Sunday, August 25, 2024

Psalm 65:11

I read Psalm 65:11 in the ESV last week and noticed that the clause "your wagon tracks overflow with abundance" contains a sort of redundant description ("overflow" and "abundance" have similar meanings) and that this redundancy matches this surfeit.

This is also the sense in the NIV ("your carts overflow with abundance") and the Latin Vulgate (translated from the Septuagint, at least:  "campi tui replebuntur ubertate," "your fields will be overflowed with fertility"), but I'm not sure that this is quite the sense in the Hebrew:
עִטַּרְתָּ שְׁנַת טוֹבָתֶךָ וּמַעְגָּלֶיךָ יִרְעֲפוּן דָּֽשֶׁן׃
According to the STEP Bible, the word translated as "overflow" (יִרְעֲפוּן) means drip or trickle.  This is the sense in the NKJV ("Your paths drip with abundance"), the Vulgate translated from the Hebrew ("vestigia tua rorabunt pinguidine," "Your tracks will drip with fertility"), and my German Psalter ("deine Fußtapfen triefen von Segen," "Your footsteps drip with blessing").

I can't account for this difference in meaning, but in at least some of the translations, the abundance is mirrored by the redundant description.