TheBibleNet: Psalm 123

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

123:1 SHIR HA MA'ALOT ELEYCHA NASA'TI ET EYNAI HA YOSHVI BA SHAMAYIM

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת אֵלֶיךָ נָשָׂאתִי אֶת עֵינַי הַיֹּשְׁבִי בַּשָּׁמָיִם

KJ: (A Song of degrees.) Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

BN: A Song for the Ascent. {N} To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who are enthroned in the heavens.

YOSHVI: Not the grammar that we would expect - HA YOSHEV would fit that bill for a singular deity, HA YOSHVIM for the plural - but nonetheless a form that we have witnessed several times in the Psalms.

YOSHVI: "enthroned"? which implies a place, indeed a palace, called Heaven. If this were a very old hymn, I would take "YOSHVI BE SHAMAYIM" at its root-value, and have him simply "sit in the skies", which is what the sun does. But these are late Second Temple Psalms, by which time the Omnideity has absorbed the polytheon into the single One, and a residence beyond the visible skies is now being fantasised, as it will continue to be when Christianity comes along a century or so later.

123:2 HINEH CHE EYNEY AVADIM EL YAD ADONEYHEM KE EYNEY SHIPHCHAH EL YAD GEVIRTAH KEN EYNEYNU EL YHVH ELOHEYNU AD SHE YECHANENU

הִנֵּה כְעֵינֵי עֲבָדִים אֶל יַד אֲדוֹנֵיהֶם כְּעֵינֵי שִׁפְחָה אֶל יַד גְּבִרְתָּהּ כֵּן עֵינֵינוּ אֶל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ עַד שֶׁיְּחָנֵּנוּ

KJ: Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

BN: Behold, like the eyes of servants on the hand of their masters, {N} like the eyes of a maidservant on the hand of her mistress; {N} so our eyes look to YHVH our god, until he is gracious to us.

ADONEYHEM: Plural. The singular would be ADONAM. Which, in English,would require YAD to be plural as well, which is problematic, because it ambiguises the word: one hand or two for each master? Clearly only one, in the Yehudit.

The masculine-feminine phrasing of this, where only one of the two is necessary to make the point, and employing both makes for a long and unwieldy verse, alerts me to the likely previous version of this, in which the masculine was for the male deity in the heavens, and the feminine for his consort, the moon-and-fertility goddess: a petition to both. So yes, as in my previous note, this is a very late Psalm, but probably only as a Redaction of a much older one.

123:3 CHANENU YHVH CHANENU KI RAV SAVA'NU VUZ

חָנֵּנוּ יְהוָה חָנֵּנוּ כִּי רַב שָׂבַעְנוּ בוּז

KJ: Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

BN: Be gracious to us, YHVH, be gracious to us; for we are full sated with contempt.

SAVA'NU VUZ: i am not at all happy with this translation - need to do some lexicography. And if it is correct, why this statement? Is Vuz connected with BUZ, who was a son of Nachor?

SAVA'NU: From the root SAV'A, "to be satisfied" - for which see Exodus 16 vv 8 and 12, Deuteronomy 6:11... but Sheens and Seens unpointed are always an invitation to a word-game, and never more so than with this combination of letters. We saw it in a different form in the previous Psalm (122:3 and 4) where it was SHEVA (שבע) meaning "seven"; but there is also BE'ER SHEVA (באר שבע), "the well of the oath", and King David's wife BAT SHEVA (בַּת שֶֿׁ֫בַע), who mothered King Shelomoh; and by yet another variant, the Queen of Sheba (שְׁבָא), who became one of Shelomoh's wives.

VUZ: See the link.

123:4 RABAT SAV'AH LAH NAPHSHENU HA LA'AG HA SHA'ANANIM HA BUZ LIG'EYONIM

רַבַּת שָׂבְעָה לָּהּ נַפְשֵׁנוּ הַלַּעַג הַשַּׁאֲנַנִּים הַבּוּז לִגְאֵיוֹנִים

KJ: Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

BN: Our soul is full sated {N} with the scorn of those who are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud oppressors. {P}

Why is the Nun break in mid-verse, rather than at the end?

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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