TheBibleNet: Psalm 144

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

No title, so we cannot know if this was a private poem, a formal Lied, the libretto for a scene in a liturgical drama, the lyric for an accoustically accompanied song, an oratorio for full choir and orchestra... verse 9 does indeed tell us, but see my note there, because I also believe that verse 9 marks a significant musical change in the piece, so we still do not know what was the case for the first 8 verses.

Some scholars reckon that this was in fact an amalgamation of what were originally two quite separate Psalms; but they make the join at verse 12, rather than with the musical break at verse 9.

144:1 LE DAVID BARUCH YHVH TSURI HA MELAMED YADAI LAKRAV ETSBE'OTAI LA MILCHAMAH

לְדָוִד בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה צוּרִי הַמְלַמֵּד יָדַי לַקְרָב אֶצְבְּעוֹתַי לַמִּלְחָמָה

KJ: (A Psalm of David.) Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:

BN: For David. Blessed be YHVH my rock, who trains my hands for struggle, {N} my fingers for war.

LE DAVID: For David, not by him: see my note to verse 10.

TSURI: Do we need to draw a distinction between TSUR and SELA? Remember that the same root which yields TSUR as a "rock" also yields TSAROT as "distress", while SELA - see several previous Psalms...

LAKRAV...MILCHAMAH: Mistranslations! the latter is war, the former is the equaivalent of Kampf or Jihad - the wrestling-match at Penu-El: "struggle" comes much closer.

YADAI...ETSBE'OTAI: And do we ask if these are the left or the right hand? And if the right hand, as per verses 8 and 11, or `as per our normal understanding of this word, the BIN-YAMIN? The same fingers, of course, are equally expert at playing the harp as an accompaniment to Psalms like this one - see verse 9!

144:2 CHASDI U METSUDATI MISGABI U MEPHALTI LI MAGINI U VO CHASIYTI HA RODED AMI TACHTAI

חַסְדִּי וּמְצוּדָתִי מִשְׂגַּבִּי וּמְפַלְטִי לִי מָגִנִּי וּבוֹ חָסִיתִי הָרוֹדֵד עַמִּי תַחְתָּי

KJ: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.

BN: My lovingkindness, and my fortress, my high tower, and my deliverer; {N} my shield, and he in whom I take refuge; who teaches my people to serve me.

11 words in the text of this verse, the first six (I have separated the conjunctions, but they are prefixed in the Yehudit) all having the same personal possessive ending and therefore the same sound. The eighth and tenth ditto. The final word as well, for the possessive anyway, though the Masoretic pointing renders the pronunciation very slightly different. Grammatically the Masoretes are wrong, it should be TACHTI, but perhaps they knew, or assumed, that the difference was there for musical reasons, to bring the verse to an unrhymed conclusion. Either way, how would you orchestrate such a verse?

MISGABI: Why has a dagesh been inserted into the Bet-Vet here? It should be MISGAVI.

MAGINI: A shield in a Psalm dedicated to David! This needs the full horoscopal explanation! (In brief, the star is Vega in Lyra - I have written about it elsewhere in these commentaries.)

I am wondering about all of these images: as we follow the tale in the Book of Shemu-El, shrine by shrine: Mitspeh, Gil-Gal, Giv'ah, Ophel, etc, these figures of speech become transformed into physical locations: is this another example of the parallel mapping of the heavens in the geography on Earth? If yes, how does it compare with the Greek amphictyonic version - Sparta, Corinth, Knossos, Delphi, (Athens) etc?

RODED: "Teaches my people to serve me"? Add this to our list of double-letter roots. I begin to wonder if it wasn't some sort of private game, played by the members of the writing fraternity responsible for the Psalms, or even a rubric in the curriculum, in the same way that an Italian Sonnet must have three conceits and a Haiku thirteen syllables. So, young apprentice Psalmist, make sure you find and include at least one double-letter root in your exam-Psalm (plus two echo lines, one parallelism, a musical hiatus and a caesura).

144:3 YHVH MAH ADAM VA TEDA'EHU BEN ENOSH VA TECHASHVEHU

יְהוָה מָה אָדָם וַתֵּדָעֵהוּ בֶּן אֱנוֹשׁ וַתְּחַשְּׁבֵהוּ

KJ: LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!

