Sunday, April 28, 2024

Psalm 119:125

A few weeks ago, I read the Ayin section (verses 121-128) of Psalm 119.  I was thinking about the underlying Hebrew as I read, and I correctly deduced that part of verse 125 was inverted in translation and that in the original Hebrew, the word for servant (עֶ֫בֶד) comes first.  (Each verse in this section starts with an ayin.)

In the NKJV, the verse is
I am Your servant, give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies.
In Hebrew, it's
עַבְדְּךָ־אָנִי הֲבִינֵנִי וְאֵדְעָה עֵדֹתֶֽיךָ׃
In the original word order, the first clause is something like "Your servant [am] I."

Then I realized that, perhaps coincidentally, the word order of the Hebrew matches the outlook of a good servant:  the word servant (עַבְדְּךָ, with the possessive suffix "your") comes before the pronoun I (אָנִי) in the same way that the duties of the position take precedence over personal interests.

I referenced the Latin Vulgate and found that it follows the Hebrew word order and thus also has this feature:
servus tuus ego instrue me et cognoscam testimonia tua