TheBibleNet: Psalm 126

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

Are they all as short as this one and the previous? (the list, with their lengths, is at the foot of Psalm 120). Does that tell us something about their use and purpose: perhaps equivalents of the way we call-up the Oleh today with a Ya'amod?

Some of the earlier Psalms were "set" in She'ol, and were metaphysical laments about death and darkness and evil et cetera, with David joyful when he was able, so to speak, to cross the river Dis and leave the Inferno for the climb up Mount Purgatorio. These Shirey Ma'alot, on the other hand, may well be making a smilar ascent - to the land, along the hills, up the steps, up the ramp - but they are all decidedly joyful (and no wonder so many Jews are manic depressives: it's in the culture from the very beginnings!)

Of all the Shirey Ma'alot this is probably the best known in the modern liturgy - sung, though only on Shabat and festivals (Psalm 137 on all other occasions) as the introduction to the full bensching, the Grace After Meals which is the Jewish way of giving the provider a tip (the service charge was the sacrificing of the meat and veg before the meal: Grace from the Latin Gratis, meaning "thanks", whence also "gratuity"), and used on its own by those who are doing only the abbreviated bensching.

126:1 SHIR HA MA'ALOT BE SHUV YHVH ET SHIYVAT TSI'ON HAYIYNU KE CHOLMIM

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה אֶת שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים

KJ: (A Song of degrees.) When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.

BN: A Song for the Ascent. {N} When YHVH brought the returnees back to Tsi'on, we were like those who dream.

Depending on how we translate this, the historical reference tells us that this is from either the period just after 722 BCE when Yehudah survived the war of conquest that removed the other tribes from history for ever (unlikely this, but the KJ translation allows it), or - much more likely - from the period after 536 BCE, when the captives returned from Mesopotamia after the defeat of the Babylonians by the Medes; and if that is the case, then it needs to be understood in the context of Psalm 137, which is the first formal statement of Zionism - and note again that it is Psalm 137 which is sung as the introduction to bensching on regular days of the week.

HAYIYNU: Classic Judaic education this: while Black Lives Matter want to tear down the colonial statues, because they remind them of the personal suffering of their ancestors, the Jews have always done the opposite, putting up ever more Holocaust memorials, adding still more commemorative fast days to the almanac, or writing verses like this one into the central liturgy: "When YHVH brought the returnees back..." refers to other people, as "ELEH" (these) at the end of the verse confirms. But the verbal pronoun is not HAYIYTEM - "they"; it is HAYIYNU "we". So, in the Passover liturgy "AVADIM HAYIYNU BE MITSRAYIM" - "we were slaves in Egypt". So we require ourselves to remember the traumas, the personal sufferings of our ancestors, and to identify ourselves with them as though we were there, as though we experienced the trauma personally; and we do so because only through the cathartic reversal of those events can future life be made better.

126:2 AZ YIMAL'E SECHOK PIYNU U LESHONENU RINAH AZ YO'MRU VA GOYIM HIGDIL YHVH LA'ASOT IM ELEH

אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם הִגְדִּיל יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם אֵלֶּה

KJ: Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.

BN: Then our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues sang loud; {N} then they muttered among the nations: "YHVH has done a great thing for these [people]".

RINAH: This even more powerfully takes us back to (or in the book forward to) Psalm 137 - see verse 2 especially: "how can we sing a song of YHVH in a foreign land?", and even more especially verses 5 and 6 "If I forget you, Yeru-Shala'im... let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth". This verse provides the positive catharsis to that trauma.

126:3 HIGDIL YHVH LA'ASOT IMANU CHAYIYNU SEMECHIM

הִגְדִּיל יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים

KJ: The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.

BN: YHVH has done great things for us; now we live in joy.

126:4 SHUVAH YHVH ET SHEVUTENU KA APHIYKIM BA NEGEV

שׁוּבָה יְהוָה אֶת שְׁבוּתֵנוּ כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב

KJ: Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.

BN: Turn our captivity around, YHVH, like the wadis in the Negev.

SHUVAH...SHEVUTENU: A complex play-on-words...

SHEVUTENU: Double-check that, but my musical synapses have SHEVITENU on auto-pilot.

Click here, for Aish, as orthodox and correct as you can get, and they definitely have SHEVITENU; actually, I rather like their translation of verse 4 as well: "Let our captivity, Lord, be a thing of the past, like dried-up streams in the Negev," and have plagiarised the latter part of it for my own. The point about the verse being that the Negev is subject to regular flash-floods - click here - which come in with the storm, and then dry up with the first sunshine because the ground is sand, not mud.

Click here for Sefaria, which has both, SHEVITENU in brackets, acknowledging the problem in so doing.

I suspect that this is another of those occasions where the script of the surviving original manuscript was poor, and telling a Yud (י) from a Vav (ו) was a matter of a pixel.

But what "captivity" is this Psalm now asking to be "turned back"? The Greek conquest, at the time of the first Hasmoneans? The Roman one, when the Hasmoneans had become the monarchy? Either way, this dates the Psalm much later than the return from Babylon; not earlier than the mid 4th century BCE.

126:5 HA ZOR'IM BE DIM'AH BE RINAH YIKTSORU

הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ

KJ: They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

BN: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Yet a third allusion to Psalm 137, and another very positive response: the singing tongue is definitely not cloven to the roof of the mouth, the right hand that wrote these words has fully retained its cunning, and Yeru-Shala'im is not just remembered with joy, but re-built and re-inhabited therewith!

126:6 HALOCH YELECH U VACHO NOS'E MESHECH HA ZARA BO YAVO VE RINAH NOSEH ALUMATAV

הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ וּבָכֹה נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ הַזָּרַע בֹּא יָבוֹא בְרִנָּה נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו

KJ: He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

BN: Though he sets out on his journey heavy-laden, burdened with his bag of seeds, {N} he shall come home rejoiceful, carrying his harvested sheaves. {P}

RINAH: The third time this word has been used in this Psalm, and each time I, like KJ, like every other translation I have looked at, have translated it slightly differently. Click here and you will understand why all three are perfectly correct.

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Psalms:

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