Hot answers tagged psalms
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This question was just asked over at the Judaism site, so I'll repost my answer from there here.
In general it is difficult to find pre-Christian rabbinic commentary, since the earliest rabbinic commentaries began coalescing around the end of the Second Temple period, in the first century CE. So while early midrashic collections like the Sifra and Mekhilta ...
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I asked about this question at the Judaism.SE site and was told that it is difficult to find pre-Christian Rabbinic sources. It seems that the current understanding of Psalm 22 within Judaism deals with the plight of the Jewish Nation in Exile.1 However, Rashi's 11th-century commentary states that
Our Sages, however, interpreted it [(ayeleth hashachar, ...
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Paul made a direct word-for-word quote not from Psalm 37:8, but from the Septuagint of Psalm 4:4 -
...ὀργίζεσθε καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε...
In the Hebrew of Psalm 4:4, the verb for "anger" is רָגַז which has the connotation of perturbing, or being perturbed. In the 41 instances that this verb occurs in the Hebrew Bible in various conjugations and tenses, the ...
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Not a Hyperbolic Expression
The Text of Psalm 51:4:
לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ ׀ חָטָאתִי וְהָרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי
לְמַעַן תִּצְדַּק בְּדָבְרֶךָ תִּזְכֶּה בְשָׁפְטֶֽךָ׃
Explanation
1) "Against you alone" (לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ): This is a prayer of David for repentance (a penitential psalm), and while he sinned against many others in the affair with Bathsheba, ...
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OK, moving this from a comment to an answer.
Note about "tenses" in Biblical Hebrew. Technically speaking the idea of "zman 'avar"/'past tense' is Modern Hebrew. In Biblical Hebrew, you have aspects rather than tenses: perfect/imperfect. So [lo] halakh is in what's called the simple perfect[ive] aspect. The verbal system in Biblical Hebrew is somewhat ...
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In Romans 3:4 Paul does the same kind of verb change. That is, he modifies the meaning of a verb from the Old Testament while quoting every other word verbatim from the Old Testament verses in question.
So to use the example of Romans 3:4 we see that Paul is quoting from Psalm 51:4 saying, "...and prevail when you are judged." But the same verse in the ...
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It seems that these divisions may have been due to the various peoples and times over which the Psalms were originally collected and used as hymnbooks in the temple services:
The psalms were arranged into five subdivisions or books (1–41; 42–72; 73–89; 90–106; 107–150). This order follows the fivefold division of the Pentateuch and may reflect the ...
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Some Jewish translations do translate it that way, actually. Mechon Mamre (based on the Masoretic text with JPS 1917) has "let be", and this version has "desist".
I think part of the problem is that the English word "still" is not unambiguous. "Still" can mean both "stationary, motionless" and "calm" -- when you say "be still my heart" you surely don't ...
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Psalm 4 is the polemic prayer of a hasid, a pious devotee of the Lord, against a majority or elite class who might be nominal believers, but lack the trust that differentiates true belief in God. The psalm is written in the first person but is likely a collective first person representing the community of the pious. I suspect that this psalm is ...
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hekal(הֵיכָל) means 'palace' or 'temple'. It is used to refer to the Solomon's Temple but also (for example) the house at Shiloh in David's time, here in 1 Samuel 1:9
After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. ESV
Among other usages, it can also refer ...
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מזמור = "psalm"
לדוד = "of David"
The order doesn't matter. If you wanted to translate the slight difference, you could translate one as "a psalm of David" and the other as "one of David's psalms." For what it's worth, "David" comes first in Psalms 24, 40, 68, 101, 109, 110, 139. The word "psalm" comes first in the other 28 usages. Thus the order found in ...
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"Born" is usually a conjugation of the verb ילד. However, in Hebrew, different words can have an overlap in meaning, and this appears to be the case with יחם. While יחם simply means "to be hot" (cp. Eze. 24:11), it may also be used idiomatically in the realm of sexuality, meaning "to be aroused." This phenomenon is not unlike that which occurs in many other ...
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Jon's assesment is correct and in keeping with the opinion of D.A. Carson's opinion found in his work on the Gospel of John.
A few options that have been presented follow: 1) God is addressing Israel’s judges; 2) God is addressing angels; and 3) God is addressing Israel at the time of the giving of the Law. Jesus’ usage of the passage in John 10 should ...
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It is true that all Jewish prayerbooks and scriptural resources exclude a "nun" line in Psalm 145. It is also true that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible read by Greek-speaking Jews and Christians, the Peshitta – the translation used by the Syrian church, and one of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Psalms texts, presumably used by members of the ...
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A good case can be made for the reading as a verb instead of a noun with a preposition prefixed.
Regarding verse 16, Walter Kaiser (The Messiah in the Old Testament, footnote 10 pg. 115 and 116) lays out his argument for the verb by referencing the Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Septuagint, all of which have verbs. He takes the form ka'ari as the irregular ...
