Sunday, February 19, 2023

Psalm 101:4

Last month, in my daily Psalm reading (in the NIV), I read Psalm 101, and I noticed the same sort of feature that I'd found in Psalm 119:29 a few days before.  The first half of verse 4 is "Men of perverse heart shall be far from me."  As if to reflect this distance, the "men of perverse heart" and "me" are at opposite ends of the clause.

This is also true in the Hebrew:
לֵבָב עִקֵּשׁ יָסוּר מִמֶּנִּי
In the ESV:
A perverse heart shall be far from me
In the NKJV:
A perverse heart shall depart from me
And in the Latin Vulgate
cor pravum recedet a me [according to the Hebrew]
cor pravum declinante a me [according to the Septuagint]
The only translation I lookt at that doesn't have this feature is my German Psalter, where this part of the verse is:
Ein falsches Herz muß von mir weichen