I published the following translation of Psalm 137 on December 10, 2018:
By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows,
there in its midst,
we hung our harps.
For there, those who
had taken us captive
requested words of song from us,
those who were afflicting us
demanded joy.
"Sing us some songs
of Zion."
How shall we sing
the Lord's song
on foreign soil?
If I should forget you,
O Jerusalem,
may my right hand
go also to oblivion,
may my tongue
stick to my palate
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
at the head of all my joy.
Remember, O Lord,
the sons of Edom,
on the day
of Jerusalem,
saying "destroy it,
destroy it,
down to its
foundations."
O daughter of Babylon,
you despoiler,
blessed is the one
who will repay you
for what you have done to us.
Beatus qui tenebit et adlidet
parvulos tuos ad petram.
I included the ending, Verse 9, only in Latin. Due to its cruelty and barbarity (so I thought), I could not bring myself to translate it into English. (This trick was also used by the Victorians, whenever the thing being published or translated contained sexually explicit material. It caused many young students to study their Latin much more diligently.)
Here is Verse 9 as it appears in the RSV:
"Happy shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!"
Putting the verse into inclusive language doesn't help:
"A blessing on those who will seize your infants
and dash them against the rock!"
(THE INCLUSIVE BIBLE by Priests for Equality: Lanham, MD, A Sheed & Ward Book, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2009. ISBN-13:978-1-58051-213-8; ISBN-10: 1-58051-213-5)
Houston, we have a problem! This time, it may be an insoluble one.
In retrospect, Psalm 137 was pretty much the end of my project to translate the Psalms. But Psalm 137 was only the tip of the iceberg.
What are we to do when the values of Scripture do not match our own values? Are we to believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, because Genesis would have us believe it? Should we still be practicing "an eye for an eye," just because it was relatively merciful in its own time? Should we ignore the dictum of science that approximately ten percent of every mammalian species is homosexual (from birth, not by choice)? Should we be so respectful of tradition that we are cruel, just because our ancestors were cruel? Should we cling so tightly to traditional beliefs that we devalue what we know in favor of what we believe, and so live our lives in ignorance?
Author's text Copyright © 2018-2022 by Donald C. Traxler aka Yablom.
