TheBibleNet: Psalm 113

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

The 3rd consecutive Psalm to start with Halelu Yah, though on this occasion it is not an acrostical poem, nor is it written in iambic tetrameters. This one provides the first of the Hallel Psalms in today's liturgy (for which see my essay in "A Myrtle Among Reeds"), sung as a special service on Rosh Chodesh, the New Moon - the new moon being the youngest of the three moon-sisters who were known in Arabia before Muhammad as "the daughters of al-Lah", and who we can find in our "fairy tales" and other "Disney-tales" as Cordelia bat Lear, Cinderella, and many others, including the young Mary of the Jesus story. The middle sister is the full moon, the Madonna, pregnant with her completeness as a female deity: the day of her fullness being the 15th of the lunar month, which is written as YAH in Yehudit. The Snow Queen, the wicked step-mother of the Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty tales, is her eldest sister, Hecate, the waning moon.

Here, as in the previous two Psalms, all (well, most of!) this has been absorbed into the male Omnideity in what is obviously a late redaction of the Psalm; nevertheless we can witness its continued presence in the background of the lines, and especially, with this Psalm, recognise that it is precisely the transition from, shall we say, Lot's youngest daughter at Tso'ar in verse 3 to the fertility of Yah in the closing verse, that was being celebrated in the earliest version of this Psalm.

113:1 HALELU YAH HALELU AVDEY YHVH HALELU ET SHEM YHVH

הַלְלוּ יָהּ הַלְלוּ עַבְדֵי יְהוָה הַלְלוּ אֶת שֵׁם יְהוָה

KJ (King James translation): Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.

BN (BibleNet translation): Halelu Yah. {N} Praise those who serve YHVH. Praise the name of YHVH.

I am assuming that the Nun has been placed in the text to indicate that Halelu Yah is either the title, or simpy an opening alarum.

113:2 YEHI SHEM YHVH MEVORACH ME ATAH VE AD OLAM

יְהִי שֵׁם יְהוָה מְבֹרָךְ מֵעַתָּה וְעַד עוֹלָם

KJ: Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

BN: Blessed be YHVH's name from now until eternity.

Once again picking up the concept of time which has been central to each of the last few Psalms. My assumption is that it was a brand-new concept in the world at the time these Psalms were being redacted, and thinkers/writers were starting to explore it. The earliest known speculations on the subject belong to Anaximander, right at the start of the Metaphysical Age (around 560 BCE); he used the word APEIRON, and I find it most amusing, in the light of the variations in these Psalms, that translators today are still debating whether APEIRON means "limitless time", "indefinite time", or, indeed, "infinite time".

113:3 MI MIZRACH SHEMESH AD MEVO'O MEHULAL SHEM YHVH

מִמִּזְרַח שֶׁמֶשׁ עַד מְבוֹאוֹ מְהֻלָּל שֵׁם יְהוָה

KJ: From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name is to be praised.

BN: From the rising of the sun until it sets, let the name YHVH be praised.

Is this the Remembrance Sunday Psalm (I asked the same question at Psalm 50:1)? Lawrence Binyon's "For The Fallen" borrows this line explicitly, and the theme, right from the opening verse, reflects the mother and her beloved offspring which is central to this Psalm. You can read Binyon's poem by clicking here.

The verse leaves open an enormous void of a question: if we are to praise YHVH from sunrise to sunset, who are we to praise by night? The absence of YAH is also very much her presence: Shimshon requires Delilah as sperm requires ovum and summer winter. I wonder if there was originally a parallel verse for her, from the rising of the moon until the coming of the dawn star (Ayelet ha- Shachar, as in Psalm 22 et al).

113:4 RAM AL KOL GOYIM YHVH AL HA SHAMAYIM KEVODO

רָם עַל כָּל גּוֹיִם יְהוָה עַל הַשָּׁמַיִם כְּבוֹדוֹ

KJ: The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.

BN: Greater than any nation is YHVH; his glory is greater even than the heavens.

