We now continue with our translation of the Psalm.
The Lord is your guardian,
the Lord is your shadow*
at your right hand.
By day the sun will not strike you,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you
from all evil,
he will guard
your life.
The Lord will guard
your going out
and your coming in,
from now
and forever.
[*This has often been translated figuratively, as protection or shelter, but "shadow" is the actual meaning of the Hebrew word..]
Saturday, November 24, 2018
We Are Darkness and We Are Light
We are darkness
and we are light,
a fire burning
in the night,
we are the spirit's
unwavering flame.
and we are light,
a fire burning
in the night,
we are the spirit's
unwavering flame.
Translating Psalm 121 - II
To help us pick up our train of thought, here's the ending of our last blog post:
I first learned this Psalm in about 1965, in the form of a beautiful song by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Many of you know it. At that time I imagined that "אשׂא“ was some kind of future tense. But it isn't. The verb is "נָשָׂא" which is a Lamedh 'Aleph verb, and the form "אֶשָׂא" is its imperfect. No particular tense is implied: it is an ongoing action in the past, present, or future. When translated into Greek, Latin, and English, there has been no agreement as to tense. At this point, we have to depend on context, and the sensibilities of the translator. This is one of the reasons for differing translations.
I choose to translate the Psalm as follows:
I lift my eyes to the hills--
from where will my help come?
[This is simple and direct, and the language more or less contemporary. The second verb is also in the imperfect, with the same tense choices as before. But the next verb, which is only understood, has to be "is:"]
My help is from the Lord,
who made the heavens and the earth.
He will not let your foot slip,
he who keeps you will not sleep.
Behold, he who guards Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
[We don't use the word "behold" anymore, but we do understand it. It's the usual translation of "הִנֵה" and "see" didn't feel quite right, at least to me.]
(to be continued)
Can't we just "go back to the original Hebrew?" No, we can't, because 1) We don't HAVE the "original" Hebrew, dating from, I don't know, about 900 BCE--it has not survived; and 2) Biblical Hebrew does not even have tenses in the sense that modern European languages have them. It has perfect, indicating that an action is complete, and imperfect, indicating that the action is continuous or ongoing (in past, present, or future). There are other forms, but they are not tenses.
I first learned this Psalm in about 1965, in the form of a beautiful song by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Many of you know it. At that time I imagined that "אשׂא“ was some kind of future tense. But it isn't. The verb is "נָשָׂא" which is a Lamedh 'Aleph verb, and the form "אֶשָׂא" is its imperfect. No particular tense is implied: it is an ongoing action in the past, present, or future. When translated into Greek, Latin, and English, there has been no agreement as to tense. At this point, we have to depend on context, and the sensibilities of the translator. This is one of the reasons for differing translations.
I choose to translate the Psalm as follows:
I lift my eyes to the hills--
from where will my help come?
[This is simple and direct, and the language more or less contemporary. The second verb is also in the imperfect, with the same tense choices as before. But the next verb, which is only understood, has to be "is:"]
My help is from the Lord,
who made the heavens and the earth.
He will not let your foot slip,
he who keeps you will not sleep.
Behold, he who guards Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
[We don't use the word "behold" anymore, but we do understand it. It's the usual translation of "הִנֵה" and "see" didn't feel quite right, at least to me.]
(to be continued)
