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In Psalm 11:5, most English translations say something to the effect of “God’s soul hates the wicked”
(NASB) The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates.
However the LXX and Vulgate appear to understand the Hebrew to be saying “the wicked hates his own soul” Is this a plausible translation of
וְרָשָׁע וְאֹהֵב חָמָס שָׂנְאָה נַפְשׁוֹ
Why do modern Hebrew scholars choose a different translation?
It is true that the Vulgate and the Septuagint give a very different translation from the Masoretic text in Ps 11:5. Specifically, we have:
Vulgate (as translated by DRB):
The Lord trieth the just and the wicked: but he that loveth iniquity hateth his own soul.
LXX (as translated by Breton)
The Lord tries the righteous and the ungodly: and he that loves unrighteousness hates his own soul.
The Hebrew Masoretic Text:
All that one can say here is that the Hebrew is correctly and reasonably translated by the above versions (and all others I checked). Note the comments of Barnes:
His soul hateth - that is, "he" hates. God is often spoken of in language appropriate to man; and he is here referred to as having a soul - as he is elsewhere as having eyes, hands, or feet. The meaning is, that all such persons were the objects of the divine abhorrence, and that the divine dealings with them were not, as with the righteous, to "try" them, but to "punish" and "destroy" them. Knowing this, the persecuted author of the psalm, instead of fleeing, calmly committed himself and his cause to God.
The only real matter in the Hebrew is whether the last phrase of the Hebrew should be translated as either:
The second is more literal and the first is idiomatic English.
