Sunday, February 22, 2026

Psalm 30:5

When I read Psalm 30 in German last year, I noticed some significance in the structure of the first half of verse 6:
Denn sein Zorn währet einen Augenblick und lebenslang seine Gnade.
In the ESV, this is the first half of verse 5:
For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.
The German version features a chiasm:
Denn sein Zorn
währet einen Augenblick
und lebenslang
seine Gnade.
This structure highlights the opposite natures of Zorn (anger) and Gnade (favor) and of "einen Augenblick" ("a moment," literally "a blink of an eye") and lebenslang (lifelong).

Of the translations I lookt at, this is unique to the German.