TheBibleNet: Psalm 90

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

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Additional Psalms: 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Samuel Chronicles

Essays: Intro - Music - Form & Language

Book Four; this section runs from Psalm 90 to Psalm 106. Rather than repeat what was a lengthy introduction, see my note under "Book Two" at the opening of Psalm 42 (or see my note under "Book Three" at the opening of Psalm 73). The only difference here is the naming of the book, if we decide that there should be one: I am inclined to go for "The Book of the Crowning of the Omnideity", and it will become obvious why as we go through the seventeen Psalms.

90:1 TEPHILAH LE MOSHEH ISH HA ELOHIM ADONAI MA'ON ATAH HAYITA LANU BE DOR VA DOR

תְּפִלָּה לְמֹשֶׁה אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים אֲדֹנָי מָעוֹן אַתָּה הָיִיתָ לָּנוּ בְּדֹר וָדֹר

KJ (King James translation): (A Prayer of Moses the man of God.) Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

BN (BibleNet translation): A Prayer for Mosheh, man of Elohim. {N} Lord, you have been our explanation of the workings of the Cosmos throughout every generation.

Is the belief that this was actually written by Mosheh, in Yehudit, or is that merely a literary conceit? Does it have an echo in Torah? Would Mosheh have regarded himself as an ISH HA ELOHIM, or as a follower of EL (see verse 2), rather than an ISH YHVH? What we can take as a certainty is that the Mosheh of the four books of Torah in which he appears had no knowledge whatsoever of the language that we now call Ivrit, which the authors of the Bible called Yehudit - brought up, according to those books, as a prince in the palace of the Pharaoh, he would have spoken Mitsri (Egyptian) as a young man, a language entirely different from the common Amorite-Hittite languages of Kena'an and the lands to the east. The Habiru whom he led out of "bondage" may have spoken an ancient form of that language, though the evidence of Africans taken to the New World as slaves (and their period of slavery was slightly shorter than that of the Beney Yisra-El in Egypt), was that deracination stripped them of their language, their culture, their religion, within two generations, leaving a residue of folk-lore that was little more than dance and melodies, alongside some of the more obscure cultic practices retained in secret among the priesthood, of which the Voodoo cults of Haiti are the best known. The disappearance (usually by suppression) of Celtic culture and language in Britain under the Anglo-Saxons and Normans tells the same story, as do countless other examples around the world.

So a Psalm written by Mosheh, like all the words attributed to him, would have been in Mitsri, and written using hieroglyphs, and not the 5th century BCE Yehudit of the Bible. Much more likely this is a later hymn, honouring Mosheh, in his name as a literary convention, just as most of the Davidic and Solomonic were not written by them, but in their name. The "Book of Splendour" of Moses de Léon, written around 1280 but "attributed" to Shimon bar Yochai, follows the same literary tradition, as did several of the "Lost Gospels", "attributed" to Thomas or Nicodemus et cetera (click here).

TEPHILAH: In what way is a "prayer" different from a Mizmor, a Shir, a Maskil, et al? The root is PALAL, which really has to do with "judging"; which renders LEHITPALEL, the normal word used for the act of prayer in a synagogue today, as "self-judging", LEHITPALEL being the "reflective" form of the verb (and no, on reflection, that is not me playing word-games).

MA'ON: Were you taken by surprise by my translation? Yes, a MA'ON may well be the god's dwelling-place, in certain specific contexts (Deuteronomy 26:15 finds him in the metaphorical heavens, 1 Samuel 2:32 locates him among the delusions of the human psyche), but the root gives LA'ANOT = "to answer", and here in the intensive form, the Pi'el.

90:2 BE TEREM HARIM YULADU VA TECHOLEL ERETS VE TEVEL U ME OLAM AD OLAM ATAH EL

בְּטֶרֶם הָרִים יֻלָּדוּ וַתְּחוֹלֵל אֶרֶץ וְתֵבֵל וּמֵעוֹלָם עַד עוֹלָם אַתָּה אֵל

KJ: Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

BN: Before the mountains were established, even before you formed the Earth and the Cosmos, {N} from infinity to infinity, you are El.

EL: Would Mosheh have referred to the deity as EL?

