Psalm 92:13-14 Justus ut palma florebit

Psalm 92 (listed as 91 in the Vulgate and LXX)

13  Justus ut palma florebit

sicut cedrus Libani multiplicabitur [in domo Domini.]

Actually, "in domo Domini" should be part of verse 14. How can I know this?

 I can know it because of the importance of parallelism in all Semitic literature, especially poetry.

Let's take a look at the Hebrew:

צַדִּיק כַּתָמָר יִפְרָח

כְּאֶרֶז בַלְבָנוֹן יִשְׂגֶּה׃

שְׁתוּלִים בְּבֵית יְהָוה

בְּחַצְרוֹת אֱלֹהֵינוּ יַפְרִיחוּ׃

Here I have shown the two half-verses of verse 13, followed by the two half-verses of verse 14. In each of the two cases, the two half-verses form a parallelism. But that is only true as long as "in the house of the Lord" is part of verse 14. Here is the translation, from my JPS Tanakh:

13 The righteous bloom like a date-palm;

they thrive like a cedar in Lebanon;

14 planted in the house of the Lord,

they flourish in the courts of our God.

In verse 13, bloom/palm is perfectly mirrored by thrive/cedar. In verse 14, planted/in the house of the Lord is mirrored by flourish/in the courts of our God. Thus, verse 13 contains a parallelism, as does verse 14. But the parallelism in verse 14 is disrupted if you move the phrase "in the house of the Lord" into verse 13, as was done in the Vulgate.

And that's how I know that the versification in the Vulgate is wrong. 

Copyright © 2024 by Donald C. Traxler.