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When it is asked what do 'the lines' mean we need to look at the literary structure of the song but also the wider context. For 'cups' and 'lines' often carry metaphoric meanings, as do so many other words in the Bible.
This particular Psalm must be treated with 'extra metaphorical significance' with respect to its historical context because it was ...
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In Hebrew and other Semitic languages, it is standard for a group of males and females (even if there is only one male and the rest females) to be referred to by a masculine-gendered noun or pronoun. The Hebrew word is אַחִים (achim) in Psalms 133:1, meaning "brothers," but this is not necessarily to the exclusion of females, due to the rule mentioned above.
...
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Psalm 136 uses a repeating refrain, not just the noted two verses:
כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ
The last word, chasdo (3pm possesive, from chesed), is generally translated as "kindness" or "loving kindness". The word "grace" is a different word, chein. See, for example, Psalm 145:8:
חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם יְהוָה
The LORD is gracious, and full of ...
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David E. Malick writes:
This division seems to be older than the oldest extant manuscripts of the Psalms since it exists in all manuscripts. The order of the last two books (IV and V) do differ in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls suggesting that their final order was not canonized until around the time of Christ. But all of the Psalms remain present (The LXX ...
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This is proof-positive of Greek primacy of the Old Testament
Here are the facts:
13 is an unlucky number.
It is terribly unlucky to have a camel on your back.
In the Septuagint, the Psalms are numbered differently (and correctly) so that the psalm in question is #12.
12 is a lucky number. 6 is half as lucky. 12:6 is one and a half lucky.
In Greek, the ...
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Charles Hodge, in his commentary on Ephesians gives a very good explanation of the difference in the quotation.
Hodge reasons that Paul applies the receiving of gifts in accord with the original idea of a King with plunder. A kind has plunder to give to his kingdom, so he switches the verb while retaining the same image and idea:
The divine writers ...
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This Psalm was possibly written by Jeremiah in the Captivity. The Septuagint version of the psalm has the superscription: " For David, a Psalm of Jeremias. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat; and wept when we remembered Sion."
I think the Psalm is not to be taken absolutely literally, but is poetically expressing the feelings of those in captivity. In ...
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This is an interesting question, and one I never reflected upon.
Here's just a thought: According to notes in the Swedish Bible translation from 2000, the wording "To the choirmaster" is uncertain and another way to interpret the Hebrew word would be "For invocation". I have not managed to find other references to this.
The word in question is למנצח, which ...
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I cannot explain why two different translators would come up with different meanings except to say they had different agendas. One agenda, I'm afraid, is the concept that sex is dirty or wrong, and the second is the Christian concept of "original sin." Neither of these is accepted in a Jewish reading of the Hebrew. With JPS translation, it is as follows:
...
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Unicorn is a correct translation. Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary says that a unicorn is a rhinoceros, and a rhinoceros is a unicorn.
The Latin Vulgate says "rinocerotis" in Deut 33:17 and "rinoceros" in Job 39:9.
The King James says "Or Rhinocerots" in the marginal note in Isaiah 34:7.
Even scientists today use the word unicorn in reference to the ...
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Psalm 46 and 47 are usually (by which I mean A. S. Hartum, M. D. Cassutto) understood as exhortations sung in Israelite worship but addressed to the nations.
The first stanza (verses 1-3) introduces G-d, our shelter from trouble. The second stanza (4-5) contrasts the tumult of the nature with the quiet of a river that will in the future flow through the ...
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When proper names stand alone, you can't tell. However, especially when the name is a reference to some(thing,place,one), as in this psalm, the odds are very good that the word is used elsewhere with more context.
For "Tabor", for example, a search turns up "Mount Tabor" in Judges 4:6. (The Hebrew for "mountain" is הַר (har).) For peoples/nations, you ...
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My understanding of the Psalm is that it is prayer of David, with the "of Solomon" in the Psalm's title meaning the Psalm is concerning Solomon, rather than authored by Solomon. The content of the Psalms supports this - it is the prayers of David for his son, prophesying what his son should do, and will do as king.
This leads us to the epilogue in verse 20:
...
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Okay. Not getting much of a response, so I examined the scriptures closer.
In v. 1, Asaf writes that God is standing in the congregation of God and judging among the "gods"/ judges. The usage of the 3rd person indicates Asaf's own thought.
However, in v. 2, the person speaking asks a question, "How long will you judge...and accept…?" The Hebrew words ...
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As mentioned by @Joseph, Paul is quoting Psalm 4:
4Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. ESV
When quoting from the Old Testament, New Testament authors assume the context of the quotation is understood or will be examined1, so we need to look at more of Psalm 4 to understand Paul's meaning.
The ESV ...
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