TEVEL: Interesting concepts, Cosmos and infinity. They are obviously anachronisms in my translation, but yet; cf Job 37:12, Proverbs 8:31, Isaiah 14:17... ... and I wonder if this doesn't give us the source of both Tuval and Yaval... ancient Titans connected with Creation.

ME OLAM AD OLAM: Mirroring BE DOR VA DOR in the previous verse.

90:3 TASHEV ENOSH AD DAK'A VA TO'MER SHUVU VENEY ADAM

תָּשֵׁב אֱנוֹשׁ עַד דַּכָּא וַתֹּאמֶר שׁוּבוּ בְנֵי אָדָם

KJ: Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

BN: You reduce Humankind to tiny pieces, and say: Return, you sons of Adam.

ENOSH...VENEY ADAM: Unusual to see these two ways of describing Humankind in the same sentence. See my previous notes as well as the links here.

DAK'A: DACH means "crushed", which spiritually may lead to "contrition", which is how several translators render it here; but this is a continuation of the complaint in the last Psalm: you make us old, and sick, and send all manner of TSURES to afflict our lives, and then you expect us to say thank you and get on with it...

90:4 KI ELEPH SHANIM BE EYNEYCHA KE YOM ETMOL KI YA'AVOR VE ASHMURAH VA LAILAH

כִּי אֶלֶף שָׁנִים בְּעֵינֶיךָ כְּיוֹם אֶתְמוֹל כִּי יַעֲבֹר וְאַשְׁמוּרָה בַלָּיְלָה

KJ: For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

BN: For a thousand years in your eyes are just the day before yesterday when it has passed, {N} a mere watchman in the night.

If this is to be credible as something written by Mosheh himself, there needs to be something in the choice of vocabulary, in the underpinning conceits and ideas, that we can identify with other literary pieces attributed to him: the Song at the Reed Sea for example (Exodus 15), or the great sermon at the end of Deuteronomy. Thus far I am unable to identify anything at all. Indeed, the opposite; everything seems philosophical to a point way beyond Mosheh's experience, education or intellect.

VE ASHMURAH VA LAILAH: We would say "a mere drop in the ocean" - and actually that would be a much more apposite phrase, given that this is the primordial ocean, the elemental waters of the entire Cosmos...

90:5 ZERAMTAM SHENAH YIHEYU BA BOKER KE CHATSIR YACHALOPH

זְרַמְתָּם שֵׁנָה יִהְיוּ בַּבֹּקֶר כֶּחָצִיר יַחֲלֹף

KJ: Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

BN: You pour them away like sleep; in the morning they are like faded grass.

Images of time passing, things coming to nothing.

90:6 BA BOKER YATSITS VE CHALAPH LA EREV YEMOLEL VE YAVESH

בַּבֹּקֶר יָצִיץ וְחָלָף לָעֶרֶב יְמוֹלֵל וְיָבֵשׁ

KJ: In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

BN: In the morning it flourishes, and grows; in the evening it is cut down, and dries out.

YAVESH: It can't wither if it has been cut down; it has to be on the stalk to wither. Once cut down it dries.

But note that all the images, thus far, have been Nature-related, not abstract. The imagery, that is to say, of the mythological epoch, the time of the fertility cult, and not that of the metaphysical epoch, when paradigms and concepts replace fertility at the core of religion (circa 6th century BCE).

90:7 KI CHALIYNU VE APECHA U VA CHAMAT'CHA NIVHALNU

כִּי כָלִינוּ בְאַפֶּךָ וּבַחֲמָתְךָ נִבְהָלְנוּ

KJ: For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

BN: For we are brought to an end by your anger, and left terrified by your wrath.

90:8 SHAT AVONOTEYNU LE NEGDECHA ALUMENU LIM'OR PANEYCHA

שַׁתָּ עֲוֹנֹתֵינוּ לְנֶגְדֶּךָ עֲלֻמֵנוּ לִמְאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ

KJ: Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

BN: You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

LIM'OR : Or LI ME'OR? Whereas this is a very metaphysical paradigm of sin, symptom of an epoch at least thousand years after Mosheh.

LIM'OR PANEYCHA: Right there where everyone can see them, in the "full face of the sun".

