TheBibleNet: Psalm 146

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

146:1 HALELU YAH HALELIY NAPHSHI ET YHVH

הַלְלוּ יָהּ הַלְלִי נַפְשִׁי אֶת יְהוָה

KJ: Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

BN: Sing praises to Yah. {N} Sing praises to YHVH, O my soul.

The female and the male, both praised - in the original anyway. By the time of the Ezraic redaction, or not long afterwards, the KJ translation applies; and the removal of the female not even visible in the ensuing verses.

146:2 AHALELAH YHVH BE CHAYAI AZAMRAH L'ELOHAI BE ODI

אֲהַלְלָה יְהוָה בְּחַיָּי אֲזַמְּרָה לֵאלֹהַי בְּעוֹדִי

KJ: While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

BN: I will praise YHVH while I am alive; I will play and sing praises to my god(s) for as long as I have my being.

ELOHAI: god or gods? Either way, the one thing it most definitely is not, is God.

146:3 AL TIVTECHU VINDIYVIM BE VEN ADAM SHE EYN LO TESHU'AH

אַל תִּבְטְחוּ בִנְדִיבִים בְּבֶן אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תְשׁוּעָה

KJ: Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

BN: Do not place your trust in the well-meaning among Humankind, because he does not have the means to save you.

VINDIYVIM: Or VI NEDIYVIM? NADAV means "generous", and even "noble", and as such it came to be used for the leaders of society. But translating it as "princes" narrows it. "Philanthropists", "do-gooders", anyone with an aspiration to make the world a better place, could be counted among the NEDIYVIM; even a would-be Messiah. But the capacity to LEHOSHI'A, however you choose to translate that, rests, in the Jewish world, exclusively with the deity.

BE VEN ADAM: There is no "nor" here. BE places the NEDIYVIM "among" Humankind. Naming him as "Son of Man" is the super-imposition of Christian theology.

SHE EYN LO: NEDIYVIM is also plural, but when it comes to exemplars of this idealistic predisposition, the Psalmist reverts to the singular, and retains it as that in the next verse? Is that cynicism, or merely truth-telling?

146:4 TETS'E RUCHO YASHUV LE ADMATO BA YOM HA HU AVDU ESHTONOTAV

תֵּצֵא רוּחוֹ יָשֻׁב לְאַדְמָתוֹ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא אָבְדוּ עֶשְׁתֹּנֹתָיו

KJ: His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

BN: His breath will expire, he will return to the dust from which he came; on that very day his plans will go to the grave with him.

ADMATO: The pun has no parallel in English, but is basic theology and science in the Jewish world: Man (Adam), is created from the earth (min ha adamah), and so, when he dies, he returns to ADMATO ("his earth"). And definitely the earth, not Heaven.

ESHTONOTAV: once again this oddity of placing the vowel as a dot above the consonant rather than using the Vav. What does the Dead Sea Scroll version do (presumably it's unpointed altogether)? But, alas, only verses 9 and 10 have been discovered - click here.

146:5 ASHREY SHE EL YA'AKOV BE EZRO SIVRO AL YHVH ELOHAV

אַשְׁרֵי שֶׁאֵל יַעֲקֹב בְּעֶזְרוֹ שִׂבְרוֹ עַל יְהוָה אֱלֹהָיו

KJ: Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

BN: Happy is he who has the god of Ya'akov for his helper, whose hope is in YHVH his god.

Polytheism in the Yehudit reduced to monotheism in the English. At what point does this happen (see my note at verse 1)? Septuagint or St Jerome? Or has it already happened with this Redaction, and the translators merely follow? The answer to that lies in a different question: who actually was El Ya'akov? Note that the first half of the name is El, who was the Ouranos of the Kena'ani pantheon, father of Ba'al who fathered Adonis. And that this is Ya'akov, not Yisra-El, so before Penu-El; but while still with his parents at Be'er Sheva, or already with the white moon-god Lavan in Padan-Aram - Lavan, rather than the female Lavanah? Polytheistic either way, but very different deities who inhabited it. So the female has not really been removed at all; merely expurgated.

146:6 OSEH SHAMAYIM VA ARETS ET HA YAM VE ET KOL ASHER BAM HA SHOMER EMET LE OLAM

עֹשֶׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ אֶת הַיָּם וְאֶת כָּל אֲשֶׁר בָּם הַשֹּׁמֵר אֱמֶת לְעוֹלָם

KJ: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:

BN: Who made the heavens and the Earth, the sea, and everything that lives in them,{N} who guards the truth for ever...

OSEH SHAMAYIM etc: But in Genesis 1 that was definitely ELOHIM, the full polytheon working as a coalition, and not YHVH on his own. So can we now confirm that EL YA'AKOV was not YHVH (and see Exodus 6:2 and 3 for the Mosaic confirmation of this)?