BN: YHVH, what is Man, that you scrutinise him? Or the Human race, that you take account of it?

Is this first occasion when the variation ADAM-ISH is altered to the variation ADAM-ENOSH? I think it is: need to check.

TEDA'EHU: Pi'el (intensive) form? Never seen that before either, for YAD'A (knowledge). I originally translated it as "study", because that seemed to me the way that intensive knowledge is best achieved. But I can't really imagine the deity undertaking "study" in the taxonomic manner - metaphors for essence simply don't have the physical means! But "scrutinise" allows Vidu'i and Tachanun and Selichot and Kaparah...

TECHASHVEHU: A CHESHBON is an account, as in a bar-tab or a bank deposit, but it is also a "reckoning" in the sense of passing judgement; so both go with the consequences of "scrutinise". The Yehudit includes both interpretations, the English alas does not.

144:4 ADAM LA HEVEL DAMAH YAMAV KE TSEL OVER

אָדָם לַהֶבֶל דָּמָה יָמָיו כְּצֵל עוֹבֵר

KJ: Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.

BN: Man is a breath, his days a shadow, that passes.

ADAM LA HEVEL: Wow! I've never noticed that before. From Adam to Enosh, and then to HEVEL, too close to HAVEL to be coincidence. And especially with the reference to DAM immediately after, as though KAYIN were hovering in the shadows which just happen to be mentioned next. Nothing to do with the actual meaning of the verse, but it is there nonetheless, likewise hovering in the shadows of the poetry. Who of the moderns could pull off a word-play of that brilliance? Joyce, Nabokov, Borges, not many. (And no, it doesn't extend to Enoch, except in the English, though I'd bet it would have done if it could have done; in Yehudit Enoch is Chanoch.)

Compare this verse with Ecclesiastes 1.

OVER: There is only one verb in this sentence, so it must apply to both parts. And yes, this time the word-play does extend, because the Humans in central question here are the Beney Yisra-Elim, and OVER is the root that is never spoken, the H-word, HABIRU, or Hebrews.

144:5 YHVH HAT SHAMEYCHA VE TERED GA BE HARIM VE YE'ESHANU

יְהוָה הַט שָׁמֶיךָ וְתֵרֵד גַּע בֶּהָרִים וְיֶעֱשָׁנוּ

KJ: Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.

BN: Take a break from the heavens, YHVH, and come down; touch the mountains, that they may smoke.

HAT: From the root NATAH, which has many usages: for a list of them, click here. My translation is way too colloquial, I know - but how else can you convey what this intends?

SHAMEYCHA: Is really an abbreviation of SHAMAYEYCHA (double yud - שָׁמייךָ- SHAMAYIM SHELCHA in full); what are being described here are the water (rain, cloud, elements) in the sky, rather than the sky (heavens) itself.

But more importantly, what is being invoked is the deity of Mosheh; not the sun-and-sky god at all, but the original YHVH of the Sinai desert, and it confirms once more that the reason why Mosheh took his people to the mountain was to witness the "miracle" of the volcanic eruption, the "pillar of fire by night and the pillar of smoke by day" (Exodus 13), whose aftershocks were the earthquake that killed Korach and the other rebels, whose side-effect was the white powder falling back to earth upon human flesh, burning it, whitening it, making it look like leprosy (Numbers 12 ff).

There is ironical paradox in this verse too, because in the Davidic era YHVH did not live in the heavens, but had his temporary dwelling in the Mishkan, which was held at Shiloh, or Kiryat Ye'arim, depending on which point of the Davidic reign this belongs to, and who would then have his permanent dwelling in the Temple on Mount Tsi'on in Yeru-Shala'im. Only much later on did he take over the role of the sun-god and the other cosmic gods and goddesses, and "remove" metaphorically to the skies. And indeed, in the next verse, we will witness his having done this; assuming there the role of the storm-god. So we can date this Psalm.

144:6 BEROK BARAK U TEPHIYTSEM SHELACH CHITSEYCHA U TEHUMEM

בְּרוֹק בָּרָק וּתְפִיצֵם שְׁלַח חִצֶּיךָ וּתְהֻמֵּם

KJ: Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.