90:9 KI CHOL YAMEYNU PANU VE EVRATECHA KILIYNU SHANEYNU CHEMO HEGEH

כִּי כָל יָמֵינוּ פָּנוּ בְעֶבְרָתֶךָ כִּלִּינוּ שָׁנֵינוּ כְמוֹ הֶגֶה

KJ: For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

BN: For all our days are spent dealing with your wrath; we bring our years to an end as a tale with a miserable ending.

PANU: Word-playing with PANEYCHA in the previous verse.

HEGEH: "Rumbling" and "grumbling" and "muttering" and "murmuring" (Isaiah 31:4, Job 37:2, Jeremiah 48:31), though we have also seen it as the sound made by a harp when it is plucked (Psalms 9:17 and 92:4), and the authors of both the previous two Psalms were harpists. Generally the Psalms use it for "meditating" (which more often than not is a grumble and a mutter) - cf 1:2, 63:7, also Joshua 1:8). Two other usages need mentioning. First, Psalm 2:1: "Why do the nations come together to plot bad things?" Second, Isaiah 8:19, in which the murmuring is very much necromancers calling up the spirits of the dead.

90:10 YEMEY SHENOTEYNU VAHEM SHIV'IM SHANAH VE IM BIGVUROT SHEMONIM SHANAH VE RAHBAM AMAL VA AVEN KI GAZ CHIYSH VA NA'UPHAH

יְמֵי שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן כִּי גָז חִישׁ וַנָּעֻפָה

KJ: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

BN: The days of our years are threescore years and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore years; {N} yet their only boast is hard work and suffering; {N} and then it's done, and off we fly.

VAHEM: How do we translate this?

SEVENTY/EIGHTY: I have a note about this somewhere else in the Tanach where it occurred; need to cross-reference that one with this one only I can't remember where it is. But isn't it interesting, when you actually read the text, to discover that some of the great clichés of the Bible are not actually correct! "Pride goeth before a fall..." Nope, not correct. "A virgin shall conceive..." Nope, not correct. "Maximum life expectancy is three score years and ten..." Nope, not correct. It is actually eighty.

RAHBAM: The root is RAHAV, whic can mean "pride", but is usually stronger than that: "boasting", or even "bullying" in Isaiah 3:5. Nor can we ignore that most proud and boastful of all deities - RAHAV in Egyptian, usually RACHAV, the Prince of the Sea, in the Yehudit texts.

NA'UPHAH: From the root "OV", pronounced "OFF", whence my dreadful pun.

90:11 MI YODE'A OZ APECHA U CHE YIR'AT'CHA EVRATECHA

מִי יוֹדֵעַ עֹז אַפֶּךָ וּכְיִרְאָתְךָ עֶבְרָתֶךָ

KJ: Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

BN: Who knows the power of your anger? And your wrath is precisely relative to our fear of it.

U CHE YIR'AT'CHA EVRATECHA: Which is really a very modern psychological insight, or at the very least belongs to the metaphysical not the mythological epoch. The deity is angry with us for our sins; but the deity is a metaphor; so really it is the extent of our guilt that determines the anger of the deity. Freud and Rogers would have no problem with the paradigm.

Can we now begin to regard this as a Psalm written post 6th century BCE, but looking back at the Mosaic age, and seeking to capture some at least of its world-view?

90:12 LIMNOT YAMEYNU KEN HODA VE NAV'I LEVAV CHACHMAH

לִמְנוֹת יָמֵינוּ כֵּן הוֹדַע וְנָבִא לְבַב חָכְמָה

KJ: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

BN (literal translation): To number our days, so that we may know, and our hearts can be brought to wisdom...

KEN: Belongs with HODA, not with LIMNOT, but most translators move it to LIMNOT because there seems to be a need for another word there - and most translators add one or two, to resolve the problem. KEN is correctly translated as "that we may", so perhaps there should have been a second KEN. My sense is that the sentence is incomplete, and depends on the opening of the next verse to become grammatical.