146:7 OSEH MISHPAT LA ASHUKIM NOTEN LECHEM LA RE'EVIM YHVH MATIR ASURIM

עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט לָעֲשׁוּקִים נֹתֵן לֶחֶם לָרְעֵבִים יְהוָה מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים

KJ: Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:

BN: Who expedites justice for the oppressed, who gives bread to the hungry. YHVH sets the prisoners free...

Both verses 6 and 7 have phrases that recur in liturgy, but not precisely as quotes from here. MATIR ASURIM is in the opening section of the Amidah.

146:8 YHVH POKE'ACH IVRIM YHVH ZOKEPH KEPHUPHIM YHVH OHEV TSADIKIM

יְהוָה פֹּקֵחַ עִוְרִים יְהוָה זֹקֵף כְּפוּפִים יְהוָה אֹהֵב צַדִּיקִים

KJ: The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:

BN: YHVH opens the eyes of the blind; YHVH raises up those who are bowed down; YHVH loves the righteous...

ditto this verse; likewise Amidah, and likewise in Psalm 145 - see my notes there.

146:9 YHVH SHOMER ET GERIM YATOM VE ALMANAH YE'ODED VE DERECH RESHA'IM YE'AVET

יְהוָה שֹׁמֵר אֶת גֵּרִים יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה יְעוֹדֵד וְדֶרֶךְ רְשָׁעִים יְעַוֵּת

KJ: The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

BN: YHVH keeps an eye on foreigners; he takes care of the fatherless and the widow; but the way of the wicked he makes crooked.

GERIM: Not the same as GOYIM or NACHRIM.

YATOM: really means "orphan", but in the patriarchal Biblical world, and Islam reflects it too (the Arabic word is YATEEM; merely a dialect variation) as we shall see in a moment, the death of your mother affected you emotionally and psychologically, but made no difference whatsoever to your economics; whereas the loss of the father could very well be the loss of everything, and for the mother too - see Yishma-El and Hagar for one obvious example, and there the father didn't even die.

Reading these latter verses in partnership with certain Surahs of the Qu'ran (Surat Al-Baqarah, 2:215 for example) would be worthwhile; we know that Muhammad was profoundly influenced by Judaism in the early development of Tazaq'ah, before it became Islam, but we have no precise evidence of which precise sources he went to, or was taken to, by the scholars of Yatrib and his grandfather Shaba. This Psalm is repeated almost verbatim in several Surahs.

One question though, for the author: some of these are definitely the job of the deity, but are most of them precisely what the NEDIYVIM need to be doing? YHVH can make the earth fertile, with rain and sun and so forth; but training the farmers, organising the metal-workers' guild who make the ploughs and scythes, and providing armed guards at harvest-time, are not going to happen if they are left to the deity.

146:10 YIMLOCH YHVH LE OLAM ELOHAYICH TSI'ON LE DOR VA DOR HALELU YAH

יִמְלֹךְ יְהוָה לְעוֹלָם אֱלֹהַיִךְ צִיּוֹן לְדֹר וָדֹר הַלְלוּ יָהּ

KJ: The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.

BN: YHVH will reign for ever, your god, Tsi'on, for all the generations to come. {N} Hallelu Yah.

Once again the internal evidence of text allow us to date this, or at least to narrow down the goalposts with better approximation. Obviously the date of "writing down" is mid-5th century BCE; but we are trying to find and date the original. The references to Yah, and the manner of those references, alongside the polytheistic description of Creation, suggest that the original was one of the older Psalms; but the emphasis on Tsi'on at the conclusion means that this version cannot be earlier than the late Davidic (c 980 BCE), while the masculination of Yah into a mere aspect of YHVH tells us that the version we are reading is an even later re-redaction than the Ezraic, probably 4th or more likely 3rd century BCE.

However, the Septuagint attributes this, and the two Psalms that follow, to the Prophets Chagai and Zechar-Yah... click here to see it in Greek, here to see it in English, which sets the date back to the very end of the 6th century BCE. Chagai and Zechar-Yah were among the first group of Jews to return from Babylonian exile, probably with Zeru-Bavel circa 536 BCE; both began their prophetic work around 520 BCE; it was Chagai's calls for the rebuilding of the Temple that led Darius to issue a decree in 520 BCE supporting such a move. But the books of both Prophets retain the polytheism - both refer repeatedly to YHVH TSEVA'OT, who is, so to speak, the Prime Minister at the head of the Round Table. So this could very well be Chagai and/or Zechar-Yah updating a much earlier Psalm; but the Septuagint version would then require a further updating, as much as 150 years later.

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Psalms:

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