BN: Lash them with lightning, and scatter them; send out your arrows, and shatter them.

BEROK...BARAK: The poet who wrote this can't stop playing word-games (I might have phrased that better as "the love of word-games is buzzing constantly in the poet's head like a swarm of bees" - for an explanation of which click here)! (And are we seeing both Shelach, the pool, and Tehom, the sea-monster... or are they, on this occasion, just plain words? The next verse seems to suggest it is deliberate.)

TEPHIYTSEM... TEHUMEM: internal rhyme, split around an alexandrine with an exactly even hiatus (8-9 technically but the extra syllable is the conjunction, so it nullifies: standard practice). I have attempted to do the same in the English.

144:7 SHELACH YADEYCHA MI MAROM PETSENI VE HATSIYLENI MI MAYIM RABIM MI YAD BENEY NECHAR

שְׁלַח יָדֶיךָ מִמָּרוֹם פְּצֵנִי וְהַצִּילֵנִי מִמַּיִם רַבִּים מִיַּד בְּנֵי נֵכָר

KJ: Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of strange children;

BN: Stretch out your hands from on high; rescue me, and deliver me from the swirling waters, out of the hand of strangers...

SHELACH YADEYCHA: Anadiplosis (repetition of key words from previous verses); but the Yad is not simply a repetition: the owner of the hand is different; and see verses 8 and 11.

HATSIYLENI ... MI MAYIM: ditto. One of the great oddities of Jewish history, from the docking of what was anyway a non-Jewish ark on Mount Ararat, until the establishment of the Zim line in modern Israel, is that Jews and the sea just do not go together, and this despite Yisra-El occupying the eastern terminus of the Mediterranean Ocean, from where the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, conducted most of the world's trade for three milennia. But not the Beney Yisra-El, who stayed on dry land, and generally kept their sandals on when doing Yevarechecha on the beach. Distant comments about sea-monsters (Yonah, Liv-Yatan et al), linked with the creation of the world, but no sea-stories, not even when they were dragged away as slaves on merchant galleys to mine lead in Hyperborea.

The act of "stretching forth the hand" is of course precisely what Mosheh and Aharon did repeatedly in Mitsrayim, at the Sea of Reeds (for which see my notes in Exodus 14), at Merivah, and elsewhere, sometimes with their staff, sometimes just their hands.

BENEY NACHAR: "The sons of foreigners", which is to say "followers of different", which is to say "followers of false" deities; not "strange children"! As confirmed by the verse that follows.

144:8 ASHER PIYHEM DIBER SHAV VIYMIYNAM YEMIN SHAKER

אֲשֶׁר פִּיהֶם דִּבֶּר שָׁוְא וִימִינָם יְמִין שָׁקֶר

KJ: Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

BN: Whose mouths speak vacuities, and whose right hand is a right hand of deceit.

SHAV: KJ translates this as "vanity", but it also translated HEVEL in verse 4 as "vanity"; the two words are different, so the translation needs to be nuanced likewise. I am not convinced by "falsehoods" either, which many translations use, because it is too close to "deceit", which is right for SHEKER.

YEMIN: See my note at verse 1.

144:9 ELOHIM SHIR CHADASH ASHIYRAH LACH BE NEVEL ASOR AZAMRAH LACH

אֱלֹהִים שִׁיר חָדָשׁ אָשִׁירָה לָּךְ בְּנֵבֶל עָשׂוֹר אֲזַמְּרָה לָּךְ

KJ: I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.

BN: Elohim, I will sing a new song to you, accompanying myself on a ten-stringed harp to praise you...

ELOHIM: rather than YHVH; and a definite change of mood, tone, language, even theme - why is there no SELAH, or at least an [N] to indicate that the 1st movement, so to speak, ended, and this is an adagietto or scherzo or intermezzo. If this is an amalgamation of two Psalms, surely this is the point where the seam is visible.

SHIR CHADASH confirms the transition, as does the switch to a single accoustic instrument.

LACH: I still don't understand why the text sometimes addresses the deity in the feminine form while regarding him/her as masculine (actually I do, but I have rehearsed the explanation many times in these commentaries and don't feel the need to rehearse them yet again).

