound like a horse having rider-difficulties! The KELAYOT are the kidneys (there are two, so they are usually rendered in the plural; one kidney would be the KILYAH here, but the Kaf softened to a Chaf because of the Vav prefix).

73:22 VA ANI VA'AR VE LO EDA BEHEMOT HAYITI IMACH

וַאֲנִי בַעַר וְלֹא אֵדָע בְּהֵמוֹת הָיִיתִי עִמָּךְ

KJ: So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.

BN: But I was burned out, and ignorant; I was like the beasts of the field before you.

BA'AR: Yes, "brutish", in Jeremiah 10:8, but there are other usages, and that piece of Jeremiac wood gets burned by one of them in Psalm 83:15, while Job 1:16 does the same to both animals and humans. But see Numbers 11:3, and my note there; and especially Exodus 3:3.

Am I now getting the sense that he is turning all that rant back upon himself, recognising that his unsubstantiated misanthropic generalisations were actually a much bigger sin than anything that might have been true in the accusations he was spitting? And if so - oh good!

BEHEMOT: is technically plural, or a proper noun, but not a singular nominative.

73:23 VA ANI TAMID IMACH ACHAZTA BE YAD YEMIYNI

וַאֲנִי תָמִיד עִמָּךְ אָחַזְתָּ בְּיַד יְמִינִי

KJ: Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.

BN: Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

YAD YEMIYNI: We cannot hear this without also hearing Bin-Yamin, and the place in the heavens where the earth-god sits when he takes his place among the host of the heavens (Colossians 3:1, for example).

73:24 BA ATSAT'CHA TANCHENI VE ACHAR KAVOD TIKACHENI

בַּעֲצָתְךָ תַנְחֵנִי וְאַחַר כָּבוֹד תִּקָּחֵנִי

KJ: Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.

BN: You will guide me with your counsel, and afterwards receive me with honour.

ATSAT'CHA: Not the most common word for "advice" or "counsel" - modern Israelis would probably say CHAVAT DA'AT (חַוַת דַעַת), though there is also TUSHIYAH (תוּשִׁיָה); but ETSAH is logical here, because ETSAH is really the "backbone", and that is precisely what this man with rotten kidneys and a burned-out heart most needs.

73:25 MI LI VA SHAMAYIM VE IMCHA LO CHAPHATSTI VA ARETS

מִי לִי בַשָּׁמָיִם וְעִמְּךָ לֹא חָפַצְתִּי בָאָרֶץ

KJ: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

BN: Who do I have in the heavens if not you? And beside you I desire none on Earth.

So the revolutionary turned into a reformer, and now the reformer has accepted the status quo and turned into a true conservative. How sad!

73:26 KALAH SHE'ERI U LEVAVI TSUR LEVAVI VE CHELKI ELOHIM LE OLAM

כָּלָה שְׁאֵרִי וּלְבָבִי צוּר לְבָבִי וְחֶלְקִי אֱלֹהִים לְעוֹלָם

KJ: My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

BN: My flesh and my heart fail; but Elohim is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever.

As per my note to verse 24.

LE OLAM: Note that "eternity" has been TAMID until now, though OLAM has been hinted (see verse 4).

73:27 KI HINEH RECHEKEYCHA YO'VEDU HITSMATAH KOL ZONEH MIMECHA

כִּי הִנֵּה רְחֵקֶיךָ יֹאבֵדוּ הִצְמַתָּה כָּל זוֹנֶה מִמֶּךָּ

KJ: For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.

BN: For this is how it is: those who stray far from you shall perish; you destroy everyone who goes whoring rather than to you.

And finally, total surrender. How very, very sad! How very, very different from the instructions to the Mashiyach of the previous Psalm: take responsibility and act in the world, to bring Tsedakah. Not in this Psalm. Not in this Psalm.

ZONEH: Whoring after other gods, rather than visiting brothels.

73:28 VA ANI KIRAVAT ELOHIM LI TOV SHATI BA'DONAI YHVH MACHSI LESAPER KOL MAL'ACHOTEYCHA

וַאֲנִי קִרֲבַת אֱלֹהִים לִי טוֹב שַׁתִּי בַּאדֹנָי יְהֹוִה מַחְסִי לְסַפֵּר כָּל מַלְאֲכוֹתֶיךָ

KJ: But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.

BN: But as for me, being close to Elohim does me nothing but good; {N} I have made my Lord YHVH my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. {P}

For the nth time, YHVH sneaks in at the very end and gets a mention. You wouldn't know this little piece of Ezraic (or probably post-Ezraic) editorial from any of the translations.

SurfTheSite

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