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

Psalm 119:150, 155

In continuing on in reading Psalm 119 in the NIV, I found two more instances where two nouns are placed at opposite ends of a clause, giving a sense of distance.

Psalm 119:150:

Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law.

and Psalm 119:155:

Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek out your degrees.

The same feature is present in the ESV, the NKJV, and even my German Psalter ("sie sind fern von deinem Gesetz" and "das Heil ist fern von den Gottlosen"), but it's not in either verse in the original Hebrew text.

Psalm 119:29

About a month ago, as I was reading the Daleth part of Psalm 119, I noticed something about verse 29 that may be pretty obvious.  In the Hebrew, it's:

דֶּֽרֶךְ־שֶׁקֶר הָסֵר מִמֶּנִּי וְֽתוֹרָתְךָ חָנֵּֽנִי׃

In the ESV, this is:

Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law!

In the NIV:

Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law.

In all of these, "me" (the נִּי suffix) is about as far from "false ways"/"deceitful ways" (it's singular in Hebrew:  דֶּֽרֶךְ־שֶׁקֶר) as it can be in the clause, illustrating the separation that the Psalmist wishes for.

The Latin Vulgate is similar, whether according to the Hebrew:

viam mendacii aufer a me et legem tuam dona mihi

Or according to the Septuagint:

viam iniquitatis amove a me et lege tua miserere mei

Both of these actually follow the Hebrew word order more closely than the English translations do, with דֶּֽרֶךְ־שֶׁקֶר ("viam mendacii" or "viam iniquitatis") preceding מִמֶּנִּי ("a me").

This distance isn't present in all of the translations I lookt at, though.  In the New King James Version, this verse is:

Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me Your law graciously.

And in my German Psalter:

Halte fern von mir den Weg der Lüge und gib mir in Gnaden dein Gesetz.

In both of these, "me" ("mir") and "the way of lying" ("den Weg der Lüge") are side by side.

Psalm 119:105

Since the church year started over, I've been following along with the readings in the Latin Vulgate, moving on from my French New Testament, which I'd followed along in for the last three years.

The title of this blog is adapted from Psalm 119:105, which is my confirmation verse and which I put in the blog description.  Earlier this month, I finally got around to replacing the French translation with the Latin, and when I did this, I noticed something about the structure of the verse.  The Latin closely follows the Hebrew:

נֵר־לְרַגְלִי דְבָרֶךָ וְאוֹר לִנְתִיבָתִֽי׃

Lucerna pedi meo verbum tuum et lux semitae meae

In English, this is "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path," but the word order in the Hebrew and Latin is such that "Your word" (דְבָרֶךָ and "verbum tuum") is in the middle of the verse.  A literal translation would be something like "A lamp to my feet [is] Your word and a light to my path."  In English, this is rearranged so that the two parts of the compound predicate nominative are on the same side of the copulative verb (which is merely implied in Hebrew and Latin).

Because "Your word" is placed in the middle in the Hebrew and Latin versions, though, there's a sense of its centrality and importance.

Psalm 119:121

Before watching the Daily Dose of Hebrew video on Psalm 119:121 last month, I read the translation in the Latin Vulgate.

Feci iudicium et iustitiam non tradas me calumniantibus me

In the ESV, this is rendered as:  "I have done what is just and right; do not leave me to my oppressors."

"Iudicium" and "iustitiam" alliterate, and they have the same number of syllables, so even in the language, there's a sense of the orderliness and balance of "what is just and right."

A couple weeks after noting this, I happened to look at this Psalm in the front of The Lutheran Hymnal and discovered that this alliteration and syllabic balance is present in that translation too:  "I have done judgement and justice:  leave me not to mine oppressors."

Psalm 119:29-30

The Daily Dose of Hebrew has been going through Psalm 119 lately.  While following along in the Latin Vulgate, I noticed a feature in verses 29 and 30 that's obscured in the English translation and that I didn't catch either in watching the videos or while copying out the verses (because I turned pages in my notebook, these verses weren't next to each other).

In the ESV, these verses are translated as:  "29 Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law!  30 I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me."

In the Vulgate, however, these verses appear as:

29 viam iniquitatis amove a me et lege tua miserere mei

30 viam veritatis elegi iudicia tua non sum oblitus

The formatting and word order here help to emphasize the contrast between the "false ways" (as in the Hebrew, it's singular in the Latin:  viam iniquitatis) in verse 29 and "the way of faithfulness" (viam veritatis) in verse 30.