And are ASHIYRAH and AZAMRAH not in the feminine as well? Is this now a priestess rather than a priest singing? Or an alto-soprano soloist rather than a tenor-baritone-bass?

As to the instrument (only one of them, not two, as in the KJ), see the link.

144:10 HA NOTEN TESHU'AH LA MELACHIM HA POTSEH ET DAVID AVDO ME CHEREV RA'AH

הַנּוֹתֵן תְּשׁוּעָה לַמְּלָכִים הַפּוֹצֶה אֶת דָּוִד עַבְדּוֹ מֵחֶרֶב רָעָה

KJ: It is he that giveth salvation unto kings: who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword.

BN: ...who gives salvation to kings, who rescues David his servant from the hurtful sword.

DAVID AVDO: No one writes poems of this sort, about themselves, in the 3rd person. Confirmation that this is a Psalm for David, not by him.

CHEREV: A Psalm about David with endless concealments of Mosheh. CHEREV RA'AH is a very weak phrase, poetically speaking, but presumably the poet needed to make reference to Mount Chorev (Horeb), as a follow-up to the volcanic imagery and the parting of the Sea of Reeds, and as a prelude to comparing the giving of the Law there with the building of the Temple to house the Law (the TSUR-SELA note above is also key to this) in the concealment imagery of verse 12.

And why all this concealment? I am going to offer a speculation: that it is the same as the Book of Daniel (enjoy the argument at the link!), the same as the introduction of Haphtorah during the Greek conquest (enjoy the argument at this link too!), the same as the mediaeval piyyut written in times of persecution: present the piece as apparently one thing, but hide the real intention in the abstruse esoterica of language, which an initiate would understand, but an outsider would not even suspect (what, the flies in Sartre's play, the rats in Camus' plague-novel, are really about the Nazi occupation?!). So a prayer for the restoration of the House of David, written, say, in Babylon, during the exile of the 6th century BCE... or even (less likely, because the Temple wasn't built yet) a prayer for the restoration of David himself, after the coup by Av-Shalom, or Sheva ben Bichri... in this case, I am more inclined to date it in the immediately pre-Hasmonean era, when Torah was banned, and only by ruses such as these could the Mosaic be kept vibrant in school and liturgy. The description of the deity in several earlier verses liekwise encourages that date. (And does this also offer an explanation of the seeming amalgamation of more than one Psalm? Start with an updated version of one that is known and aproved; then add the samizdat when the informants have stopped paying attention?)

144:11 PETSENI VE HATSIYLENI MI YAD BENEY NECHAR ASHER PIYHEM DIBER SHAV VIYMIYNAM YEMIN SHAKER

פְּצֵנִי וְהַצִּילֵנִי מִיַּד בְּנֵי נֵכָר אֲשֶׁר פִּיהֶם דִּבֶּר שָׁוְא וִימִינָם יְמִין שָׁקֶר

KJ: Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood:

BN: Rescue me, and deliver me from the hand of strangers, {N} whose mouths speak vacuities, and whose right hand is a right hand of deceit...

This repeats verses 7 and 8, but SHELACH YADEYCHA MI MAROM from verse 7 is omitted, as is MAYIM RABIM. Both phrases entirely unnecessary, if the intention is a planned human rebellion against the Greek conquerors, rather than a vain cry to the gods for help. Like Camus' "La Peste" and Sartre's "Les Mouches", this Psalm now reads to me like Chanukah waiting to happen.

144:12 ASHER BANEYNU KI NETIYIM MEGUDALIM BI NE'UREYHEM BENOTEYNU CHE ZAVIYOT MECHUTAVOT TAVNIT HEYCHAL

אֲשֶׁר בָּנֵינוּ כִּנְטִעִים מְגֻדָּלִים בִּנְעוּרֵיהֶם בְּנוֹתֵינוּ כְזָוִיֹּת מְחֻטָּבוֹת תַּבְנִית הֵיכָל

KJ: That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:

BN: ...whose sons are like plants grown up in their youth; {N} whose daughters are like corner-pillars carved after the fashion of a palace...

ASHER BANEYNU: ASHER ("whose") infers the continuation of the previous verse into this one, but that verse was talking about "strangers" in the 3rd person (PIYHEM, VIYMINAM), where this is talking about "our children" in the 1st person (BANEYNU...BENOTEYNU). Or is this the error part of the samizdat, speaking of "our" but allowing "their" to be understood?

