PSALM 34 (35)

Judge, O Lord, my enemies,
fight against those
who do battle with me.
Take up shield and spear
and rise to my aid.
Unsheathe your sword
and harry from the front
those who pursue me.
Say to my soul,
"I am your salvation."
Let those who seek my life
be shamed and awed,
let those who plan
evil against me
be turned back
in confusion,
let them be as dust
before the face of the wind,
and may the angel of the Lord
drive them.
Let their way be dark
and slippery, and let the angel
of the Lord pursue them.
For without reason they hid
their insidious snares for me,
without cause they dug
a pit for my life.
Let come to him
a calamity unknown,
and may the net that he hid
catch him, and may he
fall into the snare.
But my soul will exult
in the Lord,
and will rejoice
in his salvation.
All my bones will say,
"Lord, who is like you,
delivering the needy
from those more powerful,
and the poor and beggars
from those who despoil them?"
False witnesses rose against me,
asking me things that I did not know,
they returned evil to me for good,
and desolation to my soul.
But I, when they troubled me,
put on sackcloth,
I humbled my soul with fasting,
and my prayer shall return
to my breast.
I behaved as a friend,
as a brother,
I was bent with sadness
as one mourning his mother,
and they took joy in my infirmity
and gathered around,
stabbers gathered against me
and I did not know it,
slashers, and they did not
stay silent, but in simulation
of false words they gnashed
their teeth against me.
How long, O Lord,
will you look on?
Deliver my soul from
their calamities,
and my life from the lions.
I shall acknowledge you
in the great congregation,
and in the midst of a strong people
I shall praise you.
Let not my lying enemies
rejoice over me,
nor wink the eye
those who hate me
without cause.
For they do not speak peace,
but in pillaging the land
conceive words of deceit.
They opened their mouths against me,
saying, "good, good, our eyes have seen it."
You saw, O Lord,
do not stay silent.
O Lord, do not be far from me.
Rise up and attend to my judgment,
O my Lord and my God,
to my case.
Judge me according to your righteousness,
O Lord my God,
and let them not insult me,
let them not say in their hearts,
"good, we have our soul's desire,"
let them not say,
"we have swallowed him up."
Let them blush and be in awe,
those who rejoice at my affliction.
Let those who magnify themselves
above me dress in bashfulness and shame.
Let those who desire my vindication
give praise and be glad,
and let them say always
may the Lord be praised
who wishes peace
for his servant.,
and my tongue shall tell
your justice
and your praise
all the day.

A liberdade do corpo

A liberdade do corpo
é tan importante como
a liberdade do alma,
porém infelizmente
é más escassa.

Freedom of the body
is as important as
freedom of the soul,
but unfortunately
there is less of it.

Life is Prolific

Life is prolific,
which is why we
are here.

Life is tenacious,
and tends to
persevere.

We resist,
persist,
and insist
on evolution.

We obey Life,
we live Life,
we are Life.

But we are not
the only Life.

A vida é prolífica

[portunhol surenho]

A vida é prolífica,
por esso tamo cá.

A vida é tenaz,
y tende a perseverá.

Resistimo,
persistimo,
e insistimo
por la evolusón.

Obeímo a la vida,
vivimo a vida,
somo a vida.

Mas non somo
a única vida.

Not Bread Alone

My life has been full
of religions and languages.
When I was five
(the four of us were living
in Mrs. Truitt's garage),
my mother told me it was time
for me to learn about God.
She sat, in a cross-legged
posture that I now know
as sukhásana,
at the foot of my little bed.
She said, "long, long ago,
so long ago that you can't
imagine it," (this was starting
to sound interesting to my unformed,
heathen brain)-- and she proceeded
to tell me about the passion
of Christ. I was disappointed,
and I remember thinking to myself,
"Oh no, not that old story again!"
I'm not making this up.
But remember that I was the product
of several (probably many)
lifetimes.
Still sitting on my cot,
my mother then taught me
to sing "Tantum Ergo,"
a famous and very literate
Latin benediction hymn
by Thomas Aquinas.
As it happened (my father
came in the door
while she was still singing
Tantum Ergo),
that was about it
for my early religious
education.

Later, I remember standing
by my mother's side at Mass,
and letting the rosary that dangled
from her fingers
coil into my palm,
while the priest in the pulpit
droned on. Bored, I remember thinking,
"I'll bet I'm not going to do this
when I grow up."
I knew, of course, that the price
for that might be hell,
but at the time it seemed
a small one.
As it turned out,
I was right.

