and not as the whole,
seldom as the mind,
and never as the soul.
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Psalm 121
I lift my eyes to the hills--
from where will my help come?
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 slumber.
Behold, he who guards Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
from where will my help come?
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 slumber.
Behold, he who guards Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
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.
Translation © 2018 by Donald Traxler
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.
Translation © 2018 by Donald Traxler
The Path of Love
The path of love is the path of light,
the dark between the seven stars
is riven by a fireball's flight.
the dark between the seven stars
is riven by a fireball's flight.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Translating Psalm 121 - III
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..]
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..]
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)
Friday, November 23, 2018
Translating Psalm 121 - I
This morning I re-posted the following, from June 19 2017:
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.
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.
So now we've answered the question about the question. But we are still far from out of the woods. This Psalm well illustrates many of the problems that a translator faces.
In the lines I quoted above, I used the future tense. The RSV uses the present tense. The Greek of the Septuagint (LXX), uses a past tense for "lifted up," and a future tense for "will come." The Vulgate is a special case, because it includes two translations of the Psalms, one "from the Septuagint," and the other "from Hebrew." The first of the two was translated into Latin by St. Jerome himself, from the Greek, and the second was done with the help of a Jewish informant, from an unpointed Hebrew text, older by at least a couple of centuries than any manuscript we have of the pointed, Masoretic text. Both of those translations use a past and a future, like the Septuagint. It is worth noting that the Greek Septuagint was translated by highly educated Jews of Alexandria, at a time when even better Hebrew texts would have been available. These are all considerations. and may come into play at some point.
My JPS Tanakh, a modern Hebrew Bible based on the Masoretic text, uses present and future to translate this verse into English. How do we solve this?
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.
So what do we do?
(to be continued)