ZARIYOT MECHUTAVOT: we need to etymologise these two words, and then see how they become a concealment for the ROSH PINAH of Psalm 118:22 (presumably these were the corner-pillars that were mounted on those corner-stones). And don't you just live the "hint-hint" for anyone who has failed to notice these concealments: "after the similitude of" as KJ puts it perfectly. The HEYCHAL, of course, was far less David's palace on Tsi'on than the one he was prohibited from building on Mor-Yah, the one the corner-stones were used for, in spite of their original rejection by the builders.

KI NETIYIM: Or KIN'TIYIM?

BI NE'UREYHEM: Or BIN'UREYHEM?

ZARIYOT: Why does this dot the Yud rather than use the Vav with a dot on top (shuruk and cholam malay are the correct technical terms for these - click here)?

BN (oracular translation): So that our sons may grow up strong in military muscle and true belief, that our daughters may be to our community what the cornerstones and pillars are to our Temple.

144:13 MEZAVEYNU MELE'IM MEPHIYKIM MI ZAN EL ZAN TSO'ONENU MA'ALIYPHOT MERUBAVOT BE CHUTSOTEYNU

מְזָוֵינוּ מְלֵאִים מְפִיקִים מִזַּן אֶל זַן צֹאונֵנוּ מַאֲלִיפוֹת מְרֻבָּבוֹת בְּחוּצוֹתֵינוּ

KJ: That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets:

BN: That our barns may be full, affording every kind of store; {N} that our sheep may increase by thousands and ten thousands in our fields;

MEZAVEYNU: 1st person plural again; ditto ALUPHEYNU and BIRCHOVOTEYNU in the next verse.

TSO'ONENU: Same question as ZARIYOT, but the other way around. Why does this have the dot above the Aleph and the Vav (but without a dot)?

144:14 ALUPHEYNU MESUBALIM EYN PERETS VE EYN YOTS'ET VE EYN TSEVACHAH BIRCHOVOTEYNU

אַלּוּפֵינוּ מְסֻבָּלִים אֵין פֶּרֶץ וְאֵין יוֹצֵאת וְאֵין צְוָחָה בִּרְחֹבֹתֵינוּ

KJ: That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.

BN: That our generals may be fully-armed; with no issues of loyalty, and no street protests, and no angry demonstrations, in our public squares;

ALUPHEYNU: Which could mean "our tribal chiefs", or "our generals"! And actually, on reflection, maybe it does! or at least, maybe it does through a figure of speech; and this too is part of the "concealment".

PERETS: And wasn't Perets, the son of Yehudah by Tamar, an ancestor of King David? Yes, but the name means "breach", probably because he was breach-birthed; but in the language of concealment, a breach is a breach is a breach! And once more unto it, as you might say.

Then is this verse not just "concealment", but actual code: secret messages from one branch of the uprising to another? Or at the very least, hidden encouragements to the exiles? No wonder the KJ translators didn't get it, or did but pretended not to, and used quite so many italicised add-ons to make a different kind of sense of it! I have made my translation as explicit as the literality of the words permits me.

144:15 ASHREY HA AM SHE KACHAH LO ASHREY HA AM SHE YHVH ELOHAV

אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם שֶׁכָּכָה לּוֹ אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם שֶׁיֲהוָה אֱלֹהָיו

KJ: Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is thatpeople, whose God is the LORD.

BN: Happy is the people who live in such a manner. Indeed, happy is the people for whom YHVH is all the Elohim. {P}

And anyone who sings this line immediately recognises it from elsewhere, and just as immediately reminds him or herself of the verse that precedes it there. The opening of the daily singing of Ashrey, central to Jewish liturgy. And the verse that precedes it there? Psalm 84:5: "ASHREI YOSHVEI VEITECHA OD YEHALELUCHA: Happy are they that dwell in your house, they are forever praising you." And is that not the intended message of this entire Psalm, the return, the restoration, the renewal, the revival, concealed even within the final concealment?

Yes - but how ironic that ASHREI originally meant Asherah worship, central to the Solomonic first temple, expurgated from the Second.

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Psalms:

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