In those days the Mass
was still in Latin,
a Latin that still
serves me well.
You had to eat fish on Fridays,
not the good kind
(my mother was afraid of the bones),
but either dry salmon patties
(cheap in those days)
or frozen fish sticks.

Even today, I can't look
at fish sticks.

In high school I taught myself Hebrew.
I must have been a good teacher,
because another love was born.
Later, I almost converted
to Judaism,
but it was not to be.

I learned Sanskrit by reading
the Bhagavad Gita,
but philosophically I agreed
more with Gymnosophists and Jains,
Nagas, Tantriks, and non-dualists
of every sort.

Now, as an old man,
I agree dietetically
with the Vaishnavas,
since neither they nor I
can eat onions.

I felt close to neo-pagans,
who satisfied my heathen
brain, and served up
respect for women
along with their cakes and ale.
Always, I loved ritual.
Give me candles and incense,
cakes and wine,
flowers and fruits of the season,
and I'll find a beautiful way
to use them.

All of these were, and are,
my friends.
All have some of the pieces
of the puzzle.
All have some of the words
by which we are to live,
and not by bread alone.

Only the Jews, though,
have matzo brei,
and crazy Hasidim
who dance and sing
for joy.

PSALM 33 (34)

I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise is always in my mouth.
My soul will rejoice in the Lord,
let the gentle hear and be glad.
Praise the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together.
I asked of the Lord and he heard me,
and he freed me of all my troubles.
Look at him and be exhilarated,
and your faces will never
be put to shame.
This poor man cried out,
and the Lord heard him,
and he will save him
from all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him,
and will rescue them.
Taste and see
that the Lord is good.
Blessed are they who
hope in him.
Fear ye the Lord,
all his devoted ones,
for there is no scarcity
for those who fear him.
The powerful have suffered need
and have hungered,
but to those who seek the Lord
no good thing will be wanting.
Come, my children, hear me,
I shall teach the fear of God to you.
Who wishes to have life
and see good days?
Guard your tongue from evil
and let not your lips speak deceit.
Stay away from evil, and do good.
Seek peace, and pursue it.
The eyes of the Lord are toward the just,
and his ears toward their cry.
The face of the Lord
is against evildoers,
that their memory may be lost from the earth.
The just cried out, and the Lord heard,
and he freed them from all their afflictions.
The Lord is close to troubled hearts,
and will save those crushed in spirit.
Many are the tribulations of the just,
and the Lord will free them from
all of them.
He guards all their bones
and not one bone
will be broken.
He will destroy the malice
of the impious,
and the haters of the just
will be overcome.
The Lord will redeem the lives
of his servants,
and no one who takes refuge in him
will go astray.

Punctuation and the Influence of Language in the Psalms

I have not yet translated Psalm 120 (121), but when I do, I'll have a decision to make. In the first verse, we have either:

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains.
from whence my help will come,

or

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains,
from whence will my help come?

A friend of mine had a father who absolutely loved the mountains of his native Switzerland, and this was his favorite psalm. He no doubt knew it in the first of these forms. Emotionally, I have to agree with him, since the mountains are very special to me, too. But the decision as to which version to use must be made on some other basis.

I began by looking at the Hebrew. The word that the KJV translates as "whence" is "me'ayin." It can be used interrogatively or relatively. But, going through all occurrences in Strong's Concordance, I found that it was usually interrogative; for relatives, other constructions were used most of the time.

In the Greek of the Septuagint, the word is "pothen." Again, it can be either interrogative or relative. The oldest manuscripts (I checked the Codex Sinaiticus, for example), had no punctuation here to guide us. Some modern editors, such as Rahlf, did put in a question mark.

In Latin, the word is "unde," and again, it can be either interrogative or relative. So why did the KJV translate it relatively? Those translators claimed to be working from the Hebrew, but we know that they were extremely influenced by the Latin of the Vulgate, where the word is translated in its relative sense. In those days, neither Latin nor Greek really gave any clue as to which meaning was intended.

I even checked the Syriac of the Peshitta, which is hard on these old eyes. Again, no special punctuation.

The most modern of my Latin translations (dating from 1945), put a question mark there. That translation has been very influential with modern English translations, so it is no surprise that they put in a question mark, too.

Going to my JPS Tanakh, I found that they had put in a question mark, too. Remembering my test with Strong's Concordance, and believing that no one is likely to understand Hebrew better than Jews, I decided to opt for the question mark. And that is, basically, how these things are done.

But I have a suspicion that those KJV translators loved mountains, too.