TheBibleNet: Psalm 130

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

130:1 SHIR HA MA'ALOT MI MA'AMAKIM KERA'TIYCHA YHVH

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת מִמַּעֲמַקִּים קְרָאתִיךָ יְהוָה

KJ: (A Song of degrees.) Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.

BN: A Song for the Ascent. {N} Out of the depths I have called out to you, YHVH.

MA'AMAKIM: De Profundis, when rendered in Latin. The depths, or more precisely "the emptinesses", the depths being Tehom. Either way, we are back inside the Netherworld, where Sha'ul pursued David for so many years; back into the realms of human inwardness, melancholy, depression, on this occasion guilt; so that we can more easily understand the "primitive psychology" (Joseph Campbell's phrase) of the Sha'ul-David tale, like Herakles in his Underworld and Dante in his Inferno, like Eliot pursuing his fleurs du lilac in the mal of The Wasteland, and Whitman planting his leaves of grass down there... poetic metaphors, allegories, analogies. And for the Psalmist too, as we shall witness in this song, "the blood-jet is poetry".

130:2 ADONAI SHIM'AH VE KOLI TIHEYEYNAH AZNEYCHA KASHUVOT LE KOL TACHANUNAI

אֲדֹנָי שִׁמְעָה בְקוֹלִי תִּהְיֶינָה אָזְנֶיךָ קַשֻּׁבוֹת לְקוֹל תַּחֲנוּנָי

KJ: Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

BN: Lord, inspire my voice; {N} let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

ADONAI: The Psalm will alternate between naming him as YHVH, as in verse 1, or ADONAI, as here. Orthodox Jews have a superstition about pronouncing any of the names of the deity, and tend to use ADONAI as a pseudonym. But in a Psalm like this, where the differentiation is made for a reason, they require an alternative pseudonym, and whichever they choose (ELOKIM, HA SHEM...) will superimpose a variant meaning that is not the meaning here.

SHIM'AH VE KOLI: Why "ve koli"? We are accustomed to LISHMO'A in the form of the SHEMA (properly SHEM'A in my transliteration), but this is SHIM'AH with a chirik rather than a sheva; and then made intransitive by the addition of the preposition, VE. SHEM'A KOLI, which we can cite from several places (Psalm 116:1 is the obvious place to look), means "hear my voice". And it is not Pi'el, not Hiphil, not Hitpa'el. But more intensive than merely "hearing" (which is itself already more intensive than merely "listening"). This is almost as though he is asking the deity to get inside the very words he is using to evoke the deity. Be there, even before I call you. Be there, even before I need you. Be there, even before the vein opens to release the blood-jet. I have gone for "inspire", not because it is a word so often [mis-]applied to poetry, but because it contains the same idea of being "inside" the "spirit": the beating pulse, rendered breath if not actually incarnate.

TIHEYENA: Is that from LEHIYOT? If so, it enhances my translation as "inspire" (see my notes to YHVH to understand why)

TACHANUN: See "A Myrtle Among Reeds" for a full account, or here for a quick overview.

130:3 IM AVONOT TISHMAR YAH ADONAI MI YA'AMOD

אִם עֲוֹנוֹת תִּשְׁמָר יָהּ אֲדֹנָי מִי יַעֲמֹד

KJ: If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

BN: If you, YAH ADONAI, were the overseer of sins, who would have the remotest chance of getting away with them?

YAH ADONAI: How absolutely splendid! Those of you who still follow other gods besides the Omnideity YHVH, know that Yah is merely one component part of his uni-versal One-ness and should henceforth be regarded as masculine. As are El and El Elyon and El Shadai and every other deity you have ever followed. YHVH. Only YHVH... so we can easily date this version of this clearly very ancient hymn to a period after the final redaction by Ezra the Scribe; probably the Hasmonean era, when this became the established theology.

130:4 KI IMCHA HA SELIYCHAH LEMA'AN TIVAR'E

כִּי עִמְּךָ הַסְּלִיחָה לְמַעַן תִּוָּרֵא

KJ: But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

BN: Yet with you there is forgiveness, and with this you instil fear.

A system of rewards and punishments, in other words. Milk and honey if you are good. The river Dis if you are not. But on Earth, not in the afterlife, which was simply a grave and decomposition in this epoch.

130:5 KIVIYTI YHVH KIVTAH NAPHSHI VE LIDVARO HOCHALTI

קִוִּיתִי יְהוָה קִוְּתָה נַפְשִׁי וְלִדְבָרוֹ הוֹחָלְתִּי

KJ: I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

BN: I have waited for YHVH; my soul has gone on waiting; and in his word I have placed my hope.

LIDVARO: Yet again that shifting back and forth between direct address (verses 2-4 are in the 2nd person singular) and indirect reference (this verse and the following are in the 3rd person singular).

130:6 NAPHSHI L'ADONAI MI SHOMRIM LA BOKER SHOMRIM LA BOKER

נַפְשִׁי לַאדֹנָי מִשֹּׁמְרִים לַבֹּקֶר שֹׁמְרִים לַבֹּקֶר

KJ: My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

BN: My soul waits for my Lord, more than the morning watchmen watch for the morning.

Not sure why KJ felt the need for those italicised add-ons; the echo walks perfectly well without needing crutches.

130:7 YACHEL YISRA-EL EL YHVH KI IM YHVH HA CHESED VE HARBEH IMO PHEDUT

יַחֵל יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל יְהוָה כִּי עִם יְהוָה הַחֶסֶד וְהַרְבֵּה עִמּוֹ פְדוּת

KJ: Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.

BN: Let Yisra-El place its hope in YHVH, for with YHVH there is loving-kindness, and with him there is a vast store of redemption.

130:8 VE HU YIPHDEH ET YISRA-EL MI KOL AVONOTAV

וְהוּא יִפְדֶּה אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל מִכֹּל עֲוֹנֹתָיו

KJ: And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

BN: And he will redeem Yisra-El from all its iniquities. {P}

Once again 8 verses. Can we again assume that verse 1 is simply the title, and that each of the seven would have been sung en route to the altar?

The great and tragic French composer Lili Boulanger made settings of three of the Psalms, 24, 129 and this one, now regarded as one of her greatest achievements. She translated the opening phrase as "Du Fond de l'Abîme", "from the bottom of the abyss", and used that as her title, setting it for alto, tenor, mixed choir and orchestra. Her first attempt, in 1910, was left unfinished; she returned to it in 1917, and clearly the context of the First World War, coupled with the intestinal tuberculosis that would kill her, at the age of just 24, the following year, were the supreme inspiration. More on it and her here. An absolutely sublime rendering of it here.

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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