And if it wasn't already plain and clear that the original of this, before the opening two verses were presumably added, was a hymn, at least in its male part, to the sun-and-sky god, and not yet to an Omnideity, this verse should plainify and clarify beyond doubt.

113:5 MI KA YHVH ELOHEYNU HA MAGBIYHI LASHAVET

מִי כַּיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ הַמַּגְבִּיהִי לָשָׁבֶת

KJ: Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,

BN: Who is like YHVH our god, who is enthroned on high...

But the sun-and-sky god, consorted by the moon-and-earth goddess, and inhabiting the holy mountain Tsi'on, is not the one that the redactor of this Psalm wishes to be praised; he has obviously taken this old hymn, and updated it to the theology of his day, as the great cathedral of Hagia Sofia became a mosque, and the great mosque of Sevilla became a cathedral. The verses that follow will elaborate this.

RAM...MAGBIYHI: Most translators of RAM in the previous verse fail to pick up the connection with MAGBIYHI in this verse. RAM means "great", as in the name of the patriarch Av-Ram, "great father", and is a description of his stature and status. His inhabitation of the heavens is a description of his physical location, and it is only as sun-and-sky god that the deity inhabits the heavens. YHVH as Omnideity lives in his "palace" (HeychaHeychall) on Mount Tsi'on.

113:6 HA MASHPIYLI LIR'OT BA SHAMAYIM U VA ARETS

הַמַּשְׁפִּילִי לִרְאוֹת בַּשָּׁמַיִם וּבָאָרֶץ

KJ: Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

BN: Who stoops low to survey the heavens and the Earth...

MASHPIYLI: I am bemused by the Yud at the end of this word. The root is SHAPHEL, the binyan Hiph'il, the form a participle, the gender masculine; all of which should lead to HA ("the one who") MASHPIYL ("makes himself bend"). The Yud implies a first person possessive suffix - but why, and whose?

The same, I failed to notice it at the time, with MAGBIYHI in verse 5, and MEKIYMI in the coming verse (and LEHOSHIYVI in verse 8, and MOSHIYVI in the verse after that, creating a pattern of first-word rhymes for the final four verses). Perhaps it was just the way they did grammar at that time. Perhaps it was done for the purposes of the music, and grammar set aside because don't you just love those assonances!

113:7 MEKIYMI ME APHAR DAL ME ASHPOT YARIM EVYON

מְקִימִי מֵעָפָר דָּל מֵאַשְׁפֹּת יָרִים אֶבְיוֹן

KJ: He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

BN: Who picks the poor up from the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill...

Though it could also be argued that he is responsible for some of them being poor and endusted, needy and dunghilled, in the first place, even the advocate for that to happen, as in Psalm 109.

113:8 LEHOSHIYVI IM NEDIYVIM IM NEDIVEY AMO

לְהוֹשִׁיבִי עִם נְדִיבִים עִם נְדִיבֵי עַמּוֹ

KJ: That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.

BN: That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people;

I have placed a semi-colon here, rather than three dots, because this is not the end of the sentence, and yet it is. He who... covers verses 5 to 8, and seems to end with "that he may", everything he does leading to this conclusion. But it does not conclude: the next verse adds one more to the verse 5 to 7 list, but with a variant:

113:9 MOSHIYVI AKERET HA BAYIT EM HA BANIM SEMECHAH HALELU YAH

מוֹשִׁיבִי עֲקֶרֶת הַבַּיִת אֵם הַבָּנִים שְׂמֵחָה הַלְלוּ יָהּ

KJ: He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.

BN: Who settles the barren woman in her house as a joyful mother of children. {N} Halelujah. Praise the Lady.

MOSHIYVI: That last line crucial in confirming Yah as female (and explaining why I deliberately chose "the sperm and the ovum" as my image in verse 3).

And also throwing into question the KJ, and everybody else's, translation of Halelu Yah, which is why I have given both the Yehudit and an English rendition in my translation.

But it also confirms the patriarchalisation. YHVH does not make the barren woman conceive - that is Yah's role. YHVH "settles her" in a house with a husband and children - providing, that is to say, the male side of the biological equation.

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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