NAV'I: The root of the root is BO, which means "to come", but here it is in the Huph'al, the passive-causative form, LEHAV'I, which means "to bring" (to make something or someone come). Which of course then plays a rather better word-game than my "flying off" earlier, because a person who has truly been brought to wisdom is a NAV'I, a seer or Prophet (cf Exodus 7:1) - though that comes from an entirely different root, the Chaldean NABU.

90:13 SHUVAH YHVH AD MATAI VE HINACHEM AL AVADEYCHA

שׁוּבָה יְהוָה עַד מָתָי וְהִנָּחֵם עַל עֲבָדֶיךָ

KJ: Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

BN: ...turn again, YHVH. Until when? And be comforted about your servants.

SHUVAH: Could be a physical turning, but usually the concept is spiritual. So a Ba'al Teshuvah is a person returning to religious observance after a period of lapse.

AD MATAI: This time it is the Yesha-Yah (Isaiah) quote (6:11) - must be the fourth time at least that this has come up. Though what exactly it is meant to mean here is open to an ambiguity of interpretations.

90:14 SAB'ENU VA BOKER CHASDECHA U NERANENAH VE NISMECHAH BE CHOL YAMEYNU

שַׂבְּעֵנוּ בַבֹּקֶר חַסְדֶּךָ וּנְרַנְּנָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בְּכָל יָמֵינוּ

KJ: O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

BN: Satisfy us with your lovingkindness in the morning, so that we may may spend the rest of the day dancing and rejoicing.

NERANANA VE NISMECHAH: Not used in liturgy, though it is used in synagogue; the distinction being the festival party after the service of worship. HAVA NAGILAH - click here to hear it (this version starts very slowly).

90:15 SAMCHENU KIYMOT INIYTANU SHENOT RA'IYNU RA'AH

שַׂמְּחֵנוּ כִּימוֹת עִנִּיתָנוּ שְׁנוֹת רָאִינוּ רָעָה

KJ: Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

BN: Make us glad in proportion to the days on which you have made us suffer, in proportion to the years in which we have witnessed evil.

90:16 YERA'EH EL AVADEYCHA PHA'ALECHA VA HADARCHA AL BENEYHEM

יֵרָאֶה אֶל עֲבָדֶיךָ פָעֳלֶךָ וַהֲדָרְךָ עַל בְּנֵיהֶם

KJ: Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.

BN: Let your work be made visible to your worshippers, and your glory to their children.

AVADEYCHA...PHA'ALECHA: I think this may be the only occasion in the Tanach when these two words, so similar yet so contradictory, are used in the same sentence.

HADAR: The word appears twice in Daniel 4 (verses 31 and 34), and is generally translated as "honour", though "honour" is the common translation of KAVOD (כָּבוֹד); ibid for Psalm 149:9. Elsewhere it means an ornament or decoration, some kind of jewelery (Psalm 45:4 and 96:6, Ezekiel 16:14 et al), whence its metaphorical usage as the "majesty" of the deity (Psalm 29:4 and 104:1, Job 40:10). But actually the root takes us back to the sacred number seven, because the real "glory" of the male deity, his true "majesty", lies in his machismo, his ability to fecundate the universe - and the root of HADAR means precisely that: tumescence, something that is large, swollen, hard, which of course (see Isaiah 45:2) is a description of his holy mountain, with its rocky summit (which takes us back in a neat circle to verse 2, and makes this Psalm, as the next verse will endorse, "complete").

90:17 VIYHI NO'AM ADONAI ELOHEYNU ALEYNU U MA'ASEH YADEYNU KONENAH ALEYNU U MA'ASEH YADEYNU KONENEHU

וִיהִי נֹעַם אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהֵינוּ עָלֵינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ כּוֹנְנָה עָלֵינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ כּוֹנְנֵהוּ

KJ: And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

BN: And let the pleasantness of my Lord Elohim be upon us; {N} Complete the work of our hands; yea, let the work of our hands be made complete. {P}

ELOHIM: Not YHVH; we are still with the polytheon.

The ending of this verse using repetition with slight variation to create a form of refrain; confirming that this would have been sung, even though, for the most part, it has come across as rather prosaic. Perhaps only the last part was sung.

KONENAH: And also making another kind of completion, with AVADEYCHA... PHA'ALECHA for the deity's handiwork in verse 16, and this complementing it for the human.

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Psalms:

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